Episode 24: Live with David Moise on Leadership and Success

Welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If you need to develop into a better leader, this podcast is for you. If you want to achieve a greater level of success, this podcast is for you. His mentor, Dr. John C. Maxwell, said it best: Everything rises and falls on leadership. We hope to inspire you today and provide you with an insight that has the potential to positively impact the trajectory of your life. Welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast.

Hello everyone, this is Coach Bizzy. Very happy to come to you live this morning on LinkedIn, and I have a very, very special guest today. We're going to be talking with David Morris. He's the president and CEO of Decide Consulting in Houston, Texas, and also a member of the Forbes Technology Council. How are you doing today, David?

Doing wonderful. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Very, very glad to have you live on LinkedIn. If you could share with us kind of like your leadership journey, how you come to become president and CEO of Decide Consulting.

Short answer is I started the company, but a little bit longer answer is I mean, for years and years I was a software developer, worked at a variety of just different IT consulting companies, some of them some big names that are out there. And everywhere I was at, I was always that guy. And when I say that guy, I was the one who helped write the proposals. I went on sales calls with the account executives, made them look good. There was a project that had a problem, they stuck me on it and said, David, go fix it. I was the one doing the technical interviewing on a bunch of people. You know, it just got to a point I always had an entrepreneurial streak and I was always looking for, hey, what can I do one day? And it just struck me, I am making a lot of money for a lot of other people. Maybe I could do that for myself. And that's how the site started. Early on when we first got going, we were doing a lot of custom software development. Some years back, I noticed that when the phone rang, it was a lot more for we need to go, we need a software developer, we need a network engineer. And we started doing more recruiting and less project-based work. And right now we just got into a phase where it's— we scaled back some things that we do in terms of salespeople. And it's me working with companies on their technical talent strategies. I've done both sides of the fence, what they have and what we do. And so this is my sweet spot now.

Well, this is, this is really, really great when we talk about leadership. Tell me a little bit more about sales, right? Because I have a lot of people who follow me on LinkedIn and they always feel kind of strange about this sales stuff, right? Selling services or product or sometimes even selling them themselves. What did you have to learn about sales in order to be successful, especially being an entrepreneur, kind of growing your own business?

What did I have to learn about, uh, I'm sorry, repeat the question about the sales process, just being able to go out there and sell, right?

Because to me, sales and marketing are kind of like, no, the, uh, the heart center of any, uh, of any business. And I feel like anybody who wants to become a leader really needs to, uh, learn how to do marketing and sales.

And yes, you do, and it's difficult. I mean, a lot of people out there, especially in technology, they're good at something. They can really provide value to a lot of companies and their employers. And they know that they're good at something. They're the person on their project that just gets things over the finish line and completes the task and who the companies are relying on. But then to start convincing other people you can do that and getting the word out there, that's tough. It's difficult. A lot of tech people are somewhat inwardly looking about their products and technology. They're spending a lot of time learning about new things, and there's always something new coming out there. But how do you actually start dedicating time to, I need to communicate my message out there? At the end of the day, it is nothing more than just a commitment to getting that message out there. And that message could be hiring a third party to start making phone calls and doing some marketing for you. You going out there and posting things on LinkedIn. How much do you want to dedicate to it? Whether you want to keep it internal with some guerrilla marketing tactics Or, you know, bring in third parties. All the companies that do this, you know, wind up doing some combination of all the above. But at the end of the day, if you're an individual, you have to decide, this is what I'm going to do. Find your specialization, find your value lane that you provide the most, and start. Start. Take that first step. Do something.

Yes. Definitely, uh, I think it is very, very important to get started, right? Many people sometimes talk about paralysis by analysis, and what sometimes happens is people have a lot of great ideas but they never, never take action. So definitely taking action is extremely important. Now, once we do, especially if you are working on a very noteworthy project, more than likely you can do it all by yourself, right? You're going to have to develop a team. How has it been for you kind of forming teams that work closely with you and effectively in order to accomplish the mission of your business?

Yeah, that's a, that's a big challenge. I would say when it came to forming technical teams, that was always something I had a knack with. I could tell, you know, who was good, who wasn't, who was going to provide some value. Who's going to be dragging the team down. You could, you know, you want to circle, you know, surround yourself by people who are going to provide the value. When it comes to, you know, a sales team and other people around you from a technical person, that's a tougher thing to figure out. And at the end of the day, it's some trial and error. Is really, you need to make some type of key performance indicators. You know, this is what I'm expecting you to do. This is what we're going to be seeing in 2 months, 3 months, 4 months down the road. And if we're not going to meet that, do you need to move on? Do you need to provide them with some different things? Those are tough calls. Those are tough calls. Related to that, I would actually say, and you kind of see some stuff behind me, core values. I mean, what are you as your company? If you're starting off, define some core values. And one of the better pieces of advice I ever got was stick to core values, hire to them, fire to them as well. And that's the tougher one to do because you have to decide if this is what we just stand for. This is what we're going to do. Action. Example, action over here. It's, you know, I want people who are going to be acting every day and always moving forward, always progressing. You know, there's a lot that's behind that. So decide what you want to have, decide what it's going to look like, make sure it's reasonable, and then hire and fire according to those.

Yeah, I think that is quite critical, especially fire according to your core value, because I've worked for quite a lot of businesses so far and they all have core values on the wall everywhere, and they tend to hire by them but not always fire, right? When people do not exhibit those values they tend to stay and sometimes they even get promoted, which I think lowers the morale for everybody else. Can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, too many times— I mean, everyone's seen this, oh, we want to provide the most outstanding customer experience that we can. Okay, I mean, yeah, that's great, it sounds good, but it doesn't hold a lot. And if you're looking to start off and you're saying, what would I fire someone for that suddenly makes it much more real. And you know, you still want to throw in, who do I want to hire for? But when you're hiring, everyone sounds like they're really good. Everyone's promoting themselves the best. But once they're around for 2 months, 3 months, you know, you suddenly realize, oh, there's a divergence about, you know, what they were in the beginning. Sometimes they realize things about you and they didn't completely understand what you were looking for. So, it's hiring and firing and thinking about you know, when I'm coming up with the core values, what would I hire for? What would I fire for? Just makes it very real to you.

Wow, I really like what you said. One of my mentors, Brian Tracy, always talked about zero-based thinking, right? What would— knowing what I know now, what needs to change, right? Yesterday I did something based on the knowledge I had, but now I have more knowledge. So knowing what I knew, what I know today, What needs to be different? What do I need to do that is going to move myself forward? And I think sometimes some of those tough questions that leaders really have to ask and have to be very, very clear about. So thinking about yourself, like maybe in your 20s or so, just getting started, knowing what you know today, is there anything that you would have done different? Talking to your 20-something-year-old today?

That's a, that's a long list. Um, um, boy, there'd be a lot of things, uh, uh, you know, buy Amazon early, buy Microsoft, uh, besides that. Um, so it would be, uh, just focus on what you do best. Don't get distracted by different things and different advice. Sometimes you get talked into going a slightly different direction. It may sound good at the time, but when you get off of what's true to what you do best and true to what you know is when things start falling, you know, going different directions and you're losing control of it. So just be careful about what you— knowing what you're best at and sticking to that, coming up with your plan, sticking to that. And, you know, watch the advice of people that you're talking to. Do they have your best interest, or are they trying to get something better for themselves? Um, you know, and I've had people that I've worked for, and they, you know, it was more about what they could get out of it. And granted, every employee that you hire, you know, they need to get something out of it. But you know what, it needs to be a two-way street. You can't just be giving somebody to something. They need to bring something to the table for you. Ideally, it's going to be symbiotic and everyone wins. But you just have to make sure that everyone wins, not just one party, including yourself.

Well, that is very, very insightful and wise, knowing yourself, your core value, who you stand for, not trying to be something different just to please somebody else. And I really like also adding value to others and others adding value back. Back to you as well. Now, being an entrepreneur, like, I have a couple of friends who now become founders, and one of the challenges I've seen is raising capital. How in the world do you raise money for a new venture? Anything you can share on that?

Did you say raising capital?

Yes, as an entrepreneur starting a new venture.

Yeah, I, that, that's an interesting one. I would say when I got going here, it was a bootstrap type of ordeal. It was just growing slowly. I talked to some people about some capital and I mean, just my experience at the time was that was a treadmill. And when I say treadmill, it was always somebody saying, well, go write this up for me, go write that up for me. And I realized all I'm doing is writing something up based on a whip-it or a flippant comment that they made in the last week or so. Geez, I'm suddenly spending 10, 15 hours a week, you know, you know, dealing with that. Or I could be working for my customers and finding some more in my own business. Which way do I want to go? So I've never had outside capital into the company. It is always a bootstrapped bootstrap type of event for me. Um, the one thing I would say is there's SBA loans out there that are less treadmilly. And, uh, um, you know, if you want to go that direction, that's absolutely a good thing. We've taken advantage of that before, much later on when I wanted to expand some salespeople, um, and expand some services at the time. But for the most part, it was, uh, we, we We bootstrap things here. And, uh, yeah, so external capital sources, quite never my thing.

No, no, that is, that is very, very, uh, important to know because whenever people invest into your business, sometimes they make you change it, right? And they definitely want a return on investment, and sometimes you kind of lose ownership and even the, the ability to make future decision on which direction you should go. So definitely something to be very concerned about. Now, looking at your LinkedIn profile, you've pretty much been in consulting forever, like for the past 20+ years or so. Are there any benefits in being a consultant as opposed to being like a full-time employee and working for just one company? Like, what benefits have you seen in your career always being in some type of consulting firm and then eventually starting your own business?

Yeah, it, uh, it wasn't really by design I did that. When I started off way back when with one of the Big Eight consulting firms, which is what they were called then, it's Four now, um, I, I, I started at one and got recruited by another and then went to another At each step of the way, I was always working for companies that were surrounded by their full-time employees. The consulting world just gave me exposure to more projects, more cultures, more environments. And I would say one of the big wins for me was that we learned, or I learned, that, you know, the problems that Company A are the same problems that they have at Company B. And a lot of people were at the companies and say, oh my gosh, look at us. We don't like this, don't like that. And, you know, hey, it's the same thing wherever you're at. So, I mean, it's the same type of problems. I mean, they may come in different colors, but at the end of the day, variations about what you see at one company versus another are not that great. So just the consulting background always, you know, exposed that to me. I've enjoyed working myself. I've enjoyed having my own freedom. At times when I'm doing this, it definitely, you know, there are days that are frustrating and you're thinking, geez, wouldn't be great to get a job and, uh, go somewhere and show up.

Yeah, less pressures.

But, uh, at the end of the day, I, I wouldn't know how to do anything else.

That is, um, very interesting to know because I've been in consulting, uh, for about maybe 5 years or so, and I noticed especially as an IT guys, uh, you get so much more out of one year of consulting than you would working for just one company for a year, right? With all of the clients, uh, you have, it's, it's just, uh, amazing the experience and the diversity of just things that you get exposed to. And I have so many people on LinkedIn who ask me 'How in the world do I get into cybersecurity and get experience?' And I always advise them to become a consultant because you're gonna have so many clients and see all types of different technology stack, and you're gonna learn so much more than you would if you were just working for a single company. But, uh, anyway, that's, uh, pretty cool. Now, another thing we do have in common, we are both members of the Forbes Technology Council. How did that happen for you?

It's been a good experience for me. Uh, yeah, at first I stumbled upon it, uh, just someone I knew and saw that they were writing these articles for Forbes. I'm like, hey, how'd they do that? And, uh, my original goal was just to get some exposure for the company and for myself, uh, just get our name out there, just have a place to write content. I was already, uh, had created a lot of technical content that we had posted on our website. So I was already in a mode of I could sit down and crank out 750,000 words, which is something you need to be able to do if you're going to take advantage of the Forbes Tech Council. But it's just been a really good experience having your name out there, having it associated with Forbes, posting your stuff on LinkedIn. I get to meet interesting people like yourself. And come across that and find out what they're doing. And so from just a name recognition and, you know, marketing awareness, brand awareness, it's been a, it's been a good thing for us.

Yeah. And I think like there are really a lot of benefits in being a member of the Forbes Technology Council. Probably my number one benefit is the ability to network with CEOs and C-level people really across the entire world. That's, that's been really, really rewarding, making connection. Which, which one is your favorite benefit so far? You definitely talked about the ability of the opportunity to write as well.

Just the, the brand awareness, uh, for myself and the company has just been the main thing. Uh, yeah, just, yeah, I, I, which leads to the networking component of it all. I've had things out there. Yeah, I wrote one article a while back and some guy at Google, you know, reposted or shared it on LinkedIn and reposted and wrote some comments about it. And he was pretty high up in the organization. I was like, oh, okay, thank you. And I don't know if that guy would have taken my connection or ever traded, exchanged anything with me. So just the awareness leads to the networking connections. And all that.

So wonderful. Okay, now we are coming to the part of the podcast where I ask you my 7 favorite questions, starting with number 1. All right, what is the greatest lesson you have learned?

Stick to it. Just, uh, you always have to work through things. Uh, just whatever you decide to do, put some thought into, is this what I— what I'm good at? What's good at What's best for me? What's best for my company? And just making a plan and sticking to it. Yeah, sometimes it's a grind and sometimes you doubt yourself. But at the end of the day, if you went into this and you know what you're doing and you're good at it, stick to it. Don't let it— don't let anything distract you from it.

So what do you think is the secret of your success?

I'm going to tip my hand to one of your other questions. Uh, one of my background, I used to be a fairly competitive runner. Uh, went to college on a track scholarship. I was a distance runner. And while I was, uh, uh, not the best guy out there, I was good enough to compete at a fairly high level for quite some time. And I, that, uh, yeah, so that was, you know, definitely formative for me. Okay, we're going to run 20 quarters today in 64 seconds or under. Do it. That's a rough workout. Yes. So, yeah, you have to, you know, in some ways it's a grind, but, you know, it definitely gets you realizing that I can do this. And it is something that just a lot of people cannot do. It's rough to do. And that, you know, if you— if you— people who run high school cross-country definitely learn how to stick to something for a little bit longer than a lot of other people. It just gets ingrained inside the training program. So just, yeah, I had some, uh, genetic gifts that allowed me to be a little bit better than most people with that and, uh, able to use it. But that definitely provided me a lot of life lessons.

That is, that is quite interesting. I remember when I joined the Navy, first of all, I didn't know how to swim, and second, I wasn't a runner, but, uh, I quickly had to learn, right? Uh, but, but you are, uh, absolutely right. I think, I guess, the endurance you, you get when, when you do sport— like, I don't run as much anymore, I mostly do the bike now because my knee is starting having issues, but Anyway, but the—

I know all about that.

You get, right? And lately, actually, I've been trying to do yoga with my wife and so forth, which is actually very, very nice. I used to think it was for sissies or something, but no, it's actually very, very good. It really works on your stamina for sure. But I guess what I'm saying is when you exercise like that, you learn to endurance, right? Just to go for it. Sometimes I remember the very first time I had to run just a mile, and halfway through it I thought I was gonna die. It's like, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I'm gonna die, I need to stop. But it's like, no, don't stop, keep going, keep going. And then before you know it, you are able to achieve it.

Keep going, right? It can be done, it can be done, is keep going.

So, and you can definitely apply that in life, work, school, or whatever else you really set your mind to business, like, keep, keep going, you've got this, right? And, uh, so what is the greatest leadership advice you have ever received?

Greatest leadership advice? Um, yeah, I'm going to go back to the one I kind of shared earlier, just, uh, what are core values? Hire and fire to those. Um, that was one that, uh, uh, I was with a business council, or different one at the time, and We had some speakers, and that was something that definitely stood out to me. And I really enjoyed that one. So decide what you stand for in your business, hire and fire according to that.

That is so important. So question number 2, what are you learning now? I know leaders are learners. Yeah.

Oh, gosh, I'm curious about so many things. Technology-wise, there is always something new coming down the pipeline. I would say the thing that's really kind of been on my radar lately is just low-code, no-code tools. And inevitably, we are seeing a lot of companies— digital transformation is the phrase that everyone's using these days. What exactly does that mean? At the end of the day, it means that we have a bunch of IT projects all going on at the same time, and odds are one of them is dealing with agile and moving everybody to agile, moving over to DevOps and covering a lot of other things with that. There are a lot of new technology solutions that, you know, my version is that they're really covering a lot of the last mile of a lot of applications, or they're appropriate for smaller companies. Every company is a software company at the end of the day. Every company is a software company. And you know what? And here's the analogy I use. Two restaurants, they're both good quality, they're both in good locations. One of the companies integrates very well with all the food delivery apps, has some type of texting, main, uh, devices where people driving up, they can actually say, I'm in spot one, and food comes out. People who integrate with their social media, you don't have to go out and spend a lot of money on integrating these things for a restaurant. There are a lot of these low-code, no-code solutions that can get you to that place. The one restaurant that has invested in some software and some technology to do that is going to surpass the revenues of the one that doesn't, even if the food— all things, all other things being equal. And there's no other, you know, easier mom-and-pop example of a business, a restaurant. So if a restaurant can do something like that, what can all the other companies do? And yes, the, the bigger budget items are definitely something that's out there, but you can do a lot with these low-code, no-code solutions. Even the biggest companies can do a lot of things because at the end of the day, you know, your IT department and the software developers, there's only so many people there and they're focusing on the big projects and there's always that law of everything else that needs to get done. And you knock out a big chunk of that list, um, with some low-code, no-code solutions. And just seeing how they work and understanding and getting some demos is something I've just been spending some time on and, uh, really understanding just the power of some of these, uh, pro— uh, of these platforms. And they could do some really interesting things for some companies.

Well, I, I really like what, what you said. I think it was in 2014 when I moved to Silicon Valley where I really understood that Like you said, every company is a software company. Some of them just don't realize it yet. But even when you think about, about cars, right, like Forbes, it's nothing but a supercomputer on wheels. If you think about Walmart, it's really a technology company that just happens to have a bunch of stuff and merchandise for sale. But, but yeah, everything we do today, technology is pretty much the basis for it.

Wow.

And, uh, what is you think What is the greatest investment you have made in yourself?

Greatest investment in myself? Just me taking time to educate myself on new things. And when I was programming and taking the bus to work, I was the guy who had the programming book on the new technology. I would always invest a lot of time in just learning something new. Always had a new book, always reading something else, always getting some code samples. Even you're talking about low-code stuff these days, you know, it's become a habit. It's always allowed me to try and stay a step ahead of everything else that was going on and to come up with some new ideas. I mentioned early on, I was that guy who was always the one going out and you know, going to salespeople and coming up with the solutions. Oh, this is broken. Stick David on. Well, that was why. And because I was always investing myself in trying to stay a step ahead technology-wise. And you can't learn everything under the sun, but you can as you start digging into it and you're reading about something, you read an article and you say, hey, here's something new that's coming. It's related to what I'm doing. And I just always had a list. Of this is what I'm going to learn about next, and then after that it's going to be this. I changed things on the list, uh, I guess something else cooler or neater would come up on it. But yeah, it would always be, uh, investing in learning something new and staying curious about it.

Wow, that is, that is, uh, so true. I think almost every successful person I've ever seen, they're always learning something new. And they also use— I think Anthony Robbins is the first one I heard that used this, this word, uh, net time, no extra time. Whatever time you have where, uh, you are free, your brain is free to do something else while your body is doing something completely different, like even working out, driving, or whatever the case might be. And you can be listening to tapes or, uh, learning podcasts. Yeah, yes, listening to it.

Yeah, it used to be tapes and CDs, now it's a podcast, which are great. Oh yeah, I always got a running list of podcasts.

Absolutely. And this podcast, by the way, should be on everywhere podcasts are found in about 2 hours after we are done. And that is so true today. It's just amazing how technology has really changed everything. So I know for every person who is successful, that's what people see, but you must have had to have gone through some type of failure to get to where you are now. So how has failure shaped your life?

Yeah, yeah, it's inevitable that things aren't going to work out, um, you know, personally, business, it does. You just realize that, um, you know, just some things are not going to work out. You maybe thought they did. You learned something new along the way, uh, the economic horizon changes, the events in your life change. It is knowing when to pull it and when to stop. And that's a hard one to do. A lot of people wind up just beating their heads against the wall for a long time. It's— so I have erred way too many times on sticking something out too long, and maybe I should have stopped with this business idea earlier, stopped with that relationship earlier. Fired that person earlier. None of those are good. Sometimes I have to look in the mirror and say, what do I need to change? And maybe I need help figuring out what I need to change. So, I mean, failure, just, it's a teacher. It's hard to really realize when you're at the point of I need to make a change. And sometimes that change is you. So at the end of the day, you know, I'm a big believer in, you know, just people getting therapy and counseling and seeking that out. Don't, don't make the assumption you have every answer. Yeah, do that personally, do that for business. You're going to be the better off for it. But once you feel like you've uncovered everything, you really have a good idea and you've sought outside counsel, it may be time to call some things and it could be, yeah, just changing, uh, business course or, uh, letting somebody go. But it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. And, you know, yeah, there's the part I'm talking about earlier, you gotta stick with it, stick with it. Um, you don't want to get lost in that to the point of, I am, uh, I'm hurting myself now and I'm hurting the company, I'm hurting my family. You don't want to do that.

So knowing where the boundary is Yeah, and something you also mentioned, right, that one of my mentors used to tell me, everybody should have a therapist, and I believe everybody should have a coach as well. And sometimes they can really, really help when you're kind of stuck, you know, because I feel like we really have all of the answers hidden in us, but sometimes you need help from somebody else to kind of elicit that answer from you, just bring a lot of clarity in what needs to be done.

There is power in wise counsel of someone who is, uh, completely objective to your scenario, doesn't have the emotional buy-in, but is wise enough to know what are the right questions to ask and is not just going to be a yes person for you. He's going to ask tough questions. A good coach, a good therapist, you should be uncomfortable at times in those conversations. And if you are not then, then, yeah, perhaps you need a better therapist or coach.

So that is, that is so true. So for question number 4, uh, who do you know whom we should know? Who are your mentors, thought leaders you are following now?

I, I would say one person I'm really kind of, uh, recently enthralled with is Scott Galloway. Um, he is, uh, I guess his day job is a professor at NYU School of Marketing, He has a couple of podcasts and he has some books. Some people see him as a talking head on some of the cable news shows at different times. He moves around a lot. He is a thought leader in tech and business, has some really edgy, creative takes on a lot of current events, on a lot of things that have been happening. Just out in the news cycle recently. And just to draw a point, I think it was last week, Twitter CEO just resigned. And, you know, this guy Scott Galloway was commenting on that for at least a year, if not longer, saying Twitter needs a new CEO. You know, who they have right now is just a part-time CEO and look at some stock price. It's the same stock price it has been for the last 5 years, and everyone else in tech has gone up 7, 8-fold, and Twitter's— and, uh, so anyway, so if you were to listen to him, you would get some takes like that. And, uh, yeah, I find a lot of things that he says very compelling.

Nice. Yeah, I found him as Scott Galloway, clinical professor of marketing at New York University. Looks like the latest book he wrote is Post-Corona. Definitely someone we should follow.

Yeah.

Anyone else you'd like to mention?

Besides BZ? So he is one I'm really paying a lot of attention to. Just other podcasts I really kind of enjoying kind of me up. Um, Business Wars is one I really enjoyed that, uh, provides a lot of history about different things and certain things that have gone on and how companies got to be where they were and how one company began to coexist or not coexist with another. If you want the history on Coke versus Pepsi, that's a good place to get it. But it's also a whole lot of eBay versus PayPal, what happened with them way back in the day. So these are some you know, some historic things and some recent things that are really, uh, good things, uh, I've enjoyed.

So no, this, this is great, really, uh, using, uh, modern, uh, history, right? History we've been living and really, um, learning from this business. Like, one that always baffles my mind is Blockbuster and Netflix. It's really crazy how they had a chance to purchase Netflix.

They've done that. Yeah, yeah, they, in fact, they, they, they, they specifically, uh, did Netflix versus Blockbuster.

Yeah, they, they did.

They dug deep into that. So, and, uh, the way that they do their podcast, it's kind of interesting, you know, playing the roles of certain people and doing some storytelling, and they fast forward to certain events. And, uh, you know, so it will be like Blockbuster versus Netflix, that would wind up being about a series of 7 or 8 or 9 podcasts that they bring together. So really good storytelling.

What, what a, uh, what a lost opportunity. And today Netflix is number one across the board, and Blockbuster— I think they still have one store, I think, in Alaska, if I remember correctly. But yes, yes, it used to be in every city everywhere in, in the US. Actually, one of my mentors, she was president of Blockbuster.com at the time, and, uh, her superior completely ignored her and they decided to, to go in different direction. But anyway, she left the company, like they say, the rest is history. So if you could choose 3 people to have dinner with you, who would you choose and why? And they could be people from history, but it doesn't have to be contemporary.

I, I, I tipped my hand earlier on that one. Roger Bannister, Uh, Jim Rine, Alberto Salazar, um, Roger Bannister, the first person to break a 4-minute mile. Um, and, uh, that was my event. And, uh, just that was such a barrier, such a hurdle. So many people had gotten close and never crossed that threshold, and he was the first one to do it. That was a huge achievement. He was actually the first person on the COVID of Sports Illustrated. The very first Sports Illustrated had him on it. Jim Ryan was the first American to do that. I'm sorry, he's not the first American, but the first high school American to do it. And he did it on a cinder track.

Wow.

And just, you know, when I was running in high school, we we used a cinder track at our local high school at the time and just thinking, wow, just doing that on one of these, that's wow. And Alberto Salazar, when I was competing, he was the big deal at the time. He's now one of the coaches up, you know, Nike Oregon Project. I've actually met him, didn't have dinner with him, but I did get the opportunity to meet him. And he was just a maverick, uh, beat to his own drum, and how he trained and how he worked out. He had successes and he had failures. Um, there was a period of time he was just on top of the world and the best thing that was out there. Um, and, uh, you know, he's had some controversies recently, but, uh, he's still one of my idols, you know, for a long time, and So yeah, just there's a lot to learn from these guys. And we talk about the persistence thing. These are individuals who could talk quite a bit about that and talk quite a bit about how to overcome mental hurdles. Being the first person to break a 4-minute mile, that's a mental hurdle that is— yeah, that was out there.

Absolutely. And then after he did it, now everybody is doing it. But before him, it was like impossible.

About everybody.

Well, many, many, many, many people can. But yeah, yes, it's, uh, it is incredible. Uh, I think, was it Nelson Mandela who said, uh, uh, uh, I can't remember the quote exactly now, but, but, but basically something about, um, doing the, uh, impossible, right? And just getting, getting things, uh, which is quite incredible, especially being the very first person to do something. So what have you read that we should read? What are some of the best books you've read recently?

Recently, best book I've read, and still about the fellowship, You Are a Badass, Jen Ciccaro.

Ciccaro.

Oh gosh. I'm going to— S's, C's, I's, and E's are in it. SCI, Ciccanero. You're going to look that up, put that in a link in there somewhere. It was just, you know, it got handed to me at a really good time.

Yes, Jen Cicero, right? Jen Cicero.

Cicero, yes. Thank you. It's just, it's a confidence builder book. It is, you know, her voice coming at you and just saying, you know, find out what you're good at, stick to it, just you can do this. It is, you know, if you want some confidence and if you're someone out there thinking about starting their own business, as a lot of people are, that is definitely one that should be on your bookshelf about what to, you know, what to read and yeah, just getting some confidence. I'm going to pin an addendum on your question. I gave my children 10 books to read a while back, and it was 10 books that really influenced me. And knowing that this is a tech crowd, here's an oldie but a goodie, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And I would say that book, I read that early in my life, um, introduced a concept to me. And it's not the only thing in the book— the black box. And what is the black box? You know what, if you ask a child how a bicycle works, they're going to tell you, you get on the pedals and you press down and the bicycle goes. Well, you ask a mechanical engineer how bicycle works, you're going to get much more detailed, much more in-depth answer. And they're going to talk about torque, they're going to talk about friction, they're going to, you know, just a lot of things that they're going to start bringing up and telling you how every component and gears and everything, how it works. At the end of the day, we're in technology, there's always a smaller black box. And if you keep on understanding what's inside of this and what's inside of that and just try and understand the next level, you're gonna— you're going to be able to Hey, just compartmentalize technical problems a little bit better and learn how to solve things a little bit better and just know I need to dig into this next layer. Wow. So anyone, yeah, youthful in their technical career, Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

That is very nice. Thank you. Thanks so much for making those recommendations there. And, uh, for question number 6, what have you done that we should do? What is one action you've taken that has positively impacted your life?

I have just always— yeah, I feel like I'm just repeating, but just stuck with it, always willing to grind, always willing to do something more to keep the vision going. Um, the— yeah, some advice I should probably take care of or take heed more myself. Uh, take care of yourself. Um, watch what you eat, watch what you're, you know, your physical body. You know, I'm carrying around some extra COVID weight at the moment, but for the most part, I've been a guy who's been pretty fit my entire adult life. And, uh, yep. Pressures and things like that and life getting in the way, it's easy to get off of that bandwagon about taking care of yourself. And the older you get, the harder it is to get back on. And that's advice I need to take for myself. But take care of your physical body. It's the only one you got. Do a whole lot with it. Keep it tuned up.

Yes.

Yeah. Have a treat, but be careful about it.

That is very, very wise, especially post-COVID, right? Because prior to COVID, I know in Silicon Valley it was a really crazed work culture. People would be working like 60, 70, 80 hours a week and stuff and really not care. Take care of what I believe is your temple, the only body you've got. And it's very, very important to really do that and take care of your emotional health also.

Yes, absolutely.

And so, uh, what is one action you are thinking about taking that you believe will positively impact your life in the near future?

What action I'm going to be taking?

Yes, anything you're thinking about taking.

You know, I, I would say that, uh, where I'm going, you know, with the company and career-wise, it has— I am talking to more and more companies about their technical talent strategies. I have, you know, I'm unique in a way here. I've done a lot of recruiting for companies, but I've also got the technical skills and I've been in their shoes where they're hiring. There are a lot of, you know, go figure, most tech people and IT managers and things like that. Only hire when they're trying to fill a spot, you know, how many times a year. And a lot of recruiters have no idea what a lot of these things are. And they, you know, a lot of recruiters think Agile is a software product. And if you think that, well, there's a lot of other things, you know, to be a ding on recruiters because their job is try and find people. But, you know, at the end of the day, there's a lot of people who are doing recruiting who are just matching keywords, which is part of the job. And someone who can match a little bit better is better than someone who cannot. But, you know, understanding what people are doing and matching that to companies, it is such a really different type of market now than it ever has been before. The number of IT jobs is going to be doubling in 10 years. I actually started saying that in 2017. And so far from 2017 to 2021, it's on pace. Yes. During the worst of the pandemic, the unemployment rate for IT people only went up to 4.3%. That was the second lowest segment of the economy and the only one that had a lower unemployment rate. The unemployment rate was legal. And when you think about there are certain segments of the economy that had a 37%, 38% unemployment rate, only went up to 4.3%. I mean, when we're at 4.3% as a whole, man, we are cooking as an economy. The amount of new technology that's coming out and how companies are adapting everything and these digital transformation projects are getting greenlit more and more, the demand for people with tech skills has never been higher. It's only going to get more and more, uh, or more and more demand. Um, and posting a job on Monster and LinkedIn or Indeed just isn't enough anymore. If you're really looking to expand, you really need to hire technical people. Um, and companies need to realize that it's really— it's changed in the last 18 months. A lot of companies were behind in terms of what they're doing to try and bring people in even more so now. It's just the great resignation, the great reassessment, whatever you want to call it. What people want, what people are demanding from their jobs is very different. And technology is important to your company and you want to grow and you need the talent to do it. Things that you have to go about to get these people to come to you is a little bit different. So we are increasingly talking to more and more companies about not just, you know, you— yeah, we can help you recruit, but you know what, you need to think a little bit different about how you're going to bring people in and how to keep the people you have, um, which is very important. So yeah, we're doing more and more of that. And, uh, yeah, just trying to find, you know, more companies that want to talk.

And yeah, we're talking about the Great Resignation now. Tell us a little bit about that. What would you recommend most business owners there do to kind of keep the great talent they already have so they don't just walk out the door?

Provide interesting work, give them a sense of, well, you're belonging to something, training and certifications. And when I say interesting work, if you are, hey, we want to change how we're doing the file share on our network, okay, we're in the wrong Talking— I literally just heard that a couple of weeks ago. I'm like, oh gosh, you know, who's going to want to work on that? No one wants to work on that. You have to do some type of technical projects where people feel like they're really making an impact on something. And that's just, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be, oh, you need to move everybody to machine learning or AI. But you know what, if you have a software, software company, product, uh, you have a lot of data. Are you looking at AI? Are you looking at machine learning? Do you give some of your people that team, hey, go each of you guys, let's go off on this for 6 months and figure something out and see what we can do with it. Just give us a sample project with it. That is something that you could do. There's lots of things you can do. Hey, what are we doing cybersecurity-wise? Let's, uh, hey, these network engineers? How are we doing against the NIST framework? Like, you know, is anyone looking into that? Maybe we should. Um, and, uh, so provide interesting work. Um, training and certification, that's gold right now. Certification, training, that's currency to technical people. Certification and training is currency to technical people. And if you are a place that is investing in people, you're, you're able to give them some of that. That's a draw. People want to go there. I would say just on the infrastructure side, working on the cloud, the hardware, the cybersecurity certifications is highly, highly important. That's what companies want to hire based off of. If you're on the software development side, exposure to different technologies is really what companies want. So think of it in terms of that. But above and beyond all that, people want a sense of purpose. They want to belong to something. They want to feel like they're really making an impact, that their work has something to do. Yeah, yeah, I— we have one client that we're working with right now where they're, you know, they're involved in the food supply chain. They have software related to that. And when we're recruiting for them and talking to people about going to work for them, that's an easy sell. You have supply chains in there. Do you care about what you eat? Do you go to the store and you look at labels? If you do, you're going to have an impact on some of these things. Okay, this is a sense of purpose that we can really push. And if you were in a business like that, that's great. Another client that we had, they made they were in fracking. And, uh, yeah, yeah, or in Houston, and people are going to, you know, be into that. But, you know, we'd absolutely, uh, talk to some people like, yeah, I don't know, I don't want to go there. Uh, well, then we sell what they're doing technologically-wise. And we— that was the pitch. So just, you have to get people something that they want to believe in. A lot of companies are sitting on some really incredible products they could push more, or businesses that they could really sell the mission of that business. Um, find out what that is, make it part of the reason for being there. You're going to have an impact on this event.

So, wow, that was very impactful. Thank you so much, Dave. I think, uh, a lot of people in the audience can definitely use something and apply it now. Uh, if you had one and only one day to live, what would you have liked your final contribution to the field?

It's really just imparting everything I know that's good onto my children. I've, you know, at the end of the day, I've hoped I've, you know, helped some people guide, you know, get some guidance in their careers and understand certain things that have gone on and made some better career choices. But at the end of the day, it's You know, it's about my family, it's about my kids, and, you know, if I imparted this knowledge upon them, hopefully I don't wait for the last day of my life to do that. And, uh, I'm trying to do that more every day. But, uh, yeah, it's— yeah, that's what matters at the— when it's all said and done.

Yeah, I think that's definitely one of the most important things in life, right? I've never heard of anybody on their deathbed saying, oh, I'd like to spend an extra hour at I'd like to finish an extra project. Right. It's, it's definitely important that we are already a couple of minutes over our time. Thank you so much for being generous. Very, very last question I can ask you is, how can we add value to you? What could we do to make a difference?

Yeah, if you're a company, you're in technology, you have a software product, you're an MSP, you have a big IT department, and you're, you know, you're probably realizing it is. We're having people walking out the door, we're not too sure why, we're struggling to bring people in. What's going on with this? And it's more than just, oh, recruiters, come help us find us and we'll pay you a big fee. Talk to me and I can help you with this. We can talk to you about that. Um, there, there's things are going on there out there in the marketplace. We still help with the recruiting and still something that we can do, but we are talking to more people about what's, you know, here's what's going on in the technical talent market. You need a strategy to actually start bringing these people in. Let's have a conversation about it.

Good. Thank you so much, David, for your time. Really appreciate that. And we have both your LinkedIn profile and the link to your business in the description of this podcast. Again, in a couple hours you should be able to find it everywhere podcasts are found. And thank you so much for your time today, David. Really appreciate it.

All right, thank you. My pleasure. Enjoy.

All right, thank you for listening to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to our channels and come back for more wisdom nuggets on how you may develop into a better leader and achieve greater levels of success. Leadership is the most critical skill. The world will always need leaders to lead others deploy the next disruptive technology, or execute a business strategy, you may as well decide on counting yourself among the 21st century leaders. See you right here next time on the Leadership and Success Podcast with Coach BZ.