Be The Master Of Balance With Bryan Bentley

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markell and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change.

Proof.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Change Proof podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel and you're going to love my conversation today. I've got a great leader in the seat for our interview. His name is Brian Bentley and I'm just going to read how he describes himself. He is a self made executive who started in an industry at 17 years of age on his own and accepted every opportunity that was laid in front of him. Now he has the honor of being in a position where his creative talents and years of experience have helped to change that industry. I'm keeping it a mystery what that industry is at the moment, but you're going to absolutely love this conversation with somebody very special. His name is Brian Bentley. So sit back and enjoy. All right, Brian, so, you know, it's fun to listen to your own bio, right? So it's just fun to have somebody else introduce you and whatnot. But my first question to you as my listeners are ready for is what is one thing that is not part of your bio, not part of that intro that you would love for people to know about you at the outset?

Oh, man, that's a good question. So I think the only other thing that didn't really throw in my bio, my bio, which is really more of a personal thing, is, you know, I'm the dad of three kids now. The youngest one is 8 weeks old, 9 weeks old today as we're recording this in February. So it's a new world for me. And you know, that's, that's my, that's my favorite part. That's what I live for, to get off the off at the end of the day and really drive, you know, drive home and spend those few hours that I get with them. And you know, people don't talk about that in the business world, but what I do every day, I got to take home and appreciate everything that I get when I get home.

So, yeah, and there's two things that come up for me when I hear that. First, just that I resonate with it personally because I've been really blessed to be a daddy for a while now and we have four kids and, and I still to this day, there's just nothing. There's Nothing that lights me up more and makes me more ready to get out there and rock and roll, you know, work hard and everything than those kids. So. So that I get that really personally. And the other piece is, is that so often people talk about work life balance. Right. This them. And I like to sort of play, poke at that call BS on that thing too. Because, you know, balance is something like. You think about balance. I always think about somebody like on a tightrope, you know.

Right, right.

Yeah, that's. That's like a great sample of balance. And how long can. I mean, even if you could learn how to do that, and I think most people could, you know, just be. Learn how to do that. But how long could you do it for? That's the question, Brian. Like, how long could you possibly keep yourself in balance? And yet that's the thing that people think that they're seeking. Yeah, right. So you know what? I have a thought on it, but I want to, I want to get your thoughts. That's why, that's why you're on the show and I'm interviewing you. So what thought on this whole work life balance concept?

Yeah, I think it's. It really is a false. It's. I like to say off balance on purpose. Right. Because the reality is, is if you, if you try to stay on balance all the time. To me, I think about it a scale and it kind of does the same thing of a type rope is for me to have work life balance would say that I have an equal parts of my. My day is spent with my kids and my wife and. Or equal parts with my kids, equal parts of my wife and equal parts of my job. And the reality is there's not enough hours in the day to make that possible in the way we work today in the society. The society today. You know, I can't. I've got bills to pay too. Right. I mean, none of us are independently wealthy that we can just do whatever we want. So to have a perfect balance of saying I spend that time just doesn't work. And I think it sets people up to fail. It sets people up to be unhappy because they feel like they're having to give up something for something else because they never fully attribute. And you get stressed at work, it's like, oh, I feel bad about being home because I've got something at work I need to do. Or I feel bad about being at work because I got something at home to be dope. And it ultimately sets you up for a negative stress and a negative peace. So, you know, my philosophy of it has always been, you know, give it, give it all 100%, 110% in the moment that you're in and you don't have that negative feeling. As you know, you can go to work that day and say, last night with my kids, I was all in.

Yes.

And because I was all in. And today I'm at work and I'm all in. And as soon as I get home, I'm back. All in. But it's being all in in the present moments that you can be in.

Yeah.

Because the balance piece. Listen, I've been working for this company for almost 30 years. I've never found perfect balance.

Right.

And I, I never will. And so if you, you can either die being unhappy trying to find balance or you can find a better way to do it.

Yeah, I think that's, that's a, that's truly quotable. Will you repeat what you just said? I want people to hear that one again.

The last part is really, you can die being unhappy trying to find balance, or you can find happiness with the unbalance that you have. Probably not the exact way I said it. I never say anything the same way twice, but that's the meaning.

We're gonna go back, we're gonna get that out of the transcript. I'm gonna send it to you because I feel like that ought to be on a card at the desk and you should be leading with those words, my friend, because.

Yeah. When you, when we print this out, I will put it up on my wall as soon as I get it, though.

No, that's, that's really good. Hey, listen, if you've ever hung around. Not, not everybody listening to this has kids or. Not everybody that's listening to this even likes kids. I don't know, but I think most of us do, or whether it's our nieces, nephews or whoever it might be. Right. If you've ever hung around with a two year old, three year old, four year old, they command your presence. That's what they do. They will not tolerate, frankly, you not being fully present with them. And you know it when you're with them, if you're not, because you can feel it. You can feel like, hey, you know, they won't let you split. The way we are constantly splitting ourselves into pieces and multitasking to the, to the nth degree, to the point where probably too many millions of people walking around with ADHD that aren't technically, you know.

Yeah.

You know, weren't wired that way originally, but they are now that way. Right. Kids just won't let you do that, you know, so, so I think that's, that's one of those good things that, you know, whether it's your kids or it's somebody else's kids, you know, not a stranger's kids, by the way. You know, like caveat to that. Right? Everybody, please. Yeah, I want to be getting like emails that say I got arrested because I followed you, told me go sit down with a three year old and then all of a sudden the police show up.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, we don't need.

My 4 year old is the best salesman in the world. I mean, my four year old can command what he needs me to do and he never takes no for an answer. If all the salespeople I work with could just sit in front of a client when they say no, I'm not interested, they'd be like, no, that's not a good enough answer. Let's figure this out. How can I make this work?

Oh, dude, seriously, you might. Again, this is perfect stuff here. Bring your 4 year old in to train your sales team. Like have a little workshop that gets led by your 4 year old son that says, listen, here's, here's how you get what you're looking for, you know, but of course everybody's, everybody's got a win in this, right? So dad, I want you to do this, but, but I want you to do it with me. Right? Like we're going to have fun together. So.

Yeah.

That's so cool. God, the lessons, the lessons that can be learned from kids. Hey, are you, I didn't ask you this beforehand, so not everybody, not everybody has the time or even has the interest in, in reading a book, you know, like. But is there something that you've either read recently or something that you're currently reading that, that you, that you really love?

Yeah, you know, actually it's, I just had a meeting with my team yesterday. I charged my team last, at the beginning of the year that we're going to go through four or five books this year. I've not been, you know, the guy who reads a bunch, but that's been, you know, that's one of my habits that I'm developing more over time as I, as, as I get a little older and more mature that, that, that really is a skill that I didn't develop before. And so the book that we're going through right now is called Atomic Habits. I'm sure you've heard of it by James Clear. And that's what's been really charging my team. We spent three hours just walking through the first five or six chapters of the book. And there's so much to take from that on a personal and a business level to really change your habits and get away from. It's almost like the balance thing. You know, one of the things they talk about is, is that winners and losers all had the same goal. Now if you go to, if you go run a marathon, the guy who won the race and the guy who lost the race all were trying to win the race, right? They were all. They were, they're. They both had a goal that they were going to win the race. And I joked with my team, I said maybe the last place guy only had a goal to finish. But you know, at least the first, the top 10, they had a goal to win that race. And the guy who came in first and the guy who came in 10th both had the same goal. The difference in what happened was really the process that they did to make it to achieving the goal. And if you build the process the right way, then you don't walk out as a failure. And it's not short lived because the process never stops. And that's really, that's the book I've been going into now. It dives into a little bit of that I won't get. I'll digress. But it's been a good read both personally and business wise.

I read that book during the pandemic, I remember and I read it when I was going to the YMCA and I was sitting in the hot tub. That's my favorite place to read a book. In fact, I'm going to hold up a book for. This will be a little annoying to people maybe that are just listening to this and aren't looking at it on YouTube. But I'll describe it as I'm saying it. So in fact, Brian, tell me what, tell me what this looks like to you.

It looks like a well read book, that book. Maybe it fell in the hot tub, I don't know. But it looks like it's been gone through a few times.

So. So this is not James Clear's book by the way, for folks. I'm holding up, I'm holding up a book called the Snowball. It's Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. And this, this is one of the, this is an epic book. This, this is. What this is, is a business course, a great business course. One of right here. And, and it took me forever. Cause I'M a bit of a slow reader but, but it looks this way. Cause again that's one of my favorite things to do is either sit in a sauna or sit in the hot tub and, you know, quietly and read. I read, I read James Clear's book there and part of what I, I took away from his book, from that, that I still think about today is habit stacking, which you may have gotten to ready. Yeah. So my ha. The habit stack that I created for myself based on that situation was, you know, I realized I hadn't been talking to my mom on a regular basis. I was feeling guilty. Like you were saying, people, you know, we're splitting ourselves, we often kind of have these other conflicting emotions that are going on at the same time. And I was thinking, you know, when, when is it, it seems I'm always busy, I'm always moving to and from, you know, something. And so I said, well, I'm going to stack a new habit. The habit I wanted to create was calling my mom on a more regular basis, not just when I felt, you know, guilty or whatever. Yeah. So I said, well, I'm going to the YMCA to swim three times a week and at least. But then it was three times a week. I go, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stack that habit. I know I'm already doing with this new one. So every time I get in the car to leave the YMCA to go home, it's got 10, 12 minute drive home. I'm going to call my mom the second I get in the car. And that's what I did. And so that new habit became embedded in me. And to this day I just call my mom pretty regularly now because that became a habit, you know, so love that selfless, shameful promotion. Self promotion. This is your next book, my friend. With your, with your team. It's called Change Proof.

That's right. Yeah. And we, you think about the atomic habits and change proof. Those, those two processes really go perfectly. Hand, hand in hand. Right. Yeah. Because stuff is going to change. We. And it's going to be in our control or out of our control. And so if you have a, if you have just a goal, if you just set a goal of this, what you're going to do and then all of a sudden something changes in your world. You're going to be like, oh, you know, you throw your hands in the air and you don't know where you're going to go. But if you learn the resilience and the process that you talk about in your book with the resilience piece and the process piece and put those two together with those habits. You're going to win every time.

I couldn't have said it better if I'd given you the words of myself and I what a pivot you made. What a pivot you did there, Brian. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God.

I'm going to get that one next.

Oh, my God. So funny. The book I just finished. So again, back, back to, back to something else that I absolutely love. And I will recommend it to you, too, after your team, by the way, I will send you, I'll say this on right here publicly. We have a great, there's a great book discussion guide that goes along with change proof. I'm going to send that to you. I'm going to make sure that somebody from our team sends that over because it is really cool when, when you have, when you're guided through a book with certain questions that the author, somebody else thinks is like, really, you know, the good ones that will lead that conversation. Because sometimes, you know, you get together with people, talk about a book, and then somebody's like, well, who's in charge? And who's asking questions like how. What's our, to use your word, what's our process here? And you don't want, you don't want to waste time. So in any event, we'll send it to you. The book I just finished is called Shoe Dog, and it's the Philip Knight kind of business memoir. And dude, I'll say this, that that is an epic story. So those that don't know who Philip Knight is, Phil Knight is the founder of Nike, but for, I guess, the first 10 years. And I found this out through the book. I'm not revealing, you know, giving it away here. It was called Blue Ribbon. The company was Blue Ribbon, which, which, like a classic entrepreneur, he was in Japan with this idea, this crazy, this what he calls it, the crazy idea that he had to sell his dad on just to borrow 50 bucks and ended up on this, this trip to Japan in 1962. And he's in a shoe manufacturing facility speaking with this group of Japanese businessmen. And this is, you know, not far after, after World War II ended. I mean, you know, this, this is a, a funky time for American businessmen and Japanese businessmen working together. And then Japanese society as a, as a whole was rebuilding, you know, after, after devastation. But they, they ultimately said to him, you know, they were very, very impressed and respectful and they wanted to do business they said, so tell us the name of your company. And in the moment the guy goes, you know, he says, because he said you, you do have a company. He goes, yeah, I do it. And it's called, you know, and he was a runner in college and whatnot. He goes, it's called Blue Ribbon. He made that up out of thin air, you know. And lo and behold, through a lot of, a lot of great drama, the natural drama businesses stuff, which is in the book. You know, he gets, gets 10 years under his belt and then one of his, one of his early employees comes up with the name Nike and there's a whole backstory for it. So it's a, it's a great read.

Really cool. Even the story of the, of the marketing person who came up with the swoosh and it was just like, you know, the logo, right? I mean the, the, the way they came up with the logo and they paid her. I mean, it was like got next to nothing for that back in the day when they.

Oh yeah, they paid no money for it.

I mean, yeah, I was like, it's like today you would have chat GPT build it for you. Just build me this logo. It's effectively what they had back in the.

Yeah, I'm actually, again, it's funny enough, I'm, I'm going to have our team read that book too, because there's the, the element of again, business school wisdom, but better than business school, frankly. And not putting down business school, but, you know, like wisdom that comes from being, from being an operator, you know, until you operate a business, till you worried and I'm not saying you have to have had this worry, but, but when you worried about making payroll, when you've been up at 3 o' clock in the morning worrying about whether you're going to make payroll for people that you want take care of and they take care of other people, right? Like, then you don't, you don't really, you just don't get the gist of business. Business is this Razor's Edge thing, right? One day you can be literally thinking you can't make a mistake, and the next day you're Lehman Brothers. Right. I mean, it's shocking.

But.

So I want to get a sense of where, where has that happened in your business experience? And, and if you could be detailed about it, great. If you don't want to be, that's okay too. But I want to. Where's that Razor's Edge where, where you got to look over the precipice and into the Abyss, you know, and, and, and how did. And how that all, you know, kind of play out. People love to hear those stories, those pivot stories, if you will. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you for one right now, if you could. Brian.

Yeah. So pivot story on, on how. How. So probably my best pivot story was. Is. Was not. I mean, there's probably several that we. I pivoted, you know, some of the organizations or some of the areas within the organization that I was running, where I pivoted, how they, how they managed things, how they did things. A sales team. But I'll probably tell you more of a personal one that it's a business related, but it's about me personally, is. It was probably about 12, 15 years ago I was asked to take over a big market and move out of my comfort zone. You know, I grew up, you know, in Colorado. I moved to Utah with some family, ran, ran the business there, and I was given an opportunity to move to Texas and take some things over. But that for me was a personal pivot piece that I had to, I had to leave home. Right. So there was part of that of leaving.

Brian, will you. We just fill in a little backstory for people. Just tell us the company and the industry you're in, just so people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I work for the company, Service Corporation International. We're the largest funeral and cemetery company in the world. We own funeral homes, own cemeteries. But the role that I play in most, you know, I've done everything from washing toilets when you had to and things were slow, to, you know, doing the, the funeral arrangements, helping families with funerals, you know, going out in the middle of night and bringing someone's loved one back into our care. Primarily what we do today, though, is we, we help families plan for the future, which is great. Which is really just meeting with people who are in their 60s and they're thinking about, you know, I'm looking at retiring, but I got to make sure my investments are in place. And one of the investments they do is investing in their funeral plan, but that investment is also an investment in their family because that means their family doesn't have all the hardship of what they need to do when that happens. So there's an emotional investment and a financial investment that we help people do. But I've been doing that for, like I said, almost 30 years now. So. Yeah. So I was asked if I go back to that. I was asked to move from a very stable operations role where I was running a Bunch of markets. And my home base was out of Salt Lake City. I moved to Dallas and take over a very large Dallas metroplex and, and run a sales organization there. And I had to, when I came in, the sales organization was doing good. It was one of our better sales organizations. But I had the challenge and the request to really pivot that market from being a high discount, high price sensitive market to a high value market where we, we, we, we switched from being, you know, how do we be the lowest cost competitor to how do we have the most value in that? And so for a salesperson to be able to go in and say, listen, I can give you 40% off if you buy today. But now going in and being able to say, listen, our discounts are very minimal. We only do 5 or 10% off on a discount ratio, but here's why, and here's what that value is. So, you know, it takes a salesperson a long time to make that, to make that shift. So I went through that process to make that pivot in the market. But in order to do that, sales really plummeted for about four months. I went through four or five months where I went through a big down downhill. And, and the scrutiny was, Brian, we gave you this market who's been, that's been doing phenomenal for years. And the one question, one thing we told you when we gave it to is don't screw it up. And so, and now all of a sudden the market's not hitting the quote is not hitting the numbers in what it, what it needs be. And I said, trust me, we'll get through it and we'll be better on the other side. You know, the win story is we were better on the other side, but by the time we got to the other side, the company said, brian, I think we want to move you into another role. Which was a big pivot for me, a big, big hard piece for me because I was in the trenches making this real thing happen. And the hardest piece about it was the company, when they came to me, said, we're not really sure what that role is yet, which kind of is a code to say, we don't have a job for you right now, but this job isn't the one that we want you to do.

Yeah.

And so I, you know, it was, it was a, it was a big pivot, pivoting point for me to understand, you know, what am I going to do next? I've always had this cushion that I've been able to rely on what I'm going to be able to do next. Sorry, the Air Force is flying over top of me right now. But so I've always had that. I always had that comfortability of what I was going to do. And what ended up happening was all of a sudden I was in a place where. Wasn't exactly sure where my career was going to go. And it took a lot of deep reflection. And the person who kind of was driving, making that decision said, he said, I'm just not sure this is the right role for me. Although we had got through the other side hindsight 20 20, it was, it was actually perfect for me and for the. And for the market. But at that time, it was a devastating blow. It was, it was a blow that said, I don't, you know, maybe this career isn't what I thought it would be, and maybe this industry isn't what I thought it would be. You know, you start to question absolutely everything. Sure. And what you were going to do. And I remember, you know, I got put on a couple special assignments which caused me to travel all across the country. And so I was on the road six days a week, you know, for three months, three months straight. I remember one time looking at the book that I was reading at the time, and every ticket was a Delta ticket, Row five. I was, I was a nature of habit. Row five. Every ticket. I pulled them all out and going, going through that process. And the change point for me was really when I called that leader in my organization and said, listen, I'm not mad at you. I'm not upset with you. I said it was a change for me that I wasn't ready for. But I said, I only have one question, and the one question is, whenever I'm in an opportunity in the future, how can I do things a little bit better, a little bit differently that would, that would help me be more prepared for things in the future. And I'll never forget. He said, listen, you goes, you did a great job. He said, but you seem to procrastinate a little bit. It seemed to take you too long to make decisions. Well, my perspective was I wasn't taking a long time to make decisions, but I wasn't communicating what I was doing in the decisions I was making. So from afar, it looked like I wasn't doing anything because nobody saw the different steps I was doing. From afar, it looked like, we've given you a task to do this and it wasn't done. And when we met with you, you're like, yeah, I. I would admit, yeah, it's not done yet. But all along the process, I never explained all the different things I had done to slowly to make my way towards that, towards that decision which looked like for them that I was procrastinating or not getting things done. So I took that to heart and really understood, you know, how that was. You know, you fast forward a few years. When I fast forward a few years, there was an opportunity to move out of the field into the corporate office and take up a role that really had a lot of impact and a lot of influence on all of our markets. So I was just driving one market now. Now I had an opportunity to interview for a role with the same company that impacted every market we served. And during the interview process, I realized that the person who was interviewing me was about to retire. And the person who was that leader before that said, I don't think you're the right role for that was going to take. Was the incumbent to take the job, which meant I was going to be working for that, for that person. But I had taken to heart enough of what I did that that person rehired me or re. Put me in that position. Had enough strength in saying, I put you back in that position. And today, you know, we are, we are side by side partners that go through thick and thin together with every little piece of it. But if I had not humbled myself to really understand what that change was going to be like, you know, I wouldn't be standing here today. I wouldn't be in this industry today. I would have let my. I would have let the, the negativity of the goal that I was trying to pursue and that the change that happened in front of me that I wasn't ready for, I would have let that just overwhelm me as I tried to push it, push it forward without slowing down. I would have crashed and burned. And it's, it was just a huge piece. It was a, it was a, it was a pivotal change in my life. It has been a change of my career, both personally and professionally, that. That brought me forward to where I am.

Yeah. Brian, I just, I'm so grateful that you shared that story. I don't know how else to say. I mean, I would say more, but I'm grateful because I'm imagining how many people are listening to this right this second that are going, wow, that, that wasn't, that's not a 2 cent piece of advice. Right? I heard that's, that, that's like super, super good. Such high quality advice or wisdom that comes born out of pain. I mean, there's pain, pain in what you just explained, and we got to feel a little bit of that, too. So, you know, when we choose that path, like, am I choosing a path to kind of dig my heels in on something, or am I choosing the path of humility to just, like you say, to humble myself, to ask the questions like, you know, what, what am I missing here? What am I, what am I not seeing here? That person didn't put you in a role to set you up for failure. I mean, in hindsight, you know that, right? That's not, that's not what the person did. But the fact that you got put in that role but then weren't, as you said, prepared and then asked that question for the future, what. How could I be better prepared? I mean, I think, I think you, you got a gem for yourself, and now you just passed it on to all of us, which is that, you know, communication, it's going to lead into my next question more than. More than into a statement of my own. I see some things going on in the world, in the business world, regarding the word communication, and you just said that part of what was missing there was that because your communication was lacking, people assessed you as procrastinating when that's not actually what you were doing.

Right.

So in your world now, in the place where you sit, what do you see in terms of this word communication among people? Do you have a sense of whether communication is lacking or is? And I don't mean specifically in your company, but even in other areas as well? What do you think about that?

I think there's a ton of that in every realm of life. You see it out in social media, you see it in just normal media. You see it within the business. But, you know, when you, when you look within the businesses, you know, I've always come with a, with a process in my leadership style is, you know, I have to give people direction on what to do. But when I give directions a little bit different than some business leaders is I always try to emphasize the why behind it. Because I think if people can buy into the why behind it, then they'll buy into what they're doing and how it impacts and where it really grows from and how they can move that stuff forward. Where I see a lot of communication missing is where people say, this is the direction we're going and toe the line. Right, or push it forward. This is what we're doing. But if you don't take time to really understand the why behind it or don't take time to. With the communication. I think part of it comes with relationships too. With the relationships that I have with my leaders that, that I have the ability to work with every day both up and down in the food chain. You know, those relationships. I, I can anticipate what the heartburn is going to be for these decisions. Right?

Yep.

And what the wind's going to be. And if you can anticipate what the heartburn is going to be when you communicate, you can emphasize on the bigger why pieces and to make sure that the, the why overwhelms the heartburn. Because that's where we win. And I think we have a viewpoint. But a lot of people only see the one sided. They see the. And they see this is the side that I need to make sure I push. And whether it's a corporation that says the one side of it is we're driving revenue. Right. There's side to it that has the human impact, the process change impact. You know our company sci, we used to go by the slogan it was sci and internally we talked about it being sudden change imminent wasn't Service Corporation International. We used to joke that it was sudden change, imminent change, always changing.

That's hysterical. Dude. They got to be. I don't even know how many people right now are laughing at themselves that that's what they should call their business. Right?

Yeah, yeah. That was the, that was the definition of our, of our abbreviation was sudden change imminent. But that's, that's where people change is going to happen to all of us. Yeah. I think that's where communication breaks down is people communicate either only the positive and not what the negative is going to be about it or they, they communicate what the result needs to be and don't take time to look at the positive or the negative with it so that you can anticipate how you're going to have to navigate the waters and anything that you can.

Yeah, yeah. I think there's, there's an element of communication today that's just been. That continues to be covert. You know that people are not getting the full story.

Yeah.

And then there's also, you know, some, some leaders that, that manage in, in the way that parents, you know, did and do. I suppose still. Because I said so you knew what I was going to say. I think that was gonna say exactly why. Because I said, you know, like because I'm.

Yeah.

Your boss. That's why.

Yeah.

Yeah. And though we know those things don't. Don't really work. I mean they might Work in the moment. It's an expedient way to handle a situation, but, but long term, it devalues the relationship. It does not foster trust. In fact, it creates lack of, you know, mistrust, honestly, uh, which people, you know, when they don't have a story to, if they don't. I like to say this to folks too, and our company work well. We often get embedded in organizations to talk about these things at a deep level and look at manifesting change, creating change. And sometimes we have to, we have to really break down that communication to what's underneath it. And so I'll say to sometimes a leader, I say, so did you, did you share the story? Did you provide the backs? I don't, you know, listen, I got, you know, how many things I got to do in a day, right? You think I got time to, like, create a story for everything? I gotta, you know, implement, you know, help people to understand they gotta implement or whatever. I go, if you do not provide a narrative, what happens is that, and this is the case in the universe, there's no vacuums. You know, the vacuum is always filled by something. So if you don't create a narrative, then the narrative will be created somewhere in some other way by gossip, by, by people making up their own story about what, you know, what this means, et cetera. So you get a choice.

And I think it stifles leadership growth too. I think that's the big thing that people don't realize is that if people can understand the why behind it and they can start to pull behind it, then they start to understand all the philosophies behind that why. And then your leaders can start making decisions. You know, the people that you entrust to manage your, manage your organization for you, they can start making decisions. That has the why in mind, right? It goes up and says, listen, every time we've met with, with Adam, he's, he's talked about, this is why we're doing, this is why we're doing, this is why we're doing this. So now when I make this decision down here that made a change as a leader, I'm not just taking direction, I'm making my own changes, but I'm backing it up with this why. And I think when we don't do that, we stifle growth within our organization. And you either have turnover, people just leave, right? Because they don't feel the value, they don't feel the trust. And if you don't have the turnover and people don't just don't Just leave. Then you end up being more of a heroic manager than you really should be and not being able to trust your people to make their own decisions. And they don't, they don't grow into taking more responsibility. And your company, if they don't grow, you don't grow.

And in our, in our world, in our language, we'd say they, they don't develop their resiliency, they don't increase their resilience because change is something that's going to, you know, like you said, sudden change imminent. That could be the title of the book of life and certainly, certainly the book of life as we know it today. Right? Sudden change imminent. That's, that's pretty cool actually. Um, I got a couple of questions here before we, before we wrap things up, Brian. So first of all, I want to know, you brought it up about sort of the, the, the way that leaders impact whether people stay. I mean, that's usually the number one reason why somebody goes another job is that their manager sucks. I mean, that's just top of the list. Right. And has been for a while. So how, how is the health, the sort of mental health and the well being of the folks that you see at SEI and ask you for an honest appraisal here of, you know, because you know, what your attrition looks like and if there is anything that you've learned about, about keeping people healthy and happy at your place. I mean, I know there's a lot of people, leaders right now listening to this who would love to learn from you.

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say the health of the organization is better than it's ever been. You know, I remember being in the organization in the early 90s and we were the big bad wolf in the industry and we were, we were the people that were just going out and being aggressive and that aggressiveness that we had to buy and become bigger and, and, and, and to grow our business. That aggressiveness of how we grew our business and buying also became that aggressiveness and how we managed our people and people didn't adapt very, very well to it. And we had, you know, unhappy people, we had, we had turnover. I think I was, I was speaking to a university the other day on, on this topic and I said, and I, and I truly believe it is that our associates that work together, the people, the people, my teams, whether it's the team that's in the field or the team that's here, here at the corporate office that I work with every day, you know, we don't call Each other, associates or colleagues. We talk typically, we're like family. Right? When I met you the first time in Nashville, and we brought all these people together, some of these people only see once or twice a year face to face. Like physically, physically face to face. Now we've got this great video conference. We see them more often, but physically face to face. And when I see them, we hug each other. I mean, that's just the nature and what it is and what I've been, you know, I just came from a. From a conference in Vegas where I brought in a bunch of people and I talked to them about the process. You know, that the atomic habits and how the process is really going to drive your success and that stacking habits is going to drive your results. And that process, really. And I showed them a period where results are on top and below the results is the process. But then I kind of blew them away to say, really? But below that process is culture. If you don't have the, the culture will drive the process. But if you've got the wrong culture, it'll also break down the process. And I think that's really the foundation is what culture are we bringing into the organization? You know, are we bringing in a culture of inclusivity? In today's day and age, when I talk about inclusivity, you know, people burr up a little bit. I think people, people like, wait, are you going down this, this, this path that whether people call it woke or non woke or anything. And when, when I met with my team the other day, I said, let me tell you what inclusivity means to me. And what that means to me is I've got 45 people on my team that were all in this meeting. I said, All 45 people of you had different sets of parents, grew up in different houses, had different educations or no educations, had different works. I had different managers. You all have different experiences in life. The information you got from those experiences brought to this team will help this team be better. But if some of you are just on the sidelines and not sharing those experiences or saying, well, that makes me think of this or that doesn't help me with this, or, you know, you're holding back with some of that information, then I don't have an inclusive team that's really pulling everything together and driving it forward. So my inclusivity is not about, you know, gender, race, or religious or it's really about every person on the team has strength to help pull this thing forward. And it doesn't matter if you're the person, you're the person who's only in charge of making sure that the break room is taken care of and the coffee's made and the phones are answered. Because that person has just as much importance as the person who's signing the payroll checks. Because that's the culture that you really have, that, that you really have to instill. And I think that culture is what drive organizations to be better. And I, I, I'm happy and proud to say that I've, I've, I've not seen a culture better than what we have right now. Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's just beautiful to hear, actually. And the growth that the company is still engaging. So I, I can tell that you're a lifelong learner. So I want, I want, I want to get a sense of what, what, what do you, what, what's, what's on, like, where do you feel like you're on your own growth edge at this point? Because 30 years into an industry, into anything, really, you put 30 years of focus into something, you're going to be good at it. So you don't have to tell, you know, you don't have to say that. I know that. And just, you know, every other, you know, thing that you've said today just can, I can feel that. I can feel the confidence. That's not a cockiness. It's a confidence born out of all those experiences. So where are you still on your growth edge? Do you see?

Well, I've got something over here on my wall that says, adapt and thrive or fall behind. Right. And that's really what it's about, is adapting and thriving or falling behind as a, as an organization, as, as a, as a, as a, as a world. I mean, we're changing all the time. And I don't see myself in a place where I'm just comfortable in writing this, in writing this role. I see myself in a, in a place where it wouldn't be hard for somebody to come up behind me with less than 30 years of experience and, you know, blow right past me because they've got new ideas and new processes. That's the negative thing about being, doing something for the last 30 years is I've done something the same way for the last 30 years, and there's different ways to do it. And that's why I talk about the inclusivity, is there's other ideas and ways to do things that I haven't even thought of because I've only looked at it from this one lens. And so you Know, the edge that I tip on right now is what's next? What are the things that I, that I haven't learned. I put myself through a mini MBA course at the university here about three weeks ago. And they said, Brian, what track do you want to do this on? I said, I want to do it on finance. I'm not a finance guy. I'm not. And my leadership says, why do you want to do this? I said, because when the CEO talked and we have those conversations, I want to be able to be right in line, lockstep with how that CEO works. I want to think about that process, what they do. Those are things that there's always growth opportunity, growth opportunity in that technology's going crazy. The funeral business five, seven years ago was 100% paper, 100% paper. We wrote everything on paper. And over the last seven years we've evolved completely to be electronic. Had we not done that in Covid, we would have been, we would have been in bad shape because you couldn't sit face to face with somebody and engage in that paper conversation. It was a virtual conversation like this that we had to do. So, you know, that that world of whether it's AI, whether it's the social world, whether it's the new finance world, you know, those worlds are always bleed into every organization. There's no organization that's going to stay the exact same way. And that's why you have to always adapt. I can't be stagnant in my thought process. Yeah, I can't be stagnant. Even how I coach my people. This book that I was telling you about, Atomic Habits. You know, this is the first time I've pulled my whole team together. And it doesn't matter what level you are on my team, every single level of my team, we're reading the same book, we're going through it together, and we're all building this culture, culture together, because everybody's got to pull the same way. So my edge is always there.

I love that. The culture piece. You know, it's funny because we, in our work, we, we hear from organizations that it was their culture that got them through Covid, you know, that they strong culture. And that's what got them through what was, you know, sudden change was, was happened. Right. But now we're also hearing that what's emerged post Covid has been something different. Meaning that the culture that came out of COVID is not the same culture for some of these organizations that they went into it with. Yeah, yeah. And I'm just Curious. Has, have you noticed any shift? Because I think a lot of companies and, and I don't think this is necessarily the case with sei, but, but maybe it is too, that they're reinventing their culture, they're recreating their culture post pandemic. And maybe that's even what you're suggesting or saying that's going on by you.

Yeah, it, I think you have to completely adapt. I mean, even the culture of, you know, you're not working unless you're in the office. Right. That's, that's, that's the culture that everybody had pre pandemic. And then we forced everybody to be home for two years. And then, you know, there was a piece of that, that there's, there's people in the organization who said, well, we got to bring everybody back 100% because they're not working at home. I'm like, well, the last two years the company has ran and we've gone really well and nobody came in the office. But adapting to how that works and how you engage in people differently, how you manage somebody who lives a thousand miles away when you used to manage somebody whose office was right next door. Yes, that's a different process. That 8 to 5 job. I tell people this all the time. The days that I worked at home when our office was shut down. Now granted, our office never fully shut down and I was at the, at the office most every day through Covid, except for when my wife said, I need you to work from home a few days to help teach these kids elementary school in between. But I learned that the days that I worked at home, I worked just as much, if not more, but my schedule was very different. Right. As I would get up and I would maybe get on my computer and work from 6 to 7:30, and then I would shut it off and then I would get the kids up, get the kids breakfast, get them going, get them either off to school or onto, onto their schedule and then I'd jump right back into it and I would maybe work from 9 to noon and then I might have to walk the dog or I might have to run to the grocery store. I might have to do this. And so I had iterative sprints basically throughout my day versus that marathon of an 8 to 5. And that's, that's hard for some people to do when you, when your schedule is, I'm, I have to buckle down 8 to 5, but somebody you're partnered with to do, do something with, you know, is going to be on at 2 hour 3 hours chunks of their time. You know, you may have to wait longer to get things done. I, I like that actually kind of about, you know, that you, you talk about that in change. Proof is you've got to be able to recover. Right. You've got to be able to hit in that recovery. And I, I learned during COVID that those two hour blips when I work for two hours and then I'd have to take an hour to get the kids ready, that was me stopping working, but I was recovering exactly from that process before. And I came back just as strong, if not stronger. And so doing iterative sprints, I think is a better way. You know, I think a lot of us learn that there's a better way to do it. And unfortunately, there's a lot of companies maybe who don't have the luxury to do that, but they haven't adapted to that because it's just not what they know.

Exactly. And so it sounds like your, Your return to office, your, Your RTO processes has been pretty smooth. It seems like that there's. Yeah, yeah.

And I think my team more especially. And I, I'll tell you why my team said it was more, more than enough is because of communication. Because, yes. All the way through, I said, here's what we're. Here's what we're planning. Here's what we're doing. There was other teams within our organization that when the rule was made, you're coming back to work three days a week, they heard about it, you know, right before that rule was made and said, in two weeks, you got to change and pivot. Where my team knew about this, they knew what their two day a week, three day a week in the office schedule was going to be six months before we even instituted the plan. Communication was key to get through all that.

Man. Wow. Well, listen, we're gonna, we're gonna call it here, okay. Because I know, I'm only saying for.

A couple more hours.

No, no, no. I'm just saying because you and I could keep. I could just tell. We can keep going and going and going, and I'm probably, I'm certain that people are going, no, no, no, no, no, no. You guys should keep talking. Keep talking. Yeah, I, I just think it's, it's a good place to land the plane. You know what? You can't say enough. I mean, culture is one of those almost ineffable things. It's hard to define it. You just know it when you feel it. You know what the culture of, of an Organization is by its feel. And if the feel of it is kind of like, you got to watch your back, this is how we, we frame it. That's a very different kind of a culture than a, than a culture where people know that you've got their back and got your back culture versus a watch your back culture is something that we often are thinking about. You know, that's what we want to assess. And nobody really wants to think that that's their organization, but we know that when there's fear, when there's, when there's sort of a not knowing, not communicating silos of information and lack of transparency and all that kind of thing, well, it just, that's what, that's what defines the culture because it's how people feel. Yeah. In their work. So I'm so happy to hear that that SEI is, is doing the way they're doing it. The way they're doing it. And it, you know, the point there is that sometimes you don't do it well. And yeah, you learn from that. You learn what doesn't. I mean, you learn what does work by first knowing what doesn't work. I want to repeat, I want to repeat that. You, you learn what does work by, by first learning what doesn't work. And so, you know, a lot of really great companies, I mentioned that book, you know, about Nike and Phil Knight went off, you know, they have a very, very unique culture, or it's way, way Nike was always framed as, you know, having this really unique culture, et cetera. But that culture was, was, went through a period where they didn't do it right and they made a lot of mistakes. And in his book, he, he admits that they, you know, and, and regrets, frankly, a lot of the mistakes they made along the way, including having to do a lot of layoffs, you know, when, when they weren't doing well, when, when he said he wasn't a good enough manager himself. The end result of that was that people lost their jobs. And to this day, if you believe him, and I do, I believe he was sincere when he wrote this, he still feels regret about that because you know it, you know it. And so I think these things are when you can learn from people like you, Brian, when you can learn from seasoned business folks, when you're willing to be open to learning, humble enough to bring in organizations like ours or other organizations that come in and we'll give you, you know, not the emperor's new clothes bit, but we'll tell you what they really think. And if you can Hear it. It's hard to hear sometimes, but if you can hear it, you can stand it. Well, then you can, you can, you can learn a little, A little more easier or faster works without having to go through that pain of, of first seeing people, you know, seeing people unhappy or unhealthy.

Yeah.

You know, et cetera. So SEI has come a long way. I feel grateful for their, for, for your all success because I, as I said to you when we were together in Nashville, when, when I got to speak to your group, the ripple effect of your work in the world is profound. There's nothing that anybody, I mean, we all share this. This is a shared experience here. Nobody wants to deal with anything less than, than their own, their own death or the death of their loved ones. Like that's, you know, every day going to be the last thing on the list of things that anybody wants to think about or deal with. So for you all to be there in a compassionate and empathetic way and to provide them with solutions, to make plans ahead of time, to be prepared so people don't get caught completely unawares and unprepared, I just think that's such valuable work, my friend, and I thank you for it.

Yeah. You know, I've often said it's a calling, not a job, and so I appreciate the comments. There's nothing more rewarding to me than the emotional paycheck that I get each and every day, whether it's from a colleague like you, whether it's from one of my employee colleagues, or whether it's that family that I helped plan in advance 15, 20 years ago that says we couldn't have been here and this wouldn't have gone as smooth without what we did today. So it truly is a calling on my heart that. And I'm here to take care of people and help people in all different. All different aspects. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian, thank you so much for the conversation today. And I know it was super valuable for, for me. I know it was valuable for everybody else that's listening. So thank you again, sir.

You're very welcome. Have a great time. Thanks.

Well, I hope you felt the same way as I did about that discussion, Brian. Brian is just a heck of a guy. I mean, he, he's humble for somebody that. That has achieved as much as he has and has had as many experiences and has been in so many leadership roles and, and the common denominator, I think, is that in every instance where he was asked to take on something new, even without the experience to give him confidence that he could succeed, he nonetheless moved forward and said yes to those opportunities. And I mean we've heard this with other, other of the leaders that we've had on the show just in recent months. And I think I'm thinking of Andy clement in particular. Three decades with, with another major Fortune 50 company. And so this is a theme I think that we are seeing again and again and again in leadership roles that people that are, are willing to go into that, that unknown, that space of uncertainty. And whereas other people, sometimes they, they crave the certainty, they crave the clarity, they crave the known versus the unknown because it, as we would imagine it provides a level of security and confidence. And yet so often it is the case that people that are succeeding in growing their careers, in elevating themselves within organizations as well as in other areas, entrepreneurial areas, and in pretty much almost any area. I think in life our growth is often just outside of our comfort zone and our growth is often in the unknown, in the space of what is uncertain and the goal here in our work in, in the resilience space and working with leaders and working, coaching, often senior level leaders and working inside organizations, the goal is to help people to leverage the power of uncertainty, the kind of uncertainty that leads to this growth, this opportunity for growth. It doesn't always translate into that. There's no guarantee. If there was a guarantee, it wouldn't be uncertain. That's the riddle of it. And yet in looking backwards and being able to sort of reverse engineer the process, if you will, that's one of the common threads. And that's why in the book Change Proof, the subtitle is Leveraging the power of uncertainty as a catalyst for long term resilience. And you might say long term growth as well. So Brian is just another one of those examples and I love the conversation. I want to invite you as well to let us know what you thought of the conversation. You go to AdamMarkel.com podcast and leave a comment there or even a question for Brian or myself. We would love it if you would share this podcast with friends or colleagues, people that you think would really benefit from, from listening to it. And if you take the few seconds, I know it doesn't take very long, but it is, it is a commitment to provide a rating, provide your thoughts directly to the platform where you've consumed this podcast, whether it's Apple or wherever it might be, Stitcher or something, you know, Spotify. And you could give us a five star rating. That only helps us. And I so appreciate it. I want to make any assumptions there about about your time or about what else you have committed to and I don't want to create any overwhelm for you. But thank you in advance if you choose to do that. We so appreciate it and we'd also love for you to take three minutes, and I do mean just three minutes out of your day to take care of yourself by finding out how resilient you are in this moment. And you can do that simply by going to Rank my resilience. That's for your resilience. Rank my resilience.com and in three minutes, 16 questions later, you're going to get a great snapshot view of your mental, emotional, physical and even spiritual resiliency and health, well being, et cetera. So for now, anyone just want to Again, thank you for being a part of our community. Thank you for listening in. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us as well as the wonderful compliments that we get. I don't know else to say except ciao for now and thank you so much.

Again, thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change proof teams, visit AdamMarkel.com to get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.

Sam.