Insights with Verne Harnish

Foreign. So much to talk about today, a lot to talk about. We're going to talk about wisdom of Sam Altman and some thoughts from Steve Jobs. The power of asking for what you want, daily routines, the science of daily routines and then the implications for remote work. All that more coming right up.

Hey, everybody.

I'm Bill Gallagher, Scaling coach and host of the Scaling up podcast. I'm here today joined by my mentor and friend Verne Harnish. And we're going to get into Vern's recent insights and kind of talk through them in a way that we don't always get a chance to do. So I'm really glad to have Vern on the show. We'll get to that in just a second. Reminder, as always, we've got hundreds and hundreds of shows. We with all the Scaling up contributors, our summit speakers, CEOs, other coaches and more@scalingcoach.com or over. You're getting this right now. So if you're watching on YouTube, if you're on LinkedIn, if you're on Facebook, if you're listening in Apple Pocket, wherever it is, subscribe to it and then turn on notifications there and you will get our show every week. We do at least one show every week, sometimes two, and with an author or guest. And of course, today we have my favorite, Vern Harnish joining us. So find all that at more@scalingcoach.com Vern, welcome to the show.

Bill, glad to be on the show.

It really is your show, right? This is all inspired in all of our content and all of our work and the work of all the other coaches is related to something that you instigated. It's your fault. It is years ago.

All the bad stuff. I'll take all the bad stuff.

All the bad stuff. So you're in Colorado now, right?

I am for a few days and then around the world kind of for a month. So getting back to Japan for the first time since 1986. So looking forward to it.

That's cool. And for our listeners, viewers, last week Vernon and I were together in Lake Tahoe area leading another boot camp where CEOs and COOs come together with others to do a deep dive for a whole week on everything to do with Scaling Up. It's a great way to get started alongside others who will probe and ask questions and challenge the thinking that you've got. So I and the website for that, I didn't put it in the notes here, but that's I think CEO boot camp.com is that right, it is.

CEO-boot camp.com we've got another one in Lake Tahoe that's going to be in the fall, in September. And you know, I love it because it gives us a chance to really go deep with a handful of companies. They also learn so much from each other. And I mean, we had companies, 50 million, 100 million, 200 million. I mean, these are folks that are really cranking and the thing that they always say is, hey, I've been practicing scaling up or Rockefeller habits for years. But you know, you don't cross the same river twice. And the ability to really go deep, remind everyone of the fundamentals and most importantly, dig into the constraint. And that's the thing that we really like to focus on is what is really the constraint to you. Just kind of really blowing open the doors. Profitability, revenue wise, impact within the organization, I think every organization has ever been through comes out with a clear understanding of what that is. And it's something you've got to just dig in one on one to figure out.

You know, it's interesting that quote you said nobody crosses the same river twice. Right. The river's not the same and the person's not the same. And I think of workshops and books and things that I've read more than once and how they occurred for me so differently at a different time. Right. I remember one that at a different point in life, with different needs that occurred for me and the things that I heard and got when I first learned Rockefeller habits way back when, as a result of my business partner and wife going through the, the old. Program, I was thinking about gathering your titans where it was last week, but yeah, it is.

Well, and I think, you know, you and I talked about it, you know, every other profession, whether you're a pilot, doctor, or professional golfer, tennis player, you're constantly going back to the fundamentals. Where in our world people's attitude is, oh, I read that 10 years ago, I must have mastered it. And I think that's, it's insane. And I think you're much better off to grab on to an approach, our performance platform is what we call it, and then stick with it and continue to review it. I mean, all the great golfers before every swing, you know, are up there practicing the fundamentals before they release. And so going back to the fundamentals is what everybody at the CEO boot camp says is, oh, I'm so glad we're coming back. I don't need yet another framework. I just need to do the one that I learned 1020 years ago. So anyway, yeah, yeah, but I'm excited about the podcast and that gives us an opportunity, our first to really bring alive the weekly insights that is a real passion for me going on 22 years of every week. And it's my really opportunity to take that pile of suggestions that are piled at me every week. A new book, a new article, a new YouTube video, whatever, and for myself to absorb it and then to write about it and share. And as you know, we hardly think we have all the answers. I, I highlighted 40 other books in my book, you know, really because of the Birthing of Giants program. We hosted all of those authors and so it's our chance every week to continue to pull from folks the way I view it smarter than me that we can go out there and share with the rest of the world.

Yeah, well, so we're going to dive into Sam Altman's 13 maxims to start off this week. And I like that you put a quote at the beginning of the insights about that. Sam Altman is about focus. And, and so for if you don't know if you're under a rock, if you're not business reading. Sam Altman is the former president of Y Combinator. He was the CEO of Reddit and he's the CEO now of Looped and OpenAI, a company that raised over a billion back in 2015 and became ChatGPT. Their ChatGPT service became the fastest growing consumer application history, 100 million monthly active users just two months after launching. That's better than TikTok. That's better than Instagram by a wide margin merchant. And anything that gets that adoption is fascinating to learn from not only what the company did, but also what sort of leader is that and what are their thoughts on things?

So, well, and I, and I like the way Sam opened up, he said, because of, and I had not known his Reddit and Y Combinator background, but he really, truly has had an opportunity to observe, and he used that term observe, thousands of entrepreneurs and companies. And it was out of that observation and writing about it and others that he was able to formulate these 13 maxims. And I looked through him and I thought, wow, he nailed it. And so let's go ahead and share it. So this opportunity for us to kind of bring that alive.

Yeah, you know, it's funny that observation is the power. Like I think especially when I was first coaching, people asked me about my background as a CEO and I would share some of the companies that I had run and grown in both successes and failures. But now, 10 years after being a full time coach, the breadth of things is way beyond my own experience. The things I see every day and hear from people greatly expands what I ever accomplished.

And so let's go back to that focus quote. The reason I chose it is he said yeah, everybody says focus but the emphasis he put on it is that we would all do much better if we would step back and spend more time thinking about what it is that we should focus on. So I find entrepreneurs don't lack amount of focus. Often they're focusing on two or three things but my concern is they're working on the wrong thing. And as we emphasize the CEO boot camp, we have the answers. It's the question question we need to really nail first and that's what they appreciate in the CEO boot camp is we get them to step back and say wait a second, maybe there's some other questions and other things I should be focusing more on than I have. And that's usually the biggest. Aha. So the fact that we were just in the middle of CEO boot camp and Sam said that, that we really need to spend more time thinking about what the focus should be, not just tell people to focus but I thought was absolutely critical.

So we're not, we'll go through the 13, but we'll spend a little more time maybe on some than others right now as occurs to us. But the first one for sure is important to me on a regular basis with everybody I work with. And I think our, our core client in general like so number one is improve exponentially. Think about how you can expand nonlinearly, how to stop doing, you know, not trying to do the more of the same things. Not incremental but exponential. And I that's number one for me with thinking about who to work with and who to talk to about our work.

Well and it's that idea to truly be ambitious. And as we open up the new version of scaling up, we're featuring entrepreneurs that didn't just 10x in 8 to 10 years, they're 30x'd on significant already success. We're going to see Naomi Simpson go from 100 million to 3 billion. And she's pretty convinced she's going to beat that by two years. But she also beat her first BHAG by two years to go from just 7,500 experiences to 2 million. And I think the reason it's critical is if you're only thinking linearly, you only have to kind of do better what you're already doing. But if you're going to think 10x or 30x, then you've got to do things different. And as Michael Porter said, the great strategist at Harvard, you really don't have a strategy if you're not doing everything different anyway. And so it starts with that ambitious goal that is exponential, not just linear.

Yeah. I think it changes your strategy, it changes your operation, changes everything. And for me, it also actually really ties into number eight for Sam. Be bold. Right. If you're thinking exponentially, you think about everything differently. But it also captures the imagination of employees, of customers, of partners. Like everyone is, is engaged with the idea of taking on something really big. One of my favorite quotes ever is Daniel Burnham, who was a early urban planner and architect. And he said, make no small plans for they have little power to stir the hearts of people. He said men at the time. But, um, hopefully we're beyond that. But. And that. And that idea of creating something real, like really bold, whether it's even like a personal thing. Are you trying to get a little less fat or do you want to run a triathlon? Like, what is the. Where's the power of something really bold for you and for your company?

Well, and we've always, you know, we always say the acronym for CEO is really Chief Energy Officer. You know, time's limited, but energy's unlimited. And you really need to put every decision through the filter. Is this going to add or take away from energy? And we had, during the pandemic, one of the Harvard speakers, they had done the research and they said attainable goals are actually very low energy. And that ambitious goals will drive tremendously more energy. And as we used to say at the very beginning, early days of that MIT program, you know what, Add just a few zeros to your thinking and what happens is you attract a much more interesting group of people. And in some ways it's easier to do $100 million deal than it is a million dollar deal, because the folks that are hanging at a million, I mean, I don't want to get this wrong, but often they're a lot more petty around things than folks that are thinking at the 10 million or 100 million or billion dollar level. So simply, I think, add a few zeros to your thinking.

I've always thought of it like it's a balance between what's absurd and what's a stretch. Like what's engaging and interesting to your ego. Right. Ego, we often learn, is like negative. But ego has some powerful uses. Right. There's a place for it. Maybe not unchecked. But that balance, does it call you, does it challenge you mightily. Right. And that's different though than if I was to say I think it's critical that we become a multi planetary species and go to Mars. It's kind of like, well Bill, you're a scaling coach or like, you know, you're not Elon Musk, but when Elon Musk says it like you have to sit up and take notice.

Yeah. And by the way, very specifically that research was a bell curve. So attainable is very low energy and ridiculous is low energy. And so being ambitious is. Yeah, and that's, that's why we get paid the medium bucks to try to decide, you know, what is that optimum point. But being bold versus incremental or linear is critical power.

So for me, number two and number 13 are highly related. Number two is, have almost too much self belief, like really believe in something, don't let go of it. And then number 13 is be internally driven, be personally obsessed. And for me those two are highly related. Right. Like I'm, it's my own personal drive and I believe in it and I'm going for it and I won't let go of it. Right. And I, and I think there's gotta be a way for me, you know, in whatever it is that I'm pursuing and I, I think our leaders are similar kind of thing like that. You're motivated because you care.

Yeah, well, and there's that, you know, again, that's the science behind this. When they looked at success, those who were internally what's called locus of control versus have an external locus of control. And the external locus of control are like blaming everybody else for why things aren't working out. And somebody with an internal locus of control really understands I'm either winning or learning. And so there's no losing. But I've got to look at myself first and see what is it I haven't yet learned that I need to move forward with and at the same time have this self belief that you're going to be able to figure it out and you're going to be able to push through, particularly if you so believe that it needs to happen. And yeah, so again, we don't want to cross over to the ridiculous. But that was really what he meant by self belief. It was less ego and more in this kind of crazy belief that we've got to get to Mars and that it's going to happen. And from there you're able to really kind of push through the Pain and think differently. So that you're right. I think those two are really number.

Three is learn to think differently. So going to original principles, surrounding yourself with people that challenge you, thinking outside your industry. God, do you think about how many breakthroughs we have with companies, not only in their strategy, but their business model and their cash, the profitability and valuation, because we help them to not do it the way everybody does it in their industry.

Well, and that's why we've always been adamant. The second thing to get in place besides learn this stuff is the council. You know, we, when we, you know, I cornered Jim Collins After 25 years of studying greatness, said, all right, Jim, what's the one thing that really jumped out at you that all of us have to do, including us mere mortals? And he said, the council, it's that special group that can challenge you, that can help you think strategically that you're with on a weekly basis. It was what happened in the pandemic when EO or YPO forums said, hey, we can't physically get together once a month, but let's meet virtually once a week. And that that forum where we could talk through was absolutely critical. And so. But it's got to be with a group of people that can challenge you and really get you to think different.

Well, and you're always that between the insights and then, you know, when I bring you an idea and you're like, yeah, but Bill, remember and challenge and surround yourself with people like that that will, you know, give you that and sources of information like, you know, I try not to read just about the things that I'm obsessed with or just my industry, but to get out of that, that wide grazing helps to give that more independent thinking.

Well, and by the way, I read this morning there's a new book out about Tony Hsieh, you know, who had founded Zappos and really exposing the fact that there, towards the end of his life, he was paying people to. To really be sycophants for him and not challenge him. And that was the issue Jewel had when she went to go visit him and she saw this happening and had to leave and wrote that heartfelt letter to him to try to get him to wake up, but he would already was already too far gone, surrounding himself with people that would just tell him what he wanted to hear. And I think Sam's getting at that as well. So number four.

That's number four. Yeah. And you know that it's interesting you say that because I think about how many people that I Work with that. Get, you know, you get some money, you get some accomplishment, maybe even have a private jet, you know, and then you start to think you're smarter than everyone else or you're entitled to something. And you and those folks, when they stop and they get an outside coach or an advisor or something like that, do really great, because it's a reality check, because that stuff goes right to your head. You know, when you can do more than everybody around you, sometimes you start to think that maybe you don't. You're not human anymore.

Well, and we see it. You see it with entrepreneurs when they exit the first time, Bill, and they think they've got the golden touch. And how many of them have lost 25, 40, 80% of their wealth quite quickly because they thought everything that they knew they could just pour it over into a new industry or a new opportunity. So what I just. I was listening to Matthew McConaughey, launched his program today, and he said, the definition of being humble is realizing that there's more to learn. And I thought, wow, that was a great definition. And I think that's what we're talking about here as well.

Number four, get good at sales, convincing other people that your ideas are good. We have a lot of people who they're like, well, I'm not really the sales CEO, I'm the engineer. I'm the this or that. Whatever it is, you've got to be passionate about it, and you've got to get good at getting other people to play with you, work with you, partner with you, buy from you. Like, selling is a very broad thing. Right. It's not just selling to customers. You're selling your ideas. You're selling to investors. You know, you did quite a bit of selling early in your career.

Well, that's why having the elevator pitch is real. I mean, for you to be able to articulate very simply the late Clay Christensen's question, the job to be done. You know, Steve Jobs was a master. The job of an ipod to hold a thousand songs in your pocket. And it was bold. And so you start to see how Sam's list begins to build on each other.

So number five is one that I wish I had followed better before. And I admire some. Some of the younger entrepreneurs and execs that I see today that do a really good job of this, make it easy to take risks, keep your life cheap and flexible. Right. When you pile on lifestyle and things like that, expensive things in your life, it gets very hard to take a risk to do something bold to Start something new because you're so leveraged and you need that next hit, that next paycheck, that next bonus.

Yeah, yeah. It reminded me of rich dad, poor dad. And I always thought that was just kind of a get rich quick book. But I had scaled million, 2 million, you know, 4 million, thought we're just gonna do 8 million inc. 500. Then 9, 11 hit and I was broke overnight. And I had been dutifully losing money and all of this stuff. And Robert Kiyosaki then was coming to our EO chapter to speak and I thought, all right, out of respect, I'm going to read his book. I got to tell you that a profound bill impact on all of us. In the chapter, we grabbed his cash game. We actually took our forum retreat up to Vail and played that game multiple times over a long weekend to drill into our head that, look, you got to get out of the rat race, that if you can keep your, your living expenses low, lower than just your passive income, you've got all kinds of freedom then to do the things that you want to do. And it really changed a lot of our thinking about loading up on those expensive things.

Well, you know, and again, that goes to number 12, getting rich by owning things. Right? Don't just trade your time for money. Don't just count on the paycheck or the bonus or the commission, but figure out what you can own. Ip, equity, real estate, you know, companies. These are the things that, you know to give yourself more financial security is it's a lot better to own them than to do them. But I, you know, I've watched and admired even family members and friends who kept their life cheap while they were building and figuring out what they could do. And they were so much more flexible than myself and some of the people who, who spent a lot of the money as they, especially in their career, enjoying the first fruits.

Yeah, well, the thing that Kiyosaki said that I thought really opened our eyes is anything that costs you a dollar or more a month is a liability. Anything that's making you a dollar more. So yes, you can load up on real estate, but that building is only beautiful if it's got positive cash flow. If you're sitting there having a dole out every month hoping that you're going to make it back in appreciation, that's when folks get, get caught in big trouble moving forward. So being clear, what is an investment that you own that's giving you a return versus draining you is critical. And the first thing he said is your Own home is a liability, not an asset. And you're better off having a returning asset that you're renting out. And then go rent if you need to, especially in those early days, I think is most helpful.

Well, some of us California homeowners and some other places know we've made a lot of money on our homes. But what can you do with it?

Right.

Like there's all kinds of. But where am I going to move to? How would I take that money out of the home and use it for anything else? I mean, you can in some ways, but not easily.

Yeah, for sure.

Number six is focus. Right. And he says spend a lot of time thinking about what the focus should be first. We spent some time thinking about focus and how to focus and what the priorities should be last week. And that that's a continual struggle for the companies we work with. What to focus on.

Yeah. And there the key is Intel. Our view is if you don't know immediately what the constraint is, that then gives you the idea of the focus is because you don't have enough quantitative or qualitative data flowing in. Because when you do particularly have that connection with the marketplace that you. You're clear with the voice of the customer is you're going to know. And so that's really. I think the Aha. The CEOs got is that you need market intel, not focus groups, but observation. Very much like Sam had, you know, lots of years of observation of thousands to come to these maxims. You need that same kind of observation of your marketplace in order to find the insights on what it is you should focus on.

Yeah. Really critical. And one more that I see is a lot of times people are looking at a whole bunch of challenges at hand, Right. Not thinking of what the key constraint is, but looking at these challenges, having trouble figuring out which one to focus on. And the thing that I always go is if you just look in the present, which is essentially looking in the past, then you might choose the wrong thing to focus on. But if you have a clear picture for the future, like a vivid vision, like a big, hairy, audacious goal, then sometimes it becomes a lot clearer what to focus on with that in the lens.

Yeah, it's been interesting since we really declared more clearly our job to be done, which is to help companies improve the value of their people and their organization. Going back to a word that was in my original subtitle of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, now all of a sudden, all kinds of resources are coming to us around how to improve valuation and Value. And the message is becoming much more clear. Our job to be done. And so it is a chicken and egg here.

So the next one I have a little challenge with personally, maybe because I'm lazy, but number seven is work hard. And like, no, I pour myself into certain things that I care about and work stamina and that kind of thing. But I also think there are a lot of people who just work hard on whatever just because they have guilt about any time off.

Well, I think they're talking about in the beginning. I. Look, I don't know any successful entrepreneur that didn't put in 80 hour, 100 hour weeks. What you're trying to do is, you know, get, do that long enough that you can finally cross the chasm. And there really is that chasm you got to cross, as Jeffrey Moore talks about, where you can get on the other side now. And you've got that operational efficiency and things are just beginning to flow. And I think that's the essence of the way I read what Sam's writing there.

Yeah, yeah. And it is really critical to do that. And sometimes the way that you work hard is by having the rest, by having the other things that give you that. I do know that in a workout or a trip in the shower, in many places do I get good ideas and I'm able to connect the dots that I can't do just in the middle of the hard effort.

Yeah, you may have to work hard at getting that creative time and you've got to structure it. And you know, John D. Rockefeller worked from home every morning he was working, but it gave him that focus, time that he needed so he wasn't being bombarded when he was in the office.

One of the funny or more unusual things that I do is I will change the environment when I'm doing coaching conversations. And I. A couple weeks ago I went skiing with a CEO and I've taken CEOs sailing and we frequently take walks and that kind of thing. But we'd feel like we were settled with something. We'd go, okay, let's take another run. And we'd ride the thing up and we'd finish our conversation on the lift up and then we'd ski down and then we'd get back in the lift to take another run. And the CEO would be like, yeah, but what about this? Because on the way down, he'd had a chance to synthesize things. Right. You can't do a lot of thinking when you're talking. I mean, a little bit you sort things out out loud. But, but we don't learn a whole lot when we do it. So he'd, he'd like digest it, then he'd pose a new question. We take the lift up, grapple with that for the six minutes on the way up or that kind of thing is pretty useful.

You know, it's interesting. One of the very first programs I put together for career track 30 years ago was on innovation. And there really is a four step process preparation. So you do have to put in the hard work and effort. Then you need the incubation. You've got to step away and let your mind do its magic. Then you get the inspiration. Everybody thinks you start with the inspiration, but there's two critical steps before and then obviously verification. You've got to go do something about it. And so yes, you've got to work hard at. And you know, one of the jokes is entrepreneurs would rather work 16 hours for themselves than 8 hours for someone else every day. And I think it's true. But at some point it quits being a joke. And then that's when we begin to kick in and see if we can make people much more exponential. Because the other thing is frustrating is to be putting in the hours but not getting any results. And that's the frustrating thing. I'm losing. I'm actually making less money than I did when it was just three of us, you know, working out of a spare bedroom. And so that's what we really work on fixing. And that barriers chapter gets at that with Alan Rudy, who was facing exactly the same thing at ExpressMed.

So we already talked about being bold number eight, but being willful. And we're about to come to soon, so let's just defer. But being willful is about asking for what you want and we're going to dig into that more. But the next one is really critical. And you talk about this endlessly and preach this and I've learned it and worked it to preach reach with our clients. But that is being hard to compete with by being different. That, that whole like how could you be usefully different? Meaningfully different.

Yeah. And, and Porter was adamant about it. I mean, if you're pricing the same way as everyone else, you're not different. If you're hiring the same people as everyone else, you're not different. But most importantly, if you're delivering your product or service in roughly the same way everybody else is doing doing it, you're not different. And therefore you really don't have a strategy. So you and I can have A podcast. And we should on just that topic some other time.

It's. It's a useful thing. The. The places to be different. Number 11 is building a network being a force of nature, like with people surrounding you who are a force of nature. And I think about my. One of my earliest successes in business. I built a business for someone else, over 550 million. But I didn't build a huge network of friends and fans because I was such a jerk. I often use stronger language for how I was in those days, but I was such a jerk to the people around me. So arrogant. So sure, I had a small piece of the total business for this company, but the majority of the operating profit. And I lorded over people and I'm so much smarter than them. And I wasn't building at that point. Only later did I learn to build friends and supporters and allies and that kind of thing. It's so important to build that network.

Yeah, well. And that is the key thing that Regis McKenna taught Steve Jobs, Intel Genentech and who I cold called and asked for help back in 1983. I'm just a student of Wichita State. I had a good vision build the world's largest entrepreneur organization, which has panned out pretty well. And he said, look, I'm going to teach you what I taught Steve, which was take a piece of paper out and make at the time a list of the top 25 influencers that you can bolt on to this vision burn. And the bigger the names, the faster you will scale. And I think that's the essence of what Sam's talking about, is not just have a network, but have a network that wows the world that truly can influence. And so I still have that yellow sheet of paper I put down in 1983. Look, I was young, dumb and broke at Wichita State. I put down President Ronald Reagan. I was going to make him be the first president to utter the word entrepreneur. And we did. And Steve Jobs and Michael Dell and Inc. Magazine and Venture. And it was crazy. In 36 months, everybody on that list was on board, including the president. And we were global in 36 months. So I saw the power of making that list, which Steve Jobs did every time he needed to launch something, including itunes. He made lists of the 25 top players and the music distribution space. By the way, none of them would return his phone call. You know, the ego in that industry is huge. So we found somebody, you know, the drummer for the Eagles to come over to his house, do a walk and talk. And he said, hey, do you know, anybody on the list? And goes, yeah, I know that guy. And 24 months later, Steve was the king of music distribution. And he was a nobody in that space before that. So that, to me, it's one of the most important maxims that Sam articulated.

So you mentioned. We talked about being willful in Sam Altman's list. But then there's also an Ink article in the Insights. Steve Jobs calling up the HP founder and asking for some spare parts at a young age. And this idea that you've got to ask for what you want, what you need, or nobody's ever going to know. Right. That's a huge thing that separates doers from dreamers.

Yeah. And that's what they were pointing out, that, yeah, Steve was 12 when he made that phone call to Bill Hewitt. And Bill just got such a kick out of, you know, this young kid asking that he gave him the spare parts, but more importantly, he gave him an internship. And ultimately Steve kind of, you know, cut his chops there and got a real sense of what it. What it means to have scope and build such a significant company. And I think you need to see that in order often to achieve it. And so we went on to say, that is the big thing that separates, as you said, the dreamers from the doers is they make the phone call. And that really goes back to not only making the list, but figuring out how you're going to get to everybody on that list. And they are the three most important words, I think, in any language. And that is, you know, please help me, you know, or, you know, can you help me and be sincere about it?

You know, that's one of the things my dad taught me early on, and he was a great salesman and wrote a great book on selling, and he's since passed on. But he said, ask for help and find a way to ask it sincerely, not in a manipulative way, but ask for help. He'd say, like, call the company and say, I wonder if you could help me out and open with that. And they'll be like, yes, young man. Or, you know, or woman or whatever. And he'd say, who manages this for the company? I'm trying to figure out who to talk to about this. And he said, mostly they'll tell you who you need to call on. Right. And then call that person and say, I wonder if you could help me out. And then ask, are you the right person to talk to about a thing? I'd love to sell something like this, the company. And you'll find that you're actually selling something and beginning conversations because you're asking for help and there's a little humility. You're not so slick. He called it the Columbo approach, which I thought was kind of interesting. Remember Columbo? Peter Falk was fumbling character man. I'm trying to figure this out here.

No, I. I think it's right. And, and a corollary to it is make sure that you really treat with respect the gatekeepers. Yes. And they're the ones. One of the. One of the founding board members of yeo, now EO was in the limo business and one of the things that Dean would do is he made sure he had a rose that he brought to every receptionist of every major company that he wanted to do business with. And those gatekeepers. I got really close friends with Roseanne Badowski, who was Jack Welch's ea. And it was Roseanne that was the one who gave me access to Jack. There was not going to be any other way to get that done. Or Caroline Hagsdale with Greg Brennaman and, and knowing their name and treating with respect and honoring that. Hey, let me just share it with you and, and sell them on the vision and make them part of the team and they will really inside do the bidding for you. So take care of everybody.

So there's a. You then also segue into all you have to do is ask book. There's a new book. Well, it's not a new book. New book, it's newer book. Right. All you have to do is ask. Sociologist Wayne Baker from University of Michigan wrote this book. And, and he points to a particular type of a giver requester people who are both ask askers and givers. And I think if you just give all the time, sometimes you can be resentful and you're not getting what you want. And if you are only asking, then maybe you're a little too selfish, self absorbed.

Yeah. I thought it was a great point that you were seen in a better light if you did more of both. And so I think it's that kind of activity that is important and helping people out and then asking in return. And vice. I think it makes the world go around. It's like water. The more you can get it there flowing faster and faster. And money, the same thing here with both making requests and giving back, it really begins to create that flywheel or momentum out there in the marketplace that you need. So I'd encourage everybody just kind of read the book.

Yeah, well, I definitely want to be thought of as a giver, as a generous person. But I often have to remind myself to ask for what I want and not hope that people figure it out. Because when I do that, I get pretty resentful of having given as much as I did. Well, why didn't they think, well, you should have asked?

Yeah, well, and people, look, it's a form of respect. You've just given respect and, and in many cases labeled them an authority in asking for some support and help. And that was the big thing that Regis had taught me was when I met Arthur Lipperth for the first time. He was running Venture magazine. You know, after I gave him my elevator pitch, then I said, Mr. Lipper, if you were me, if you were my age, how would you scale this up? And then I just was quiet and made sure I took notes and then questioned that I end up with like a list of 27. I have that yellow notepad someplace as well in storage and that. And then what I quickly did was act on a couple of those. And then back then we didn't have email. I had to send Mr. Lipper a letter saying, hey, here's your list of 27. I've acted on already two of them. And it was, it was over. I, I had him at hello, because not only did I listen, but I acted on it. And that's really all a great mentor teacher wants is a responsive, active student. So asking for help is a way of really showing and giving respect, especially.

If you have on it a couple shout outs for our other offerings and things like that. So we've got a very extensive suite of courses and things like that at the Growth Institute. Growth Institute.com is our online education program run by Daniel Marcos. And there we have a Master of Business dynamics. We've got a master course in scaling up. We've got lots and lots of shorter courses. Exponential organizations top grading along every topic to do with our core four decisions, plus a whole lot more@growthinstitute.com and then we're also always doing workshops. I've got a workshop coming up in San Francisco as we record this and I post workshops regularly on my website@scalingcoach.com but there's lots, there's like hundreds@scalingup.com so we do workshops all over the world. We do virtual workshops. We do if you want to get started or if you need to get back to basics, you start started scaling up a long time ago and you'd like to bring some of your leaders and do it. Spend a half a Day a day, two days. Doing a deep dive. We offer a variety of formats and. And lots of abundant workshop options. So the online education and the workshops both you can find.

And then Bill, you and I will be teamed up again and. And you and I specifically are going to be teaching a virtual workshop in June.

And.

And we do it twice a year so folks can tune in and it's 90 minutes on each of people. Strategy execution and cash over a couple of days. And CEOs are constantly saying both. It's a good review for them. And by the way, CEOs get attend for free if they've ever done anything with us before. As long as you bring somebody else. And that's what we encourage. Which is why at our CEO bootcamp it really is CEO and the number two. So they have a chance to really talk back and forth. Yes.

So before we run out of time in the show, let's talk about science based daily routines. And you say in the insights that you kind of cringe. A lot of people fluff up things and justify things with flimsy science on a very regular basis. But there's some real thoughts about your daily routine. I notice I have a daily routine, but it does evolve over time at stages of life and what I'm doing. But there are some things that really make a difference for all of us and then there are things that are kind of baked in as human beings. Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. And it was a podcast that I referred to a couple of weeks ago.

And we'll have links to all in the show notes.

You got it. Yeah. So I'd really encourage people to listen to that 45 minute podcast where the author of the book that was really looking at what is the ideal daily routine based on science pointed out. And there were just a lot of hints like what is the best time of day actually to exercise? And it proves to be in the afternoon. They actually most performance records have been sent set in the afternoon. So if you haven't been as motivated to get up and go exercise first thing in the morning, there may be a reason for that coffee that. And he lays out some good reasons why wait till you're up for an hour or two before you had that cup of coffee, then jumping right into it. Same with jumping right into work. When you wake up, there is this sleep debt that you've got to kind of. There's a momentum there that you've got to overcome as part of waking up. So that's a good time to like move right into meditation and some of your other morning routines just to get yourself prepared than jumping right into. Let me open up my phone and check email right away. Down to obviously the importance of sleep and some of the routines that he goes through there that are helpful to make sure that you're going to get that good night's sleep. So I just found it absolutely full of little hints of ways to kind of fine tune even including going back to our paleo days, the importance of having that afternoon nap and the ideal length of it, 15 to 20 minutes. And as you were alluding to, we also talked about remote work versus having a commute. If we want to jump into that.

To finish it off, let's call out a couple things. First of all, here's what I like that I already use. Personally. I like a little bit of like slow waking. I definitely try not to wake with an alarm clock. I try to organize my day around my natural waking rhythm. And then I try to allow myself to wake up at whatever pace or whatever's needed for the particular day. Whenever possible, use an alarm clock as kind of a last resort. And then slow thing, including I have a little meditation and a little gratitude practice in the morning that helped me to kind of start my day off in the right note. I sometimes I will do. I'm not currently doing much cardio in the morning, but like stretching feels really good in the morning. Right. Feels like let's. Let's stretch the warm up the body. Not so much like a hard workout, but I could could be better at delaying the coffee a little bit. I get coffee not the first second I wake up, but pretty soon.

Yeah. That's such a beautiful ritual. Right. So the ritual around it, I started.

Smelling it is all kind of. I thought all those were pretty interesting about those daily routines and then thinking about the nap. But the commute is a really interesting one for me and not everybody can control their commute. So I thought one interesting insight from that was if you can't shorten it for whatever reason right now, see if you could make it more interesting or more pleasurable in some way.

Yes. But I also like the fact that said, it's good to have a commute with a lot of folks working remote isn't any demarcation line between work and home. And he said even going back to our arcade days, we all had to commute, whether it's go out pick berries or go out on the hunt. And so if you can arrange it and a lot of folks have to have an office that's he said ideally within 15 minutes. For me, mine was a 15 minute walk that allows you to switch gears. And that made a lot of sense because I've generally worked from home and that makes it difficult because you don't have any application for sure.

I mean, when I was young I had longer commutes but I worked very hard, like, oh, I'd take the train so that I could think or work or do something to make it more interesting for myself. And I, you know, I. And then I remember I had a long commute, a lot of driving one time. So I bought a convertible and I love to take the top down and put my sunglasses on and cruise along. Right. Like, how could I make it better? And then for many years I worked 10, 11 minutes from home and that was fantastic because I controlled where the company was and where I lived. Today I have either a very long commute, like I fly to another city to work with someone. Right. Like you do, or it's just across the hallway. Right. Like outside the door there is my. Is my bedroom in. Just across the hallway. But I do have a habit now that works really well for me and that's that I fully and firmly close the door at the beginning of the end of the day. So I put a pretty hard cut off to the day and I. And I'm very conscious, like, oh, I'm going back to work for a second now when I open or close that door, it's sort of the beginning and the end of the workday. Yeah.

And as we're finding, there's a couple of major companies that have learned all along the way, if somebody's really putting in more than 60 hours, it your. Your productivity drops dramatically and you don't end up getting that incubation time that allows you to get the inspirations because you're just continuing to crank. And so we can begin to realize that there is a downside at some point and to have that demarcation. For me, it's Friday night through Sunday morning, just not opening up the laptop or looking at any kind of work. And it really refuels me, you know, for putting in another good six days moving forward.

Well, two more shout outs if we can help you in any way. We have hundreds of coaches around the world and you know, I certainly am one of the coaches, but I can only work with a handful of companies at a time and that's why we have people everywhere. So if I can recommend somebody for you, you, you'll find me@scalingcoach.com and and then all of our resources and partners and that kind of thing are@scalingup.com and all of Vern's work. Scalingup.com will put that link on the on the board as well. And we have technology as well. Our other partner or their major partner is the Align Scoreboard and that's our purpose built alignment tool to keep you and your team on the same page executing against scale. So all our partners and more and all the things we've Talked about@scalingup.com and you'll find the Align tool there as well. We've filled an hour talking about just one episode or one issue of Vern's Insights. I hope it's been useful for you. We'd love to hear your feedback. If you've got some thoughts you'd like to see more or less of this in video, drop me a Note info@scalingcoach.com is a good email. So this will be out on both video and audio in the next little bit and hopefully it was useful for you. Thanks everyone for listening, for watching Vern. Thanks for joining and bring in. Always a pleasure to spend some time talking.

Bill, thank you.

All right, thanks again everyone. Keep scaling up. We'll talk to you again next time. It won't stop. It's still running. I'm trying to kill the broadcast, but we can enjoy the music. There you go. It's funny, won't die.