246: Scaling Up Insights — Coach Panel with Karie Kaufmann, Judy Guido, and Wade Wyant

Foreign.

Good afternoon, good evening. Whenever you're listening, we've got different time zones working here. So we're going to talk about some of the best books of last year, about what it takes to be unique, share a great example of being unique, talk about creating value for people in any time, and some really clever pivoting examples. I'm joined by Kerry Kaufman, Judy Guido and Wade Wyatt. Carrie starts San Diego, Judy's in la. Yes. And Wade, where are you today?

Frozen tundra of Michigan.

The frozen north of Michigan.

Yes. We are watching the wall.

So these are all rockstar coaches in the world of scaling up. I'm gonna tell you a little bit more. Let them say a little bit more about themselves in okay. And I'm Bill Gallagher, scaling coach, host of the show. And our show here is all about how to scale and grow your business, no matter what the economy is doing or what industry you're in or what part of the world you're from. And you can find hundreds of episodes now with our experts in the world of scaling up, the gurus, the other coaches, some of our CEO examples, tips, things like that, all that@scalingcoach.com you can also find it wherever you get, like YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, wherever you get your podcast download. So we did live stream here and then of course we got all the audio playback in all of those other sources. So get all that and more@scalingcoach.com along with the show notes, any tools we reference and the contact information. Links to all of our guests and speakers today and every day are right there. Scalingcoach.com Listen in now as we have a great conversation about all those topics and more with Carrie, Judy and Wade. Yes, Wade. Wade, start us off. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you work, your background like that. Introduce yourself.

Yeah, sure. So the, the punchline is, I'm a recovering CEO and.

Entrepreneur is an affliction.

Yeah, exactly. It's exactly right. So, yeah, no, I, I'm a serial entrepreneur and I exited my last business about three years ago, use the scaling up system. I was in love with it. It helped me in ways, like ways I don't. This podcast could never give me enough time to explain and so I decided I wanted to give back and I really wanted to help entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes I made. So I got into this. I've been doing it for three plus years now. I've got quite a few clients up here in Michigan. I'm really focused on Michigan. Don't do much work outside of that and outside of that I've got a family of four, spouse for 27 years and I'm just trying to stay warm here in Michigan in January.

Yeah, I think there's a remedy for that. It's called Mexico.

Yeah. You know what, I'll tell you, I'll get on the first plane out here after this podcast.

Oh, Judy, welcome back to the show.

Thank you.

Wait.

I throw the heat from California, but it's about 42 degrees right now. And I just sent pictures, I've got this beautiful view of the mountains that are all snowy capped right now to my friends back east. So I, you know, maybe a little bit later. But anytime I can, I'm happy to throw that warmth over to you. Judy Gaido, a scaling up coach and also on the Verne Harnish's board of advisors. I've been in business a long time, much like Wade, you know, I'm a recovering chief marketing and sales officer, really focusing on strategy. I would like to refer to myself as a, a business activist. I've always kind of been a rebel and so I kind of look, you know, where everybody's not looking. Where are those gaps? Where are those opportunities? Be contrarian, you know, be in a pond of one. So, you know, Wade and I are our kindred spirits and you know, that's kind of what jingle my bells. I do a lot of work in California, but I do, you know, work all over coast to coast. And I, you know, gone over to the UK to do some work as well. I think probably, you know, I think the thing that's interesting about my jobs, I mean, I've done everything from take a company public on the New York Stock Exchange, which was great right back in 1998, which was a big undertaking. And the only woman on the executive team to do that, done multiple roll ups, done over 100 mergers and acquisitions. And I work with billion dollar companies, but I also work with two people companies and quite honestly, I kind of work with both of those entities the same way because the principles are the same. So I'm very, very fortunate to, you know, I, I love to see where the opportunity is, kind of empower people to help them scale up their businesses.

And Carrie, bring it home. Tell us about.

Thanks for having me. I am based in San Diego. I grew up in a family business. So I worked in the family business for a long time. I got a lot of really great experience, but ultimately thought I was too big for the family business. I wanted to move on. I got my mba, went into corporate America for a long Time. And there is a buddy of mine in the office, just a coworker. And he walks into my office one day and he goes, I met somebody that does something I think you'd be good at. And he introduced me to a coach and that was in 2004. So by 2005 I had met his friend. It really clicked with me, I think because of my experience in knowing what it was like in the real world of growing a successful business, but also the challenges that came along with that. So I jumped right in. So for the past Now, I guess 16 years, this is what I've been doing. So I've got a husband, Scott, of almost 18 years now, a 10 year old, an 8 year old and a 3 month old goldendoodle that hopefully you won't hear today.

The Golden Doodle. A Golden Doodle, the designer hybrid dog.

Yeah, that's like a snappy song. Hey, play piano player, play Golden Doodle for us.

Golden Doodle. So I, it's great to have you guys join the conversation and thanks for sharing. You know, I think it's not just the diverse perspective of the four of us, but then all of the clients that we work with now and in the past that give us such interesting stories to share with the listeners, viewers about what's been going on. So first up, we're talking about reflecting on some of the best books in the world of business for the last year. And Vern named out top five books for crisis, top five books for the year. And the first on the list was Humanocracy. We had Gary Hamill on the show a few weeks ago and I love that his book made the list here. Talking all about not focusing so much on management. Of course, that's our execution framework, right. That gets it done in. But then, so if you've got kind of that created systematically, what could you change in the way you lead people? How could you empower them and give things away? I loved him as a speaker also at one of our last virtual summits and was really happy to have him on. How's this affecting you, your clients?

I'll start if you folks, you know, I describe myself as, you know, as a, as a business activist. Right. And that's, I've been saying that for a while, kind of a rebel with a cause. I always like to refer to myself as. And when I, you know, and I love the book. Right. So orange is my color.

So maybe that right off camera.

Right? There you go. Yeah, get it. But it's, he talks about that like you have to basically stop being a bureaucrat. Right? And you've got to be an activist. Right? And, you know, bureaucracy. Right. You know, and I think his message is wonderful because it's not that consistency and management of sorts and continuity isn't important. It is. It's just when it becomes so big and so mired and so almost militaristic. And I. And he uses the term. I think it's bureausclerosis. Like it's a disease, right? And I love that term. And he said, you know, take that out. And the whole, you know, the whole essence of the book is really about unleashing the human spirit, right? And I don't know about you guys, but I mean, I have been in situations both personally, right. Just, you know, when I. When I didn't have my own business, when I was in a leadership and an executive position where, you know, literally I felt like the life being sucked out of me. Right? And, you know, he mentions in here about. Right. Like, you know, almost losing your soul through bureaucracy. And, you know, we always talk about, you know, people don't join or leave companies. They leave because of people. Right? And part of that, you know, is they leave because of the people on top who've created these really onerous situations of bureaucracy where their souls have been sucked out of them, right? Their spirit has been sucked out of them, their innovation has been sucked out of them, their creativity. And the essence of the book is really about unleashing that human spirit, right? Like, don't de. Skill jobs upskill people. Right. Like, there's plenty of things that, you know, robots can. Can do that are routine, but don't treat human beings like robots. Right. You know, I think one of my favorite lines in here, he said, you know, where there may be, you know, a limited amount of routine things you could do, he's like, there's an unlimited amount of problems that we can solve, Right? And that's what human beings can do if you allow them to be creative, to unleash their spirit, to give them that sense of ownership and community and to reward them, you know, and that meritocracy. Reward them because not because of what their level Is or a 3.1, and, you know, they're not a 5.1. Give them a voice, you know, and that's what unleashes the power of innovation, the power of uniqueness. And it was, you know, I agree with Vern. This is one of my favorite books of the year as well.

You know, I think that one of the challenges that leaders have typically being the smartest ones in the room, Right. They got to where they are because they're usually the ones with the answers. And they're used to being the answer guy or the answer woman. And they're just a professional, you know, answerer. So problems. Yeah. Professional problem solver. Yeah, chief problem solver. So when I've got my clients to accept that they don't have to solve all the problems, and they ask their teams, like, what should we do? Or what could we do better? And one of my favorite questions, one of the highest quality questions I think you can ask yourself is, how can it get better than this? If things are good, how can it get better than this? If things are not good, how can it get better than this? So I've got them to start posing those questions to their teams, like, how can we make this better? Even if it's already great, how can we make it better? When they engage their teams in being creative or solving problems, first of all, they come up with, you know, a lot more and better and more diverse ideas than one person could. Second of all, they own the solutions, right? And they're. They're engaged in the process to implement the change or to do things even when it's harder because it was their idea, their inspiration.

Wade, you gotta mute yourself.

Yeah, there's the line of 2020, right? Yeah, yeah, I muted just out of noise respect. But that kind of backfired on me. I would. I would echo everything you said. And for me, 2020, I started the year with the theme of human potential. And I. I got that because, you know, Elon, a few years, like a year earlier had tweeted out how he said it ends up humans are underrated. And he did that because he found out the automation in his factory, it just. It kind of kind of bit him in the butt and he had to go backwards and focus on the humans. And so 2020, every year I start with an idea or a word to focus myself and my business around. And that was it. Unfortunately, 2020 was the year that it was, but still we saw a lot around human potential. And this book coming out and being a focus book was really dovetailed nicely into that. And for the way in which I use it is ever since Harvard came out with that business article touting the idea of removing the middle management layer, or that the concept that you could. Not touting, I should say the concept could into business that have. And you've seen. You've seen a lot of. A lot of owner. Business owners kind of laser into that, especially when they, when they hear about it or when Vern talks about it in some of his summits. I've always looked for a template to help them. There really wasn't one prior to this. Sure, you could go read that, you could go read about the article and you could go do some research, but there wasn't a good template. Not that this book is, but it's the beginning of that. And that excited me because I say, you know, take this, change your thinking around humans, and then all of a sudden that layer starts to not be as necessary and then you can repurpose them. And the beautiful thing about that as well is that as you repurpose those humans and you unleash them and that unleash that human potential, you're not just going to get the cost savings of that extra layer management, you're also going to get the potential that they have locked up in them that you've never released because you encapsulated it into this almost World War I, World War II thinking of, here's how we go to war, and since then we've gone to business that way and almost 100 years later, we've got to start thinking differently. So to me, that's. It unleashed a lot of the templates that I needed that I just didn't have to help people with. And so that was exciting.

Yeah, we maybe many of us have seen that funny org chart where the head of the company is the chief idea killer and then he's got the VP of no underneath him. And. Right. And you think about a bureaucracy, right? It's a bunch of places and people designed to contain and control something which is kind of the opposite of empowerment, like asking the question and coaching. What do you need next and how would that work and what's most likely to go wrong and how do we deal with that? And like helping people to solve problems, empowering them is very different. There's a time and a place for regulatory bodies and bureaucracies, but hopefully our companies aren't ones. I remember one of my early career things. I learned how to get something done in a big, many, many thousand person organization and start a new division. That was a tough thing. Right, because everybody thinks that they've got the, the shot at killing your idea. Very thick skin. And of course as entrepreneurs we're like, oh, we're awesome. We're not like that. Right. We're the ones out championing stuff. But our customers, our suppliers, our people kill our ideas and then suddenly we find ourselves Being the one who does the same with, with those. If you want to hear a little bit more about that, go listen to the recent episode we did with Gary where he talks a lot about that. He's a great guest, great conversation. He really brings it to life with a lot of stories and examples, that kind of thing as well. One of my biggest takeaways, if you're going to go and empower people, it's lead more with questions, stop solving all the problems, as Carrie talked about, stop telling people what to do, start using questions and being the last one to speak. And I think that, like, as a leader, that's kind of the personal shift. I think that that makes all the difference in the world.

Bill, I was going to say one of the two words that always go together that I hate. And people like, you know, when I say this, people say, gee, that seems so unlike you and so upright. I hate the term best practices, right? Because to me, best practices are. It's like a line in the sand to me. And I poem. I call them bpbs. I'm like, your whole point is to make best practices better, right? Like, there's no, there's another be on it. Like, you got to make those better because. And I think that's what happens with bureaucracy, right? They become like, well, these are the best practice. Like, this is the, this is, you know, the template. This is the tablet, right? It's set in stone kind of thing. And, you know, I think some of the facts that I loved in statistics in this book, I remember there one that, you know, it said something like 20% of people like, you know, never felt like their, their opinion mattered. Right. You know, you know, more, you know, like 40%, like, just felt that they were never encouraged, like, to innovate. Right. You know, and it's, you know, you're thinking, you know, the whole point was they, you know, the reason why they were robotic, you know, and, you know, people and I think was even, you know, Elon Musk, he said, you know, be careful because pretty soon, right, robots are going to take over what we do. You know, and the point is, yeah, if you continue to treat people like robots, right. I mean, you know, I, I do about 65% of my work in the green industry, which is one of the most incredible, fascinating spaces to be yet. Probably, you know, more than 40% still refer to their, you know, their. These really, you know, incredible field people as laborers. Right. And I mean, how many times have you heard me say, it's like we had slavery, we had Indentured service, you know, and laborers like who? You know, whoever wanted to grow up to be a laborer, right? And you know, how many of our kids have come to us and say, hey mom, hey, dad, when I get older, I want to be a laborer, right? It's like words matter. Like, you know, laborers much like a robot, you know, like a robot. And I think he used the term, you know, people were almost like these meatless, you know, these meatless characters that were just, you know, you know, they. They were kind of just the human side of the robot. So again, kind of unleash that human spirit and, you know, enable them to be innovative and creative and listen to what they're saying and what matters to them.

So anyways, really ready for a potential slap in the face. A good question that they could ask their team, especially to do little employee surveys once in a while is, do you feel that your potential here is fully utilized and appreciated? Right? Is two different answers. Because every time I've had a leader do that survey with their team, they're always surprised that there's people feel like they've got more to give than they're being asked to give that discretionary effort, but nobody's asking.

I think it's close to about only 18% of people in the workforce feel that way.

Yeah, that makes sense.

One of my favorite questions, right? Combating the labor. So labor is a particular role. It's maybe not a very good term or whatever, but. But you know, we're like, oh, marketing director or VP of sales or CTO or head of engineering, whatever the role is. If you get put into that role, it becomes confining in some way. And it's useful to ask yourself, right? Who is the person on your team who's got the potential and interest to become your coo? Who's the person on your team who's got the interest and potential to move into marketing and who's currently in sales, right. I think about those things where people's talents and interests aren't really recognized because they're in their role. And they might not even be doing well in their role, right? They might be a mediocre salesperson or middle of the road, but who really has some passion around some other area of the business or whatever it is, right? Customer service rep or that kind of thing, and really their interest lines in their place. We start to think of them as that title or that functional role, and we lose sight of that potential that they might have.

And that's the beauty of dynamic Teams as well. Right. You're taking cross functional across departmental proper way of describing is teams and allowing people to work a little bit outside or a lot outside of where they're that they deem is their role. And you get the good that gets developed out of that. So the good for the organization. Then you also get people that start thinking outside of it and that, you know, that's where job sharing and job that shadowing in the classic sense of it, but where you force a salesperson to go spend a day, a month with whatever the operations is that's delivering the product they're selling. So you understand it better or you get operations go out with the support. People understand their perspective of supporting whatever they're making or selling. Right. So that cross functionality, drawing that out and being aware of it, that helps a lot of human accuracy because then people are interacting with people and that pure mentorship as well. Where it's not I'm mentoring down to you, I'm mentoring across to you and you're mentoring back across to me. And we do that a lot in scaling up community, peer to peer mentoring between coaches. And I find so much value in talking to someone who's my peer as opposed to. I obviously have a coach, but I almost find the peer mentoring, peer coaching better than the coach I have. That's not talking down to me, but is pushing down into me as opposed to across to me.

We'll come back to coaching conversation soon enough. Next book on the list is fanocracy about turning customers into fans into customers, customers into fans. Right? Having people being raving fans, really excited about you, willing to promote you and what a difference that makes. David Meerman Scott has been a frequent speaker at our summits in the past. A past guest on the show, we talked about that. I also have an episode with David Meerman Scott talking about this subject. But he noticed that he and his family and many of us are rabid fans of different things. And how can you leverage that into some other group? I have a friend and former coaching partner and stuff from years ago who was talking to me about a really novel thing. He's like, hey, why don't you leverage that unique thing you're interested in, like your business is in this. And he, you know, he's like, oh, you're a coach, that kind of thing. Then combine it with something that's unique and interesting. So what are the things that you're really passionate about? I'm really passionate about sailing. I'm really passionate about surfing. He's like, like great. Start a group of people, CEOs who want to grow their company and also surf and then go out surfing with them and talk about that. And you'd be the only one who's doing that. And people rave about it right before the pandemic. One of the things that I frequently did was take groups of CEOs and C suite leaders out for sailing on the San Francisco Bay, which if you've never done it before, is a very exhilarating experience. Not a typical warm water sailing outing like San Diego Bay. It's very different anyway, but that, that created something very unique and people would rave about it and they would post photos of it and you know, that kind of thing, which is not a normal way that we do. Any of your companies doing great job building fan bases and really engaging people and it's kind of that rabid advocacy.

And you know, Bill, I'll jump in here because I'm pretty proud of one of my clients. The company's name is Volta and obviously I have permission to talk about them. I would not do that. But Volta is in the green energy space as well. JULIET and they, they do anti idling technology. So they take very large battery packs, build them into large, large mobile devices or large mobile units or the proper way to say is some eyes and, and trail and RVs and things of that nature, boats as well. And they make it possible. So when they get to some location, they're not running their, their auxiliary motors or they're not running their main, main motor. They're not idling to keep everything running. They can just use the, the battery technology. And they're primarily in the RV space right now. It's a space that's adapted this technology faster than the delivery space and other spaces. And, and so they have built all this technology and they've got these just, and you think of, you think of them as a production company because they're, they're really, it's really, they're building battery packs, they're installing that into the, into these devices and you just think of it more of just again traditional manufacturing. But they early on started down this path and that's, I think that's the key to fanocracy is that obviously you can start anytime you want, but the earlier the better. When's the best time to plant a tree? You know, 30 years ago when the second best time today start today. And they did. And so now of course their systems aren't perfect and there's always some challenge, but whenever there is and someone gets on social media or whatever, they've got thousands of fans just coming on to defend them. Talk to those. Sometimes their fans will call the client who's having a challenge and help them figure it out and realize it wasn't the system. Very, very often it's not. And so they have had just, you know, this is a manufacturing company in Michigan, which is a classic example of a Michigan company with fans all over the country who not only promote their product but defend it. And the trajectory of growth is just unbelievable. And a lot of that has been fed by their, by their fans and their use of social media. Not that social media fixes everything. I think that's kind of a buzzword right now. But there is, there is that connection they have and it's made a huge, huge difference for them. In a space where it's hard to get, it's hard to make, it's hard to make noise. And, and again, they're just manufacturing, not to belittle organization, amazing organization. They're manufacturing and they've figured out a way to promote that.

I have a couple clients that have done a great job at building community. Similar to Wade's story that it's about expose a group of enthusiasts. So one of them sells high performance auto parts online and their tagline is we race what we sell. Because they started the company started by an attorney who hated practicing law but loved to race his car on the weekends. So he just started this little side hustle and I was actually coaching his wife's business and she came to me one day and said hey, my husband is running this business that he started as a hobby and he now hates it because he's drowning in it and he's running like you know, seven figure business out of his garage by himself. So like how can we build this into, you know, more sustainable, sustainable company. But they started building this community just with online forums and like, like Wade said, where the community would crowdsource knowledge and sharing and ideas and share pictures and just really built a fan following around their. Some of their products were their own and some of them people could buy anywhere but they wanted to, to be the ones that people went to because they were the enthusiasts, they were the experts. They weren't just somebody locked away in a big white warehouse somewhere. Like they felt like they knew, knew the owners of the company and that they know what they're talking about. If I want the real deal, the people who are just like me, I'm going to buy from these guys. And they did a Great job at that. Another client of mine, in a completely different type of scenario, they sell these little frozen banana pops and they're in the process of franchising this little. They do events and they have a little shop and they do deliveries. But their mission is to spread happiness. And so the CEO's got bright pink hair and like, so they're big on social media, but probably at least half of their followers have never had a banana pop from their shop. They love the vibe. They love the feeling, like when they talk about spreading happiness, they exude that. And their fan base just. It's just fun. There's nothing serious about it. You know, they're not. It's not an expensive product. It just creates a sense of fun and community that the people just love. So they've leveraged social media, probably amongst the best, to help draw their following and create their fan base.

I think it's so cool. And one of our great examples in the latest edition of the Scaling Up Book and Scaling Up Success stories, Hagerty Insurance. They're all about classic cars and vehicles in, in general, but they built this huge following, embracing the passion of people in this, and then turned an unusual insurance company into a powerhouse in their sector. Right.

I think you said a key word there, right? Passion. Right. Think about it. Whether, whether it's you, you know, what you do in your life or what you love, you know, why, you know, why you're really good at something or why you really love something is because there's a passion and there's an energy behind it. Right. And I'm thinking, you know, listening to all three of your examples, right, the passion that's involved in all that. And I think the other thing, the commonality that I hear amongst all three of your discussions is around things that are unique. Right? And, you know, and one of the things that, you know, obviously, because we, you know, we do, there's a lot of sameness in the world. Like, you know, something is cool and hip and, you know, the next thing, you know, everybody and their brother's doing it.

Right.

For example, you mentioned insurance. Right. I'm kind of getting a little bit sick of seeing every single insurance company now kind of has their, like, fun spokesperson. Right. Like, you kind of started with flow. What was it? Flow and Jane, it was great. There's another company. Then you gotta like, it's like, oh, like, let's get a quirky kind of spokesperson. Yeah. I must admit, I do like the guy about the, you know, don't be like your parents, you Know, I do like. I do like him, especially when the, you know, the person with the purple hair goes by and he goes, we all see it. Okay, we all see it kind of thing, but, like, everybody's kind of jumping on the bam, you know, the bandwagon. The thing that's really important is it's got to be unique, but it's also got to be useful. Right? And so everything that you guys mentioned is useful. One of my favorite clients, you know, they're in a space right, in the green industry. They're a big commercial, you know, commercial maintenance and design Bill, and kind of, you know, a water management company. And a lot of people think that those companies are, you know, commodity companies. And so one of their focuses, you know, when they say that they're green, they really are. I mean, they're really into water management and doing things with less chemicals. And a lot of people in the industry say it, but they don't do it. Their kind of proof is in the pudding. And one of the things that they decided to do do was for both weed abatement and fire abatement. And this is a company in California where fires are prevalent and, you know, there are weeds all over, but. Right. Obviously. So they needed something to, you know, solve both, you know, clearing, you know, areas for. For fire abatement as well as weed. And so they started eating, using goats. Right. And so they like, kind of created this, like, goat scaping. Right. White goats eat weeds. They clear the area. Right? And it was. It was unique and it was useful. And all of a sudden what happened was they got you talk about social media, their social media lit on fire. And it was their clients, it was companies next to them, it was neighborhoods that said, you know, they were all out there, you know, advertising and being their biggest fan, saying, these people are using. These goats are all over. You know, at first we were like, what the hey is going on? And now we realize, right, it's keeping us safe, it's keeping our wheat, you know, cost down. It's, you know, there's no. But it was a great thing.

And it was like, we have them all over the hills here. The goat landscapers.

Right?

Yeah, we've got them here too.

Right?

Yeah. Kachina was a company, so it's just like again and again raving fans. And again, it was unique. And it, like, it was that, you know, people became fanatical about it, which is, you know, which is. That's the word fan or fanocracy.

So every time I put the Goats along one of the little walking or hiking trails around the hills here. And they got the little electric fence around them and that kind of thing. People keep their dogs up, but people start taking videos. I know I have the goats walking around the whole thing. And they make their silly sounds and. Right.

They created more great YouTube and social media. I mean, again, other people and they've got a good, you know, good gal in there that does, you know, that does marketing as well. But all the, all that footage was. The majority was provided by their new raving fans.

So how about if we mix goat.

Yoga with goat with landscaping while they're.

Chewing and doing the fire abatement, they kind of sit down and then they take a little pause and kind of.

Somebody else's Mac and cheese.

I'm gonna noodle this over, Bill.

I'm a noodle. Certainly. If we can, if we can circle back to Hagerty Insurance, because I know McEl, he's a, he's a good guy. He's right here in Michigan. And I think one of the things that they did from a fanocracy standpoint that's really interesting is they're, they're an all in scaling up company. They've, they've used along the way and they not only did they develop anocracy, but they, early on they discovered who that core customer was. Right. They said, this is, these are the people who buy from us. They don't complain, they're happy, they'll pay the rates. And they discovered it was those classic insurance, sorry, classy car people. And what was crazy about it was is that any other insurance company could discover this. And this was just. And I know, I know the family, I know McKill well, so I can say this, I hope you won't be angry at me, but just some small insurance company in Traverse City, Michigan. If you don't know where Traverse City is, it's a pretty small city. And they discovered this thing and then they exploited it and then they developed the fanocracy. And I'll tell you, I just drove by their headquarters the other day. I was up in Traverse City. And they live at every level. At the very front of their building, they have a big round window area and there's a classic car sitting in there, turning. And so when you walk in, the very first thing you do is you walk by a classic car. And then not only that, but the authenticity, and I think it's the other word too. You talk about focus. If you want fan ocracy, you have to have some authenticity inside your company, you can't just one day go well. And the goat example, I'm a goat fan and I think that'd be a way to make some money and then try to be a go fan. If you're not, you know, authenticity there, you're in trouble. And I can tell you because I've been in the Hill's garage, He has got unbelievable, classy car collection you could ever imagine. And it's been accumulated over time as they've scaled up and they've done well. But he is a huge classic car fan, so he has that authenticity. And final thing I'll say is that if you, if you are a classic car fan, you gotta go subscribe to their newsletter because they took an idea in that industry, which is the idea of barn finds. So if you're a classic car person, everybody talks about these legendary barn finds. Some guy or Gail walks into a piece of property and talks to the owner and finds out there's some car in the barn. They open it up and it's just, oh, my goodness. Well, they've taken that and gone and done it. And it's. And the stories are really cool and they track down some really neat cars. Even if you're not into cars, just the history of how they found them, tracked them down. It's very, very entertaining. And so not to take it off the coats, I love that story too. But because it is here in Michigan and it's such a big scaling up company, I wanted to circle back and re emphasize it that this idea of anocracy has roots into all parts of the scaling up thinking. And it kind of binds a lot of the concepts together. So you have again, when's the best time to do it? Start today and be authentic. Be very authentic in it.

I was going to say classic cars. I'm like, you know, immediately a whole picture arises. And you may not be a fan, but there are triggers that create a whole image. Right? You said that. And I'm suddenly remembered. Oh yeah. I was out buying an old BMW convertible for our daughter's first car. And as I'm going through the thing, I notice kind of an unusual bumper kind of under a cover. And I'm like, what's that? And he, he lifts it up and it's an old Pantera. And I'm like, oh my God, that's a cool car. And he's like, oh, yeah, it's not ready to sell that one yet. But already I was like, let me buy that.

Well, you're probably also, while you're doing this, you're probably right smelling things and feeling things, right? So right as as you're saying things like some of my favorite are like the old, you know, mgb, the convertibles, right?

And.

The touch of the, you know, a classic pale yellow coffee color convertible like 1966 Volkswagen with a flight flap dash. And I could feel the metal and the big oversized like wheel, right? And you can go in and you could, you know, you could feel your knuckles and hands in the wheel. You could smell all that stuff.

I mean there's a lot racing green, the tonneau cover, the hexagon logo.

You know, one of my favorite. And I don't like to call them customers. I always like to call them my relationships. I don't like to, you know, call them customers or clients because they really are relationships. And you know, you really open a relationship with somebody when you work with somebody for a long period of time. But it's a company in St. Charles, Illinois, which is outside of Chicago. And the name of the company is called Aquascape. And a guy, a crazy wonderful guy by the name of Greg Wittstock, when he his affinity when he was a little boy boy for frogs, when they were moving, he wanted to take his frog and build a place in their new home that was safe. And he created these building ponds as a little boy and turned it into this multimillion dollar company called Aquascape. And they are so passionate in the way they do things from their world headquarters which looks like a mini Google in St Charles with the largest green screen slope green roof in the United States. And they've created such raving fans is because what they've done is they've taught people, you know, the importance, you know, of having water features, sound, smells, just, you know, you know, things to calm people down, right. You know, de stressing people never go out. And that's pretty much what this whole business is about. But it is this ecosystem where you can get everything there. And he created years ago he invited some contractors so not only could they learn how to do it and they, you know, they actually have these builds but how to market it and the, you know, the technical side of it and the build at the community, you know, and that started maybe 12 or 13 years ago. And now every summer it's kind of like a mecca, it's called Pandemonium where people come from all over the world to come to this place. And when I say, you know, literally drinking the Kool Aid, you know, and I've spoken at it many times. They drink the Kool Aid and they've gotten, you know, they had such a fan following that National Geographic reached out to them and they've had their own television show. I mean, how many of your customers have their own. Right. They call the Pond guys, right? And so, you know, the, the Pond Stars, kind of a play on Pawn Stars. Oh, yeah, I heard of that. The Pawn Stars, you know, and it's, you know, you know, for the, you know, for the people, Ed Ballou and, and the whole gang. But they had such raving fans that literally they, you know, their ultimate was, you know, they, you know, they were sold, you know, a TV show. So I mean, you never know what's going to happen. So. And as a matter of fact, they, they're even in the Webster dictionary. The word aquascape is now it's a definition, right, for a water feature. And they became the water city capital of the United States. So, I mean, they really kind of took their, you know, their uniqueness and the differentiation and created a whole empire or a whole eco.

Owning a word. Nice work.

It's a great. Right.

Our next book, David Marquette's Turn the Ship around, is all about the power of language, the hidden power of what you say and what you don't say. And I've long been a fan of that. One of our other formative books is the Laws of Performance, all about the power of leadership. Vern shares this book with a story of turning around the worst submarine in the Navy to the best in a short period of time through the use of language, empowering others and managing things. And I think language is such an underrated thing. But as leaders, it's one of our main levers and it's far more powerful than the sticks we wield or the clumsy, misapplied things of compensation and that of thing that we often do. How do you guys grapple with language, the power of language with your leaders and in your practices?

I mean, I'll start even, you know, like as I said, what I refer to my. Myself as I. I'll give you an example probably about four months ago. I'm acting as an outsource strategist and, and sales marketing, you know, leader for this company. And, you know, we. They've got some big clients and I was, you know, part of this presentation and everything was going well. At one point, you know, one of the engineers in the group kept referring to me as their, you know, their chief, you know, sales and marketing officer. And I kind of paused. And I said, you know, actually, you know, I said, so? And so I said, you know, I really like to refer to myself as a composer, right? The marketing and sales and, you know, composer be. Right. Because what a composer does is he or she really gets out, right? It. Get. It sets a flow of energy and rhythm and cadence. But the whole point of a composer is really to build, you know, pull out the best in each person, right? In that orchestra. And so, you know, and I said, when you use the word officer, and then, you know, I think he's like, well, you know, maybe you're the director. And I'm like, an officer is such like a military, you know, militaristic word, right? And I'm thinking, you know, again, you know, that's it's exactly what I don't want to be thought of. Or as a director that's top down, but really more right. As this composer that really does help to get the best flow of energy and cadence and again, really brings out the best in each individual. So, you know, we talked about this before we even went on today, right? Words. Words matter, right? And you know, what I. What I share with the folks that I work with, as well as my family, my daughter, you know, one of my favorite lines are, words can wound or wounds can. Words can. Wow, right? So you have a choice, right? Think really, really carefully, right? Do you want to wow somebody or do you want to wound somebody? And so very. Be very, very particular about the words you. You know, the words you select. And, you know, I think a lot of us all write. I mean, I can't tell you how many times when I'm writing, I'll, like, just stop. Like, painstakingly over, like, one word has just kind of just halted me, right? And I'm like, oh, my God. And, you know, sometimes my daughter will say, you're really obsessing about this. I'm like, it is. Because this word is so important, and I don't have it yet, right? So that'll kind of stop. And I'll do a brainstorming session. I've got all these different, you know, thesaurus is. I use. And sometimes I'm like, if I can't find it, like, I'll make up a word, right? I mean, I've made up words. You know, I always call myself, right? You know, I'm an alcoholic, right? We're talking about questions. I'm like, it's a socially acceptable disease. I am an alcoholic. I ask, like, what I hope are really targeted, intelligent questions, right? And, you know, while it may be a spin off of the word workaholic, those are the things that, you know, you want to think about. You know, about creating your own words when you can't find them in my world.

Questions, right? Asking probing questions is a great way to engage people and give people voice and increase the perspective. And we use a lot of ways as coaches to ask questions, right? So that's one kind. And then making promises, making bold promises and declarations change the future. And the way people see things is a powerful thing, right? When Kennedy stood in front of the nation and said, we choose to go to the moon, right? And he changed our whole view of the future. He made a promise and a declaration before the nation and engaged all of us in something as a country, whether you were alive then or not. And I think so. That is one. And then those questions are particularly bold and make a huge difference in that. But then also watching the whole town. So some of us, I'm one who's guilty of using swear words for punctuation and emphasis at times, but if you watch and you notice that you use a set of generic business words, right? We talked earlier about best practices, it just becomes nonsense after a while. And I had a guy in a CEO advisory group years ago who just spoke in one jargon thing after another. And I remember one CEO turning to him at some point in a usual tirade and said, dude, what the hell are you talking about? You just said, oh yeah, buy low, sell high, whatever, bunch of nonsense. I have no idea what's actually going on. And I think you watch that. The other one is like, if you want to create value and take care of people, but use violent words all the time, watch yourself, right? What are you actually creating with the words? What, what's your vocabulary? Makes a huge difference that that amount of awareness and intentionality.

I totally agree on vocabulary. And I'll tell you, I recently wrote an article on this one which was setting expectations. For years I used that term and I do everything I can not to use it anymore because as you as I really sat down, thought about and this book highlighted this big time on the idea of gaining commitment rather than compliance. And when I would use setting expectations, it was typically me going to someone. It could be me going to someone who's a superior. It could be me going to someone I was managing. It could be me going laddering the organization. It didn't really matter where I was going with it. My kids set expectations with me every day. But the bottom line is when you go and set expectations with another human, it's you pushing out what you desire. And you're not gaining a commitment from them, you're just simply setting the bar. And humans love to not meet the bar set for them unless they have bought into it and they're committed to it. And so, you know, from my article, in a lot of the work I've done with business, business leaders, I've said, look, first off, I'm as guilty as the next person. I've been a terrible leader in this space, but let's all take that out. And then now as we go out and we work with, with again, top down, down, up, whatever it is, whatever the relationship is, let's make sure we are, we're working to replace the word setting expectations and gaining commitment. And the only way you gain commitment is the language you use and working together on that. And so when we go into KPIs, which I'm a strong believer in, and I'm a strong believer in understanding what the critical number is and all those things, you know, while we may not always agree, we've got to go in there with the, with the first, the desire to gain commitment. And at the end, like Lencioni says, once we've had healthy debate, then, and if everybody doesn't agree at one, at some point, the group makes a decision and then you have to, you have to commit to that because you were able to be part of the conversation and then, and then leave. As long as it's not unethical or illegal or immoral, obviously. But as long as it's not those things, then we gain commitment and we move forward. But you know that as a leader, if I could unwind anything in my language from the last 20, 30 years, it would be that I'm setting expectations like, no, I want to gain commitment.

Communication is a mirror. So if you're not getting the response or the commitment that you hoped for or expected, you got to look in the mirror and say, what did I communicate or not communicate that caused that to be the response. It's the lack of commitment or the disagreement or the confusion. Maybe that's left because you didn't communicate clearly or effectively. And another thing that a lot of leaders I think underestimate is that there's multiple pieces to communication and that words alone, while they really matter, are still only 7%. You know, 93% of communication is in tone of voice, rate of speech, volume, body language is over half. So using all the tools that they have at their disposal, which is Why I encourage them. You stay away from email as much as possible, especially if it's something important. Important. If it's something you really want people to understand or you really want their commitment to that, you've got to use all the tools, you've got to make sure you're really sending the message that you want. And in order to like, ask yourself, how can I say this in a way that's going to influence, that's going that they're going to receive what I want them to receive and they're going to respond and engage or commit in the way that's going to help achieve the, the common goal.

You know, Carrie, that reminds me of. Vern's been promoting this since about this time last year. He was at Steelcase, which is headquartered here in Michigan. It's become one of his go to slides. I was with him that day when he saw how they do their standing meeting in one of Steelcase's biggest factories here in Grand Rapids area. And the, you know, they have their list of how you communicate to your point, it's like how you do, it's almost as important as what you say. And they're like, it's face to face first. And then they use this thing called Voxer, which is an app they use, which it's similar to WhatsApp and a lot of other ones out there. And they go right down, listen, the last thing is email. So yeah, that's. It's so important. So important.

A great illustration I've used and learned many, many years ago was the sentence, I didn't say you were smart. And so I'll give that to a group of team, especially a team that's like, oh, we just live by our slack or whatever. I'm like, great, here, read this sentence out loud or in your mind to yourself and just emphasize a different word and read it six times, right? And they, you know, start off with, I didn't say you were smart, and I didn't say you were smart and I didn't say you were smart. And in each thing they're thinking about it and they're realizing it has very different connotations. You see quickly how text and small text based communications can just go downhill. Or the amount of agonizing, painstaking time people spend composing it, trying to imagine all the different ways somebody might get it and speaking. And then they write some huge thing when, if they picked up the phone and just talk to each other for a moment and like, it would be so much more efficient, right? That takes Us to kind of the next thing, the kind of. And really the kind of culture that you're creating, the kind of company. One company that's having a massive year this year is Netflix, right? As so many people have spent a lot more time indoors the last 12 months and a lot more time at home has been binge watching Netflix, which was already doing pretty good from years of development as they moved from one time CD rental company to live streaming. But they have a very unique culture in a way of leadership that makes a huge difference with all of that. So no rules. Rules. Netflix, the culture of reinvention, it's great. Look at the business model and the growth of the company and like everything how they run and how they've evolved that business. But that culture of freedom and responsibility, the kind of culture that you create, right? Look, we've all heard about weird cults where people ask you to marry somebody you don't know and give up your thing and stay away from your family. But what if you created an intentional cult, right? A culture of your own design, a good kind of a cult, right? And that's what we're talking about. We think about some of the most admirable companies that we know. Some of those striking examples, they are somewhat cult like, right? In their following trillion dollar company out there, I don't know, Apple Computer. Very cult like in approach, right? Lots of companies, lots of companies that we most admire have unique things. The root of the word culture is cult. So think about what are those practices? What I know many of us do that. What do you guys do? What are some of the most common things that you do or even the ones that people really resist that, you know, that work.

I was just going to want to come. You said about Apple, right? This, you know, we, you know, and we, you know, we're both Mac and PC, but we are fanatical about our Apple products, right? All of them. And I think, you know, my, my daughter, it was just one of those things that got thrown in the face. Her, you know, I forget how many of her Christmas gifts were Apple. New Apple products this year, right? So that was like her big list. But her favorite thing is right when she gets that new phone, you know, and she called us, she called us to the table. She's like, I'm gonna do it now. She's like, mom, mom, come here, I'm gonna do it now. And I was like, what? She's like, come here, I'm gonna do it now. And she like, she's unwrapping her new phone, right? She's unwrapping it, right? And it's the box, right? It's the whole point about like the packaging, but. Right, but like how you lift it, right? And how, like that, that sucks noise and how like you take it off and like to her it was like as good as getting the new phone. She's like, okay, I'm lifting up the box and you know, and then it slowly drops down and she takes the packaging out. But I was like, oh my God, that was, she was so engaged with just opening that box. And that for her is, I mean, it's part of the whole experience for her. I mean that's, that's what an Apple fan she is.

But, and it's true, like, think about the whole experience of it, right? There are now these unboxing videos that are very popular with technology and some other products. But in that anticipation at Christmas moment or whatever it is for you that does that. But it's true of other products and services as well. I remember hearing, I want to say it was Yoplait yogurt product managers talking about the sound and the smell and what they engineered around the opening of the foil top on their unusual shaped yogurt container. And you'd pull off that thing and there's a sound and then a release. And people were really tuned into that and it took them a little bit to discover that. But what's the discovery and the thing that you think about for the people interacting with your company? I know I think about it with our clients. Like what environment? When we do an off site meeting, what does the whole setting look like? Are there smells that greet them? Because there's food or coffee or that kind of thing on arrival, is there music playing? What kind of music do I play in the morning, at the break, in the afternoon at different points. Right. Like music is a huge thing for me. But the sound, the location, the view, all of that, that whole experience of stuff, does it feel fun? Does it look alive and inviting for a fertile discussion? What's the experience with your product or service? I think is really useful. We're going more to the customer side of things. But then there's that whole, like, think about the applicant coming into the company for the first time. What does the environment look like? What's the front lobby? How are they greeted? What do they smell on arrival?

I coach a consumer electronics engineering firm. They design consumer electronics, a lot of products you probably own or have heard of. And they're fanatical about design. So While you might think I've coached lots of engineering companies actually, and most of them are engineers. The stereotypical. Everything you would picture when you think about an engineer, just, you know, they don't care a lot about the frills. They're intellectual, they're there to do their job, they're very technical. But these guys, because of the types of products they design, they just value design. So when they're now moving their office space and they're, they're trying to be so intentional with it because they want their space to represent who they are. And for their employees, who might be working on a very nuanced, mechanical piece that in and of itself isn't beautiful, but they don't want them to lose that connection to somebody who's going to have that in their home. You know, they're going to ride that for exercise, they're going to wear that, they're going to, you know, whatever it is. So they're just so intentional with crafting their employee experience to best represent and keep the feeling of life of the. The experience that they create for their end user, which might be multiple, you know, companies in the, in the supply chain away that, you know, they're at the beginning of the supply chain, so they might never physically touch the end product, but they. It's still very much a part of how they operate, which is it's a cool environment. I've never seen an engineering group like them, even down to how they design their core values and how they flow and how they package the experience for people. It's so intentional.

Yeah, it strikes me. A couple things strike me as I listen. And first thing is obviously it's easy for us to go right to the consumer level. The book really focuses on the internal culture. And what strikes me about that, a couple points is that first off, the great companies that have great consumer products and get that right typically have great cultures internally, not always, but they typically get that right as well. And I think Netflix from All Measurements is a good example of that. And what I loved about this book and what it really helped me with was for a while I've talked with my clients about how, yes, the fundamental is you have to get your core values, but that actions you live by. That in some ways to me is more critical and I believe, and I'm a strong believer and I push my clients to this, is that you don't want just five actions you live by that create your culture. You want 25 or 50, maybe even 100. And if you look at the summary of this book or you just highlight it yourself while you're going through it. But I got the summary in front of me right now. There has to be a hundred different ways or actions they live by that created that culture. Everything from that unlimited vacation policy to the way they did expenses, to the way they treat each other, had discussions. I mean, you know, Reid went through and. And not just that individual, obviously, but a lot of people in the company built that culture via those actions they live by. And then you read this book and it's like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And for, for, for the companies that I work with and leaders, I'm like, you need to have. If you don't have that written, then those are unwritten rules that everybody has to learn. And that doesn't do anybody favors because people are always shy about building out their actions to live by because they don't want policies, right? They don't want to go back to the 80s and 70s and 60s where we had a whole bunch of company policies. But you have that being said, you still have to have those things because people are going to find them one way or another. And so I encourage them. For the first couple months that you're building out, you're building out this thinking, have a piece of paper, your desk, and all it says is, you know, either aspirational values or actions to live by or whatever you want to name this list and just start listing them out because they're going to come to you over time. They're not going to come to you all once, once, and then at some point, refine, make sure they're right. Because the other thing too is whatever you put out there, whether it's unspoken or unwritten or it's written, is going to define that culture. And it better be right or you're going to be in trouble. But then get it out there, because you don't want someone coming to your organization is new. Having to figure it out on their own. Why not give them the guide map of this is how we behave. This is how these. The actions that we live by. And that's what I loved about this book, is it just gave a perfect example of really. No one else has done a good job of this until now. In my opinion of showing that concept of no, it's okay to have a hundred actions to live by. It's okay to have a hundred different ways we behave. Get them out there and then live them.

Everybody take a deep breath. Breath is the title book. Breath the New Science of a Lost Art Burns recommendation for something personal to think about. And so much in this year we've had to take a breath and chill the F out, right? And be calm in the face of the next lockdown or the whatever the next bit of craziness in our social political world, right? And, and then think about what's next. But, but breathing intentionally learning to move up or down, right? So many folks out there have become fans of the Wim Hof method or Kundalini breathing to bring energy up to down, to activate, to engage, to calm, to reflect, to recover. All of the different things altering the way you breathe at night. I've done a lot of study of breathwork in the past as part of mindfulness practice development. Do you guys do anything with your clients or do any of them do any of it in their session?

Yes, some of mine do. And one of my dear friends and business partner too is Susan Packard, the founder of one of the founders of hgtv. And she wrote this great book on emotional intelligence. And you know, and part of what she does, she's, she does a lot of, you know, corporate and school and you know, off site meditation. I mean, so much of that, you know, emotional, you know, she refers to, you know, it's not just about emotional intelligence, right? It's about emotional fitness. And part of that, right, is that balance and that calm. And I've learned a lot of, you know, meditative just techniques and breathing techniques from her, you know, and here, you know, you know, a lot of people say like, you know, you know, that's kind of wonky. I'm like, you know, when you think of the government, Susan, she's a pretty high powered COO of, you know, created scripts, network advertising, hardcore driving, intelligent business women. Susan's not wonky at all. Susan's really smart, right? So what I've kind of done is say, you know, how can I bring that to my, you know, my life and my clients? And I always say, like, does anybody not want to be calm? Does anybody not want to be distressed? Like, is that really, like that's wonky? Like, like when, when you're off the, you know, when, you know, sometimes my family will tell me, as a matter of fact, a member of my, of my family told me this morning already called me the, you know, you're being Tasmanian already, right? That's a devil. And I was like, I've got 12 minutes before we get in the blah, blah, blah. But you know, in the middle and I was like, and back to the loving space, right? I kind of grabbed my coconut. You know, right now I've got. This is kind of me. I've got my caffeine and I've got my coconut water, right? It's kind of Tasmanian devil in my, you know, in my calm. And you know, for me it's very important. And I do, I use Susan's techniques and things that I've, I've learned, you know, breathing in and just taking a moment. Like, you know, I encourage everybody, whether you're home or you're in an, you know, an office setting or wherever your setting is, go out a couple of times. Like, even if it's cold, even if you're in Michigan, for me, I need to feel sun. Like, I have to feel that, right? I have to feel that. I always say I just need to feel air, like fresh air on my face. I need to breathe it in, right? I'll generally grab my little dog, you know, not Toto Breslow, and take him for a walk and physically move. But to me, you know, you know that, you know, sometimes it may be just 10 minutes. I mean, I can feel myself go from Tasmanian, you know, to very, very calm in a matter of minutes. And, you know, and, you know, I love that term like, you know, head trash. Like, it just helps me empty my head trash, right? It helps me get my rhythm back. And again, I'm no different from anybody else. And, you know, it's just a couple of minutes to again. And breathing is a big, big part of that just to come and get you to that place.

I'll admit, I'm not great at this. I even get the. I go through seasons where I do okay. But as a general practice, consistently, my breathing is probably very shallow. I don't pay a lot of attention to it. I get the little notifications on my Apple watch that it's time to breathe. I'm like, y' all do that later. I'm too busy to breathe right now. But I'm curious if any of you have ever tried the, the mouth things that Vern talks about for sleeping where you. That forces you to breathe through your nose. Because I feel like that would make me extremely claustrophobic and panic ridden. Curious if anybody has.

You know, I, I haven't, but I can, I can tell you one of the things that, that I've done to try to help to bring the human side of, of this, scaling up, coaching to life is I've partnered with a retired Navy SEAL and done presentations with him. And he's, he was in Seal Team 6 and people talk about Debgrue and they. They hear about it. But what most people don't know is that team, there's only 200 members of it, and there's 2,000 seals at any given time. And Dev grew. They. They. They're. They're 10% of all of the U.S. navy SEALs, but they get 51% of the budget, so they get to experiment of all kinds of stuff. And so he comes in and he speaks to a lot of the executives I work with. We do it together. Does some really, really neat things, but it's amazing how much time he spends on breathing. And one of the last summit, we were all together scaling up. That was one of the seals there talked about that as well. Anaheim, if I remember right. And so there's a lot to be said about that. But what really struck me and what I just could not believe was that they. The. The seals, you're talking young, very fit people, Very, very fit people at night. They do whatever they can to make sure they've got their breathing right at night. And so you get. You get the whole, like, well, now, again, I'm not advocating for CPAC machines or any of that. I'm not a doctor, so I am absolutely not advocating for it. But there. There is some science to the fact that in that, and that was proven to me through this. This experience of this SEAL friend of mine, that it's not just for people who have challenges. Everybody has got to breathe through their sleep cycle correctly. So I. To answer your question, I haven't tried it, but I love that question because it really inspired me to go, wait a second. Am I breathing at night correctly? Am I getting the. Because I kind of. I was like, that's wacky science. And I didn't really buy into it. I always thought I was like, for, like, well, my dad needs to worry about that, but not me. And then this young SEAL is like, no, man, you don't get this. You're in trouble. Like, maybe I should listen. So I will tell you, I haven't gone down that path yet, but I am listening way more than I did in the past on that whole subject.

Let me know if you give it a shot.

Let me get a couple things out to just try with your teams right away. So one is a couple of big, deep breaths and calm down. Close your eyes and do a couple of big, deep breaths. Very centering. Get ready to transition into something, end something, move into something else, right? That can be really useful for. For centering, calming, and creating transitions. Another One, if you really need a calm is do breathe in and out to a different count. So we can breathe in through your nose if you want to a count of four and then breathe out through pursed lips to a count of eight. If you do that a little bit, you'll be expelling more and you'll get yourself down to really lower your heart rate, really calm the F down. So breathe out for double the time. If you just do that, forgetting like if it's going to be in or out of your nose or whatever. Another one that you could do is hold one side, breathe in one and then breathe out the other. Doing that a little bit intentionally will help you to center and do. And there's more. You could read about the value of each of these approaches. But then here's another big one if you need to now go present, generate something, come on camera, take the stage, walk to the front of the room or whatever like that. You could do things like get music going to psych yourself up and like start to get the blood flowing. But you could also do things like get your heart rate up, breathing while you move your hands or pumping up or doing things like that. So adding a little bit of aerobic movement with some rapid breathing, not hyperventilating, but really raising the whole heart metabolism up and then maybe bring it down for a second and then come out with just a ton of energy, ready to like give out. Those are a couple things that I use pretty regularly.

Look at the word you've just used probably eight or nine times in that what the word was calm, right? And look at what, what's one of the most popular apps right now, right? Just even there, right? Those, that, right. The common. I mean even, you know, it's kind of ironic. You'll be watching the news, right? And you know who's been advertising big time, right? It's calm. And I don't know about you guys, but because the news has been so crazy, like when that commercial comes on, right, and you hear the rain and stuff, sometimes it's a 15 second commercial, sometimes it's a 30 second commercial. But every time that come, you know, that calm commercial comes on, I mean I literally, I just like, I'm like close my eyes, I listen to the rain, I'm like, ah, 15, you know, 30 seconds of greatness. So that's right, that's. That obviously has become popular and I just wanted to, you know, add on to something Wade said. First of all, Wade, you kind of look like a Navy SEAL today, by the way.

Right.

You've got that. You got that SEAL look going on. Between undergrad and grad school, I actually dated a seal. And at the time, this was way back when. I didn't. My first one, my dad was in the Navy, and I didn't know what a Navy SEAL was, but he told me, you know, he's like, yeah, I'm, you know, a Navy seal. I was. I was working in the Virgin Islands at the time, and, you know, one of the ships had come in and we met and he's like, yeah, I'm in the Navy. I said, oh, my dad's in the Navy. I'm like, what do you do? He's like, I'm a seal. And I said like, you know, he's like. Or kind of like a. Just a special group, you know, he's.

Like, you were supposed to be impressed at that point.

Yeah, but he wasn't. He was very. Actually low key. He was like kind of like a Green Beret. But, you know, he, like, he didn't make a big thing about it at all. Well, the point of the matter was this guy. What really kind of attracted me to him, first of all, he was extremely handsome, but was his sense of humor. I love humor. He was the funniest, silliest guy that I ever met. And probably when you think about a seal, top of mind wouldn't be silly, right? I mean, probably just the opposite. It would be more serious. But that was one of the things he was. He was so silly. And I remember he was coming to, you know, he was going to visit our family for New Year's Eve. And I told my dad, I'm like, dad, I met this guy. He's a seal, a Navy seal. My father was like, he's a Navy seal. And I was like, yeah. He's like, he's a Navy. He's like a seal. And I say, yeah. I go. So, like, he's like, do you know What a Navy SEALs? I go, yeah, kind of like a special group. And of course, like, he gave me a dissertation who and what a Navy SEAL was. And I was just like, I went back to him. I'm like, you didn't tell me about this. Like, you guys are crazy, you know? And so he's like, well, I can't really talk about a lot of stuff I'm doing. And I said to him, like, but you're so silly. Like, you're so silly and funny. I'm like, I, you know, I think you got to be serious. He's like, oh, we have to be really serious. He's like, honestly. And what he shared with me was, he's like, humor is my outlet, and it gives me great energy. And he goes. And when I'm silly and I'm laughing, he's like, that's an outlet. And he goes. It really. He goes. It gives me great energy. And he spoke about that. He goes. And it. He goes. And it really, like, maximizes and gives me this great, you know, my breathing and my cadence. And he's like. And that's so important because he's like, a lot of this stuff that I do, he's like. Is underwater. And he's like, you know, he's like, breathing is always important. And he said, but when. Especially when you're doing, like, you know, he could. I remember he would just say, like, aquatic activities, right? He's like, breathing is really important. So I remember that was. But. But for him, humor was his release and his energy and his calming method. So. And now we know a lot, a lot about seals.

Yes.

So this next week, I'm starting with a new coach. And I have had financial coaches, I've had fitness coaches, I've had cycling coaches, running coaches, swimming coaches, retirement coach, speaking coach. I can't even think of all the different kinds of coaches I've had over time. And I'm always getting a new.

Surfing. Surfing. Your new surfing coach.

Actually, when I restarted surfing after many years of not surfing, I got somebody to help give me some pointers. Remind me what I'd long forgotten. It's funny, because as a kid, I didn't need a surfing coach. I just got on the board and figured it out. But I'm, you know, in my 50s now, so that's a different exercise Bill.

You've got that cool little.

What's that board called that? You got that.

I started riding a foil board and I am, like going through all. So I had prone foil to, like, surf and paddle out, just like surfing. But then you rise up on the hydrofoil and then a wing foil where you can use a wing to pull you along. You hold the wing in your hand a little bit between, say, a kite and a windsurf where the mast is mounted. But you just fold this thing so hydrofoil with that. And then I just. Because when the wind stopped for the season, I bought an electric hydrofoil surfboard that I've been out riding lately. Right. I definitely. To teach me how to do that. And I'm starting new one. If you don't have a coach, shame on you. With the 200 or plus, you're just missing out an opportunity to get stuff. And if you think you can figure it out all on your own, good for you. Actually, you probably don't listen to the show if that's your mentality, the kind of people who listen. But if it's time for a new coach or an extra Coach, we've got 200 coaches in our world that bring all sorts of. We're all scaling up coaches, but then we bring in other tools like I'm a Gallup strengths coach as well, and I do a lot of why work and I do a lot of leadership development with people And Judy brings a particular marketing background and I'll forget all what you said about your but each of us has some unique stuff that we've got. If you want to reach any of our coach panelists here, I'm putting their contact information both in the crawl at the bottom of the video here, but also in the show notes. So you can find that and you'll find it on our website as well. And if we can help you find somebody so it doesn't have to be one of us, we all stay pretty busy overall and we're looking for the right client that fits our style and the kinds of problems that we like to solve. But. But with the 200, I or any of us can help you find somebody who's either in your neighborhood or who has that flavor that you need. Right. You might not want somebody who rides a foil board and skateboards and listens to music and swears a lot from California.

Who wouldn't want that?

Well, I can promise you I had somebody who was a regular listener once talk to me about being a coach. He's like, no, no. I've been listening to your show forever. You're awesome. You're definitely not my coach. Great. It's very clear the show did its job because I don't. But he was interested in some of the other coaches and we found him somewhat that fit better and he worked with them for two and a half years before changing it up again. So from time to time it's useful to get a new coach and get some new perspective on what you're doing. And if you don't have that, I recommend you get that sorted right away. I know Carrie, Judy, Wade and I would be love to talk to you about if we are a fit for you or if we could help you find somebody who is also one of the ways to get started learning kind of the ins and outs. Just get started at the scaling up process. You've been listening to the show for a while. You probably want to get in one of our workshops. Do any of you guys have workshops coming up?

Yes.

What do you got, Wade?

I got a workshop on March 4th speaking of the Navy Seal. We're doing it together. So we'll be talking where it's. This year's word is focus. And we'll be talking about some of the tools we believe will help you focus in 2021. Because it's gonna. We're gonna have to bunker down the hatches. Yeah. Focus in and kind of get back to your hedgehog. And. And then the, the SEAL is going to talk about some of the small things you can do that make a huge difference in your physical performance. And physical performance leads to business performance every single time. If you're more, if you're more alert, you're more with it, you're more ready. You get that extra discretionary effort that Judith talked about earlier in the, earlier in the meeting. And that discretionary effort, a lot of it leads to how you physically approach work. So he'll be talking about that. So that will be March 4th. Yeah. Love to have you.

Is it live or virtual?

Both. Unless. Unless the governor stops us.

Hybrid, Carrie, anything for you.

I'll have one scheduled in Q2, but I don't have the date yet.

Awesome. So Q2. Come watch for Carrie Judy.

I do.

And we're depending. It's either going to be the first or second, actually week of March. So stay tuned. Probably going to be the second week of March and it's going to be, it's going to be virtual.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Our next was scheduled for May 27, I'm thinking now actually we're about to schedule a, a two to four day thing, a deep dive on each of the decision areas. So instead of the usual half day workshop, we're going to do a masterclass and go deep on all of them, do some deeper work. And so we'll do layers of that. It's about to be announced. If you want info on that, just drop us an email infocalingcoach.com that Masterclass will have four distinct sessions for people, strategy, execution, cash. And we'll do a lot deeper dive on that. I've been doing one like every three months that's public and then of course the private ones as well with some of our partner organizations. We just did a big one with Vern a couple months ago. We had 700 some registered and it was exhilarating. We've got another coming up in India. I forget what the other one is, but some very big ones like that, so a range of them. Drop us a note to get on the list if you'd like to be included in that Special deep dive. Infocalingcoach.com Quick reminder, this is a great year and a great time to renegotiate commercial leases, get out of things, go into things, change the terms up, maybe renegotiate early. The demand for these spaces has dropped. The way people use offices is going to get massively reconfigured as people maybe aren't so excited to get back to work, but they're excited to get out of the house, to get away from their kids and spouses and that kind of thing. And they'll be looking for ways to reconnect. Worth looking at. Can you renegotiate now? Also reminder, we've been talking about culture and that kind of thing. I think there's a one hour replay with Horst Schultz and the Ritz Carlton talking about excellence wins and how he grew the Ritz Carlton, what he did there. I loved how he talked about like making people remember the values and principles, making them carry a card in their pocket, making sure they did huddles, being willing to fire general managers of properties where these practices weren't being put in place. So often I see as we go to do scaling up in a company and we start with some of these new traditions and practice intentional culture and things like that, there's resistance from the team, new things and, and you get to look leader. Are you actually committed to this? Are you going to make this mandatory or not? And he was great about, yeah, we'll just fire the general manager of the property if they don't do it.

Well, you, you know, we're talking about words matter. Right? Right. What was really important to him that, right. Everybody addressed everybody as right, ladies and gentlemen, Right. That was really important. Right? And it just made people feel good. And he would, you know, he didn't want people to, you know, hear people say, like, hey, how you doing? It was always right, welcome, right. It was just like, you know, warm and inviting. Right. And treated everybody equal. And, you know, he, you know, he gave great examples of how important words are. So. But yeah, that's, it's a fantastic program.

I want to talk about pivoting because I promised it at the top of the show. There's a link, there'll be a link to this Raja Juice stand. A two minute video talks about being different in a street with lots of juice stands. They put theirs in the cup or the source. So if it's coconut juice, you're going to get a half a coconut. If it's a banana, you're going to actually get your juice in a banana and so on in a pineapple, et cetera. And I think that was really great. And then also Catapult Health, one of our scaling up companies that went from planning to have 8 million in a quarter, a pretty typical kind of range that we might have in the scaling up world. And they went to zero last year. But then they went and they designed the virtual checkup, a way to do your checkup online. And they developed this thing and then they launched it and they did their best month ever and created a huge growth out. And I think our companies last year that pivoted have done the best job of that before we run out of time stories about pivots and adjustments from your teams.

One of my clients, they are there. They are a force in the magnet world. Every pun intended. And they made, you know, we just made a big pivot from, you know, they were almost stock, you know, unique stock products that they created to and they will still continue to do that. But they really pivoted to a, to a hybrid and a lot more services. They realized just what incredible designers and engineers as well as in a lot of the spaces that they're in just the importance of compliance and regulation, which is kind of a pain in the, you know, what for a lot of people and offering to do those service as, you know, you know they have this new concept of ideation to market. So everything from the, you know, from the design and getting the compliance and regulation and the engineering behind Magnets as opposed to just creating their own kind of end products and selling. So now they're very, very much a hybrid company. And just, you know, we just have a plethora of new verticals that we've got, you know, gotten into as a result of it. And last year was a fantastic year for, for them when you know, a lot of their more stock products might, you know, people weren't using them because of the pandemic and because we did switch over to the, you know, the services and doing things that people didn't like to do. They had another banner year which was wonderful.

Many clients first had to pivot their operations and then the offering started to pivot in the last year. And the key thing we emphasize with is looking at trends, where are things going, not what are they. I mean you're first Going to look at what's happening right now, especially in a time of dramatic change. But then. All right, so by mid year, many and more companies will be moving back in person or some hybrid thing. Are you going to go back to the old open bay office that you once had? Probably not. So how are things going to change? What's happening with your customer patterns? Where are they going to go next? Not what's happening right now, but where is it going? These are some of the opportunities and being unique.

Bill, I was going to say one quick pivot that one of my clients made and they're not for profit. And so I do, I always have two not for profit clients at any given time just, just to pay it forward and do that work that helps the community. And I'm really proud of this one. They're, they're a huge not for profit here in West Michigan. Their name's Kids Food Basket and they deal with food insecurity for kids in school. So you know, a lot of these schools, the kids will get breakfast and lunch, but they go home to no dinner. And so they did is they built this is 20 years ago. They built this process of preparing sack suppers and then they deliver them to the schools. The kids take it home and they have something to eat at night and they just, they did an amazing work and they, they've grown and grown, grown. Well as soon as the pandemic hit, I was with them actually when the, when we shut down Michigan about the same time everybody else did, but in the same time frame. And school shut down. They were shut down for, until just last fall and then they shut down again. But either way they weren't able to deliver the food and they pivoted their operations to your point, not necessarily their offerings, but their operations very, very quickly. And there have been a huge success story. They, they delivered just as much food, if not more during the pandemic during the schools being shut down and really helps with that food insecurity and so much so they were recognized. And the first lady, Dr. Joe Biden, she came by and they, and she saw their operations is like we need to put this at a national level. So I love calling them out and giving them props because they've just done such good work. And, and that's to me, that was a pivot for good.

Awesome. And Wade, how, how important we were talking before right about earlier on about, you know, all the functions that robots can do and yet let the human being. How many problems are there to solve? I mean here we are right talking in 2021 about people in America who still, you know, don't have kids, who don't have, you know, a home and a dinner to go home to.

Right.

So there's a great example of let robots do what they can do. But what about people like, you know, wade in that organization solving, you know, solving the problem of hunger locally and abroad. That's, I think that's a great example of that. There's so many problems to solve. So kudos.

So a couple of minutes as we run out of time with our show today. If you'd like to get your operations pivoted and moved online, having some kind of online software accountability can make it difference. So we have the Scaling Up Scoreboard, a purpose built scoreboard to make that happen. Scalingup.com software or also known as Align today. And then if you'd like to take your learning a little further, I know we recommend specific courses regularly each quarter to our leadership teams from the Growth Institute. And you can take that and go beyond what you have time for in your team days and with your coach or as a compliment to that. They of course have their big guns. The Master of Business Dynamics course, they have a Scaling up master business class. If you're not ready yet to engage a coach, you want to do some of that online learning. And then they've got lots of mini courses which are the ones that we use the most. So I've got somebody who's wanting to upgrade their hiring. So we just had them watch the who mini class and start to think about their interviewing process, use of the job scorecard and that kind of thing in addition to what we taught them. So all that@growth institute.com I want to thank all the coaches, guys, panelists, guys and gals for joining us this week, this month and, and having that conversation and sharing the wisdom, the experience and the perspective. I think it's better than just hearing me talk all the time.

Bill, you're so good at this. You did a great job.

Thank you, Bill.

Thanks everyone. Our show helped you. Please pass it along to someone else. We like when you give us a review and if you subscribe to the show and you send us a picture of your subscriber, like you go and you subscribe on iTunes, YouTube, wherever you get it, or on scalingcoach.com you send us a picture of that, email it to us infocalingcoach.com write subscriber, we'll send you a bunch of extra unreleased tools, worksheets and that kind of thing. To get you started. So we of course love and want to take care of our subscribers. First and foremost, I want to give special thanks to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework and the Rockefeller Habits that Came Before It. Our show is produced right all the prep and the pre and post and the behind the scenes is handled by Lucy Summers. Our audio is edited by Albert Burge at Podfly Productions and our show notes are written and compiled by Ayn Kadina. Proofread by Tim McGowan. Thanks again everyone for listening everybody. Goodbye. Have a great month. Keep Scaling Up.