050: Rob “Waldo” Waldman - Lonely at the Top? Here's How to Never Fly Solo Again.

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatalant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatalent.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatalent.com Bill g. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. All right, this episode marks the 50th show of the Scaling Up Business podcast and one year on the air. I just want to say a big shout of thanks out to our listeners who like it, share it, talk about it, and to our guests who come on and share their experience, their wisdom and stories of Scaling up good and bad each week with you. I also want to say a big shout out to our assistant coordinator here, Elaine, who prepares all of our guests each week, prepares things before and after each show, and to our production company, Podfly, who helps get it all on the air. Thanks so much. We have so much ahead in the new year and excited for more to come. So here's the thing. I know as entrepreneurs, even when we're in a room surrounded by other people, it often feels like we're all alone. I don't know if you get this way, but I bet you do. As a CEO or an entrepreneur, it often feels like you're all alone. And the message of today is how to end that feeling forever. And we'll be talking with Lieutenant colonel Rob Waldo Waldman, whose book bestseller book is Never Fly Solo. He's going to talk to you all about how to use a wingman to move through your fear and stay the course on your commitments to what you're really driving for. Is a fantastic show for you today. Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business Podcast. I'm your host and growth coach, Bill Gallagher. On the phone with us today is Rob Waldo Waldman, lieutenant colonel, former F16 pilot. His new York Times best selling book is all about how to use the wingman to move through and build trust with everyone to, to stay that course and to do that. Uh, he's a, uh, he's an accomplished business person. He's accomplished salesperson in the tech field. He's done work in M and A. He. He's now a New York Times bestseller and a speaker and sales trainer around the world. I'm so happy to have you on the show today. Welcome to the show.

Great to be here, Bill. Thanks for having me.

Awesome. So at the end of the show, we are going to give folks a link to an audio copy. So this is what, a $20 value for them?

You got it? Yep.

So at the end of the show, we'll give you the link to download his book and you can go right on and get an audio copy and listen to that as you drive, as you fly, as you do. What I'm excited to have you on the. On the. On the podcast this week in particular, because we both share a love of flying, and I don't get out nearly enough. It sounds like you don't either anymore, but there's tremendous lessons to be learned from it.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's. It's not just the excitement, the thrill of flying, but the competition. The, the, the, the. The teamwork, you know, flying fighters as opposed to flying a Cessna or a tanker for that matter, really required just an inordinate amount of focus of adapting to change. Nothing, in my opinion, in all my years of flying and business can relate to just going up and flying an F16 in particular in combat, where if you don't do your job, the consequences are pretty darn great. Right.

You know, when we talk about execution, we work with execution with teams. We often will show an image from an air show of planes in formation, right? And we've got a diamond formation smoke on.

And.

And we want people to appreciate the beauty and the power of a moment like that. But then we want them to think about everything that goes into it. The equipment, the training, the coordination, the planning, the practice, the communication, and all the things that are happening moment by moment, because it's such a powerful metaphor for business. There's a lot of different pieces that go into producing and making something look easy. And when it look easy, when it looks easy, it feels easy, too.

But.

But it doesn't happen overnight, right?

Undoubtedly not. But let me break a slight paradigm for you and provide a different context because I love the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds, but they are demonstration pilots. When the weather isn't good, they don't fly. Okay? So I want you all who are listening to think about not flying a jet in an aerial demonstration over the downtown San Francisco over the Golden Gate, right? But then put in a variable of missiles and people trying to kill you and something called fear. Because if you're well trained and you're an entrepreneur, you're an executive, you've been there, done that, but now put in the diminishing stock price, your biggest client is no longer returning your calls, they went with your biggest competitor, or your test results just became positive. And you have a world of issues to deal with outside of your business. That is called fear. And whenever you have fear or uncertainty or doubt or variables outside of your control, now that is where this Top Gun mindset, that's where true execution and true leadership comes into play. Because how you deal with that's going to allow you to take it to the next level.

Absolutely. Business is not so much like an air show and more like a wild weasel mission, right?

Oh, yeah, totally. And I'm not discounting the precision and the discipline it takes to fly, but there's a whole variable that's not there. And you know, many businesses are doing great, we're fine, we're trucking along, we know our position, we have trust in our team. But other variables come into play which truly test your acumen, test your resilience, test your ability to adapt and grow. That's where leaders and character are honed. And it's something that I really emphasize because I don't think life is a demo. Your business isn't a demo. It's real.

So let's step back for a minute and let's talk about how you got into this, how you became a pilot, what inspired to you, and then take us into the notion of how you developed this trust for the wingman.

Well, my dad. Well, first and foremost, I always loved planes. My dad was a mechanic, a blue collar guy working in Kennedy Airport. I used to take me to the airport when I was a kid. I'd watch the 747s and the DC10s. It was just amazing. And I sat in that cockpit and I knew I wanted to fly the jets, not fix them. And I applied to the Air Force Academy. I was fortunately very good in school. I had a focus, a dream, a commitment that I made to eventually fly. And I wanted to be with the best. And now I didn't want to just fly for the airlines. I wanted to be in a competitive environment. I've always been an athlete. I love competition, just like most folks that are on the phone. And so I went to the Academy, wound up graduating, realizing that I had to overcome my massive fear of heights because I grew up tremendously afraid of heights. And you had to jump off this 33ft high diving board in order to graduate the academy, which was interesting. And breaking that fear barrier and jumping and stepping outside of your comfort zone is another thing that I think is important for execution in any business leader.

Isn't that funny? I want to have you pause right there and get like, look, our fear all strikes us at different places, right? I've jumped out of planes, I've flown planes, and yet there you are. And the diving board is what gets to you. And I can relate. I remember a place I had to jump as a kid and one of the things that I struggle with is claustrophobia. I think I read you also struggled with that. Like there's no predicting where your fear is going to hit you at any moment as you go through life. And it all hits us at different places all the time.

Absolutely. And it's going to happen when you least expect it. And this is where your passion, your courage and the drive and resilience is going to allow you to get through those tough times. Because I always say on the opposite side of fear is growth. And, and anyone listening to this podcast, who's grown their business, who's broken a financial barrier, you know, left the job to start the business or to break a seven figure mark or whatever it is, there's always this sense of fear, in particular when you're strapping on a new missile, bringing on a new employee, a new profit center, a new niche market. And so with that fear comes courage. And in order to, to take it to the next level, you have to take that action. So that metaphor in life, jumping off that 33ft high diving board and stepping outside of your comfort zone, I think is something that I continuously hone and refine in my own life in the form of marriage. Right. That was a huge 33ft jump. Having a child, starting my business, becoming an executive coach, I just started that six months ago because of the faith that a wingman, somebody I trusted and who trusted me, said that I should do. Because many, you know, as you know, and you're a coach too, Bill, you know, and you do it with some high level folks. That ability to create mindset shifts with people and also to have somebody see the greatness in you that you don't think you had or realized that you had, key factor. And we're going to touch more on this later. But those wingmen who see the greatness in you and also call you bluff, who also say you're not ready to jump, slap you around a little bit and say, what are you thinking? What are you doing? You know, the wingman who tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. That is critical.

You know, I think it's really great. I want to underscore that for our listeners because that's something that somebody taught me years ago, said, listen, you're gonna, you're coaching people now. And that you got to remember when you're coaching people, the person in front of you is making all kinds of noise there. And they're not often, especially when they most need your coaching, they're not often looking and sounding powerful and effective. But you have to keep seeing that powerful person, that giant that, that victory within them, and you have to keep speaking to that and calling that forth and just give room to allow room for all of that other noise that they're making that looks weak and keep pulling for the other thing and speaking to the other thing and you're speaking to that. And I think it's a powerful point for people to get as they. Because all the people that we deal with. Right. Are coaching others, working with others on their team, and yet so often we succumb to reacting to the noise that people make, which isn't really where their power lies.

That's so, so awesome that you said that. And to call to acknowledge it as the coach and to also have the individual acknowledge it, them in themselves, because they're going to get off the phone with you, they're going to leave the meeting, you're going to spend an hour a day with them. But then that voice, that noise, that radio chatter.

Yes.

They have to be in tune to that and block it out. Because the problem that holds leaders back, especially when you're looking to scale, right?

Yes.

When you look at. To the take it to the next level, is to turn off that volume and lower the volume, diminish the volume. But they don't even realize. We don't even realize. I don't even realize some of that negativity that feed that noise that I generate. But once you tap into it and it's called out to you from somebody like you or me or our spouse or our best friend, you're like, holy crap, man. I really need to be in tune to this and I need to focus that because that negativity, that, that limiting factor, that missile is going to be the be a conduit to your success or your failure. So we got to teach each other to recognize it on our own. Because sometimes we are in our cockpit by ourself. Our wingman may not be flying with us at that moment. They're there to help us out if we need to, but we got to recognize that voice and knock it off quickly. And I think a lot of people believe their own bs. They start listening to it and, man, that's a kiss of death. And I'll tell you, and I'm speaking from experience, because, as you know, and we could get to it a little later. After I graduated the academy, became a pilot three years into my flying career. You know, I had maybe 500 hours out of my almost 3,000 hours. I almost died in a scuba diving accident. Developed claustrophobia. Not the best thing for a fighter pilot to have. Right. And long story short, well, what, you.

Just have to put a helmet on and strap in and be strapped in really, really tightly and wear really tight clothing and then this confined little cockpit.

For six hours at night over. Over enemy territory, Right?

Yes.

And so. So life was going great for me, and I was scaling up. Right. Things were kicking butt. I was top of my class, doing great, and I had this issue, and suddenly every time I strapped in Bill, I had to deal with this phobia, this doubt, this uncertainty. Yeah. And I had to really tap in to the love of flying, My mission, my wingman, my commitments, the fact that I rose my right hand, that I had a job to do, and really hone in on the love and thrill and the exhilaration of strapping into that $30 million jet. And the exhilaration, love of it. And when you tap into that psychologically, intentionally, the love of the fight, that focus, that passion, that courage becomes greater than the fear. And you can block it out. It doesn't make it easy. And we all have our claustrophobic moments in some way or another. What that thing is, that's. That's strangling our ability and paralyzing our ability. But it was very difficult, but I broke through it, eventually became combat decorated instructor pilot of the year. A lot of great accolades. But this little hidden little secret, this skeleton in the closet that no one knew about my entire career always was lingering. And I think we all have those issues and challenges in life and performance and growth, in my opinion, is about. Not about being fearless like you see the books and the speakers talk about. It's focusing on the courage, acknowledging the fear, and saying, you know what? I'm going to kick through that fear because there's something greater inside of me on the opposite side of that fear as well, that's going to drive me to risk to push up the throttle, to jump off the diving board and to stretch, you know.

Yeah, that. I think that's a really useful thing too because it's, it's that it's moving through the fear. That's courage. Courage is not. I'm fearless. Courage is not. And the fearlessness is not that useful because we all have places where we're fearless, but that's not where we need the courage because we will inevitably encounter fear. And we're like, I'm going to be totally fearless. No, you're going to move past fear at the time when you need to because you develop a muscle of courage which is facing the fear and acting anyway.

Totally, totally. And that's not an easy thing to do, obviously. Right, because we call out, oh, you got to act anyway. Well, what is on the opposite side of that fear? What is it that's driving you forward and pushing you forward? And these questions are not lower level questions. You see, it's not just about, hey, how many calls am I going to make today, what clients am I going to build, what software application am I going to develop and how am I going to outsource my it. This is the innate driven things that create paradigms, that create solutions, solve problems in your business, get you up in the middle of the night, excited, jumping out of bed, ready to go to work to start that new venture. And there's always a little bit of that fear or a lot of the bit of that fear. But the true performers who truly want to execute, are tapped in, tapped into that, to that courage, and are innately, many times, innately, other times as outside thing that drives them, you know, just driven to push up the throttle and just kick, kick butt. That's that mindset, I think, that fighter pilots have that allow them to strap in and fly and risk, and risk being shot at, but loving the fact that they're going to go out there and execute and kick some butt. That's, that's the whole thing that I loved about flying fighters. And quite frankly, what I love about my business, which is commoditized. As a speaker, as a coach, you know, we're dime a dozen, but I want to craft a message and a passion and a brand that's unique and identifiable that's unlike any of the other other folks that are out there. And we, we all need to do that.

Well, I'm noticing as you speak too, you've got to, you've got to learn to trust in the face of fear. Right? You got to trust your equipment, you Got to trust your training, you got to trust your crews, you got to trust your support, you got to trust the tanker is going to be there when you need to sip some gas. You got to trust your wingman, you got to trust all those kinds of things. And I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who struggle to trust their people, struggle to trust their suppliers, struggle to trust their co founders, their business partners. I think that comes up for them all the time.

Oh, what it does for me as well, you know, the three most important words in life, I believe, are I need help. And when you know you have somebody who you can count on a wingman to be there to you for help, that's that trust, that's that wingman relationship. And it's very difficult to find. It takes nurturing, it takes coaching, setting expectations, follow up. And there are a lot of commoditized businesses and brands out there and partners who are trying to sell their goods to us and vice versa. Right. And we need to really vet them out correctly, but make sure that we have the right expectations, but also to trust them and to not micromanage them and to put our greatest energy into that. I know when you get burnt, and we've all been there with a partner, a vendor, a marketing director or web designer or whatever it is who falls short and we learn, we grow. But I also think some of it is manifest in our insecurities and our fears. And in some way, and I don't want to get too philosophical or metaphysical on you, I sometimes think that we impart that negativity, that doubt into our vendor partner and they deliver on that fear and doubt and give us the expectations which come right back at us. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. You got me. I'm like, deep in thought as I consider the ideas here, but it seems pretty fundamental. And I think about, like. So I'm famous for telling people that I've always been a terrible operator. I'm the, like, the visionary innovator side, and I come up with ideas and I'm always angling and I'm promoting. So I'm very kind of high on the strategy side, the visionary strategy side, and then very high on the persuasive side, but I'm not the operator. So I'm always thinking about, okay, who's going to be my partners in execution, consistency, and relationships, because those are the areas that I don't do well with. So I'm often thinking about. That's the particular. I don't need another visionary wingman. I need somebody who's got a complimentary skill set for me.

Oh yeah, yeah. You got to outsource those weaknesses and provide the context that you need to succeed on a holistic approach. I mean, in every squad and every fighter squadron, there's men and women who have their own strengths and weaknesses. We put them together, we augment, we supplement. And any business, it's important to find out what that is. You know, I'm fortunate or unfortunate or not fortunate to kind of have a lot of both. I love creating, but I love the execution side. I love doing nitty gritty planning and process focused stuff because I have a lot of attention to detail. But when I'm in my power is when I'm creating, when I'm envisioning. And as soon as you get out of that creative mode as the visionary of your organization, as a flight lead, looking at the target, building the situational awareness, creating that 360 degree view, targeting your wingman for specific things, you know, Jim or Bill, you got the target left 9 o', clock, 20 miles, blah blah blah. Two target group, nose 10 miles low. You're, you're delegating, following up and looking at the big picture. As soon as you go from creative mode and strategizing to tactical mode, you go from oftentimes winning to surviving. And I don't think we could ever survive in business focused on the threats, the tactical elements of our business. We win when we see the targets of opportunity and then target our wingman, our partners, our co workers to execute on specifics to drive that out. So I think in any plan where we're scaling up, building a team of reinforcements, and by the way, that also includes a team of IT that is leveraging the IT wingman, the tool which is your radar, your stores, management system, all the electronics and stuff that you better be up to date on in your business because it's a great wingman.

Right.

Once you build that up, now you're able to scale more and kind of breathe easy as you see the big picture. And that's not an easy thing to do. And Lord knows if we obviously, if we try to do it on our own, we're either going to be shot down quickly or overworked and burnt out in no time. And I think we've all been there.

So we've got, you've been talking about thinking about who to work with and how to work with the person and, and you've been talking a little bit about checking your back, having somebody else check you out and back you up. So that Speaks to the teamwork aspect. Right. You mentioned something else in our prep for the show. This acronym, fear. Talk to us about that. We've been talking about fear, but what's the acronym that you use for this?

Okay. And if you don't mind, I just want to share just a tad bit about that teamwork in the element, because there was one thing that I want to share, and we'll come back to that fear thing. But you see, and it comes to building what we call situational awareness, that 360 degree view of your business as a leader. When you're strapped into your jet, it's impossible to see your most vulnerable position, which is behind you. Yes, you know, 12 o' clock out front, 3 o' clocks to the right, 9 o' clock to the left, you can see that easy. But behind you, the seat, the rudder, you know, all that stuff is blocking your view. And your enemy more often than not, or the threat, the thing you least expect is behind you. But when you have a wingman at your left 3 o' clock or right 9 o', clock, a mile or so away, it's easy for him or her to look over their shoulder to see what's behind you, to see if you're being shot at, to see if you're leaking fuel or on fire than it is for you to do it on your own.

So just to draw the correlate right to our folks, so many of our folks will be familiar, they belong to peer groups and they have advisors and things like that. And then some, of course, work with a coach or a mentor like that. So if you work with a coach or mentor, you don't need to pick a person who's done what you want to do better or bigger. It's not at all necessary. It's just, it's. The value is. I mean, I'd actually sort of rather have them have complementary or different skills than just be a better version of me. Mostly I just want them outside of my world. So in, in our peer groups, we'll talk about using the Johari window, which is, it's a way to not only reveal yourself, but discover the things about yourself that you don't see. Your blind spot, right? Your blind spot is your six. And that's what the forum mate, the accountability partner, the wingman, everybody else, your mom, we can all see what you can't see for yourself a little bit. Like if you've ever been behind a line with someone in a bank or a movie theater, whatever, and they look fantastic from the side and the front. But the back of their head hair is all messed up because they combed and took care of everything but the back of their head. And we've all got these blind spots that we. And the value of that additional perspective is people can back you up, can see what you'll never be able to see on your own.

Right. Right. And it also implies or implores us to be approachable and coachable, to be open to the feedback that we may not want to hear, but need to hear, to have our ego bruised, to be willing to be wrong. Right. And some of us say we have accountability groups or wingman or mastermind groups. And I love the fact that you want people that are different. You need that. The folks that could supplement your weaknesses and create a bigger picture for you, but the personality can get in the way of that. And I've been with groups and I have even buddies who just don't want to listen to the truth. To have their ego bruised and to be willing to be corrected and to be uncomfortable and do what's necessary to adjust their flight path to improve.

Right. Well, when you debrief a mission or training, right. You. It's. It's like the rank is off and everybody can say everything. And that's what we look for with our teams is really the. The searing truth, the honest, raw thing. Not that, you know candy, right. I'm going to be careful about your feelings kind of truth, but the like, real brutal, honest truth that says, no, dude, you are way low.

And now you're tapping into obviously some other areas on culture, on communication styles, because there are some people who, they cannot handle that brutal truth, the honesty. And if they're the type of folks that are on your team who aren't going to adjust, or maybe you need a different style, a different way of tact, you know, fighter pilots just brutally honest and just will slap you around. It's like you don't have a. You better put your shield on and be willing to put your ego aside. Otherwise it's going to be a short flight plan for you in a fighter squadron. But that's because the culture accommodates that. And we don't have time for the politics and personality issues. We've got too much to get done. And in business we do as well. So make sure you bring it in the right people and set those expectations. And if they're going to sniffle and cry or you aren't going to be able to accommodate their feedback requirements, then you're not going to be able to grow so different generations, different personalities, different backgrounds, different religions. There's so many different things that come into play to allow, to create that check six culture where everybody's open and honest and adapting and growing.

Well, it does seem you have to. It starts with a realization, a recognition, acceptance that there is another perspective other than your own. Right. You just consider it from the fundamental thing. Here I am going through life flying, and I see, you know, I see everything maybe 180 or a little bit better in front of me. And if I turn around, I see the other. But if the world or other things turn around as I turn around, I still never see those things. So. And yet a person walking right behind you at your. At your four or five or six is going to see the world a very different way than you do.

And that's why.

Moment by moments. Yeah.

And you have to seek those people out. I talked to my twin brother, even my wife, my friends. Who are you hanging out with? You know, not just at work, but on the weekends. Who's calling your bluff? Who is saying, you know, you could do better than that? Bill, what are you thinking? Or yeah, that's a great idea. You know, also, we need those encouragers. And many times we settle for the folks who drag us down, who don't exemplify greatness and who don't really allow us to get rid of the drag and reach our fullest potential. That's why I think it's always important not just to keep building your team, but to reevaluating your current peer group because you may be scaling higher than them. Their issues and paradigms are no longer where you are today. I was in a mastermind group for four years, Bill, and I told them around eight months ago, I said, we're not asking the right questions anymore. I can't be in this group. I like them. They were fun. I enjoyed this four years. I love these people, but the questions they were asking were nowhere near where my questions were and I was being limited, so I had to leave. The group, subsequently broke up because they realized, in all due respect, and I'm not tooting my own horn, I was right. We were focused on the wrong things. We had a ceiling. And I think in life and in business you got to reevaluate those relationships, break them, if necessary, impactfully, and then seek out new folks who are going to meet your expectations and also continue to push you where you need to go. And as life evolves, as you grow, as your business grows, as relationships grow, as your paradigm of what you think is success grows, which may be money one year and God or your family the next, or not working as much one year and giving more to your charity or traveling. As your definition of success grows, you need to shift your priorities and your team of wingmen to continue to elevate where you want to go in your life.

It's fantastic. So you can hear that you spoke about lift and drag and we're looking at where to add thrust into the business where you're going to push having somebody to give you that useful moment by moment feedback on how you're doing, somebody to back you up when you need it. Not going it alone in life, relying on really trusting yourself to rely on other people and giving some room there for that.

Roger that. And we can end a little bit on talking about fear if you want to, because I know I stiff on that for a while or not.

Well, let's touch on that just to wrap things up and then we'll go to the offer and how they can get it and I'll tell people how to do that.

And so, you know, because I don't want to be hounding this thing of fear because. But it's something that's constantly present in our life. I think when you see the fear and the hair stands up or that discomfort comes, it's telling you something. It's an. It's an opportunity for you to grow. Right?

Yeah.

And I think when we become complacent with our mindset, that's when the complacency sets in, it can kill us again. It's a slow descent to the ground. So I think it's important to keep pushing forward on that and acknowledging the fear. So I have an acronym for fear, a couple, couple acronyms, but this is one, you know, you either forgetting everything and running. Forget everything and run. You see the missile, you forget your training and then run away. You abort. That's not what winners do. We focus our energy and accept responsibility. Focus our energy and accept responsibility. That we're fighter pilots in our squadrons, that we have men and women depending on us, that we have a target to hit, that we have wings on our chest and commitments. And so what I did throughout my career and I continue to do is just maniacally focus on what's important. And normally to achieve peak performance and to continue to accelerate despite the fear, you have to think outside of your cockpit. You have to think outside of your head. Look at those who need you, the people that you're serving. Focus on the win the final outcome, landing the jet at the squadron, drinking a beer and saying, I did it. I overcame my fears. And that adrenaline, that juice that comes from it. And it also could be your faith, the people that you love. I always say love lifts, right? And fear drags. So we have to focus our energy. And I think there's a couple things that come into there that turn the fear into courage. We talked about our commitment, our passion. It's also the preparation. You mentioned it before, wingman, never wing it. If you're afraid going into that boardroom or starting the presentation or getting ready to take that call, it's probably because you, the person staring you back in the mirror, that is the most important wingman of your life, didn't prepare. You didn't put in the time. You didn't stay relevant. You didn't sacrifice. You didn't put that sweat equity necessary to win. Many people in my life who I meet, who are average performers, they may have great attitudes and enthusiastic, but they're simply too much thrust and not enough vector. They're not putting in the time. And so we have to look at ourselves every day and say, am I afraid of stepping up to the plate because I didn't practice my swing, or am I, no kidding, afraid for other reasons? You with me on that, Bill? And so we have to be maniacal about our preparation and relevance and all the tools available. And then, obviously, the most important is looking to your left and right and realizing that you're not doing it alone, that somebody's there to back you up, that they're going to help dissipate your fear, they're going to help absorb it, they're there for you. And then when you fundamentally, ultimately think that they need you, and if you're there for them and you're like, man, I got to go to battle today. We're going to get shot at today. And I'm not letting Bill go at it alone. He needs me. My spouse needs me. My customer needs me. My kid needs me. Me. Whatever it is, when you think of service, that's going to give you that extra thrust, that firepower, the meaning to the mission, I call it to say, I'm going at it. So we got to keep sight of those things that drive us every day and not lose sight of what's really important and what we love. Despite being in the cockpit and dodging all these missiles, it's an intentional thing we need to do.

Well, we deal with this every day. Whether you have a big team or a small team at Whatever stage of growth you are, you're going to deal with, working together, coordinating with other people, executing strong, staying consistent, learning to trust your wingman, finding, knowing your wingman. And I can think of countless examples for me and our clients over time. I had one this morning. I thought I was going to screw up a piece of business and lose something that I really had worked hard to get. And I immediately called a buddy coach and said, listen, I need to talk this out. I'm upset, upset about something. And he like got me going and then I went off to the next meeting, the next and so on. And you know, I immediately had to call in some support because I was like, oh, I just am in total funk. I was sad, I was fearful, I was angry. Like everything, right? All the emotions in a few moments came up and so he talked me off the ledge. Love it, love it. And got me back in the game. I think that's a good place for us to wrap for this show. I think we've given you given folks a lot to think about, but let's go ahead and let me tell them in a second about your book author, your offer and how to get the free copy of the audiobook. Let me also tell them about some of our other things. So I want to remind you all that we're out every week on itunes, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcast. So look for the podcast there. We are also putting out more and more things on YouTube and you'll find us there as well. The audio version will be on YouTube as well as itunes, wherever else. So please like it, please subscribe to it so you get them automatically every week. Please share them with a friend, tell somebody about whatever difference it made for you that makes such a difference for us. We really live in a word of mouth world. We have some free things for you as well. If you go to scalingupbusiness.com, find our growth kit and go ahead and download that there. That gives you an overview of the Scaling Up Framework and it talks to you about how we run our planning and strategy meetings. It gives you a recipe to start running your own. Talks to you about the preparation, the agenda and has a whole bunch of forms that you can use, some worksheet forms that you can use to start getting your team scaling it better and applying the Scaling up framework and the 2.0 version of the Rockefeller Habits to your business. So those are some of the basic things we've got. Of course we also do live workshops and you can find a link to the latest live workshop on our website there as well. Scalingupbusiness.com and if there's a workshop near you, that's a great way to sort of see it live and get some feedback. If you've got any comment or feedback or you'd like to share something, how this show made a difference for you or something that didn't make sense to you, please just put it in the comments here. We monitor those and we'll respond as appropriate. I want to tell you about now how to get the Book. So if you go to YourWingman.com YourWingman.com NFS never fly solo, right? NFS you'll find a form there where you can fill out. Just give them your name and your email, that kind of thing. And then tell them. You tell them you listen to the Scaling Up Business podcast and go ahead and click that and you'll get a $20 audiobook download right there. So super awesome offer. Thanks for giving it to us. I know that people listen to podcasts, love audiobooks as well and I think they'll love that as an offer. So hopefully lots of folks download it and listen to it. It's fun and engaging. You know, basic fundamental things. But for some of us, the whole the fighter pilot storyline and angle is especially a pleasure makes it more fun for us. So thanks again for being on the show today.

Oh, my pleasure. I look forward to staying in touch with you Bill. I wish everybody continued success. Keep pushing up the throttles and never fly solo.

Thanks again. We'll see you on the next podcast. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for Scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app. You can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by a of lot. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.