229: Scaling Up Insights — Coach Panel with Cheryl Beth Kuchler, Cheryl Biron, and Matt Kazam

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Hello and welcome again to the Scaling up this podcast. So we're live now and playback later. Audio only, but we're live. YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. And I just want to remind everyone we bring a new show like this at least every week. We drop the audio on Wednesday morning and then about what's up, we have a conversation with some of the other coaches and talking to them about what's new in the world of scaling up and what's happening with clients, that kind of thing. So beyond just the gurus that we typically come on, we add new shows. We've got over 225 shows now over a few years that we've done so every topic from people, strategy, execution, cash to leadership, there's lots of them. Cheryl's been on before. Cheryl's been on before. We got two Cheryl B's, Cheryl Barone, Cheryl Benson, and Matt Kazam. Matt, first time to the show. Matt is CEO coach in the world of speaking and comedy. And Matt helped me and John Ratliff shout out today to John Ratliff, it's birth.

John. Happy birthday, John.

Happy birthday, John. Our mutual friend Ann got me up on stage to do a setup comedy at Caroline's in New York. And I did 17, 18 minutes of stand up.

Brutal.

Like I've never. I'm pretty comfortable speaking, as you can tell. I was so nervous, I thought I was gonna throw up. I was just beside myself, like, trying to memorize the sad and work it out and like do that in that. Oh, my God. So, Matt, you're in Vegas. Yes. I wasn't pretty. I wasn't pretty until you got on the stage.

But then everything was fine. But it was. Yeah, Definitely one of the more neurotic people I've had to work with for sure.

Excellent, Excellent. Oh, yeah. So Vegas today, Matt.

Vegas.

Yep. Yep.

Nice. And Cheryl Barone.

Yes. I'm in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, outside of Sarasota.

Awesome. A state crazy in its own right. I know all my favorite articles begin. Florida, Man. If there's a face eaten off someone, I'm pretty sure it's Florida.

New York. And lived in New Jersey. So, you know, I'm from New York.

So I do have family and friends. Florida. So I mean it with love. And Cheryl Beth.

Yes, yes. I'm beaming in from outside of Philadelphia in Blackwood, New Jersey.

Awesome. And before we finish, we'll tell you where to find out more about all these guys. If you're looking for a coach at this time, go to scalingcoach.com not only will you find all the episodes and can you subscribe there to get the episodes every week, but you could drop us in and we can help you. There's 200 coaches in our world.

And.

All different styles and flavors and personalities and you should find somebody that fits for you. So if we can make an intro or that kind of thing. Happy to do that. We get inquiries like that every week pretty much. So I think that's enough said by way of intro. Are you guys ready to rock?

Yes, we are.

Yeah. So how are you doing? Before we get into the heat of it, how are things going in your world? I'm guessing you're not on fire, Cheryl. How am I going to distinguish you guys?

You're going to just have to do Cheryl and C. You can just do CB or cbk.

You're all cb. Cbk.

Well, Cheryl Beth goes by Cheryl Beth. You have to say.

Okay, Cheryl Beth.

So if I hear Cheryl, I'm just thinking you're talking to Cheryl Burrough.

Exactly. We've been through this already, right?

Yeah.

I didn't think about this as we lined up who was going to be on the show this month. I didn't think about it at all. Oh, yeah. So not on fire in any of your places. Unlike here, where I am in California.

Yeah. No, thank God.

No fires.

A little stormy.

Yeah. Well, now you start to get that running through. So how are your families doing? What's your latest crisis in this stage of pandemic?

Well, I was gonna say we're actually doing okay there. Like, we just came back from Boston. My eldest is up there. We were there this weekend. I'm getting him. He's been remote. He works for a government contractor up there and he's been a remote since March. So he is going a little bit Crazy. Because he's working from home. Yeah. Working from home. He's a bit of an extrovert and that's. That can be really challenging. Although he has a new roommate and my other.

You should be happy with one.

And my, my beloved youngest is in the hospitality industry. Like, he's like, he's. Yes, he's. Well, he's cooking right now. Like, because our restaurants in Philly just opened up 50% inside dining.

Yeah.

And we'll see how that goes.

I still don't want to do that.

No, we.

Outside, I'm good here.

So, like, outside, you know, I would.

Say, who are these people that like, have to go back to Applebee's? Like, why, like, my life won't be complete unless I can get back to Chili's. No, like, take that home and eat it. You know, unless it's a Michelin five star chef that you have to go and have it cooked there at the moment around other people, you know, it's.

Yeah. And Philly, you know, I mean, Philly is, has a lot of great, like independent restaurants.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a positive because you get a lot of question. But it's a downside because they got.

Not just Applebee's.

Nice restaurants. I get, you know, I get that, you know, even better at 50%, you know, it's even. Oh my gosh, you get better. You know.

I think it's because people don't cook well.

That's another big difference.

We cook, we're foodies. We're just perfectly happy staying home and cooking for ourselves.

Yeah, no, don't you though, get to that point. Like, I really enjoyed cooking. I like cooking. Like, cooking is a creative outlet and a change of something at the end of the day. It helps to create a hard stop usually. But if I worked non stop for a few days, I'm like, oh, order something. I can't cook. I like. It's too, it's too much even that, like, I can take a walk. That's about all I'm good for at the end of the long day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Pizza.

Pizza.

Problems with it. You have to go to the grocery store if you eat, you know, if you eat, then you've got to go to grocery store, which is a bigger deal now, you know, I mean, it's a much bigger deal to have to go to the grocery store. I'm like, oh, I'll cook. And then I'm like, ah, no, you know what, I'll keep the food for tomorrow so I don't have to go to the grocery store and, you know, I'll go eat something out. You know, go eat something. But before it was no big deal just to go to the grocery store. Now you're risking your life every time you do.

Right. So Verne writes recently about Tyler Perry, about doing it his way and working things out. We see in the news today also the Tenet movie is doing crap and they've now delayed the Bond film. And Entertainment's trying to figure out what's what. But it seems to me like the people that are doing things their own way and reinventing things are going to do the best, rather than people that just try to follow industry norms.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what we had Greg Crabtree here in Philly last week or a week ago, I guess now. And one of the things he said he shared with us was he's seen more innovation in the last six months than in the last five years when it comes to entrepreneurs. And I do think that, you know, it's that whole idea of put constraints around something and people will figure out how to make it, how to make it work. And we've seen the same thing. We've seen the same thing with a lot of our clients, people. People getting up to speed real quickly with zoom and just taking a really creative approaches to how they position stuff.

Yeah, this kind of reminds me of during the Great Recession, I. Before I became a coach. I'm an entrepreneur also. And so my transportation company, my husband and I acquired a trucking company with actual assets. And that was right before the Great Recession in 2005 is when we acquired it. And so as the business started to go away, we decided to pivot and reinvent our business. And we sold off all the trucks and with that, all the fixed costs. And then we did a brokerage model throughout the Great Recession. But then after a certain point, we realized that we wouldn't be able to double, triple, or grow to be 10 times the size if we didn't completely change our business models. Then we again outsourced and outsourced to the freight agent model, where the freight agents did sales and dispatch and we ran the back office, and then we ran the back office with a lot of automation because, you know, during the Great Recession, we could adapt and, you know, automate a lot of the things and use technology. And so we came out much stronger back then. It's a similar to this time, I think too, for, you know, a number of entrepreneurs, not everybody. I mean, you know, the hospitality industry, but, you know, like you were saying, Cheryl, Beth, a number of entrepreneurs. Yeah.

And it's gonna. The ones who are gonna be successful, the ones who realize we are never going back to what we were. We're never going back. I'm working with a commercial real estate company right now that knows the tenants aren't coming back. So they're reinventing themselves as a virtual landlord, trying to provide all the gaps. Because these people, yes, it's one thing to go, hey, listen, work from home, but they're not set up to, to, to, to, you know, measure the productivity to create a culture of now remote workers. You know, I mean, you don't want just people working from home. You still want a culture. And so this virtual landlord who knows that his tenants aren't coming back, but he already has those connections with those customers and is pivoting, but he is pivoting not just for the short term, but this is what it's going to be. And I think a lot of people think, oh, I just got to pivot for the short term. But really the ones who are going to come out of this, like myself, I mean, I'm selling humor In a post pandemic world, all of these people now are trying to find a way to help people unpack this. I'm getting more work now and more traction from the wellness departments when before I was the leadership buckets, the sales buckets, and now, you know, the wellness bucket, smaller bucket. But this, they're coming to me now, you know, because. So I've shifted the business from, hey, listen, you know, the coaching business is one thing, but now bringing, you know, humor back to the workplace is now my priority. And now knowing that that's actually going to be something that I always was positioning. After AI decimated the workforce, we're now going to have to treat that human better because you needed a robot.

Can't do that.

They're going to realize that, you know, you're going to have to retain them. So bringing them back in and as a way to connect them and engage them and make them feel safe and happy. And the data, since I get the data, then I'm going, okay, now we're checking every box here because of the mental health aspects, and that's what scares them the most, is that there's no track record for this. We have no idea what's going to happen after this. So, you know, it's nice to pivot and go, hey, listen, yeah, it's working now, but what is the world going to look like once this is over? You Know, it's not going to be the same by any stretch. And that's opportunity, though.

You know, that's the key for all of our folks through everything, through their cash model, through their pricing, through their strategy, their people, all the things is, how do you be different? What is there that you could do that's not the same as everyone else to stand out, to approach the world in a new way. I have a friend here with a very worthy nonprofit, and they have not been able to raise money this year. It's very worthy, it's still timely, still relevant, and yet they've really struggled because all of their ways of doing things are past based. On the other hand, my wife and her friends started something that was, in the moment, done for the time and all that. They raised 700 grand in a couple of months. No problem. Boom, boom, boom. For a local charity to help the Bay Area. Some of this stuff here. What's different is one is different and unique and for this time, and then the other one is used to work. Yeah.

Still, one of my favorite quotes during this time was from Deb Gabor about how can we be indispensable at this time? That type of strategic conversation, like, what are those needs that people are struggling with or in pain around? And then how can we help provide that? But it requires a paradigm shift for a lot of folks.

Well, I think that John Ratliff. Shout out again to John Ratliff. Happy birthday, John.

We're gonna sing.

We should sing Happy Birthday. So John called this out, and I've been talking about this almost every week that we've been going. But at the beginning of the pandemic, I said, oh, shit, all my clients are gonna be in trouble, and they're gonna cut out all consultants. And although I never like to be thought of as consultant, they're going to think of me as a consultant, and I'm going to go to, like, zero income. I have to live off my retirement money. I don't want to do that. And I want to be engaged, busy. So I just started giving away work. I'm like, who needs help? Let's be indispensable People need anyone as an advisor right now, especially someone with some experience and that kind of thing. So I just said, if you need help right now, like, as the whole shutdown began, call me. I'll coach you for free, if that's what you need. Pay me what you can. And we got super, super busy. And I've continued to add clients and stayed very full, in fact, above where we used to be through this time and even managed to give clients and leads to other coaches who need stuff because of that and because of being out and being relevant. I think more than anything else, John said it's because you were willing to do it without any expectation of compensation that you now make more money, which is perverse. Right?

But there was no compensation to be had. It was so funny. I mean, I kind of did the same thing when it first happened, but there was no way you were going to be able to, like, get a new client in that first six weeks of lockdown. I mean, people were numb. We didn't even know how to do business during that time. So it was a great idea to go there and do it, but there really was no other choice. You know, I mean, like, I act like because you work, it wasn't like you can go knock on somebody's door and be like, hey, I want some money. During this time, nobody was giving up anything. You know, we didn't know what was gonna happen. There's no stimulus bill yet. So kind of the same thing where I was like, I went to, like, first responder, second responder mode. Whereas. How can I help? How can I help? And for me, it's. I can make people laugh. So I started doing virtual shows and virtual whatever I possibly could for people and just come on in and. And. But not with any expectation of anything. Probably for the first time in my life, you know, with no expectations. But now those programs have turned into my virtual offerings now because that was kind of my lab. I was figuring out what people needed and tinkering with it for free. And now it's, you know, it's. It's real streams of revenue for the business.

Yeah, that's hopefully become our, like, because, I mean, our March. I think March 16th will, like, go down in. Because that's the week they announced lockdown in our area. And I remember scrambling and God bless Andy Bailey actually, you know, is one of our Petra Scaling up coaches, actually had a webinar where he, like, had these thought leaders coming on just to give resources for his clients. And I was like, what a great idea. I'm like, andy, I'm stealing your idea. So that's what we did back in Q2 was we had Crabtree come in and talk about, like, planning and fiscal responsibility and. And putting together your weekly cash flow. And then we had Deb Gabor coming. Oh, Randy Nelson, who decision. And he did a whole weeks later.

And.

And it works well during Q2, having all those folks Come in that we're now doing it in Q4. You know, similar types of thing. We have Marissa Levin coming tomorrow and Karen Kopp is going to come to talk about BB and sales and, and I'm just real. And Darius of course is like, he's, he's actually going to be January on his core values book. But. And it's all complementary back to what you guys were just saying, like, yeah, you're not charging for this. This is just us trying to bring stuff that's going to be useful and applicable and practical to the people.

I also went into giving mode then too and just spent a lot more time with people just helping them try to figure out how are we going to make it through or how much cash do we have on a daily basis or a weekly basis, depending on the client to make sure that they didn't run out and that they just could make it through. But then I had some who weren't as affected because they were essential businesses similar to the transportation business that I do still have on the side. They were outdoor businesses that are services that are needed. And so some of them really did a good job of keeping going and just making it through.

Here's another thing I think that's useful. The next item from Vern's insights is an item about something that mostly has happened, although some people are still doing these things. He talks about Studio sheds, adus, that kind of thing. We put in a Tough Shed brand. He writes about the jump 14x jump in studio shed, people putting up offices, sheds, that kind of thing. We moved out of our office of 24 years. We had two businesses in an office in the same building for 24 years. And we finally moved out of it because we're like, we don't want to go in all the time. And there were other issues with one of our tenants, that kind of thing. So we moved out of our office and, and we moved one of the business home. I just started working from here all the time, not traveling as much. And my assistant Lucy, who's in the background here producing and rocking and rolling for us, she moved her stuff home. So she had an office, I had an office, we had a conference room for client sessions and all that kind of thing just got out of that. Then we bought a Tough Shed brand which is actually sort of right out the window there. Right out the window is. And down the ground floor is this Tough Shed unit. We moved all our storage in that. Then we moved the other business into the other adu. And I think that's happening. But what does that mean for your traditional offices? How will those get reconfigured? Where will you be comfortable or not comfortable working? Should you even bother? So many companies now we're hearing, are saying, well, what will it look like in the future? And maybe people come back for meetings or for occasional work or because their house isn't big enough, their apartment isn't big enough. Right. It feels to me like this is a where is the puck going? Kind of opportunity. Because what does it mean for commercial real estate, for office space, for the design of the cubicle, that whole world, Right.

Yeah. It's an advantage for some companies if they don't need to have the office and then the employees also if they don't need to, if they're working virtually anyway, they might as well move out of the city. And I know of a bunch of people who have done that, moved out of the city or renting, the city being New York, and are renting out in Connecticut or other places. And then there's a big influx of people down to my town, Lakewood Ranch, actually, just because people are wanting to get out of the big cities and they can work remotely. But there are other people, I think that working remotely is not as much of a luxury because they don't have the space. And these sheds, you know, for some of them could be an opportunity. But also for those people, you know, just getting out of the house and getting back into an office is better for them as a human being in relation to their family life.

Yeah. There's a joke I do where I'm like, For the last 32 years, I've been doing stand up, anyone with a job and more than a half mile commute, or they would say, I want to work from home. Why wouldn't they let me work from home, Let me work from home. Now they get to work from home. Remote work fantasy. The kids were at school, so I like the trailer because you can escape from the kids. You can at least hide from the kids. Even though the trail is probably fun to them. It's like a clubhouse. You're not going to get rid of them. But like two weeks into the quarantine with the kids at home, they were like, I take my chances with the virus. But really not everybody can cut the cord. You know, some people don't know who they are without that commute that going to the office, you know, so there's gonna be after a lot of, you know, for a lot of people, you're like, oh, everybody wanted to Work from home. But first of all, we got to get the kids back in school. And then second of all, somebody's gonna have to teach them how to be them working from home. You know, I mean, it's not just, you know, sleep till 10, watch the view, send a few emails and go home. They are now going to have, you know, metrics on you to track your productivity. I mean, they still can expect you to work. And so, you know, but I think there are a lot of people who need that social aspect of going to work and they miss it. And if it's taken from them. Again, you have to understand what's being done to the human asset. Remember, I'm the comedian. I get them after they spend eight hours at the office, office. And I go, what the hell is being done to them? You know, I mean, which is why, you know, my passion has always been tried to bring humor back to the workplace because I've seen the effects over 30 years of when they had it and now they don't. And, and, and now especially, you know, they, it, it needs its place there to just help us deal with all.

This, you know, well, and then, and then there's the companies. Like, you know, we have several manufacturing clients, you know, some in the healthcare space. You know, they don't, they don't have that option. Like they, you know, you know, we, I mean, we spend a lot of time. The other thing that we, we have is that we had actually again before COVID where we had a slack channel for everybody so that they could share best practices and that type of thing. And that's been one of the ongoing conversations is what's the, what are the safety constraints like splitting up shifts. I mean, that was actually a big part of our conversation the last six months was how do you go to work safely.

Yeah.

Not just work remotely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just got back from doing a live session with a client yesterday. We did most of it outdoors. We had a meeting room with more than six foot separation inside and then open doors on two walls. So big spacing. And we kept our indoor things, generally wear our masks inside, except when drinking our coffee or whatever, and did as much as we could outside. And I have another one coming up this week that's all outdoors. It'll be in the backyard of one of the leadership team. So we're starting to do some of that in a blended way. I like the outdoor thing, except pretty soon the rains and the cold and that kind of thing will begin. We won't be able to do that as much.

That was Trump's justification, though. I'm doing all my events outside. I'm not going to get oh my God.

And all those people got sick. Well.

We'Ve actually done the same thing, Bill. We, we've. Our, our CEO think tank annual retreat was supposed to be back in June. We finally did it in September and thank God. The place we had has all open. Like it's, it's undercover, but you could open it up. We had relatively nice weather, it was a little windy, we had problems with paper blowing. But people were so grateful to just like. Back to your. Your point, Matt. Like to interact. Even if you had to have a mask on, like it worked.

You know, it's easy. You get comfortable just putting a mask on and going to the grocery store and then doing some of the other things. Unless, like I have a brother who still gets full Tyvek suit and goggles and everything. He looks like a spaceman. He goes up, he's very, very worried. He's had some health issues in the past. I've had blood pressure and what's that other stuff that gets in your arteries, right?

Cholesterol.

Cholesterol, Shit. Clog it up. You think about that. But after a while you do get kind of complacent. I've had all range of friends get very sick, be in comas, that kind of thing. But even I with those kinds of things was starting to get a little. And then last week, a dear friend died rather quickly, like he was. Well, he's an entertainer. He was still doing. I don't know exactly all the circumstances, but Jack Pollard passed away last week in a very short period of time. He was older and African American, so he had higher risk impacts like the thing. It's tragic in some of these cases. I think it's a good reminder that adapting is important. And even after we go back, there are some people that are going to be a little terrified. Even after there's cures and remedies and things like that and vaccines, people will be worried about the next thing.

Let's just get through the vaccine part of it. And I have clients in Canada and UK and Europe. It's all getting locked down there. It's worse. The second wave, everything that we're fearing is happening all over the world now, and yet we're not even. We talk about it kind of anecdotal or whatever, you know. But it is a second wave is coming. And that's the other thing too is you should be preparing for what that's gonna look like and then God, once the vaccine is here, that's a whole nother nightmare that we're all gonna go through. So, you know, I think you can only look at it in short doses.

But you think there begins some controversy and some conspiracy around the vaccine. I don't know what you're talking about. 5G microchip wear masks, you know, I.

Mean, how long is it going to take us to get everybody to do a vaccine?

You know, so, so speaking of more impacts, right. Was it last week? Now already I have no sense of time anymore. When we had the summit, we the Airbnb co founder on Nate. How do you say his name? Blacharzik. Close enough. So I think there were a few things interesting one, you might have thought that Airbnb was gonna tank, but it's doing pretty decent right now. And I know that my wife has always preferred Airbnb over hotels for access to a kitchen and a little more space and a little less corporate environment, whereas I've always preferred hot hotels. But now I don't want to be in an elevator that other people are going in and out of and I don't want that lobby anymore where I would love to do my work in a, in a better lobby, but. And next week I travel to a client and I'm staying in an Airbnb for a few days. I do worry are they cleaned. Right. But anyway, the point of the article was more about their structure and their KPIs and the way they implemented Daily Huddles, which we highly recommend and recommend people either double down or add them or implement them if they haven't yet. But then also the way that they structured the roles as co founders and figured out how to represent different voices, how's that impacted your client? What do you guys see?

Well, I like, I mean I've always, I've always thought that the. You at least needed two folks, right. So you know the integrator visionary idea like having inside out. There's another inside blueprint to a billion. That idea that you've got that outside facing CEO, the one who's going to be more visionary, more strategic and. And then you've got someone who's more operationally focused. Like you do need those. I know that's not exactly how Airbnb works, but I think it recognizes the complexity.

And reading that article kind of reminded me because in our transportation business, I a CEO, my husband Louis coo. But in talking, in reading the rules that they set in the article, they were saying to pick the right partner. Well, we're married, so we were the right partners. But then to set expectations and define the roles and responsibilities and distribute the responsibility. So who is going to do what? And since I was the face of the company, he liked being in the background. You know, we're all leveraging our strengths. And so I think this is a really great idea for companies because it would enable people to divide and conquer and leverage their strengths, but it has to be the right partner. And then the other thing they were saying in the article is that you have to link their compensation as a unit so that they're all compensated on the same as a one unit. And that in my husband, in our case, it was true because it was our company for our family. But in other companies, if you have their compensation based upon how they're succeeding as a whole for both sides of the operation, then that really is one of the key things that they mentioned.

This is a classic thing, though, right? Complimentary partners. It runs through our entertainment. Laurel and Hardy, Evan Costello. Right. Oscar and Felix. Jekyll and Hyde is maybe more like more of our company.

You know, it's so funny when you talk about comedy teams. Most comedy teams hate each other in history, you know, that I've worked with. You know, there's a famous one now that o' Brien and Valdez. And o'. Brien. Valdez is blind. And the other guy, you can see. And so he needs him to take him on the road. You know, they need. The blind guy needs. But these two hate each other. And if he didn't need him to see, you know, be the sighted one, he would never work with this guy in a million years. And every radio. So, you know, I think about those kind of things, too. It's like, oh, I wish I had somebody else help me make the decisions. But end of the day, you know, I kind of like being the one that has to make the decision, you know, I mean, so, you know, I can see the benefits of having another voice and that. But at the end of the day, the two of you have to agree on one thing and execution becomes, you know, you know, less certain if I think if there's two of you, unless it's the perfect two people. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've seen more bad partnerships like. And I have.

Yeah, I haven't. Castello Costello probably wanted to kill him.

Right?

Yeah, you're right.

Yes. I mean, it's great that they. If you can find them. My. My husband wasn't willing to work with me.

Cheryl well, people said we were crazy. You know, they, they pull them aside and say, you really want to work with your wife? I would never work with my wife. But you know, we managed to do it. We're just in line and in tune. And so picking the right partner, if you can find that is you know, the first key. And then the egos that, you know, one person wants all the credit and all that business, you know, just separating and having people work towards their strengths. The other thing they said, well, would be good for retention because a lot of people will leave a leadership team because they get passed over for from being CEO. And so, you know, you might be able to retain more people too, which is a big issue at all levels right now in business.

Well, that, that key, right. There's lots of different roles in the company. There's functional roles, there's process roles and then there's stylistic roles. I'm really great with the team, I'm really great with the customer. I'm great with systems. I'm you know, different people great with different things and, and being representing the different voices and perspectives. Right. I'm a good executor. They're a good strategy person. That one's great with the relationships and things and that one's a great evangelist. That range of it is really good. I think most of our key contacts are usually CEO, right? They're executive founder, strategic oriented things. They might be strong in those, but that complementary side and giving away, embracing the difference for the operational thing, shout out to Cameron Harrell who runs the COO alliance which is really about developing a very complementary set of tools. So his partner Brian Scudamore, both of them were users of the scaling up framework and early students of Vern and grew that now over $500 million business, the O2E brands when it huddy got chunk and I forget the name of the other like racing to try to find those names anyway. So Cameron now runs the COO alliance that develop, finds, develops and gives a resource to the COO who brings that operational integrator type execution person to that partnership.

Right.

Makes a huge difference. I worked with my wife for 10 years.

How did that go? Bill.

You know.

I would like it really worked in terms of our total life. We did it after 2001. We used to have three companies and then we shut two of them down and we focused on the one that she had started and I came in as CEO and it definitely had its ups and down moments and there were places that we didn't agree. But when it worked best. We recognized and respected that each of us had a different role and honored the difference in perspectives. And so we're a lot alike in many respects, and so very often we would knock heads. But I think the separation for a couple in particular is really challenged because getting the business out of your head at night to be with the family or to be romantic in any way is a harder transition to make.

That's why my book is called the Hot Tub Manifesto, because a lot of our great ideas came after work, quote, unquote, where we were just sitting in our hot tub and brainstorming for the business. But, you know, yeah, when I'm in.

A hot tub, I'd like to have other ideas than business ideas.

I know, I know, I know.

Remind me, never going to hot tub with you, Bill.

Rest assured, I'm not going to have any ideas about you. Well, I think that was the thing, like looking at the evolution of Airbnb plus that thinking of, is it a two person job? I don't know if it's a CEO, that's a two person job. But the notion that there are different roles to be addressed and thinking about each of the key roles that needs to be addressed within a company, whether you like them or not, whether they should be your role or not, are really different things.

Well, I mean, so many CEOs, and Bill, I'm sure you do too. It like, you know, these networking things we go to, none of them want to run the company anymore. They all speak, they want to, you know, get the podcast, become Gary Vee. You know, I think about Gary Vee, thank goodness he's not running the company on a day to day basis. The guy guy's making, you know, a thousand videos a day. You know, I mean, you know, that guy running the company, actually running the company. So, you know, I think, you know, and that's why Cameron, you always see him at all these events, all the things Burns events, you always see them there because the CEO becomes so much more important now because everybody, every CEO wants to be a rock star now. And you know, that take time and.

Energy, you know, so we also had, of course, Sir Richard Branson on the summit as well, talking that kind of the ultimate rock star CEO, right? His, his outfit and his hair always just so to create that right lifestyle image. Here I am talking to the face.

Of the brand and that's, you know, thank goodness, you know, my coaching business, you know, when there was speaking and there was, you know, a lot more public events, you know, that's what I did was write the jokes and write the copies so that can engage people that way and be the rock stars they want to be. And, you know, but. But that part of the business is part of the business, you know. And, you know, the run of the day today could be the CEO's job.

You know, for sure. Well, SpaceX is a good example of that. Right. Everybody associates elon Musk with SpaceX, right? But there's a woman actually running the thing and she doesn't get nearly enough attention. That's a whole other show that we could do. So we'll have to get Matt off and maybe me and just have a little talk about getting more focus on female executives and entrepreneurs. That company's really running. So I think another one that comes up a lot, especially people are thinking about right now in this time of great change, is what's my purpose in life? What's my legacy? And Vern wrote about Chuck Feeney, co founder of Duty Free Shops, who's given away $8 billion. He's not exactly broke today, but he's pretty much given away all his money and left himself a very comfortable but very small living. So he's just a. I think he's a multimillionaire from a multi billionaire right today. So he's got enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life, but he's given it all away. And there's something great about that, like letting your money be a vehicle for the things that you're most passionate about that express your highest values. We've had Lynne Twist on before the show. She's a dear friend as well. In the Bay Area here, who talks about the soul of money, Right? What is your money? Is your money a tool of evil or does it really just represent whatever? It's just a powerful abstract instrument to transfer value. And so would it transfer and flow through you for something that you really care about?

Right.

But you can still keep a billion just in case when you die. But it's like, you know, how much.

Do you really need?

You know, it's a but. But, you know, obviously. And, you know, I think that's the future. You know, I always talk about this, why telling your brand story, origin story, why people? Because these younger people, they won't spend a nickel unless they're saving an otter or a beaver or, you know, helping the elephants or the planet. So, you know, evolved enterprise is going to be more and more important going forward. So this is a case of a guy doing it after, but should have been doing it probably all along, you know, and then he would have to give it all away at the end, you know.

Well, he also though, said it's important to give while you live instead of when you're dead. So he was kind of doing that in a way, you know, and he said it was important not to delay because, you know, you want to have the impact and then you can actually see the impact of your giving and, you know, why should everybody wait until you're dead?

So seems super satisfying, right, to be able to see it, observe it, feel it, and then make adjustments to it.

Right.

But this is a whole group now that are thinking about how do we give away everything before we're gone? How do we leave with nothing? Right. There's not a lot of point in bearing yourself in a, in a Rolls Royce.

And that was Sam Simon from the Simpsons. You know, he got cancer and then it was his mission to give it all away before he, before he passed and he did, you know, so, you know, you definitely see it and, you know, thank goodness, you know, I mean it. But I do think it's. It's giving it away, but basically embedding that into the business, you know, I mean that, that it's part of the, you know, part of the brand to give it away as you're going. Not just I'm gonna accumulate and then I'm gonna give it away. It's just gonna be part of the day to day of what we do.

They gave 10% and built a school in Haiti for children who needed a school as a project that they, you know, supported and they felt like, you know, giving them as they go and it was a line item in their budget.

Sure, yeah.

That's what you were talking about.

Yeah, yeah.

We've just started reminding clients often in this quarter about the one page personal plan not to really start it yet, although some are beginning it now because they're reexamining and reassessing their lives. But most of the time we're doing it between Christmas and New Year's, when business is the quietest in North America anyway, and they're assessing their lives in the year and that there's going to be a lot of that this year. Even if the beginning of 2021 doesn't actually look that different. I suspect that it won't be. That we're not going to have a vaccine in the next few weeks and it's going to be widely available. Seems a very far stretch from where we are now. Although this is a year of surprises. Not all of them good.

Which one was good? Which one was good?

Quiet, the environment, time with family.

Yeah.

Okay, all that up real quickly.

Netflix, if you're a shareholder of Zoom.

Cobra Kai was good. You're right. Cobra Kai was Cobra Kai.

Yeah.

You've got to be pretty old to.

Appreciate Cobra Kai is from the city, I think.

Well, along with that, we, we did an interesting. Because my folks know that I'm like pretty much of a stickler for their plan and, you know, making sure that their quarterly brocks are all in alignment. But because we didn't know what was like, I mean, literally back in July, when we looked at our first half, we're like, okay. I said, for the only time I think in the history and going forward, I'm going to give you guys endless mulligans. So we're all setting our second half goals, but if you know that whatever hits the fan and the world goes sideways, we get mulligans. Like we're gonna. But we're gonna proactively. They state that because we don't know. And we still got an election that's, you know, four weeks away. Right.

Like there's a series of mulligans.

I think that's so profound, Bill.

All right, I'll put that on coffee cup just for you. What if your name was Mulligan? How would you feel about that? Might be brutal to go through middle school with Mulligan as your last name. So reminder to everyone, a couple of tools that I think have made a big differ world for people right now. So one is Growth Institute, right? If you're not going to conferences and classes and things like that, how do you develop yourself in your leadership team? The Growth Institute has, I'm going to misquote, but loads and loads ton. Many a bazillion classes online and the demand for their stuff and the way that it's working today. And they're investing in more and more, they've upgraded the platform. So Growth Institute, great place to do deeper dives on all the tools and topics that we talk about. We combine Growth Institute tools for our clients and then we have some people now that come in to do the mbd, the Master of Business Dynamics. That's an online course that they go through like an mba, but focused on entrepreneurship and high growth companies where they learn the basics of scaling up and all the source material. We're a best of framework that brings the best of the best things in all the four decision areas together. So MBD course is a multifaceted course like an mba, but all online. And then we combine a little bit of coaching via phone or zoom or a combination thereof to help people bring their whole leadership team. Not just the leader. The leader has to level themselves up, but the whole leadership team when they start to learn and level up the company. We can bring that stuff down in. Then you can have folks like Darius Meshazadeh, who sells his company for.

A.

Comfortable thing goes, writes a book, starts podcasting and live streaming every five minutes. And singing so beautifully. If you haven't heard Darius sing an intro for one of his guests.

Yeah, you don't want to.

So you know, he's so fear like if what's. It's not fearless. It's just he's so like, he doesn't care, Bill. It's just I'm gonna be like a little kid who's gonna fully embrace his dorkiness and sing badly off key with full gusto. Right. Fully throwing himself. It's very, very, very charming. And I'm way more committed to looking cool and not singing if I don't sing. Well.

You do do stand up though, Bill.

I did do that. And not all of that looks good.

That looking cool chip has sailed. You, you.

There's not much you're gonna do for.

A guy who's done 47 triathlons.

I think the number gets bigger every time. I don't have to do any more triathlets. You'll tack another one on each time for me till you break 50. The other tool, I think in our world that's really, really relevant. Well, there's two more really. So three tools. So Growth institute online learning. The other one is Align Today. You could use other. There are other systems and others that could be used by that. One of my friends here, 15Five, lovely tool for reporting. They've added okr management, similar idea, but 15.5 is purpose built. I mean align today. The scaling up scoreboard is purpose built for scaling up. So it's designed around that. Integrated now with Zapier and Slack, I think and a couple other things so you can do some integration with it but managing your quarterly priorities, that kind of thing. Have some kind of tool. And we've got a great purpose built one that's really, really easy to implement and they are adding more to it all the time so that you can track and do that. If you think about Rockefeller Habit number 10 situation, room dashboards, things like that, having the plans and performance of the company visible to everyone so everyone knows where the company stands. If you're not in the flipping office. How do you know? You got to take that dashboard and move it online in some kind of an active way that actually works. And Scaling Up Scoreboard is the one that we use in our practice and more of our clients use than anything else, than anything. Sort of homebrewed. But having anything is my first. And then if you want something that's really. You're a Scaling up fan, try that tool. Then the last thing, of course, is our online workshops. We just did one. I don't know. We had 43 people in it. Lucy, roughly. She's nodding at me. Behind the scenes. So good little. But that's still intimate enough that each team can talk amongst themselves and we can hear some things like we do it online here. They're fun. They're punctuated with humor and music and interaction. And it's not just a webinar slideshow, one way kind of a thing. You've got one coming up, don't you?

It's on November 18th and it's actually that two hour Reimagine youe Business webinar so that people can start off strong in 2021.

Yeah. Great time to be rethinking and reimagining where things are going and updating. I mean, not necessarily getting out of whatever, but adjusting, pivoting, right? Exactly. Yeah. We'll throw the link up there for folks. If you're watching or look in the show notes or look on the screen, you'll find a link there to the event that you can go to it too. So we do them all the time, all over the world. Of course. Now, because so many of them are online, I think we'll probably soon do our first in person Outdoor one and we'll experiment with that in some appropriate venue. But we've been doing them via Zoom and I have people dialing in from India, from Hong Kong, from New Zealand, from the Middle east, from Northern Europe, all over. We've had people coming into our workshops. So because you can connect on from a Zoom session and yet still be interactive, not just be watching like a pre recorded video kind of a thing. So yeah, super cool. So speaking of being online or online too much, right. People are complaining about Zoom meetings. Make them real, make them fun, be human, I think can make a difference. But Vern reminds us to stop doom scrolling. Do you guys find yourself doom scrolling?

I have never done that. I just don't do it because it's too depressing. I mean, what's going on in the world? So I just. You Know, don't obsess over bad news. And I say, you know, I'm a student of positive psychology. So I say, you know, if I can't control it, then just do what you can and move on. Go out and boat, you know, whatever it is that you can do and move on. And that's really what I do and try to help my clients, help my family, support other entrepreneurs. I'm an EO member and so, you know, I have a lot of interactions with entrepreneurs there as well, in addition to my clients. And then most recently going shopping for my mom, you know, keep her out.

Of COVID You gotta have something that gets you going. I think if you're, if you don't find yourself doom scrolling, there's some other three other individuals. One of them was Mickey Food. And I know some of us are dealing with the crisis. How are you handling things?

Me, I can hear the music now. Everybody else can.

Yeah. Did you hear the unmistakable sound of a bong?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

You know, it's. I mean, he's talking about not doing. But at the same time, again, we were trying to take an approach again over the last couple months where we made sure that our folks had access though, to the right information. And so a lot of it is reading past the headline. Somebody actually just posted on LinkedIn this morning about Twitter is putting out stuff now that says read past the headline in order to give people. Because we were learning about the virus. And science is not like, it's not like Google. You just Google it and you get the answer. Like science isn't a big experiment in order to keep people up to date during all of this. And you know, we work with like 25 or 30 companies at any one point and give them the most accurate information. I mean, I was probably watching news more than I ever have watched in order to be able to make sure that folks had that information. And that said, I ended up having to take a hiatus in the last few weeks because it just got really, really. It does get really overwhelming. And trying to find it from a. I'm trying to get this information to help people.

Sure, yeah.

But you realize where you're getting the information. The people who do, they scroll will click on anything.

Right.

Forget about where it's from. I mean, you know, so literally it's just consuming horrible information for horrible information's sake. You know, the rest of us got to sifting through it, trying to find the truth, or at least some measure of the truth.

Trying to get the news from Facebook instead Of, I mean, I, you know, the Financial Times, the Guardian, the economists. Those are actually some of the key.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm not, not ignoring the news, but I definitely am not obsessing over it. But it is true that if you read through articles and educate yourself versus thinking, oh, it's in print, it must be true. They just click on random things. Like you were saying, Matt. You know, I definitely.

Will share something from like, you know, the Focus Institute. Who the hell is the Focus Institute? You know, I mean, you know, I'm leery of even posting. Mainstream media these days, forget about, you know, sharing, just. But, but they think it's, it's, it's a weird populace we have here. And, you know, and, and there's so many people that will feed because now it's like someone else will kind of give you that opinion and then you make that opinion your own, and then you're just consuming everyone else who, who now knows you're on that side. You know, I mean, never has it been so easy to, you know, there's not 15 different beliefs out there. There's two. So.

I'm so driven by confirmation bias. But we keep, we click on the things that fit our existing fears and beliefs and that kind of thing, and we just reinforce that and we follow and thumb up our friends who share things that tend to agree with whatever we are. And if you're getting whipped into a place of fear, like, it, it's, it's tragic. And I, I know that when I'm in a good space, I look at like, innovation, home life. They're fairly positive. What's that?

Cats.

Cats. Cats is not. I don't find cats that entertaining lately.

My daughter's so into cats, we're watching every cat video now.

So technology and cars I really like. And I become more interested in the home projects and funny enough recipes. I'm like, oh, that looks like a good recipe, which is so funny. Like, when would I ever do that? And then somebody in the middle of one of my meetings, yes, yesterday, last week said, meatloaf. And now I'm like, oh, I got to make some meatloaf this week. Because that's just the best lost comfort. I notice in the middle of one meal, I start talking about, what am I gonna make for the next one? What are we gonna make for dinner.

In my family?

Oh my God. My wife's like, what is wrong with you? Like, you're still eating this one. It is better than doom scrolling. Here's what the virus can do to you. Here's how the bad people are. Whatever side of the political value spectrum you might be on right there, the bad people is always the other one. Right. That's what those people are doing. And that is so much in our media. Oh, it's getting bad again over here. Rather than. Here's how they're dealing with it. Right. One of my teams is in New Zealand, and they have now blocked it out again. And that team meets in person in a conference room right next to each other without masks on. And that's normal. Not some ideological stance they're taking. Not a Rose Garden event.

It's also New Zealand. They've done a little better job.

I know. Female prime minister.

They showed all the female countries.

I'm ready as. Guys, we've run it for thousands of years. Let's give somebody else a chance. It might be that we're not so smart as we think we are.

Yeah.

Maybe we should stop and ask for directions. Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. So, you know, maybe one of our last items for the week is Darius Massazadeh. Shout it again. How many times have we mentioned Darius? He says Darius. I'm used to saying. We'll use the Persian native pronunciation. Dariush. Meshazadeh. He's Darius because he grew up in the United States. Right. Even though his family is Persian. So he's a badass. Right. He was in my chapter in San Francisco for IO. He's a badass. And I was launching the accelerator program here some years ago, and Darius was one of our first coaches in that program. Darius calls me up the night before because he was at having a newborn and all that. He says, I can't do this. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? You can't quit the night before. I've got five people who are expecting you who need you tomorrow. You need to show up. And then you could replace yourself over the coming weeks. But you don't get to call me the night before and quit when there's five people looking for you as a coach. So I can be such an asshole sometimes. So he says yes. He ends up loving it. And at that time, he was launching his last company, and he went from a handful of people to a thousand in just a couple of years. And you were coaching him.

I was.

Now he's got a book out the core value equation. So, Cheryl Beth, tell us about hilarious growth in the book and all that.

It's your job to talk now for the next Whatever.

Yeah. So here. Go 30 minutes.

I mean, it's actually just give love out his way. Well, I mean, honestly, going back to our earlier conversation, right. About it takes two people. Like, the. The real secret for Darius was Ali and having. Because Darius is a bit of a wild card, as you know, if you're familiar. So if you're familiar with. I'll just. He probably. He'll be fine with this.

I'm about to reveal his personal things.

If you're familiar with strange strengths finder. Right. And they have four different dimensions of strengths finder.

Right.

Execution, influence, relationship, strategic. Darius has every single influence talent. So, like, he could sell ice to Eskimos, sand to Bedouins.

100%. Yeah.

He could, like, get anybody to do anything. And. And Ali, on the other hand, is that really analytical coo. Very by the book. And I remember actually when I was. I was being auditioned to be their coach.

To be the coach. Yeah.

Going back a few years. And I went out to.

He didn't ask me to audition. I'm gonna say that's because we were friends.

And he. We went. I went out to New York and they're like, oh, let's come out and just spend a day with you and we'll pay you. And. And I was like, okay, that's fine. And the two of them were just fascinating because Darius is like this very strategic. I mean, he's the pink unicorn all over again. And he was the one who really sold Ali on the idea that we need to have values that matter and values that make a difference. And Ali was the one who would keep him on the straight and narrow. He just occasionally would glance at him during the meetings, like, do you really mean pulling him back? And so it was actually, I mean, for me, it's hard. It's hard to talk about Darius without Ali because they were a really great example of partners who.

Who.

Who really built and. And they. And they really boosted each other. And similar to what you were talking about before Cheryl, like when they were talking strategy, where they were talking strategy, but they knew where their strengths were and they knew what their weaknesses were. And. And so that's a big part, I think, of why they were successful at growing the business. And I actually have a blog about them that I can send you about how they work together and what made it work, which is a real respect for each other's strengths and understanding where the other person was weak.

So Darius book. The core value equation is out now. He's been pimping it 24 7. As you point out, he's strong in Influence. I'm strong in influence and strategy and weak on the relationship stuff and the execution. But fortunately, I have people around me that keep us good in those dimensions. His whole thing is about creating them. Rich, descriptive, compelling values that really describe how you do things when you're doing them right, and then infusing them deeply into your rituals and traditions around the company so that the company learns from it, operates consistent with it, and as you add more people, they're all part of that, not pulling the company in different directions, right?

Absolutely.

And I think that makes a big difference. One of the companies that I worked with here a few years ago in the Bay Area also belonged to a different. They had like 75 people. They had promoted or hired a woman to be the COO in the company, and she was struggling with people coming in all day long every day just to ask every little question and really struggling. And I said, okay, a couple things need to happen. One is you've got to assign some accountability so that people actually own things. They don't just work on them. So we had to shift and begin to get clear about who owns what. And there's 75 people. You could divvy out some accountability. Right. And in a company that size. And then the next thing is, stop giving them the things. Ask them which values apply. They had developed values, they had articulated values, but they weren't using a coaching style to say, okay, that problem, which value applies? How would you solve that? What do you think?

Right.

And that, I think, makes a huge difference. You just start pushing back on the people and say, not to say. I heard somebody say recently, don't bring me problems if you're not going to bring me some solutions. No, have people bring you problems and then work with them, help them to find the solutions. They wouldn't bring you the problem if they knew the solution on their own. They're going to bring you the problem. And then your job is to help them figure out the solution. And better you help them do that. But the values make all the difference in doing that. We can think from values and we don't need a flipping policy for everything. Right. A huge manual that nobody looks at but you. You can be fired for violating anything in it. That's like government work.

The other thing that values are great for is hiring. So you can make sure the people that you hire share the same values and will, you know, exhibit those behaviors because that will really set them up for success in your company. And as real a player, contributors too.

100%. I talk about this all the time, both with employees and vendors. The Goldilocks principle, right? Goldilocks goes into Three Bears House. One bed is too soft. One bed is too hard. One's just right. One chair's too tall. One's just right. Too hot, too cold. Just right. You've got to find the one that's just right. And what's just right for you might not be just right for somebody else. They're too big, they're too small, they're too irreverent. They're too like, whatever. You've got to find that one that fits your culture at this moment in time and then, and then create opportunities for them to keep growing as they live with you. But that notion we learn from Goldilocks. Maybe I could read two of all of our lessons to children's books and say, you actually learned all this stuff. You don't need us to teach you again. You learned it in grade school. Play nice.

I think there was a thing about kindergarten too, right?

Yeah. 100%.

Yeah.

No.

You know what's been really cool about what you did, the stand up challenge, is all the CEOs now are attracting better talent because people want to work for the CEO who did stand up comedy, because that implies so much, you know, and it's one of the first things I do when I work with companies now where I go, it's got to come from the top. So let's do a sweet C suite stand up challenge. Everybody does five minutes and just so they can see you in that light. But you're also giving them permission now to have fun and connect and then laugh. But it's been really, really cool to watch that part of it because I think it's actions too, that can kind of convey your values. So, you know, seeing, you know, not everybody wants to work at a place where it's fun. I wouldn't want to know who that person is. But, you know, some people want the old serious, you know, different ideas of.

What fun looks like though, right?

You know?

Yeah.

I mean, you know, for some people, it's, it's, you know, bounce house or a bunch of ball, you know, you know, that's fun.

But for some other people, not heavy drinking and putting your ass on the copy. Right?

So, but, you know, like, that's it. It becomes values. That it's, it's that, you know, laughter is important. And again, not just for laughter's sake. Now when I'm doing the talks from the wellness part of it, it's the most powerful thing you can do from a culture standpoint, from a mental health standpoint, you know, and you get credit for the attempts. Like, as soon as you reintroduce it, it works right away. So, you know, it's kind of the same thing, you know, when you go from the top and go, hey, listen, we're going to be a new company now. Here's what we stand for. And we're going to. And we're going to do things that speak to this. Not just that it's words on a.

Page, you know.

That shuts you up.

Well, I was just thinking, you know, the last few years, so the. The comedy thing was part of my getting uncomfortable. And one of my values is never finished. And it's the idea of always learning and growing until I die. And I have a picture of Jack LaLanne that reminds me of that. He was this fitness guru that pretty much worked out till he dropped dead. I used to think that I would somehow arrive at a place at some point and then I'd be done and I wouldn't need to work on anything. And it was stressful because I was always then looking for the next course or the next thing to fix something in me to get me to that done place. And it was somewhat exhausting and stressful because of course, they never did. I walked out the same crummy bastard that I was when I walked out, every time I walked out. Oh, damn it. I'm still human. I still have to pee and brush my teeth and make my bed and all the kind of basic. And I still make mistakes and lie and all that kind of thing, and I'm not fixed. And when I realized I would never be done, it was an extraordinary, liberating thing. I'm like, oh, I'm just going to be like, at work. I mean, now that made all kinds of things possible and joy just in the process of learning. So we created that and I've now worked very hard, whether it's reading a book or especially doing something new and different. And so I saw our friend John Ratliff. Happy birthday, John. So I saw our friend John Ratliff do Stand Up Comedy with Matt Kazam, and I saw his little opening bid and I'm like, oh, I could do at least as good as John. I'm sure I could do better. So I signed up and gave Matt a little bit of money and he started coaching me and working through, developing the material and working through the thing leading up to this big event. And it was really, really uncomfortable. But it is good. Like, it's made me looser with stuff. I'd always been a bit of a public speaker, presenter, influencer, that kind of thing. And then in the early part of my career, I had a couple of embarrassing, uncomfortable experiences that reminded me of embarrassing, uncomfortable things from my childhood. And I shut down and I became. I still spoke, but I became really, really boring and like flat. And I would get feedback that was very like, just not ever excellent. Just like really competent. That's just horrible.

Good.

Not great. And then mixed in with. He's a little arrogant, right? Which I might be. He's awfully full of himself. And sure, I still. I'm gonna die arrogant, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I got that. And then by doing Matt's thing, among other things, I like, loosened way up. I was way more willing. Now I will upset people by dropping an F bomb or making inappropriate references to smoking marijuana or whatever, but that's fine. You should go work with somebody else. You're not my clients if that upsets you. Flip flops are going to be a problem when I show up. It's not. It's not going to go well. But some people are like, oh, we want that, right? That, that, you know, well, you knowing.

Who you are and being true to yourself and then getting matched up with clients that appreciate that and, you know, even more fun to work with them.

Yeah, yeah. Getting to that point in your life where you care a little less. Less fucks given, as they say. And you're like, okay, I'm 56 now. I have some experience, I have some financial security. I approach things a little bit differently. And it does make it more fun for me. It definitely adds swagger, which is always needed with an arrogant guy.

You mentioned that. Because I'm getting a call from a CEO now in Florida who I. In the beginning, I would take anybody because, you know, I needed clients, you.

Know, give me money.

If they were interested in comedy, it was enough. This little dick wants to work arenas. He thinks he's because he's successful, that that's his goal. Because I asked him what their goals are. He goes, well, you know, I probably want to be able to work a thousand seat venues, this and that. I go, this is not usually my guys go, I want to be a better speaker. I want to be a little uncomfortable. This lunatic. So now I'm at a point where he's stalking me, but I won't take him on because the little bit of money is not worth the aggravation. And also I can't deliver on what he wants. He's never going to be able to work thousand seat ventures, so, you know. So it would be wrong of me to take his money. However, we're also in a great depression. I'm going to keep his number, trust me.

Maybe you could bargain with him. What if I just get you to a hundred seats, you know?

Right, right. Well, he did it just to show you how crazy he is. So he booked his first show and kind of produced his own first show. Guess how much time he was doing on his first show?

90 minutes.

Two hours.

Cheryl.

Got it. He's that crazy.

Two hours.

Take his call just to see how that show went, because I suspect I could see the mushroom cloud from the bombing that he, you know, had from Vegas. Because could you imagine going up there for two hours, Bill, your first time?

Well, if I. If I had paid for the whole thing and paid people to clap for me like some North Korean dictator, or if I made not clapping a punishable offense, it might go fine. Yeah.

People have been quarantined. They're desperate for entertainment, but they ain't that desperate.

So I found the mix of trying to remember, like, rehearse, the whole thing was stressful to rehearse 18 minutes and then also be funny and not just get loose with it. That, I think, was the thing that was really challenging if I was going to go up and do it again, which at some point, if we're in person, I might do. But I probably start with five minutes, right?

Yeah, but just what I do, you know, you got, you know, I. I let people do whatever they want to do, you know, I mean, up to 15 minutes, and then that becomes 18 minutes. But listen, the 18 minutes is not.

It wasn't by my design.

It was that once you got up there and started having fun, you didn't want to get off.

And.

And that's okay, too, you know, I. I really thought. And you also had your family there, which. Which had the pressure on it, you know, I mean, to have your wife and your kids in the audience when you're your first time ever doing this thing. And it was. And we don't do it a small scale. You're performing on Broadway. Hamilton is playing across the street. You know, I mean, which.

Which now, yeah, there's a big room of people and there's your family and you're doing your first time. And I threw in things, like, to ring them. I didn't necessarily, like, use it for the whole room, but, like, I threw in sex jokes because I knew my kids are gonna be in the room. And the worst thing of all, the most uncomfortable thing is hearing your parents talk about sex.

So, yeah.

Like, oh, if they're going to be there, we have to put a little of that in just to keep it interesting. Well, let's talk about your projects for a second. But before we do that, I just want to remind you that if the show helped you, if you dig it, please write us a review that helps us reach more people more than anything. So click. 5 stars. Write us a review that'll give us visibility. You can, of course, share it, you can like it, you can subscribe to it. That helps you quite a bit. If you want to give us feedback, drop us a line. Send an email to infocalingcoach.com so infocalingcoach.com is an email where we can get feedback on your thoughts on the show, the parts you like, who you want to have back, like that kind of thing. So we'll bring you one. I want to give special thanks to Vern Harnish, creator of the Scaling Up Framework and the original Rockefeller Habits, and Lucy Summers, who's in the background queuing up comments and things like that, getting people ready before the show and scheduling and promoting and sharing it after. Like she does all that work. Our producer, Lucy Summers. The audio is edited by Albert Burge at podfly Productions and our show notes will be compiled by Ein Kudina and proofread by Tim McGowan. Matt, let's start with you. What are you working on now? What are your courses and programs and things that you've got going on? How can people get funnier?

They left you in is a great dot com is how you can reach me. And right now, like I said, the Stand Up Challenge. We're doing a Thanksgiving stand Up Challenge, if you want to do it. We're doing a virtual family friendly Thanksgiving comedy show with all my alumni and so getting ready for that and then bringing the Stand Up Challenge back. But right now, you know, I'm really bringing the programs, my virtual programs. I have a virtual joke writing workshop which is great for team building and connection, engaging and actually teaching them the science of joke writing, which is, it's been so rewarding because a half hour into it they break out into little, little groups and they start writing comedy as a group. And I'm seeing them apply skills they didn't have a half hour earlier and come together as a group to laugh and, you know, and like I say, unpack some of this stuff. So my virtual programs. But I'm also now trying to sign other people. I just signed the Laugh Yoga guy and be able to give humor based workshops and courses and programs to companies, you know, going forward to, to baby. You know, be able to, like I say, bring humor back at a time when people need it most. So, so right now it's, it's, it's. I'm working more on the culture stuff but still teaching the science of stand up, but more as a form of communication and a way to build connection and engagement remotely.

It does seem like there's an opportunity to bring heart and soul to your brand as well. Cheryl Barone what's, what are you working on? You got the workshop?

Yeah, the workshop coming up on November 18th. It's a Wednesday from 10 to noon on Zoom and you have that link and there's a link on my website as well. I'm really looking forward to it.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Bill Charlo Beth. You've got groups, you've got workshops, you've got everything, right?

I was gonna say you can go to think tank, go to events, check out the Q4 webinars we've got coming up and actually we've just launched a new scaling up foundation program that you can find under programs that's really geared towards. It's six months. It's geared towards all about putting in place the foundation.

Yeah, we're doing a thing like that now with a combination of the online plus coaching. So CEO thinktank.com for Charlotte. You guys are both in the east coast. Matt and I are in the west coast. If the time zones even matter to you? I don't know, we're pretty agnostic about working all over it. It does wonders for my sleep patterns. I want to remind everyone you'll find us@scalytwitch.com, iTunes, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn. Wherever you find your stuff, we post it all over the place. And you guys are probably good music better now, right? So thanks everyone for joining us. Have a great weekend. Go out there, have some fun, make a difference. It will be awesome. Keep scaling.

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