Make More Marbles PODCAST with Brad Hart and guest Cameron Herold - The POWER of Networking

Foreign.

Welcome to another edition of the Make More Marvels podcast. I am so grateful and excited to have with you today Mr. Cameron Herald back on the show. Number two, let's go. What's up, Cameron?

Hey, Brad. Good to see you again.

Really grateful to have you here. Cameron is the author of many books including Vivid Vision. He's got another one out which I'm really excited about. It's called the Second in Commands and he runs, if you're not familiar with him. The COO alliance, which is a super high level mastermind specifically for chief operating officers and those types of folks that, you know, may not always get the spotlight but still need support and connection and clarity just like everybody who joins a mastermind. So, Cameron, welcome. Give us a little bit of an update. What's been going on and what have you been up to?

Sure. Nice to see you again. I think last time we saw each other was we're actually in a mastermind community together. We're in the Genius Network, one of the many great organizations or masterminds for CEOs. That was really the impetus for me to start the COO alliance was I was sitting at a Genius Network event six years ago and I realized that I'd been the COO for a company. There were many COOs for companies I was working with and there was no place for them to go. And every time they went to a group for entrepreneurs, they didn't fit in. It was kind of like a guy going to a baby shower. We're just not supposed to be there. We don't fit right or so that was why we started it. Where have I been? Wow. My wife and I sold everything about a year and a half ago. Got rid of our, sold our home in Arizona, got rid of the home in Canada, sold our cars, sold all our furniture. I am down to two pair of pants and a pair of joggers, a couple dress, three dress shirts. And we've been on the road. So in 2022 we hit 23 countries together. Wow. I just, I started watching all these digital nomads and you know, these young 30 somethings doing it and I was like, why can't I do it too? So we're traveling just as hard as they are. I just don't have the cool hat.

I love it. So is the grass always greener? Is it that kind of thing? Do you feel like you're burned out on it now or where you at? Are you more energized?

Both. Both. There's a bit of the grass is always Greener where we want. We just want to explore. I've been to 64 countries. I've got 120ish left to go. My wife's been to about 48. She wants to keep exploring. I just want to see the rest of the world and explore and experience.

But we're not so much the tourists of many of our places either. You know, I was in Sweden for three, three weeks this past summer, and I, I just stayed in Stockholm the entire time, and I, I just immersed myself in the city of Stockholm. And every day I'd hop on my little lime scooter and I'd go to a different coffee shop or I'd go back to the same one and just hunker down in the city. And it was nice just to get to know a place, right? Or Dubai. It'll be our third time in Dubai when we go back this, this March. And then other times we're gonna, we go and explore. So we, we pick some of our trips as kind of tourist exploration trips. We're going to Egypt and we're going to, you know, hit all the sites and do the cruises down the Nile. That'll be more like a vacationy trip. So we probably do about six kind of. But we call them the bucket list trips every year that are, are the big ones. But it's hard too, you know, like, we're in an Airbnb in Scottsdale, Arizona right now, and, you know, the WI fi was out, so we had to call the owner of the place and they. To bring a temporary WI fi solution in. I've got a tech here working on the main one, and I got interviews I'm doing, and I'm like, you know, if you saw my setup, I'll show you my setup. Here's my, my cool, professional laptop. Yeah. So you just, you kind of. You kind of have to make it up as you go. Right? So. So I've learned to bob and weave, and I've always been very comfortable wherever I lay my hat. That's my home. My wife is more of the planner and the organizer, so it's harder for her to plan all the stuff. And you and I were just chatting before we went live. You said you've been really good on your workout routine this year, and you got a good, really good trainer that changes every two weeks. You know, we did 23 countries this year, which means every two weeks we had to find a new gym or a new yoga studio or a new trainer, and you just get into that routine and then you're gone. Right. I had a great trainer in Stockholm, and then I'm gone. And a great trainer in Tel Aviv, and then I'm gone. So that part's been harder. Um, you know, we don't have a. A kitchen filled with stuff to just whip things together because you're always leaving a week later, so whatever.

So it's kind of interesting to think about, like, from somebody who has made their career on operations, which, if I had to guess the value set, there is mostly consistency and certainty. You know, that's what an organization thrives on. How do you make that transition yourself? Or how do you think about it yourself? From, like, going from being relatively rigid in the way you deal with business, or maybe you're not. I don't know. I don't want to put words in your mouth to living this lifestyle like you're all over the place because, like, that always burned me out. I love having a place. I can just have my home, which I lock the door and I go somewhere, and then I can come back and have variety and the certainty.

I think I'm at a different stage of my life right now where, you know, my kids are now 19 and 21, and, you know, you're just engaged. I'm on a new marriage. Like, I'm. I'm at an age where I just want to go and explore. I've had the huge home. I had a big home in Arcadia with two guest houses and a moat and a gate around it all. Like, we had a physical moat around the property. It's ridiculous.

Did you have a knight and a dragon? That's pretty cool.

No, there's no knight and dragon, but we had the palm trees and lemon trees and grapefruit trees. It was stupid, and it was huge. And then I had a home in Vancouver and I had the two cars and I had a chalet at Whistler at one point, but none of that. And a golf course membership in Arizona and one in Vancouver and a tenant. Like, none of that really made me super happy. And so I think getting rid of that, the freedom, made me more happy than some of that stability. And I. I definitely like the connections with friends and the connections with. You know, I had dinner last night with Dave Berg, who's a Genius Network member and had played golf a few days ago with Max Hansen, who's a new Genius Network member. So I'm trying to always plug into my friends groups, wherever we are, to have that stability. But I don't know, I just bobbing, weaving and enjoying it. I Love it.

And I love that you're thriving. It's awesome to see, especially, you know, as people get older, they tend to settle down more. And you're. You're taking the opposite track. You know, do not go gently y.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Right, that's right. That's right. Fun side story, when I used to drink, there was a bar called the White Horse Tavern where he actually died. And that was their claim to fame.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So pretty interesting little side.

How do you know that poem?

Well, it came across my. I used to read a lot when I was a kid. And I grew up half my life with the Internet and half my life without. So, like when I was a kid, my dad had a crazy library. When I finally got rid of all my grandparents stuff, we got rid of over 5,000 books. So we're talking like, you know, some original Walt Whitman, ed growling Poe. All of the classics were either read to me or made available to me when I was a kid. So that's how I got pretty well read.

That's cool. Yeah. We start. I started a fraternity with a friend of mine back in 1987 in Ottawa, Canada. It was the first fraternity in history in Ottawa. And one of the many stories that we told at our fraternity was that poem.

It's a fantastic poem, Fantastic one for the ages. Look it up. Dylan Thomas. Okay, so question. How is this book? You've done this a few times, right? How many published now? Five, six?

This is my sixth.

Yeah. How is this book different from the others? And why has it taken this long to write it? Because I know you've had COO alliance for years and years. Yeah, six years.

So I had never sought out or set out to be a writer. I've joked that I can barely speak English, let alone write it. And I wasn't a smart student. I wasn't an educated student who did really well in school. My English teachers, if you went back and looked at my grades in all my English classes, I didn't do well in any of my classes.

So I never set out to be a writer. Twelve years ago, a couple of the speakers bureaus that were representing me as a speaker said that if I had a book, it would raise my speaking profile and my speaking fees. And they said they could get me $10,000 as a fee. So I was like, wow, if you can get me $10,000 as a fee, I'll write a book. When sure enough, they did. Now I get, you know, $40,000 and $10,000 for a one hour Zoom. So it definitely raised my profile as a, as a speaker and as a thought leader. And it was a hard process to go through. And then I met the founders of what was called Book in a Box, now called Scribe. And I met Tucker Max and Zach Oberon at a Mastermind group. We were at an event called Mastermind Talks and we met and connected and I decided to do three books with them. I since became an advisor to Scribe and a very small investor in Scribe, and their process made it very easy for me to get the ideas out of my head and into print. And then my fourth book, I actually bumped into a guy at a Genius Network event. We were coming back from the bathroom at Joe Polish's office and Hal Elrod, the founder of the Miracle Morning, grabbed me and he said, hey, would you co author the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs with me? And I'm like, hell yeah. Like, you were on a rocket ship and like, you want me to be. Yes, let's rock.

Yeah, let's go.

Let's do this. And so we did that book and it worked out great. So some of the books were more opportunistic and some of the books were just really good content I wanted to get out, and Scribe definitely made it easier for me to get out this book. The Second in Command. I finally realized, as you pointed out, after six years of running the COO alliance, Zach Obrant was one of the very first members from Scribe, was one of our first coos. I realized I had a bunch of IP there and I had a lot of anecdotal content from. From having these few hundred members from seventeen countries. And then I also have a podcast called the Second in Command podcast where I've interviewed 252nd in commands from some amazing brands like Shopify and Bumble and the Cleveland Indians or Guardians, whatever they're called these days, like brands that we know that have been guests on the Second in Command podcast. And I had all of their content. And then I had also been a COO at 1, 800, got junk. So it was, how do I pull all this content out as a way to share? It was one I've also been because of, I guess, the profile of the COO alliance and the Second in Command podcast. I get bombarded on a daily basis. Now someone asking if they can just hop on a quick call with me to learn how to hire a COO or how to build a better relationship with their CEO or how to remove a conflict with their coo, or how to work with their CEO who's kind of crazy, but they know they should be crazy. And I don't have time to do all the calls. So it was, how do I put all that content together? And then I also realized because my brand had been so elevated from my other books, this would be a good marketing vehicle for the COO Alliance. So it just became a hell yeah, you know, let's do it.

Have you ever considered two things? I'm sure you have, but I'm, I'm wondering where you landed on them. So we started a feeder event. Actually co. Opted. I didn't want to figure out events myself, so I co opted Jay's Mastermind of Millions and we're doing that in March, so that's really exciting. But you, have you ever done a feeder event for this Mastermind? And also have you ever considered a recruiting arm? That was my other question.

Yeah, so what do you mean by a feeder event?

Yeah, so an event where people can have an experience and then ultimately decide to join the Mastermind or not.

Yeah, yeah. So we, we're, we do two in person events every year, which I guess could be considered feeder events. I don't have a huge desire to run like 300, 400 person events. I'd like to keep them at the 50ish size so I don't have to deal with the AV and the AIT and all that stuff. The hotel.

Yeah, we're making that transition now. So yeah, I can tell you on that.

Yeah, we have an event that's happening this April that's being held at Mountain Shadows. It'll be about 50 CEOs from all over and I would say that about 35 of them will be members and 15 of them will be non member CEOs who will end up joining the CO Alliance. We're hosting one in September at MIT where the entrepreneurs Organization hosts their events every year. The Entrepreneurial Master's Program and Gathering of Titans at that same location. So that'll be again a feeder event. But yeah, outside of that, I'd say no recruiting arm. Oh gosh. I've been asked so often on the same thing. I've partnered with a couple of very strong recruiting agencies. One who's here in Scottsdale called why Scouts? And I've sent them dozens and dozens of companies who they've done the search for the COO for. Yeah, not a space I want to get into. If I was 35, I probably would. If I was 35, I would grab somebody, a partner and do it. But for me, it's A distraction from the core and it's, it's not a need to do at this point. Strategically it probably makes sense but you know, I'm 57 years old. I want to build a great CEO alliance and I've already put my flag in the ground with the other companies I built. But yes, it would be a very logical extension.

And then how many members are you looking to have? How many members do you have? Like how can we support you in getting the word out?

Yeah, we've got 170 full time members of the CO alliance right now. Looking to get that to minimum. 250 at the end of this year. Goals to get it to 500 over the next three years. And then we're also going to launch a closed private Facebook community probably this year where members can actually join and just be a member of a closed private Facebook community. A much lower price point and really take that up to the, you know, 5, 10,000 members.

You should definitely check out school. That's Sam Oven's new SaaS. It's basically purpose built, little private Facebook for content, community calendar. All the calls are linked. They have like a leaderboard. It's fun, gamified, we're liking it a lot.

So I give myself school. By who?

Sam Ovens is the guy that started consulting.com s k o o L go.

I'll take a look. Thank you.

Yeah, it's worth checking out. We're moving all our stuff over there so. That's pretty interesting, man. I think. When does the book come out? Next week.

Book comes out January 24th.

January 24th. And where can people pick up a copy?

Amazon, Audible, itunes. This is the only book that I actually read the audio version for as well. All my books have audible versions. Yeah, I spent two and a half days in studio in Dubai recording the audio version for it. So that was.

It's work, man. People don't recognize how much work it is until they do it.

And not again, not my core competency. I'm not a, I'm not a speaker. I'm not, oh, I speak on stages but I'm not going to stand in front of a microphone perfectly still and try to keep my voice tone. And yeah, it was, it was tough but it was worth doing.

Yeah, yeah. And people appreciate it too. Even if you're not the best speaker or audible, you know, approved or whatever you want to call it, they really love hearing it from Cameron's own mouth, you know.

Yeah. I think especially when we have had a profile like you've Got a fairly strong online social profile and people know our voices. It sounds weird to, you know, listen to, you know, Fred read Brad Hart's content. Just doesn't make any sense. Right.

If I get Brad Pitt to do it, that might be fun.

That would work.

I always tell people, I don't want to be Brad Pitt famous. I want to be a Brad Hart famous. That's good enough.

Yeah.

Imagine being that guy. You can't walk down the street without being recognized and you can't recognize anybody. His facial blackness. That's wild.

Brutal.

Yeah. Okay, great. So CEO alliance new book coming out. Second In Commands podcast is called Also Second in Command.

It's called Second In Command. Yep.

Also Second In Command. I'm sure that's across all the. The tunes and the Spotify and whatnot.

And this. The idea again with the second in command podcast was twofold. One, when I was. When I was building one, 800, got junk with Brian, who was the CEO. I would be interviewed by the media and I would hear his. Or he would hear me be interviewed. He was like, yeah, that was really true. But there was another side to the story. Or Brian would be interviewed as the CEO and I would hear it or read it. And again, I always had my side of the story. And we don't hear the other side. We often hear just the entrepreneur's lens into their business. And I think there's a story to be told to get some of the more operational details of how they really made it happen.

So I think that's juicy. Let's share maybe one or two examples of some folks that have come into your world as coo. What the problems or challenges they were facing were. And now how they've transformed as a result of being in the. In the community.

Yeah, the most common across the board. And this is with, you know, Harley Finkelstein, who is the COO of Shopify, or you know, Matt Rollins, who's the CEO of Rippling, or, you know, the CEO of Bumble. They all recognize that their CEO is a little bit crazy. And they're supposed to be. And they all recognize their CEO is a little bit kind of winging it, shooting from the hip. Quick start. But they're supposed to be. And they recognize that they drive their CEO crazy by asking a lot of questions and wanting to really put a playbook in place before they start all these. So. So that's been really interesting. Is seeing that. I think the second one is to recognize that's been really intriguing. Is really seeing that there's no such thing as one COO prototype you can't take. Like, I would have been a horrible COO for 95% of my COO alliance member companies. And I also would have been a horrible COO for the current stage at 1-800-GOT junk. I was perfect for the first six and a half years. But now that they've gone from 100 million to 450 million, right. I took them from 2 million to 106 million. I would have been horrible from the 100 million to 450. Eric, who is the current COO, would have been horrible for the first six and a half Years because he didn't have the franchising experience, he didn't have the entrepreneurial side, he didn't have the guerrilla marketing side. He didn't have that, the PR and the spokes. He's a very inward facing coo. They needed a very outward facing COO back in those days. So it's really been intriguing to see that and learn that too.

And a lot of the ops guys I've met, like Brandon Dawson's a good example. I spent some time with Brandon in his office. He's Grant Cardone, second in command. And they've built, you know, $150 million education business, they have about $3 billion in enterprise value. They've raised over a billion for real estate. Like they're really crushing it. And that was one of the things he talked about is like, there's breakpoints in your business between certain amounts of revenue and what got you there and who got you there will not get you to the next place. So my question for you is how do you gracefully transition one person out of the role and the next person, next role while keeping them aligned and incentivized so it's not like a, a betrayal in some regard or there's no infighting.

Well, I, and I don't know if you know this story, but, you know, it was a Thursday morning in May of 2007. Brian and I were having breakfast together and I ordered the eggs Benedict, which was the traditional 7am Thursday morning breakfast with he and I. And he ordered grapefruit. I'm like, grapefruit? What the are you doing ordering grapefruit? And I looked up and he had a tear in his eye. And I'm like, oh, I'm getting fired. And my best friend, he was my best man at my wedding, three months before I started to work for him, said, I think it's time that we part ways. You were the right guy to take us from 2 to 100, but you're the wrong guy to, to take. And I broke down crying and knew he was right. And he broke down crying. He made me take a taxi home because I was incapable of doing the 12 minute drive back to my home.

Yikes.

And. And I think he did it in the wrong way, but it was the right thing.

But, but he actually. I got Brian to write the forward to my book. I got Eric Church. I had to beg his current CEO, who I've known for 35 years because we started a fraternity together in 1987. Eric wrote some of the content into my book as well. And we talked about the transition. And it's kind of like you have a relationship. As for, I think it's, you have a relationship for a reason. A season or a lifetime. I think the CEO or COO is more often for a season. You know, it's very hard for a COO to be there for a lifetime because the company can scale so far past their competency. Clayton, one of the founders of infusionsoft, he and I spoke at a Genius Network event six, seven years ago, and we agreed that a mid to senior level executive can only stay in their role after the company has doubled twice. It's very hard to stay in that role at the third double. So if you've gone from 2 million to 4, from 4 to 8, it's tough to do it at 16. You know, I did it from 2 million to 106. The reason I was able to do it was I started way below my pay grade. Right. I came into an organization to help my best friend. I'd already built two other franchise companies. So for the first three or four years, it was very easy for me. It was very fast, but I was used to that. But I'd done everything we needed to do. It got really big at the 50, 60 million mark. And when we hit 100 million, I was overwhelmed. When I left, it took 12 months to find my replacement. And they brought the former president of Starbucks us in as the new CEO to replace me. And she came in and looked around and said, what a cute little company. And meanwhile I'm like, fuck, it's so big, right? So it just, it just.

So you're freaking out at nine figures. She's like, oh, that's quaint.

Yeah. So I think the leadership team needs to be very cognizant of are we growing the skill set of our people? Are we growing the skills fast enough to keep them ahead of that curve? And then I talk about this in the book, the second in command, how do you bring in the external people into the team without really upsetting the current team because so many of them are pissed off they didn't get the job or they're frustrated they no longer get to report to the CEO. They have to report to this new CEO. So there's a real art and a science to actually bringing in the senior people correctly. And. And that's something you learn between 100 and 300 employees.

Yeah. I think that's so interesting because you know, it's like, do you have that conversation day one of like, hey, you're going to get it from A to B and then you're gone?

Yeah.

You do keep the equity. Like how do you.

No, you have to set valid expectations so that people don't get blindsided. And you also have to set those expectations that this is why we want to invest in your growth. I launched a course called invest in your leaders so that people would work on their skill sets as leaders so that they could stay with that growth of the company. And you have to set them up right at day one and saying, we're not telling you to work on this because you're bad. We're telling you to work on this stuff because in two years this company is very different from it is today. Right. So we got to keep growing fast.

Yeah, well, and you wrote a book called Double Double I believe, which is still my favorite thing at in n out. So I appreciate you co opting that so you could kind of do a follow up like Double double and you're out unless you grow.

That would be a great book. Unless you grow. Yeah. Because it's so true. Right. Amazingly, I was the. There were five members on the leadership team plus Brian the CEO. I was the fifth one of the five to get replaced. So we ended up replacing the head of the call center, the head of franchising, the head of the IT group, the head of our call center, and then, and then me and, and it was normal. Like it was impossible that we were all going to be there forever. It's much easier for the CEO to continue to stay with the company because they can continue to delegate everything except genius. And once they have a strong leadership team in place, they don't need to be as involved in the day to day. They have a team of very. And that's a leadership team versus a management team. Right. People that have the wisdom and the skill set and they've done it before and they work together and collaborate well. The CEO then really needs to only control strategy and vision and culture and get the hell out of the way. Yeah.

That's really interesting because you do have CEOs that get fired along the way. And it's usually a scandal. Right. It's like a terrible thing. How dare they oust the CEO? It's usually the board having come in and like take invasive action. And the CEO, the COO is kind of like that's expected. Right. Have you run into any unicorns that have been with a company as COO from inception to where they've grown to. At this point, they've, They've. They've rolled with the punches.

Yeah. So here's what's really interesting. Most CEOs have no desire to become the CEO. Or to the caveat to that. Most CEOs have no desire to be an entrepreneur. But as a company gets big enough, the CEO becomes more of a professionally managed type of a leader and less entrepreneurial. It tends to happen around the 300 to 1,000 employee mark that the. The CEO can't be that entrepreneurial. Gregarious culture, add bipolar, you know, crazy person. So two of the three founders of the CEO alliance or the. The original. The original COO members. One is Zach Morrison. He was the. The CEO of a company that is now called Tinuity. I used to coach he and his CEO and four other directors coach them from about 40 people up to 300 that now have 1500 employees. Zach was the very first member of the CO Alliance. I gave him member number three just to tease him forever, even though he was really the first one and it was his idea. He became the CEO of tenuity at about 400 employees and grew it to 1500. And then the other one is Matt Wool from Acceleration Partners. And Matt was very similar. Joined Bob Glazier as his early stage COO or director. Moved into a vp, moved into a coo. And then when they sold the private equity populas, you're moved aside to write his books. And Friday forward and Matt became the CEO. And that's a very unusual transition. You often find leaders like a Sheryl Sandberg that are quite happy being a COO forever. It'll be interesting to see whether she comes back into the business world as a CEO or if she just continues on as a private investor and speaker kind of thing.

So what would you say the key differences were between people that could hack it and roll the punches but. Or that couldn't.

They have to evolve. They. I actually had Matt's CEO. I was on a Podcast recently chatting with him about it, about it and it's the evolution of the skill set and learning how to let go more. Learning how to not have to be the one to figure out how to make it happen. The CEO is often figuring out kind of the who, what, when, where, why or not. You know, like the CEO decides where we're going, but the CEO figures out how we're going to get there. So the coos that evolve have to let go of. They're not the ones to come up with the plans anymore. They have to coach people and grow people so that those people can come up with plans.

Perfect. No, I love it. And that's, that's such a inspirational story because there are people that make it happen. There are people that don't want it to happen. They want to get out at a certain point. And I think it just comes down to communication and expectation setting.

Right.

If you. All successful relationships, this is my little shtick, has come down to ABC agreements, boundaries, clear communication. If you have those three things, you're going to be in really good shape. But too many people are afraid to have those hard conversations ahead of time. So they wait until they become giant blowouts and Cameron is crying and can't drive home those.

Those have to be like, that's a critical. The ABCs. I wish I'd known that just to include that even in my book, the second in command, that's a key cornerstone of that CEO COO relationship is they have to have, you know, the agreements, who's doing what, who's responsible for what, what's the org chart look like, what are the communication channels, who's responsible for what metrics, the, what'd you call it? The agreement.

Yeah. So this is something I came up with a while back. It's agreements, boundaries, clear communication.

Yeah. So, so boundaries is like the CEO can't go and chat with all the COO's direct reports unless he follows a skip level meeting protocol. And the COO can't go and talk to the board. He can show up at board meetings, but he can't call the board members independently like the CEO. So it's understanding what those boundaries are. And then, and then the communication protocols is so clear. Right. In having the weekly meetings together and the daily, you know, the weekly off sites and time to just disconnect and hang together. And it's super critical for that relationship.

Yeah. And that's really where it comes down to is like most problems come down to a break of one of those three things or they didn't exist in the first place.

Yeah, Brian and I had to learn that in building one, 800 got junk because he was the founder. I mean, as CEO. Well, all of the first 12 franchises that were there when I got there, you know, there were 330 when I left. The first 12 would always go to Brian. And we finally had to say, look, you can't keep coming to me. Like, you got to go to Cameron and he'll work through it with you. And then Brian had to learn that he didn't always have the rest of the story. So it was that, you know, you had to learn that dance. And very similar to a mom and dad or two parents raising kids. You can't have the kids going to dad and saying, hey, mom didn't let me have cookies, you know, Or. Or, dad, can I have a cookie? Knowing full well, mom probably just said no. Like, the mom and dad have to stay very much in sync with all of that as well.

Yeah, a hundred percent. I like that. And the book is coming out next week on the 24th. I'm really excited to check it out. What's the link that people can go check it out at? Or do you have, like a splash.

Page or so cameronherald.com forward slash, the second in command? Or they can just go check it out on Amazon, Audible, and itunes.

Love it, Love it. And do you have a specific goal for this book or have you laid out any.

All of my books always hit number one in multiple categories on Amazon. Like my. My current goal for Vivid Vision, which is my bestseller to date, you know, it's got like 800 reviews, star reviews, is to get that over a thousand with this one is just. I just really wanted to write a really great book. You know, it'll hit number ones for sure. It's just more to have a really great book to help entrepreneurial companies and their leaders scale and to help COOs find the right companies to be a good yin and yang with.

I think it would be really cool to get that as a bundle and to get the book, the reviews over. Maybe, like, if you do a. You could do a giveaway or some cool thing. I don't know, I'm just kind of kicking around rocks here. But I was just told recently, like, there's a guy that he would give away gift cards to his friends and be like, hey, buy this book along with this book. And it'll get, you know, in Amazon's algorithm. I don't know if this is a gray hat or not, but we're doing that. Yeah, it'll say something like people who bought Alex Hermosi's book also bought, you know, this one.

Yeah, we've got, we've got seven books that we've identified that we're going to have multiple friends do those purchases. A bunch of co alliance members do those purchases. We've got, you know, I've got 170 members of the CEO alliance that we're going to push all them to do reviews. But yeah, we're doing all the, the Gray Hat and I want 100. I'd like to get 100 reviews on it in the first week and then just scale it out. But the goal again has never been to be like on the bestsellers. That's never been my. It's just to write a really great book to help all these great companies.

I love it. And what are you most proud of in your career to date and what would you like to see happen in the next 10, 20, 30 years?

I think what I'm most proud of is that I've been able to build a relationship with my two boys that are 21 and 19 and they wouldn't any longer. If someone says, what does your dad do? Their answer wouldn't be he works and does XYZ anymore. It would be that they describe my hobbies and my passions and my travels and then they might talk about some of my business stuff. But that I have a really good, open, honest relationship with them has been pretty powerful for me. I just made a note with one of my sons. I'm going to a Mastermind community in June in Croatia with a group called Baby Bathwater and I'm like, my 19 year old should be there. He's an entrepreneur already. He came to a Genius Network event three years ago and it blew his mind.

He loves the party. Let's go.

Yeah, you should come to Croatia too. So the fact that I can hang out with my kids at some of these events is pretty cool. And doing that, that's what I'm really happy with.

Yeah, Baby Bathwater has been on my list. It's not gonna be this year. 2023 is the year of no. But maybe 2024 could be it.

It's great. I've been to three already. This will be my fourth. It's spectacular. And then I'm also, I'm also doing my second group with an event called Wayfinders. We went to Bhutan together and went hiking in Bhutan and lived with the monks and did, you know, stayed in the monasteries and in April or May. We're going to Uganda to go hiking to see the gorillas. And it's a smaller, much smaller group but very, very profound impact that group had on me too.

You're living the life. I love it. Thank you so much, Cameron for being on and for giving us an update. Y' all check out his book as well. Go to cameronherrell.com the second in command or just check it out on Amazon. Definitely a review. Check out Vivid Vision which is still one of the best books that I've read on the subject of all time. It's really getting clear. It's actually really great as a CEO or a visionary to get clear with your team and make sure everybody's on the same page. So Cameron, always a pleasure to have you on the Make More Marvels podcast. Thanks for coming back. We can't wait to see you for the next one.

Thanks, Brad. Appreciate it.