176: Scaling Up Insights — Coach Panel with Lisa Foulger and Judy Guido

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. Talk to Docs of Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatant.com Bill G. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business podcast. I'm your host Bill Gallagher and favorite neighborhood scaling coach. Right on the panel conversation today with me, Lisa Folger and Judy Gaido. Lisa, where are you today?

I'm in my home base in Reria.

Costa Rica and I'm jealous. Like to get down there, tell our listeners a little bit about your background. We haven't had you on the show before but you're a long time coach and sure.

Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. So I'm one of two founders of Gold Global. We are a scaling up coaching company and we work with entrepreneurs to help them get unstuck and enjoy their ride of growing their company and growing their team and delivering outstanding business results.

Awesome. And how long have you been in.

Costa Rica for 12 years now.

That's a long time.

Yeah, absolutely. Came for two years and it's just been a lot more fun and it's continued the journey.

One of my old dear friends retired there like three years ago or something like that. Three, four years ago and he'd been going there on vacation forever. He built a little vacation property and then turned it into a rental property. It's like a retreat center there. I think I shared it with you, the White House.

You did? Yeah.

I'm looking to get there.

Ken was a buddy of mine back in the radio and DJ days and he did his career performing and all that and retired pretty early. All right. And then from Southern California, Judy Gaido.

Smoky Southern California.

Yeah, yeah. Where's your face mask?

It should be downstairs. But we, yeah, we were ground zero in the Reagan Library fire. So it has been this whole week has been quite the week. But those fires are out, but there's still multiple around. So thank you to all the incredible men and women all the first responders because I shared with Bill yesterday, Wednesday at around 2:00', clock, I did not know if we were going to have a home to come home to. There were planes and everything all around fighting this fire. So thank you to all the men, women and everybody involved in helping all of us out here in California.

And Judy, reminder for the listeners, is a longtime coach in our world and has pretty extraordinary past in particular in the whole green industry. Right. Everything to do with. Well, actually I don't know the extent of the green industry, but I'm guessing it's lawns and trees and all the outdoor stuff. Right.

Actually the green industry almost from the way we define it, it's really, almost anything's really have to do with outside from the, from the, from the elements of the, the growing, the distribution, the manufacturing, the maintaining the designing side of it. It's a, it's about a 400 billion dollar industry. Probably about 70% of my clients are involved in that. So you know, when you look outside, whether it's in a commercial site or a home and you're sitting in a landscape or even taking like right now all the hydro seeding and erosion control that takes place as a result of fires and making sure there's not mudslides, we handle all that stuff. And about 70% of my clients are in that industry and 30% are in all other.

Well, and you've both been a coach and an executive and CEO taking companies public, doing a ton of M and A work in that sector.

Right?

I have.

I've been in the C suite as a chief marketing officer and a corporate strategist. Yep. 1998, took a company public on the New York Stock Exchange, did multiple roll ups. So I've walked in the shoes from the leadership to the coaching and advisory and the board position, from the, you know, from everything from having an idea and a blank piece of paper to creating a company. And now I've got the great fortune to help companies grow depending on what level that means. And like I shared with you guys before, my smallest client is a mother and daughter team that have a great idea and a great business model and we're growing them. And my largest client is about a $63 billion company and I use the same tools and tactics with both of them to help them get to the next step.

We've showcased a couple client successes in the last couple months on the show and somebody was asking me last week. This time of year we get a great deal of requests for like annual planning sessions like the one off kind of thing rather than the full on coaching, which I'm happy to do if I have time. Anyway, somebody asked me, what size company do you work with? Through the accelerator program in the EO organization? I work with companies below a million. And as a coach, I work with companies over 500 million. So that's a big range. And it is in fact the same tool set that we're using. We apply it differently, we apply different pieces of it in different order. But values ought to be there. As you start as a solopreneur in the early stage. If you bake them in there, when you go from 1 to 50 and 50 to 5,000, you've got the continuity. You can tell who should be on the bus and who shouldn't.

Right, right. And when we teach people how to read the market and do a market map analysis. Right. I mean, this mother daughter team, their market map, you know, their market is a very small defined area in San Diego, my $63 billion company, they're a global company, so the world is their market. But we're looking at the. Right. We're looking the same things. We're looking at suppliers, competition, associations, all the same tools, just on a different level.

Yeah. So we're talking this time. We talk in these panel shows about what's going on, what's in the news, what's been developing. But we make our own news, I guess, or at least we bring together newsmakers at the Scaling up summits a couple times a year. And we just had one of our summits in Anaheim in mid October. And so we're just talking today about the takeaways. Like, you know, who were your favorite speakers? What have you brought back to your clients already? What is on your mind? And still coming like that. So I just thought we'd go through some of that stuff because it's fresh for us. Although as I plan, as we're getting ready, it already seems like, wait, which one was. So I. To aid me in our conversation. I'm kind of visual. I put up their faces on the screen next to me so that I could remember who they were. Right. So anyway, so this episode, we're gonna talk through some of those folks and I think let's start off with favorite topics and why it mattered to you. And like that. So, Judy, who's your favorite author?

I don't. You know, this is gonna say, I'm so like a PC, right. I didn't have a favorite, but I really didn't have a favor. One really resonated with me. Actually, two really resonated with me. One was Katica Roy, whose family story, they were immigrants. They came over on Air Force One to, you know, to basically save their lives and come to America. And, you know, she's just this brilliant economist who actually works a lot with women and immigrants, right? And her, you know, her message about, you know, women aren't the problem, they're the solution. And so because I work a lot with women and women leadership, that really resonated with me and Molly, Molly Bloom, you know, in a weird way, who, you know, my background has nothing to do with her. That whole game about, you know, high stakes, you know, being busted for the high stake poker game, but what she overcame in terms of literally almost, you know, being murdered by the mob and, you know, saving her family and trying to figure out an awful situation that, you know, she took accountability for and said, you know, I put myself in this terrible position, but she got out. Just because some things that have happened to me personally in my life, I unfortunately was a victim of an awful assault that, you know, I resonated with what she went through, right? Really kind of overcoming that fear of crazy people. So I resonated with those two, you know, those two women, you know, maybe one on a very much a business side, just being a, you know, a woman who was really the only woman in the green industry at the table. So really, you know, related to Katica and what she was trying to do. And from a person, personal perspective, I really had a personal relationship with, you know, physical assault from Molly Bloom and getting out of that, you know, literally strategizing to save your own life, if you will.

Well, Kanika opened. She was our first up speaker and she talked about her story and her journey and then a little bit about her company, but in particular about this gender equality thing. And she opened with the thing and I was touched as I heard the story. And I thought about my daughter and my wife, my mother, you know, the women in my life and the difference in our lives and our challenges and things like that, it brought that up for me, like, really vividly. And I think she was a strong sort of personal, authentic speaker. She was effective, but not like overly polished and schmaltzy or whatever, right. And then. And I just, I was very engaged with her, but it wasn't just about like women this, it was about gender equality, period. She was like, there are dads who can't take time off when their kids are born. And I thought about, you know, I was immediately transported then to My kids and the pleasure and the privilege of being a CEO during those days and being able to manage my life and bring my kids along to a trade show. And you think about how we would be to take time. Like we as the leaders of the company often have a lot, especially the owner and CEO have a different amount of control and permission. If I had somebody who said they wanted to bring their kids to a trade show, I probably would be less forgiving or permissive of that. And yet I allowed it for myself. And that really made me think about what are our policies and how do we run things and so on.

And you know, Bill, excellent point because it wasn't really just about women in the end. I think the thing that I really loved about her talk was it was just really, she was really talking about the underdog, right? Whether it's a woman or a dad who wants to take time, right. Or wants to be a, you know, wants to be a stay at home father or an immigrant. And you know, I think my whole life I've always been, I've always fought for the underdog. So that's why I think she really, really resonated with me.

I just heard like getting, like getting real, like embracing reality. Look, think about what your people are dealing with.

Well, one thing that she spoke to too, that struck me was the idea that our customer base are mixed, right? So we don't figure out how to support the voice of women and bring that into the workplace. We're missing the opportunity of the customers that we want to serve in the markets we want to reach. So she was a powerful storyteller. I think that was really drawing for me. And one of the programs we do in Gold Global is an accelerator program for startups and female leader startups. And so over the last year we've had interaction with about 50 women that are based here in Costa Rica that are trying to build their businesses and Central America and take them global in many cases. And it's amazing to see how many challenges and kind of stereotypes and hurdles these women entrepreneur face. So when you hear stories like Kataka's, it's very inspiring and rewarding. It kind of gives you that passion and inspiration to keep going, which was fantastic.

Well, it also ties back, doesn't it, to like our past? We had Tom Peters on, we've also had on the show and he just railed about, not just about how women's voices are not appreciated and honored and really empowered within an organization, but also elderly, like how we're beginning to neglect he's like, your decisions, your money is controlled throughout our society by women and elderly, and you need to wake the f up. And of course, he ranted around the hall swearing. People like, wake up. And Tom Peters is a voice and a guru to be respected in the world of business.

He was funny. I remember him saying. He's like, I love the millennials, but they don't have any money. He's like, the boomers have all the money. And quite honestly, I mean, they say, at least in the U.S. like, the wealthiest classes are really. The women. Boomer market are really who really, you know, have the power of the purse, if you will, so.

Absolutely. Well, and bill raising. That reminds me, my favorite speaker was Chip Conley, so the. Well, the modern elder. Right. So I love his story of, you know, growing his own boutique hotel business, selling it, and then being approached by Airbnb and saying, you know, would you be our mentor? He's like, what? You know, why do you want me? You know, I have all this history in the hotel industry. You're doing everything via technology. And they saw the power of wisdom being a strategic asset to help them navigate this new journey. And that's really powerful. I thought that was fascinating.

Yeah. I don't totally love it when people relate to me as an elder.

He did change the connotation of that term. It's not elderly.

It's the wise experience.

Elder. Right.

It's something to embrace. But, you know, being able to get a discount at the movie theater in Denny's is not a badge I'm totally proud of at this point.

Hey, we have our next new great sitcom instead of Modern Family. Modern Elder. Right? And here we go. Here's three of the cast of characters. Exactly.

But I thought it was interesting. One of the things that he really spoke about was the wisdom comes from this innate ability to be curious and ask the right questions, as well as the process of kind of navigating how to do something. It doesn't matter what the content is or the subject matter expertise, because we know that changes, and dynamically, you can't possibly keep up with that. But what they saw, the value in the elder wisdom was how to navigate through a process no matter where you are. And I think that's interesting because I think the more experience you have and the more diverse breadth of experiences, the more you rely on judgment and intuition and the ability to figure things out.

I saw this same thing with a client just yesterday. I have a young and extremely high potential manager, COO of a company that I coach now, last year and I was meeting with them and before I got there, they had essentially just thrown the approach out and we're like reinventing everything. And I'm like, let's save that invention energy for where it matters and not try to reinvent every process. The beauty of the scaling up framework and our planning processes is that basic stuff is well honed now. Learn it, use it. Put your innovation, your energy into some other sector. Don't reinvent everything. And I think there's some wisdom in that approach and say, listen, let's figure out where that innovation belongs. Solving a problem in the marketplace or in your operations, not with the basics of business management leadership. Right.

Well, and I love the term the modern elder wasn't about reverence but about relevance.

Right.

That was a great line. And it was just really this convergence between knowledge and wisdom, if you will. And if, you know, if you think about it, when we always talk about what make great leaders is, you know, transparent, transparency and humility, you know, you know, being honest about what you know and what you don't know. And he said, you know, here I came in and all of a sudden the first thing, he was very, you know, open and transparent. And he said to everybody, wow, I like my hotel work. And you know, what I know in the kind of the physical real estate sense of hospitality isn't really relevant here because I really need to know a lot more about technology. Like, I can take all the stuff I know about what makes a happy guest, but, you know, I really need to understand this whole digital. I need to understand technology. And so I don't have that. And so he was very open and said, you know, you teach me about the technology side, I'll teach you about relating to people on what you know, the art of hospitality is. And it was, again, it was a combination of some new knowledge and wisdom coming together. And I thought that was beautiful. And, you know, and they also talked about, you know, the whole sense of, you know, with the modern elder, about judgment, intuition and the ability, you know, the ability to reflect. I'm gonna use that line of my daughter now so that I can't wait to talk to her when I get off and let her know, mom is a modern elder. Maybe, maybe I'll get T shirts or bumper stickers or go like this to her.

One of the statistics he used, which I think is really telling to me because being in Costa Rica with a ton of multinationals with a very young, probably the average age is 25 year millennial worker, he was highlighting that 75% of millennials want a mentor and only 2% have them. So the opportunity for this mixed mentorship and kind of dual direction was really fascinating. And I see a lot of that going on. I mean, there's so much. Each different labor group can teach the other if there's openness and willingness.

And it's interesting is that 2%, because they're just so doggone busy that they don't have time or because they. I think it's interesting because middle age and older leaders, too. I mean, right? If you talk to any CEO or C suite person and they start talking about coaching, that's one of the things that really kind of irks them. It's like, I want to talk about coaches, and a lot of times, I think a lot of it is ego driven. You know, on their perspective, it's like, hey, I've gotten this far without one. Why do I need one? Or again, that humility, saying, hey, I don't want my people to know I've got somebody helping me, too. And yet that's the greatest thing they could say is like, oh, my God, my leaders are always learning. They're in their 60s or in their 70s, and they themselves have coaches. And it's never about learning. And I, you know, I try to be very introspective. And I think two things, words that I created a long time ago that have always guided me is I've always said, I'm an Askaholic, you know, and, you know, that's one of the things. And I'm a learnaholic. I'm always about, like, you know, I'm curious. I'm always asking questions again and again. I really am this, you know, this Askaholic and this learnaholic. And it's, you know, you're never too old to be learning. And that's. I mean, every day, right? I wake up, what do I read, who I'm calling, who am I talking to? You know, what. What answer am I trying to get answered today that. That I didn't have answered yesterday? So it's been a great writing guiding tool for myself as well.

Tying into the Askaholic. I loved his Chip's leading question as he was meeting all these new employees at Airbnb, which was, how can I support you to do the best work of your life at Airbnb? And he said that just floored them, but it opened the doors and removed the barriers and just vulnerably shared. And he said he learned so much from being that open and being that approachable and humble. And I think that that really plays well, too.

And was it in him who said the second question, what are some of the greatest misperceptions that are thought about you and your business? And that was another great question. Like the first question I've asked. I've never asked the second question. I love that question. Yeah. About what are the misperceptions?

He didn't talk about it, so he didn't mention it. But that notion of that is something that I probably have shared frequently in the past, but haven't shared recently. And there's this old welcome letter. You can go find it on the Internet that I thought was really great in terms of employee onboarding and engagement at Apple. You guys know this one?

No.

There's this old letter, and here I just pulled it up. It reads, there's work and there's your life's work. The kind of work that has your fingerprints all over it. The kind of work you'd never compromise, that you'd sacrifice a weekend for. You can do that kind of work. At Apple, people don't come here to play it safe. They come here to swim in the deep end. They want their work to add up to something, Something big, something that couldn't happen anywhere else. Welcome to Apple.

Get my suit on. Jumping in.

Yeah, that's very much like man and Superman. Like.

Yeah.

Be up to something here. Don't. Don't just waste your time and, you know, figure out how to climb. Do something interesting. Right? Yeah.

Who want. Well, I mean, some people do want vanilla. Right. I'm a, you know, Technicolor girl, so that's my thing. So that resonate. Like I said, I'm grabbing my suit. I'm. I'm jumping in the deep end.

Yeah.

Pretty appealing, I think. Another concept he mentioned that really unlocked an idea for me, and I've used it with a few clients since, was the idea of how do you reveal where that wisdom really resides in an organization? So he said, ask the question, who, besides your direct manager, do you really learn from? Who do you go to when you've got a question you can't answer? And it has been, for me, very surprising to see who people answer with. And it's not through lines of authority. Usually it's these pockets of expertise that people that are elders and performing that role in the organization that maybe aren't getting a lot of recognition for it. So tapping into that and figuring out how do you make them accessible and how do they share on a platform more visibly is really powerful to companies. So, for example, I coach an executive in one of the growing companies and we were planning to meet last week and he had something come up with travel and had to leave. And he says, okay, I have three high potentials. How about we do some speed coaching? You take my 90 minute window divided into 30 minutes and meet with these three women. I'm like, okay, fabulous. What's the topic? He's like, whatever they want to talk about. Like, fabulous. So I opened up with Chip's question, like, what do you want to know from me that I can help you accelerate your career? The things they came up with were amazing. And then I asked them, who do you learn from? Who is really your knowledge expert you go to? And the people they pointed to, people I'd never even heard of in the organization nor the executive that I work with. So really, really interesting. If you kind of take the time and ask an open question and remember.

What they said to take it deeper. I love that comment, Lisa. And then they took that, you know, we took it a step deeper and said, when you hear who the responses are, right? And he said, quite often it's not like the leadership, you know, it's not the obvious who you think they're going to go to. And he used the word, you know, do a heat map, like zero in on who were those key, you know, key influencers. Right. And people who, you know, were really inspirational as well. And they said, bring those people out, kind of, you know, surface, you know, all that wisdom and that knowledge, share it and then, you know, take it even down, you know, dig down even deeper. And then, you know, how do you create a program to say we're always finding those people, right? We're always having those heat seeking mechanisms to find those people, unearth their knowledge and carry it forward and have a program and a process and use some of the companies, some other companies who actually had programs to really unearth those people on that knowledge. And I thought that was wonderful.

Absolutely.

So we just. Yes. Not. Yes. In the last week have a client that has a leader stepping into. Well, they're in a new role and they're taking over some of the Scaling up initiative. And they have a unique perspective. It's very youthful. And so what we did was we took the youngest manager who's going to lead the initiative and then we established a mentor, somebody who's the oldest member on the team, the oldest, most experienced, both in the company and in general, and we paired them up. So he's the mentor advisor. I'M the coach and the other guy is the champion and he ultimately gets to call it. But we can help guide him and make it easier for him along the way. Right. Love the approach. You know the other thing, I think we didn't touch on it but it would be a shame to not mention Chip Conley's background. So Chip got his. Really had his breakout as a CEO with a brand, a company called Gelato V Hotels. They took underperforming. Well, they started with like an inner city motel and then they repositioned it, rebranded it, freshened it up and turned it into hit. They grew that into a very substantial brand before selling it off and so cool. So they would take like they could take a motel in the inner city and their branding positioning approach would be like pick two magazines and then they would pick the two magazines that essentially defined it. Now magazine is less and less relevant today, but the idea of picking two evocative sets of audiences and the confluence of those two things would define who this was supposed to be. Right. And they would go property after property and they would take these places that were kind of forgotten. They would make them cool again. They would give them some life. They would un. Genericize them, which is interesting because I am a big old. Most of our summit, all of our summits are at a Marriott property of some kind or another. Right. And they can be. I mean they now have a jillion different brands but sometimes some of those brands can feel very generic. But I think what's cool is that they are establishing these different types that, that fit for different people because I don't always want to have a generic experience. Right.

And what they're, what they're doing is what he really did. He was really one of the forefathers of kind of the pre. Boutique kind of right. Of hotels. And now if you think about. All right, whether it's the Hyatt's Marriotts or any of the, you know, the store, the big brands, they're, you know, now they're, they're putting a lot of money into creating that kind of, you know, what appears to be a custom cool one off boutique kind of hotel.

So totally doing that. And I like my. I think I did 120 nights in hotels last year. So it's a lot. So I want my points. What's that?

I said we are hotel rats, aren't we?

We are hotel rats. I like getting my points and so I'm true to my. But I also like finding those sub brands and things within where I Can stay. And, you know, I get treated well, I get upgraded. I get the sweets and things. I get a lot of free nights. But. But then, like something a little more unique experience than just that, which I think is an interesting thing. So that notion of do one thing really interesting somewhere, figure out what you did and then figure out how to repeat it a whole bunch of times. And that's, I mean, at the core, the scaling up strategy.

Right. Understand your core customer.

Right.

When people are traveling, what kind of experience do they want to have? I remember years ago, the Kimpton Hotel chain, they realized how many. They had more women business travelers than they did for men. So they were trying to also make it comfortable for everybody. But was there anything else that women wanted? And years ago they would have yoga mats and, you know, and things like that. And how they change their, you know, the spa and what, you know, what might be important and try to make it, you know, and family, you know, friendly. If kids were coming, you know, to the hotels. And again, it's, you know, what does the traveler want? And, you know, when you're exhausted after working your butt off all day, when you come, you know, I know myself anyways. I do. I wanted to make it feel like I'm walking in my, you know, in my home, in my own bedroom, right. In my own house and have that sense of, honey, I'm home. I can, you know, Kirkland can go into my room. And that's the sense that they really try to make their hotels well.

That's a really good point. And I think we opened with a talk about women and embracing diversity and tapping into it more than just disincentivizing it. And I think that, that, like, we had that full range. And Verne talked about male, female yin yang, that world in the opening of the whole event. And he walked on stage to a band playing and then danced on stage in front of, you know, 12, 1300 people, however many we had there, which I think is really great. We're so, like, inhibited in so many ways in such large parts of our culture and our companies that we can't move, we can't sing, we can't. And there's that kind of a block there with stuff. But we also went the other way, right. We had two former Navy SEALs speaking. So we had a number of women. We had. And you know, and that is still a pinnacle of masculine energy. The Navy seal.

Yeah, but think of. I don't remember which one of our Navy seals, they were both really impressive, but I remember we Learned the breathing technique, right?

Yeah.

I mean, this whole mind, body, soul.

Connection, which was super like yoga.

Absolutely.

And you think about, like all the rage about Wim Hof. Right? I'm sure we have listeners who are all about that. But, you know, go do some Kundalini classes and you'll get some experience of that.

It's interesting. One of the women I have the fortune to work with, and she's a. A dear friend now, is Susan Packard, who is the founder of hgtv, amongst other things. And we're doing this whole series of work and events and webinars and podcasts and it's called Groundbreaking Women's Series. And one of the.

I was on the show last week or a week or two ago, by the way, on the Scallion Podcast.

Right. So one of the things, you know, one of the retreats we're going to be having, part of it is a meditative part too. Right. Which, which, you know, and again, men love it, too. My brother is, you know, a much better, much better at meditation than I am, even though I, you know, I work at it so very much, you know, mainstream today.

So I would highlight, we're doing a CEO retreat in Costa Rica in January, calling Scale your Mindset to Scale youe Business. And it's all around the leader. How do you get the leader in the right mindset? And yeah, every morning starts with yoga. I think all the executives, probably 75% of the executives I work with are men and the other 25% women. They're all working on quieting their mind. It's not a feminine topic. It's a topic.

So I think sometimes people are a little sensitive to this topic and there are lots of ways to do it. If you're thinking about how to get this done, you might talk about, let's do a focus or a visualization exercise. Let's do some stretching. Let's wake up the movement of the body. Sometimes people, words like yoga can be triggering. If you're in an evangelical community, that can be evoked like another competing religion and can be upsetting. But if you just talk about focus, relaxation, concentration, visualization, some things like that, you can get away from anything that might be religiously confronting or just from a stylistic standpoint, sound to you at this point or to your team, to New Agey.

And I always say we use the words de stress. Right. I mean, is there any human being who does not want to de. Stress or use quieting your mind?

Right.

I mean, everybody gets that. They need their time to De stress, right? And just open your mind and get to another level. So, yeah, and that was one of the things we also talked about when we were Anaheim. The importance of words. And, you know, I always say there's three W's that I use when I talk about words. I say they can, wow, they can win you, and they can wound and even that wow. Like, that first wow is, you know, that wow could either be positive or negative, right? You hear something great, and it's like, wow. You hear something really bad, and it's like, wow, right? So, you know, be so careful and so selective in the words that you use again, because they wow, win or wound somebody or somebody.

One of the. So you mentioned Molly Bloom earlier. And I was trying to think about as I walked out of that, and I was sharing with my wife about the conference, you know, during the day and after, and I'm like, what? So Molly Bloom. Molly's Game was the movie and the book, and it was a terrific story of Molly Bloom and her building up this poker game and all that. And I was trying to think, what are the business takeaways from that? Because unlike some business speakers, she has this gripping story, but she doesn't lay it out for you. Like, here's what to remember exactly. In the same way, she doesn't distill it down. She just kind of shares her story with you and then a couple things that matter to her. But I heard, like, perseverance, playing a big game, no pun intended, right there, like, swinging away. She started that whole thing. She was like, 24, right? And I think, like, one of my biggest learnings and single largest business accomplishment happened before I was 30, right. I didn't understand what I'd done and. And how important it was and all that. I was certainly full of myself. But we do things, play a big game, deal with incredible adversity and challenge, keep reinventing yourself. Don't give up. I heard a lot of things like that in it. Did you guys get anything different?

She talked about understanding her customer, remember? And relating. He had to know every single nuance from, you know, just, you know, such wealthy people. They wanted everything perfect their way. And if there were, you know, 20 players, she had 20 completely different needs that she had to get, like, you know, in a nanosecond. So it was really relating and understanding what customers, you know, needed and wanted in some cases even before they did it and introduced a new. Then she talked about, you know, without using these words, you know, how market conditions can change in a nanosecond Remember, all of a sudden she was relating so well to her customers that her boss started getting a little bit jealous. And then all of a sudden called her in the office and said, you know, you're out of the game. I want you to like, pick up my dry cleaning tomorrow. So here she was in this hot, you know, high position and relating with these people and making them really happy. And boom, market conditions changed that day. And all of a sudden she said, I'm going to change the game then. Now I'm going to become the competition. I know how to play this game. I know the strategy. She went, she built a strategy, she found the right people, she executed very, very quickly. She knew how to get the cash. In some cases, not the best places to get the cash. But she really focused on the four fundamentals of people. Strategy, execution and cash. I mean, it was, you know, high stake poker game is a business.

And 24, really quickly, also the lessons of lapses of integrity, right? She talked about how she started taking a rake and then became an illegal game. And then how that put her at risk with everything and changed everything. And like, wow, we can all think about the little compromises or questionable moves that we make from time to time over the course of our careers and how that can come and bite you in a massive way and put you in the corner. Yeah.

How she just highlighted so many at the top of her game and then falling and then creating a new game and getting to the top again. So that idea of self empowerment and self belief, of resilience, and then even in the end, I think her partner and her now husband is a neuroscientist. So she brought that into the whole neuroscience and that's where she's going next. So let's see what hill she climbs next. I mean, I just love the journey that she's on.

High stakes game.

Perseverance, right? I mean, remember her backstory here? She was, she had two brothers who were, you know, your professional athlete, like, you know, crazy overachievers, right? And, you know, she like the only girl. And she ended up being just this really talented, you know, skier. And what happens to her, you know, at the age of 11 or 12, I mean, this, you know, she was like, I want, you know, she wanted to shoot for the Olympics, right? She had a vision, she had a goal, she was a great skier. She practiced. It was about focus and discipline. And then at the age of 11 or 12 years old, she finds out she's got scoliosis and they're going to have to put rods in her, you know, et cetera. And the doctor was like, you know, that's the last thing you could do is skier. And, you know, she was like, damn it, I'm gonna ski. And sure enough, right, she skied. There she is. She was in the trials for the Olympics. And what happens? She trips over. Not her fault, right? Stuff happens, right? She, you know, her ski gets caught on this small little like pine sapling that was sticking out of the, you know, out of the snow in a nanosecond, like, all her dreams and perseverance and literally she tripped over this little twig and ended that. So again, her whole story about, again, having a goal and a dream and a path to get there and to persevere. I mean, it was just an incredible story. And she's what, all of, like 5 foot 2, you know, she's like, ball of energy and perseverance and, you know, get out of her way, world.

I think she also spoke early on about some of the lessons of thinking you can figure it all out. And I was reminded of some mistakes that we'd made in my earlier companies. She talked about where she was preparing for her first game and she didn't know anything about poker. So she, like, she's thinking about the food and who should be there and the setting and all that, and then what music. And she's like. And she goes and collects songs that gamblers would like and she picks like, gambler. She's like. And you can see how from the outside, you'd think, oh, that was really cute. And then. But in reality, rethinking it, you'd be like, oh, of course, it's really corny and obvious.

And she said that.

And I mean, and her, you know.

Her people were extremely smart, savvy, sophisticated, super powerful, right? You know, sports world, the entertainment world, politics. Everybody who was at the height of the game and most, and mostly all men too, right? That was another thing. She was kind of in this, you know, you know, high, you know, testosterone driven, ego, wealthy, you know, crazy world. And again, at the same time, you know, she said she went, you know, went and went online to learn just about, like the basics, the 101 of poker. And these were the people who were at the top of the game, you know, their game so well.

It's. I was reminded of some of my young rockstar managers who'd come in, in another company and we were engaged in how do we 10x this business? And we were thinking about it from marketing, customer engagement, brand Product, operational, finance, like all these things. And these two managers had come up with this plan to really 10x the sales and marketing side of things. And the brand impacted and they did a really good job, but they were really certain that they were smart and had thought of everything. And I'm like, yeah, you maybe have, but we don't really know until we test it. And it sounds good. And they're like, no, no, no, we've planned this. No, we've thought of this. We've planned it. And they were so sure of their plans. And I'm like reminded of a million different quotes that no plan survives contact with the enemy, right? And there's many versions of it, or everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face. And we got punched in the face, right? We thought of all these things, but we didn't think of all of the ramifications and fallouts and how one piece going off in one place. And we had a component or a thing that was produced in China that had some, not through any mal intent, but somebody producing something at a low cost and it, it then impacted the quality of everything else. It had a contaminant in it. We were screwed. Like massive multimillion dollar impact on things. And you can't think of everything. So you've got a plan and you've got to iterate, you've got to listen and you've got to make adjustments, right?

And recover, right?

Well, I mean, you know, if, you know, if you are change averse today or change ignorant today, you're, you know, you're in deep doo doo. I mean, just, you know, the Internet, right, has really altered the world. And think about, you know, the rate and the velocity and the speed of which change happens today. So I mean, you know, you know, change, change is one tweet away today, right? I always say that word send is so powerful. And you know, I think about what, you know, what happened here to us this week in California. I'm sure there were a lot of things that were about to happen on Wednesday and Thursday. And guess what? Mother Nature said, we're gonna have a firestorm come in and boom, let's see what you do with this. And the market is throwing stuff at us not only every day, but every minute of every day. So yeah, if you think you've got it all figured out. And you know, I actually, as a result of what happened this week here, I was thinking about, you know, that combination of, you know, like what we were, we were prepared for what we weren't for, you know, as. As well, you know, we always think we're prepared. Prepared for these things happening, you know, so there's a sense of having stability, and yet you've got to be agile and fast. So I. This is my new word. I love making up new words that mean stuff to. Not only to me, and then I test them out on other people and they're like, oh, I like that. That. Yeah, that makes sense. So I came up with this new word today. It's called stagility.

Right.

It's the ability where you've got to be stable and agile. So stagility, that's going to be my next little book. But I love that agility. Right. You've got to be stable and agile at the same time. And it's, you know, Jim Collins would, you know, actually, I have got to give credit to Jim Collins because I remember, you know, being younger and, you know, just being a sponge and then a trampoline, if you will, kind of jumping off. But, you know, it was that he always talked about the tyranny of or and the genius of Ann. Right. And so, you know, you either have to be, you know, people think you have to be this or that versus why can't you be this and that? And in today's world, because of change. I mean, there is, you know, you know, you know, you know, to mitigate risk. I mean, absolutely. There's something very, very important about being stable. But at the same time, you have to be extremely, you know, agile. So, again, new word, stagility.

Well, another. I don't know if we're going to move on to another speaker.

Yeah.

So another one of my favorites was John de Julius, the Relationship Economy.

Yeah. And also that tied in with David Meerman Scott. Talking about fanocracy.

There were a lot of care themes, but the thing that stuck out for me, the relationship economy, was his definition. So relationship economy defined as the emotional connections made with customers, employees, vendors that results in your organization becoming the brand customers cannot live without. And if you achieve that, then your price is irrelevant. And if you have to discount, it's saying that you're the same. It's kind of the tax you pay for being average. I really love.

That was one of my favorite lines. I love that, too. Discounting is a tax you pay for being average. Right. Well said. And he. I mean, I read everything by that guy.

He's.

He's brilliant and, you know, and I think the essence of what he says is simple, but it's so, you know, deep when you, you know, and this is, I have these conversations with clients and friends all the time. You know, when you think about relationships, you have to remember what the root word is. It's about relate, right? It's how do you relate? What do you like? What. First of all, what do you know about people? I always say, you know, you can't spell relationship without the word relate. And, you know, John is about all things like get, you know, get into their head, get into their heart, get into their soul. And in the end, you know, that's how you'll, that's how they'll not only open up their wallet to you, but it's like, price doesn't even matter because, you know, the essence is like, I can't live without you and what you do. I mean, in their eyes, there is no competition. And he's a terrific speaker. He just really gets the, you know, he really is the essence about people as is, you know, David, as well, with a new level of ratcheting up, relating and understanding and having your customers be your greatest voice and fanocracy.

You know, I want to remind our listeners and clients that this is not a binary thing. You want to be more and more connected, more and more special, more and more cherished as a company. It's not I'm going to be or I'm not going to be, I'm going to have to discount or not. There are going to be areas and times when you are particularly connected and cherished and adored right. By customer fans and in the marketplace. And then there are going to be areas and times when you're less so. But we're striving towards that. And any gains improve your connection.

Well, and I loved his recommendation to have relationship building training for all employees. Like, where does that happen? I think I am seeing the emotional intelligence component of leader training move up the radar and become more important. And even like we had Judith Glasser at one of our former summits, I went and did her training and certification. I love conversational intelligence. The words we use matter and they either build trust or they erode trust. And if you learn that early and apply that, it's really powerful.

She passed away recently. She was a great speaker and a guest on our podcast and passed away recently. But go listen to Judith Glasser's conversation on the podcast. She died last year.

Yep.

Fellow Connecticut person. That's where I was born and raised. We found out that we were neighbors, but we didn't know it. So she was a wonderful lady and we share the Same first name, too. So I think of her often. She affected my life in a very positive way.

Yeah, it was great and a good show and like, just a great human being. It was a really, really great conversation and a great time. We have such great speakers again and again. We have some returning ones. David Merriman Scott there was talking about turning customers into fans. He was citing the example from the latest edition of the book, Hagerty Insurance. That's an insurance company, but we know and think of them as a classic car business, and they have an incredible following in the world of classic cars. I don't currently own a classic car, but I have had a number of them in the past. And I'm a total car nut. I'm like, oh, there's a round tail light, 2002. And oh, look at that. That's got the metal bumpers on. I'm always fascinated by this thing and that idea of getting, like, touching into things that people actually care about. What do your people really care about? What are they? Where's the passion, emotion? This thing is so important in driving action decisions. And it's very related to the why work? Right? What do we care about? What do we have feelings for? Right. It's not where you build your plans and so on, but it's where we tap into the passion and drive the action.

Well, so on that topic, that relates for me, too. And this is where those two topics interconnected. So with John de Julius, he was highlighting the Ford acronym. I don't know if you guys remember that saying. Yeah, it's great to dig in and understand people, and sometimes you need some help to do it. So he said, you know, use this acronym, F, O, R, D. You can ask questions about family, occupation, recreation and dreams. Easy. Everybody wants to talk about it. And he said, in fact, everybody you meet has a banner on top of their head that says, I want you to ask about me. I want you to care about me. And here's four easy questions. So I have three daughters. My oldest is in college, and I love the story he told about his college son who came back after they'd been practicing the game of Ford, you know, on a family vacation, talking to the Uber drivers and the hotel concierge and, you know, everybody they ran into trying to discover who could find out the most information using Ford and their family. So after their family vacation, the son calls home and says, dad, that was like, the greatest tip you ever gave me. And he's thinking, really? You never thank me for anything I teach you. He's like, yeah, I can get all sorts of girls now. This is my best dating strategy ever.

Okay?

There's a ton allocation. I mean, I run into so many young professionals now that are growing their career, and they're introverts or they're shy, and they don't know how to open up a discussion or a conversation or to share vulnerably. And I think this is a really powerful tool. Say, start here. You know, these are four safe topics you can go into and share as well. But I thought that was really powerful. This idea of building relationships is a lifelong skill that I think is essential today.

I like to ask people right away how much money they make, what their religion and political views are.

What their title is. Right.

Who they voted for. Yeah, go for it, Bill.

I put my foot in my mouth all the time in that area.

It goes back to that word to relate. And think about it. How do you relate to people? It's through storytelling, Right? Tell me the story about, you know. Right. The f. Right.

Yeah.

Your family. Are you married? How many brothers and sisters? Tell me something about. Right. And people love that and that banner of, you know, I want to feel important. And again, what, you know, what do you living and not do for a living? And that's. What do you do? And what's your title? But, you know, what's important to you? You know, what are the challenges? What kind of, you know, what kind of problems are you trying to solve? You know, what kind of opportunities are you trying to pursue? I mean, are you happy in what, you know, what you do? And then just, you know, what do you love to do when you're, you know, when you're not at work. Right. So. And again. And all of a sudden, you start asking those questions and people start telling you stories, right, about the family, where they're from, about what they're struggling with at work, what they love, you know, going skiing with the family, hiking. And that's how we relate and that's how we share things. Oh, my God. You know, my family were great skiers.

We do.

Oh, we love going to Beaver Creek. We love going here. We love doing this. That's how people relate is when you share stories. So it's, you know, again, on one level, it's simple, but it's, you know, it's just about. Again, it's asking. Right, right, right.

Well, and here's a practical application. Right. Hiring has been a top challenge for most of our companies in the last couple of years, in particular in North America, where the labor market's been very constrained. But if you want to do this, these relating questions, it's not just a warm up. You actually, if you listen deeply in these things, you'll hear personal values and you'll hear whether or not they relate to the traits you're looking for in the job and the match to the company values. If I ask you about your family, about your hobbies, about, you know, some of your personal background, I'm going to start to hear that and I don't have to probe into everything. I mean, a family conversation is a very safe kind of a thing. But both in interviewing and in selling, not only am I establishing a stronger connection with you, but I can also hear, are we a fit to work together either as customers and employee, Employer.

Right, Absolutely.

And that's one of the things, no matter who I'm working with and if they're, you know, they're responsible, you know, or accountable for a group of people, I'll say, you know, like, tell me, tell me about your team and you know, and they start, they'll start getting into the aspect, business aspect. I'll say no, just, you know, tell me, tell me about Bill. Like, what do you, what do you know about Bill? You know, tell me a little bit about Bill. And it's really interesting. And there is a direct correlation between the people who actually know their, you know, their teammates on a personal level versus don't, how successful that organization is or how well respected that leader is and you know, the element of trust because it's like if you don't know somebody, how, if you can't relate to somebody, how can you really trust that individual? So that I start there and I'd probably say about 65, 60% of the people don't know very much on a personal level about the people that they're leading.

So that points to something I think really important. And I think it is much more common to a stereotype among our male listeners and the men running our companies. We are far less trained to connect, to relate, to, understand, to know each other. We are focused on, and there's value and honor in it, but we are focused on an objective, a task, a transaction. We're working on that particular thing, the target, right? And that's fine and important. Really, it really, really, really is important. But we're not, we don't have to be limited by that particular perspective. We can branch pan that and there's real power in it. So there are lots of different styles of leadership, right. And some are very organized on relationships and doing that and they will be great at building teams from that perspective. So some are very task driven and they're like, hey, we're conquering that hill. Get on board if you want to help me conquer that hill. But you don't have to be limited to that. I know through my work and strengths and my self awareness work that I am prone to talk. Right.

You're kind of an outlier. You are much more in touch with your feminine side. Big compliment to you, Bill, because there have been all sorts of studies that literally women talk three times as much as men. When they compared the average number of words a woman uses in a day versus a man, it's almost three times the amount. And one of the reasons is because women ask so many more questions than men do and women almost want to get to that perfect answer. Like, look, you know, they'll ask questions and if they, you know something, they don't get enough, they'll go back again and start the process over where for men again, it's not good, bad or indifferent. It's just how men and women are different is men are like, they're, it's like, okay, it's good enough where women, it's like, no, I, you know, I still, I still need this piece. I still need this piece. I kind of, I've got to get that, you know, I got to get as close to perfect that I can. And so we do, we ask a hell of a lot more questions. And I know in our industry, I've done a lot of research on women in the field and women in the back end office and women in business development and particularly in both the field for the retention, the customer service side of it and just in the business development side, their customers love them because they do know them so well, because they do ask so many questions and they want to make it perfect.

Here's the thing though, that there's real value in that. But that's not normal or natural for me and for lots of people. Yeah, no, in the disc world I'm high D and I. And in the strengths finder world, I'm a communicator and I'm command and activator, right? So I lead with talking, saying things, not questions naturally. And I, I feel like I can fill any space and I'm arrogant enough and smart enough to think that I know and understand exactly what's needed and wanted. I always think that I do. Like my first instinct is I know what's needed and wanted here. I'm just going to go for it. And I'm often a little wrong. Right. And Even when I'm 95% or even 100% right, there's no relationship, no listening. So even if I know exactly what you need and I just say it, if we don't have enough connection first you don't feel heard and appreciated and understood. What I say won't even be heard by you. It'll just sail right by and you'll think there's another a hole just blabbing off whatever and so smug and so. Which is totally true. I'm often that. But if you take time. So I've trained and learned and I don't always do a good job at all. But to put and to lead with questions and then to reconfirm before saying stuff and to hold back and to wait a little bit longer. But it takes a great deal of personal discipline and self awareness to do that. It's not my natural kind of instinct. My natural instinct is to be, look, see what I've got to say.

Well, and David spoke about that. Right. So he said you must be a fierce listener and that that requires a lot of discipline. So you can ask the question, but if you don't give the space and if you don't truly listen to the response, you're going to find yourself asking two to three follow up questions that basically negate what they just told you that they now realize that you didn't even hear. So if you want to build trust and you want to build and use curiosity to build relationships, you have to listen and you know the whole adage of we have two ears and one mouth. Right. He was also saying you should have four questions, four to one question versus answer and just allow the space and not try to fill it in. How many times do we ask a question, then we start to answer it ourselves. And that's really terrible.

I see this a lot with new speakers with entrepreneur CEOs who are trying to be more visible in public. With new coaches, they just want to fill every moment, every space. Right. And like when I was on the radio, you don't want to have any dead air, but in a conversation you do you allow some pauses. Anyone you think about a good track. There are quiet periods before they hit you with something. Right. There are these things that build up thought, reflection, anticipation. These are great things for human beings.

Absolutely. I loved his quote. The single biggest factor contributing to where we are today remains the relationships we have acquired over time.

Yeah.

Using Judy's relate term. Right. I mean if we're going to build relationships that last and help us navigate our careers, listening is essential.

You know, it's the old adage, right? It's like, you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep because you write you kind of the people you hang around with and relate. I mean, it says a lot about who you are and who you become as well. So I thought that was a great line, too. I love that. My family would love to hear. I'm not going to repeat that. You should only ask four questions because I told you I'm an alcoholic. And my family, no matter where I go, I don't care who. I'm always like, I'm fascinated. And they're like, oh, my God, she's going over to ask someone. It's like, what are you doing, Mom? It's like, I just wanted to ask, like, I, you know, I saw X. Like, I was asking the fire people. You can imagine the questions I was asking. Like, the cops and the fire people were like, oh, my God, mom, leave them alone. You know, kind of thing. But that's.

That's my.

That's my DNA. And I'll share a quick, funny story. One time I was giving a talk and we had a break, and so I went in to go use the ladies room, and one of my colleagues was out. A guy was out. He wanted to ask me a question. He's like, judy, what? You know, my gosh, you were in there so long. I go, I just met. I met this woman.

And we were.

We ended up like, having a conversation about bra and underwear, right? Didn't know the women from Adam. He's like, what? I go. I said, I can't even get into how it happened. But next thing you know, we were all. There was like a gang of his. We were exchanging, like, the best bra and the best underwear conversation. It's like, did you know any of those women? I'm like, no, I've never met them before. They're not even with our group. But that's just what women do.

I don't know if I would come out of men's room having had a conversation.

My favorite boxer brief, why are we going to pack? But it's amazing what you can find. And you know, one of my favorite places to have conversations, or in the grocery store and the line when you're checking out. It's like, I've had some of the best conversations and lessons learned in grocery lines with people I've never met before.

So, you know, sometimes when I See what they put on the belt. I don't want to ask questions. Imagine that weekend or what's happening.

We call our film. We have a term for it, and we're like food profiling for food profiling. It's like. And then we'll come back and I'll be like, hmm, probably doesn't work out. Like, we have a whole profile around people by their food.

So. Yeah.

So what about Alden Mills comment around the whisperer and the whiner that we really, really great.

On your shoulder, the whisperer and the whiner.

Right.

So there's an internal voice that we all have, right? The voice inside your head. It's that one. The one that said, what voice?

It's like the devil and the angel on your shoulder. Right.

I think for most of us, most of the time, I actually don't think too much about the whisperer side that he was speaking to. I mostly think we have. And it's not probably true. Overall, it'd be interesting to try to survey this or something and figure out how many of us distinguish the two voices, because I hardly have. And how many of us have a natural. So the whisperer is the one who's like, you can do this, man. Come on, you got this. And I think that's a pretty quiet voice for most of us. The whiner is maybe. And it could even. I mean, the symmetry of the words is great, but the whiners come on, like, don't do this. You can't do this. It's gonna fail. Look out. Wait for what? Brace for it. You know, it's telling you you can't do shit and you shouldn't bother all the time.

Most people have the propensity for negativity, right?

But even some of us, I think, overall, my set point is really positive and really optimistic. But that voice inside my head is often, oh, geez, this is not going to turn out. You're going to get taken advantage of here. You're not going to get what you want, you know?

Or let me ask a question. Is it that. Because I would consider you a positive person, Bill. Right. Or is it. And I think actually all three of us are very, very positive people. Or is it that. I know when my head goes to that, it's not so much the whiner. I always go to the. It's how do I mitigate risk? How do I mitigate risk? Okay, like, what should I watch out for here? Because I'm very positive, and then I have to go to that. Okay, what could possibly go wrong that I need to be prepared for versus you can't do it. So. And I don't know.

Well, that's like a planning. But I do have great periods where I feel sorry for myself and I'm angry at people. They're not going to give me one.

More pity party for your whiner voice.

You're human.

It's not turning out. Oh, I'm suffering so much. Which is kind of hilarious given the life that I lead.

Well, what I would add is for me, a morning routine is really, really important. So I start my day early and I do a lot of things to build up the whisper. So I do meditation to quiet my mind. I do positive affirmations. I have a gratitude journal. I usually listen to some inspiring podcasts all in the first hour of my day.

And that start with a cigarette and a shot of whiskey in your coffee.

Not even coffee, but I mean, I think you have to work at that and I find that that pays off. And so building that into your routine I think is really, really helpful. I work with a lot of clients that try that and have great personal impact.

Yeah, I think coffee, the smell, the taste of coffee is almost one of the first things I want in the morning.

Well, you need to come to Costa Rica, Bill. We produce eight.

Have some good coffee. Yeah.

Again, you're right. Costa Rica is on my bucket list. So, Lisa, coming to a city near you soon.

Okay, so I'm planning now. I'm in the planning stages. I'm leading a two and a half day retreat to plan the rest of your life, to design and create your life. And we're working on the exercise and stuff for this right now with a co facilitator that we're doing for the EO organization on Santorini next May.

Oh, I love.

Pretty good. I think we should do like a western hemisphere, western kind of thing in Costa Rica, maybe a similar thing. Now we have a couple hundred people coming to this thing, but it'd be great to do something like that in a place like, you know, I've done things like this in Bali and Thailand, but be great to do one here in Costa Rica, I think is a really great kind of setting.

Is great too.

Santorini. Yeah, it won't suck, actually. You know, I've been to Greece, I don't know, 10 times or something, maybe more. And I love Greece. We've gone sailing in Greece. We've been around the islands and the different areas and the ruins and not just Athens. Right. But I've never been to Santorini, so I'm super excited to go to Santorini. I have one of those great rooms that looks out with the balcony and the little pool on the flip side. Right.

And if you're ever in Pasadena, one of my favorite restaurants in Pasadena, Santorini, it's a great restaurant too. So for that place.

Awesome. Well, we've covered a lot of the folks that I think one of the ones we haven't touched on much was speaking to employee engagement. Right. We're talking about connecting a lot with customers in the marketplace and a little bit with prospects. But the ongoing thing we had Santiago Jaramillo talking about agile engagement or getting connected to your folks. Are you dealing with a lot of that with your teams?

Definitely. I mean, I think with employee engagement, I mean, it ties, interestingly enough to some of our earlier discussed themes of this connection. How do you build the connection, heart, mind and soul to the work so that there is a deeper sense of purpose? And that's what motivates the employees most. I mean, especially here in Latin America, where you can change jobs for $20 more and people are very motivated by money. Purpose matters. Purpose is the only thing that really differentiates. And so when companies build employee engagement strategies that have a deep connection and involve purpose, it's a game changer, Huge differentiator.

And they talked about, right, Absolutely. The why, the purpose, and then, right. The culture, really, the personality they said was so important. And then it went to the leadership.

Why?

Because, like, you know, there's that whole trust and it's, you know, it's. Think about, like, it's almost like the family that you're born into. I mean, you look to your parents, right, to guide you and get you to where you need to be. And it's that whole sense of, you know, as opposed to just going to work with a bunch of, you know, employees that it's this community or this family and the leadership, you know, kind of take that parental role. I mean, Vern always says of it, you know, think about, you know, think about, you know, parenting, you know, what are the rights and wrongs, right, the values that we live by? So that was very important. And then the path, right, you know, you know, where are these people going to give me the opportunity to help and give, you know, to help me grow and, you know, get me on the right path and keep me on that right path. So it really does. It comes along down to a lot about the community, the tribe, the family that you're. That you were part of. You know, you know, the people in your life, again, keeps going back to that word that we can relate to and we trust and we. And we feel comfortable with. So, you know, it's the people who are apathetic are the people that you really have to worry about because those are the people who are going to leave for $20. Or it's like, I don't care. I'm here from 9 to 5, 5 or 7 to 3, or, you know, 12 to 6, whatever. It's a job and I'm out of here. And that's, you know, that's not the team that you want to be a part of, but that's not the team that most people. There are places for those people. It's just not for most.

You know, every now and then I encounter somebody in our world who's not sure that purpose really makes sense for their company. But here's a free offer. If you think that you can't articulate a purpose that makes a difference for you or that it doesn't apply to your company, or I invite you to call me, I'll help you figure out your purpose for free. I am more than happy to do that, or I'll get you a coach in your area who can help you figure it out. But I'm happy to help you work through that. If you're a skeptic, I've worked with a number of companies that were like, yeah, I get all the scaling up stuff sounds really great to me, but I just don't think that purpose is for us. We're this kind of. Or some other kind of business that doesn't apply to you. I really challenge you. That's fine if you're a skeptic like that, but if you're open and you're curious and willing to have your brain realigned a little bit, reach out to me, infocalingcoach.com, through our website, through our social, whatever way you want to find, and I'll help you figure out the purpose without even being a regular coach.

Phil. That is so important. The way that I also get to that too, is I just ask people too, particularly people who I recognize are, you know, or I suspect are apathetic. And I always, I ask a simple question again, you know, like, you know, is being happy important to you? And again, the person who says no is the person you need to be a little bit afraid of, right? Because that's. Most normal people want to be happy. And I just, like I say, is, you know, is being happy Important to you. And, you know, they kind of look at you oddly and well, of course. And I say, well, are you happy in your job right now? And the majority of them say, no. And I'll say, so why are you still here? Or what aren't you happy about? And generally, what they're not happy about is they either don't trust the people that they're working with, they don't like them, they think that their job doesn't matter, right? And all of a sudden it's so, you know, so, you know, what we're doing really doesn't make a difference. And so when you start digging down, you know, into that, what happiness means, then you start realizing how important purpose and values and culture, right? You know, all the things of, like, the same reason why somebody, like, might stop hanging out with the gang that they used to hang out with or leave a community that they live in because they just can't relate to other people or they're not happy. So.

But happiness is not heeded.

No, not at all.

Right? Happiness is not like hedonism is simply pursuing pleasure, right? To the exclusion of everything else. And I think that some of the folks I know, they don't put a lot of weight in their emotional state because they're like, look, I feel good, I feel bad at some point, but my actions produce results, and that gets me where I want to go. And you can go too far in that thing. There's value in understanding the source of happiness and how to increase. And happiness is good for your mental health and that kind of thing. But it isn't simply pursuing pleasure. It's pursuing fulfillment. It's pursuing hard work and satisfaction. So things like gratitude and awe, right? Which is maybe an extreme form of gratitude, like appreciating something much greater out in the world and then working towards your work. Why leaves you feeling happy in a different way than a lollipop?

Part of that happy, too, is like, you know, one of the big things you hear is like, you know, because, you know, yes, I am happy. I like the people I work with.

Great.

What do you like about them? Right. And then conversely, you know, I don't like the people I work with. That's. I mean, you know, you spend more time with these people than you do your family. So, you know, that's a basic element of happiness for most people. They want to like the people that they're working with, right? The whole, you know, don't work for a jerk. Right? You know, the a hole rule. It's like that's really important criteria and component of happiness, you know, liking the people that you work with.

I think it's important too to open up the discussion to what does happiness or fulfillment mean to you? Right. Because that's part of the relationship building. That's unique and each person has a different definition and authentically they need to discover that. And you as a leader need to understand that to help them fulfill that.

You gotta ask the questions, right?

Absolutely.

So let's segue to one other speaker as maybe our final thing to close it out. And I think it's critical for us. We've been talking a lot about some high concept stuff, but Jack Daly in the sales playbook. Jack's a returning speaker and guru in our world and the sales end of things. And he talked about the importance of distilling out a playbook, having a consistent, repeatable process for your sales and not having everybody doing a different version and everybody making up something new all the time. And I'm like, I wish I could get this in more of our companies. Let's develop a clear sales playbook. What are, what does the flow look like? What's intended to look like? Right.

I was just talking yesterday, I was on the phone with it with the editor of a magazine I'm doing some work with. And you know, he, you know, he just said, like I asked him, I said, you know, each one of your business developers, I said, do they have their own, you know, one page plan, their own playbook? I said, I know you have a, you know, I said, I know you have a corporate playbook. I said, but what about individually? And you know, just really candidly admitted, he's like, no, they really don't. And I, you know, I kind of let them go out on their own until there's a problem. I'm like, but, you know, wouldn't it be nice if you can kind of, you know, align. Align to the individual plan and kind of coach and guide and talk on a regular, you know, on a more regular basis? You know, that playbook makes it really easy to talk about the things that are important to talk about. And I mean, I would say less than 10% of people have that, you know, those individual playbooks. And then he also talks about, you know, his other p. He talks about the 3p is just the practice. It's like, like what's so important? It's like, you know, athletes, they practice, right? And musicians and entertainers think people who are great at what they do, like day after day, hour after hour. And yet you know, when it comes to sales that, you know, generating.

Right.

The revenue for the company and keeping the customers and attracting new ones, they don't practice, like. And with it, when they do practice, they're practicing on the customer or the prospect. Right. It's like, wouldn't, you know, like, you know, wouldn't be nice to practice before you're practicing on a customer. And it's like, oh, we really. We really stunk at practice today. So, you know, that's another great thing that, you know, Jack is such an athlete himself, too. You can see where his passion and his energy is. You remember after one of the Seals spoke at the event, Jack and I bumped into each other in the hall, and I just, you know, he always has that, like.

You know that he's some intense.

He's a very intense. He's like. You could tell he was on a journey. He was going somewhere. It could have been the bathroom, I don't know. But he was going somewhere. And he walked by me, and I just kind of looked him in the eye, and I go, jack, he's like, what? I go, you could have been a seal. And he was just like, yep. It was a great Jack Daler moment. You could have been a seal.

Yep.

He's got a great deal of rigor and self discipline.

Oh, yeah.

Way more than I have. He's become a dear friend, and he does slow. Like, you can go to dinner with Jack or be in his home and, you know, and do something different. He's not always like that all the time. Like, he can slow down and have a conversation with you, but here's a guy in his 70s who still does Iron man triathlons and marathons, right?

Well, one thing that I was thinking about, because the client that I just met with this week is growing. They doubled their business in the last year, and they recently IPO'd six months ago. And they're very focused on doing playbooks in many different functions. So customer service was the one we were working on. So it's a concept that this whole idea of structure sets you free. It's a great example.

Well, what is a playbook, really? A playbook is like a checklist and a process flow, right? And you're like, okay, if this happens, do this. If that happens, do that. And then in a sales playbook, you might have pitch outlines and emails, and you might have a whole variety of things that relate to the sales and marketing process, but it is essentially a process flow and checklist kind of a structure.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel each time, right?

And some people will say to me from time to time, well, we want to be nimble and flexible. I'm like, great, but distill down the repeatable things that already work the best of your stuff. Have people work it and then iterate on it. Don't relate to that as a once and done kind of thing, but as something that you're continually improving.

And what was his third? Right. He talked about his playbook, practicing and having write a professional coach. And he said, you know, whether you're a LeBron James or a Tiger woods or the, you know, a Steve Jobs, you know, a Jack Welch, they all had coaches, right? And what, you know, what makes. What makes great teams.

You know, as a combination, he had like nine coaches or something like that. And I've often had a lot. And I noticed as he said that, that I'm like, oh, actually, as a coach today, I have fewer coaches than I've maybe had at most times in my life. And it's got me thinking, who should be my coach? Coach? Who should be my speaker coach?

Yeah. Jack, who is this Ironman guy? I remember writing him, just telling me the story. He's like, you know, he wanted to do the Iron Man. He's like, I really couldn't swim though that well. So he's like, I just had to figure out like, you know, and here he is, Mr. You know, you know, he's like, I had to really learn how to swim and swim right. Kind of thing. So it's, you know, who doesn't need a coach, who doesn't need a teacher, who doesn't need a helper?

Well, I've done now I did like 45 triathlons and not recently because you could see. You don't want to see me in spandex right now. But I did them for a lot of years and I became a good swimmer. I'd grown up swimming and that kind of thing, but I still am a terribly slow swimmer. But I could go out and swim three miles in the ocean, in the cold and that kind of thing. And it takes a certain discipline and embracing something that's uncomfortable at times and even scary. I think about the sharks all the time, especially when the visibility is low and we know that we have them in the San Francisco Bay. I'm out there thinking about, oh, my goodness. All right, well, listen, we've talked for a long time. We've filled our listeners with ears. You know, half the people have stopped listening or put us off to finish later. I think we've chewed them out. But our summits are really, really great. You should go to scalingup.com the next summit is May in Dallas, right?

Yeah, Dallas.

May 3rd and 4th.

Two full days plus we follow it with a conference where we go deep in the basics of scaling up. So two full days of new speakers in our world. One of the things that's great about the world of scaling up is we are this sort of living best of framework that we're continually adding and refining to. We advocate huddles, but we'll have somebody come and talk about a new approach to huddles or something bigger and more audacious about that. So we're continually enhancing these. We've got a couple a year and they. And they. And they too will change. So you should plan and put that down and get in. I really like to get my clients out to at least one of them a year. And it makes such a huge difference to hear the stuff firsthand. It's not that I as a coach can't bring you some ideas, but it'll be much more powerful if you heard firsthand from the source. Then we work on implementing it together. So scalingup.com summits is where you'll find that. And then we also have workshops on the basics of scaling up. We'll have one in the Bay Area January 16th. We're about to change that to a bigger venue. We've added a sponsor and a partner for that particular event. Do you guys, either of you have any workshops coming up?

I'm trying to pick the date, but I'm going to be doing one in the Los Angeles area in probably the second or third week of January.

Awesome. So about the same time, mid January, our zone, January 16th.

Right now we're focusing on the scaling your mindset CEO retreat January 27th to February 1st in Costa Rica. So anybody interested in that, let us know.

Scaling your mindset again when in Costa Rica. And how do we.

Yeah, we'll put the URL on your table for the event.

Okay, great.

7Th to February 1st, last week of January.

And then if you can't get to or want to hear something from one of our priorities, speakers at one of our summits or somebody we've talked about or like that. In addition to being on our podcast with the audio content, we also have loads of video content, online lessons at the Growth Institute. So Growth Institute has loads and loads and we're continually adding to it video lessons from our best speakers. And then we packaged a whole group of it into a Scaling up kind of an MBA that we call the mbd, the Master of Business Dynamics. And that's a program that's super, super value. You can put yourself or your high potential execs through that and get a deep training in the world of Scaling Up. So I've had a number of our listeners go on now and go do the MBD program at the Growth Institute, which is our online learning platform. So online learning Growth Institute, the workshops with you can find them all at Scaling Up. You can go to mine at ScalingCoach. We'll find put Judy's link in the and Lisa's links in the show notes as well. And then our summits@scalingup.com so there's a range of things that we've got for you all the time. Of course we now have and we've just rebranded our scorecard. So how do you know how you're doing as a company? How do you keep that visible? We've now got the Scaling Up Scorecard which is our, which is the Align Today platform powered by Align that helps you keep your plans visible and in front of everyone. I want to thank you guys for coming on. Do you want to shout out your URLs and then we'll put them in the show notes as well. Lisa.

Www.Goalglobal.Com and we'll add it in there.

Go Global.

Word for goal.

Goal global.

And Judy www.guido g u I d o or my Italian friends Guido a s s o c.com for Guido or Guido and Associates.com Guido and Associates.

Guido and Associates. And I'm scalingcoach.com youm'll find about 175 of these episodes now as of this and maybe more if you're listening to this later on our so virtually anything that you want to go look for how to create your purpose, how to create your values, how to like create your sales playbook, whatever it is that you want to do. We've got an episode on it if you want to listen while you fly, workout, drive, etc. We've got that@scalenspech.com what's that?

Meditate.

Meditate. Right. And I'll even give you a copy of the book Scaling Up. If you haven't read it yet, just go to the website register, pay the shipping and handling. I'll give you the book for free. I want to give a special thanks shout out to the originator of all things Scaling up the Rockefeller Habits. Vern Harnish.

Yay.

Vern Yay Vern and I want to thank Lucy Summers for producing the show. Our audio production is done at Podfly Productions. The audio is edited by Albert Burge. The show notes are compiled by Ein Codena and proofread by Tim McGowan. If you like the show, we'd so love it if you'd go give us a review on itunes or wherever you get that like it, give us a review there. It makes a big difference for us. You can also pass the show along, share it with somebody else so that we build. We've been growing like 20% a month for a while now, which is really awesome to see that kind of growth and it's because of you and the love you show us. If you want some support with anything we talked about or you want to find a coach in your area, I'm happy to help recommend somebody that is maybe a fit for you and your situation. Send us a note to infocalingcoach.com and we'll get back to you right away. Thanks again for listening. Keep scaling up.

Thank you.

Goodbye everyone. Bye everybody.

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