Becoming a COO (For Real): Cory Raggi on Learning How to Be a COO | (Podcast 520)

If you'd asked me five or 10 years ago, would you ever be a COO, I probably would have laughed at you, like, oh, you haven't met me, because I just did not consider that. As a matter of fact, when the opportunity came up, I was texting with a friend who was connected to one of the founders here and I said, you know, I'm looking for new opportunities. And she said, well, you need to work here, they need a coo. And I said, I'm not a coo. And she said, I'm not even really sure what you do, but they need you.

Today on the Second In Command podcast, we are joined by Corey Raggy, CEO of one rdg, the One Financial Center. Corey oversees strategy, culture and seamless operations while actively serving her community as Vice president of the RDG Foundation. She also has spent many years in HR, including working at a 15,000 person company with which is part of the conversation today about how she has transitioned from going from large, larger corporate companies to a smaller 80 person startup. We also hear how she's learned not to get stressed, really. Keeping herself grounded and regulated in high pressure environments and revealing the three core practices and ways of thinking to do that. We dive into her leadership principles shaped by years in HR and exploring how to build trust quickly in a new role. What she's learned about running effective meetings and keeping communication tight across the team, and how leadership shifts when managing an 80 person team versus a 15,000 person organization. So if you're looking to strengthen your operational leadership while staying grounded and people focused, you'll take away practical tools from this episode with Corrie. We are live with Corey. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much.

It has already been a great conversation since joining in on this zoom. You have incredible energy and we've already started diving into topics where I was like, okay, wait Corey, stop, because this is gonna be so good. Let's save it for the episode. And I'm really, really excited for this.

Me too. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, well, let's go ahead and dive right in. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the company that you work for and I would also love to hear how you found yourself at this company because it sounds like you found yourself kind of stumbling into a COO role and you weren't maybe expecting to find yourself there.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I am COO@1RDG, the financial center. And we are a company that began as an accounting firm 20 years ago and our founders over the years had this vision to provide holistic guidance to business owners, and slowly started adding additional products and services. So when I joined in 21, they had the beginnings of a payroll and benefits business. They had a version of a wealth management partnership in place along with the traditional accounting firm services. So since I've been here, we've really integrated service models. We've rebranded to one RDG so that we can become the financial center and resource for business owners. And it's interesting because if you'd asked me five or 10 years ago, would you ever be a COO, I probably would have laughed at you, like, oh, you haven't met me, because I just did not consider that. As a matter of fact, when the opportunity came up, I was texting with a friend who was connected to one of the founders here, and I said, I'm looking for new opportunities. And she said, well, you need to work here. They need a coo. And I said, I'm not a coo. And she said, I'm not even really sure what you do, but they need you. Wow. And I thought, well, that's the kindest thing anybody has ever said to me. So now I need to look at it. And it turns out that being a COO can mean a lot of different things. So falling into it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me personally and professionally.

That's so cool. What about the role made you think that you were not fit for a COO position?

You know, I almost feel like we need to retitle it. Like chief Operating officer. Sorry, can't even talk. Chief Operating Officer. It sounded like buildings and maintenance and vendors and, you know, logistics of things that were so far away from people. And I am a lover of all things people. And when I started interviewing and learned that the COO's role is really to become what the CEO needs, it completely shifted my understanding. They didn't need those things as much. What they needed was somebody to bring some order and some organizational structure and some process to a company that had really great talent, but they were missing that kind of connector that wasn't focused on the client. That was focused on the business and the people. And so I very quickly learned that my. My first impression of it maybe was outdated to today's business needs. And thank God I had the opportunity to get past my first impression there because I was. I was so wrong. Nobody's relying on me for anything maintenance, because they know I am not good at those things.

Same. I mean, I really resonate with this a lot because I actually find myself when I'M talking about new opportunities with people. When they hear my background as a coo, they immediately think this person's going to come in and build all these systems and create automations. And I really get to go through the process with them of communicating. That is not my strong suit. But I am really good at putting the right person in place for that and why and building them into the culture and holding them accountable. That's what I really love to do. And that can fit in the COO role. But I myself do not ask me to go put a zap together.

No. And I'd say, like, if somebody said, what's your number one, like, mantra or rule that you live by? It's right people, right seats. Like, that's the. That's where I start with solving every problem. And one of the things that I've been able to talk to people about over the years is different. Either accounting firm, managing partners, or even other businesses, people have come to me and said, should I hire a coo? How do I know if I should hire a coo? And it requires a degree of humility, I think, to be able to look at yourself and say, what is the business missing because of the skills I'm lacking or maybe where my focus is? And can you let somebody in and trust them enough to make some business decisions on your behalf, to look at the business in a way that you would want them to, but also be open to their point of view. It's a personal decision. It's maybe the most personal hire a managing partner could ever make or a CEO could ever make. But it can really be what you need it to be. So that match, I think is super important. And then the COO's role is similarly. You're not going to know everything about everything. You have to know where the strengths are that you have that domain expertise and where the areas are that you don't and hire for them. And fortunately, I joined an organization that allowed me to do that. That was one of my fears too, especially being in a smaller company. You know, I spent 17 years at a company with, you know, 15,000 employees. Now I'm at an organization that has 80 people in the building. And I was very scared that I would have to do everything. And I fortunately am somewhere where if I make a business case, we can invest in a hire or a technology. And that was something that was important to me.

What was that process like of building the trust with the CEO? Did you guys have a relationship before?

A very surface one, I would say more of the trust was built during the interview process. I talked with them for probably almost three months before I started in person. Different members of the partner group, different perspectives. And I really tried to see can I see myself working with them on a daily basis and being honest. And they asked me a lot, are you comfortable pushing back? And I loved that they asked me that because it gave me permission. But I will say, you know, my first six months specifically, I listened and I learned and I did what I was asked and I tried to take every task as an opportunity to prove that I could execute but build value in the process. Not an order taker, but like a yes and person or.

And we love yes and people.

Right. Like I'm. I'm going to bring additional value to that. And over time, I would say I was given a little bit greater scope. A little bit greater scope. A little bit greater scope. And my confidence increased too because, you know, I'm not an accountant, I'm not a finance professional, I'm not a wealth management advisor. I. So we had to quickly sort of agree that, like, you know your strengths and I'll trust you in those. And I hope that you grow to respect my strengths and trust me in those. And that's been, I would say, the vibe of our relationship and building trust over the years. I still think I'm growing trust every day. I hope I am. You know, as we continue to grow and our challenges change.

Yeah. With the change from a 15,000 person company to 80, what was that difference like for you? Were there things where you came into this company and it was like, oh, this isn't actually how they do things and kind of bringing over past. I've never worked at a company bigger than the one that I helped build. And that was 108 people at the time that I left. So I've been curious about what would it be like to go work at a bigger company. What. What were the differences for you?

Huge. I had to deprogram. I mean, everything from. I laugh about this to this day because I remember, like, I always felt like I needed to ask permission when I first started. When you're part of a big company and there's a ton of structure and processes, you know, if you're leaving for a dentist appointment, people need to know. And I remember saying to John, our managing partner, I have a dentist appointment in the morning, do you want to know that? And he was like, no. Like, okay. You know, very. I had to drop some of that people pleaser permission mentality. Nobody has time for that. In a small business, a B, I wanted to communicate via PowerPoint all the time. Like, my brain only worked in PowerPoint. I had to let that go because nobody wants to see a deck every single time. They just want to know the point, you know, three out of, you know, the worry all the time. Like, this is a really funny, specific story, but the COVID restrictions were being lifted about a month after I started. And it was the first day in New York state, at least, that people didn't need to get their temperature taken at work. And you do all these things and we weren't super tightly following all of the things, but we, you know, we were in the ballpark of it. So the first day those were lifted, our HR admin at the time came to me and said, hey, I was thinking tomorrow that since we don't have to greet people with a thermometer, what if we greeted them with a mimosa? I was like, can we do that? And she goes, well, why not? I'm like, well, who would you ask? She says, I'm asking you. I was like, oh, God. Like, who would you have asked before me? I mean, it's okay to do some of those fun, off the beaten path things in a smaller company where in a larger company you would just never consider it. Um, so just freeing up my like, rule following, compliance seeking part of me and just being, getting to be a little bit more human was fun. But yes, it took me years to drop the like, perfection need. You know, nobody expected me to be perfect here. And I love, I still love that because fortunately I'm very good at not being perfect. I excel.

That's great. Well, and this is really helpful for me because hearing you say that, I'm like, man, maybe, maybe going to a bigger company is not for me because I like to break the rules. I don't want to ask questions. I need a lot of autonomy.

Yeah. I mean, and listen, not all. I came from a company with a pretty conservative culture. Amazing company. I learned everything there. But conservative. Like, I'm sure there's like super cool startups that are bigger now that are, that are looser. I just didn't work at any of them, so who knows?

Well, one of the other things that you had mentioned a little bit earlier that I would love to know is with being in a CEO position at a financial company, but not having a financial background, what has it been like trying to hire and build and lead people in departments that you don't have expertise in.

So, you know, I'm so fortunate because our partners are so open to the fact that like, we, we can say, going into an interview, for example, I'm going to screen for culture fit, motivation, career planning, you screen for technical, and we just divide and conquer together. And I'm so lucky that I work with a team that's like, okay, cool. Because frankly, they don't always want to screen for culture fit, career planning, all those pieces either. So we just leverage each other's strengths that, you know, back to that right people, right seats piece. You know, we're constantly looking at each other going, what are you best suited for? What's the highest level of value that you can bring to this project, this solution, this meeting, this interview, and what's left lacking there? And who can we bring in? We are constantly looking at every situation like that. So, you know, we just, we focus on each other's strengths and I bring what I can, and they bring what they can. Now, along the way, I have learned so much. You know, I, I, I had to ask for all the vocabulary and acronym words when I started. I don't have to ask those anymore. I can talk a good game. I, I know enough to be dangerous, and I, I know when enough to ask for help.

That's great. The, the acronym thing makes me think back to this conference I went to with my dad and I was just like, I want to go to something that's outside of the world that I live in. And so he brought me to a, like an E commerce conference because he runs an E commerce agency. And, and people like, every conversation I was in, I was hearing the term cpg and I had this moment of like, do I want to look like I'm cool here and just keep nodding my head, or am I going to be brave and ask, what does that stand for? And then what I heard is like, consumer package. Good. I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense. I can't believe I didn't know that. But it takes humility to come into a company, especially when you're being brought in as a coo. I just really admire you for having the humility to go into a space that you don't know and learn the acronyms and the terminology and all these things that are so new to you. I don't think many people are courageous enough to go into a totally different sphere and really put aside some of that, you know, the, the ego that wants to show up in the workplace sometimes.

Thank you for that. And, and I, I, it's interesting. I think I, I'm also A big fan of sort of like authentic self deprecation in the workplace. Right. Like when somebody's working for me, I'm the first one to tell them, here's what's going to drive you crazy about me. And I don't want that to get in your way. That's not an excuse. If, if me being a little flighty or disorganized on something or kind of all over the board and what we're talking about impacts you, I want you have perish to call me out. You know, I want to tell you what's wrong with me before you think about it behind my back. So maybe there's a little face saving there. But I also find it ramps up that trust so quickly too. Because I don't want you to worry. I don't want you to think like, boy, that really drives me crazy about Corey. Now I have to work around that. I'd rather tell you up front, don't work around it. I know that about myself. Just go, Corey, you're doing it. And remind me a little bit. I'm still working on it. I'm not asking for a pass on it. But you know, they. The first accounting term I learned was retained earnings rolling did retain something like that. I don't, I still don't know what it means. But every once in a while I'll walk by one of their desk and I'll just ask them if, if they rolled. And people laugh because they know I don't know what I mean. And it just, it just makes it like fair game to talk about.

Yeah, the trust piece is really important, especially in the beginning parts of the a hiring process. I mean, I think sometimes people in the hiring process and onboarding, they're trying to seem so serious and put together and they want to make a good impression that they miss out on just the fact that we're all human. And the quicker you can just get on a human, human level, it really helps build the trust. And you're going to have topics raised up quicker than you would. If people are trying to act all perfect and seem like, you know, none of us have any issues, she's just naturally, ooh.

And you think about that, you know that concept in the book speed of trust. Right. I want to get there as quick as I can. I want us to be comfortable with each other authentically as quick as we can. Because that's when our working relationship is going to get really productive. And I think so much of the COO role is relationships. Like back to our beginning you know, conversation. It's like if you're only focused on process, if you're only focused on data, on systems, on automation, that's not the secret sauce. The secret sauce is do people trust you to implement together? Do they trust to come back to you when the thing's not working and saying to you, hey, I tried what you said, like, it's. The secret is not the answer. The secret is the relationships that, that will allow you to implement. And it, you know, I would give that advice to any COO relationships first.

Are there any particular pieces in building trust? Especially like when you're, you know, outside of the initial kind of onboarding, but when you've got KPIs to hit and there's pressure and people are bringing up ideas, or maybe they're scared to bring up ideas, like what is. What are some principles or some ways of thinking in your leadership style that allow you to continue keeping the trust even when things might start feeling a little stickier?

So I, I I 1 I 1 answer I would say is I try to look at my environment as some form of a mirror of myself. So if something is off in that meeting, I have to ask myself, what environment are you creating? Are you modeling the behavior that you want to see? So if they're defensive, is it because I look like I'm attacking? If they're reticent to share something, is it because I appear judgmental, so I might have to role model it first so that they can respond in kind? So to, to give a specific example, let's say there's a KPI we're missing and I need us to think, I need us to get better at it. I'll probably open up that meeting and say, this number's off. I want to brainstorm together ideas for how we can hit it. Not all ideas are going to be great. I'm going to write in pencil out loud right now. These are not fact, right? These are just ideas. Here's some thoughts that went through my mind. What else? And so you have to set the tone that you want replicated. And back to that humility thing. If the vibe is off, it might be you take responsibility for it and reset it if needed. The more I do that, and I can think of very specific examples right now of things my team is going through that I have to constantly do that you have to be willing to take accountability first for that vibe.

If the vibe you feel like genuinely isn't you and you're showing up as a leader and your best every day, you're continuing to pour in this person and things are still just not where they're at. What's your process for handling those tough conversations?

So I recently went through exactly what you're describing. And I brought the team members that I felt like we were off with and I brought them in my office and I said, I want to share something with you all. And I'll admit half of this is self serving because I don't know what to do. And I, I, I'm not sure that my intentions are, are making their way to you. So let me share with you what I'm trying to do and let's talk about where we are. And I did get feedback. It wasn't, it didn't make me happy. It wasn't awesome. We might end up with some, some shifts talent wise there, maybe not all my choices, but that happens. And in those moments, you know, you try to connect emotionally, but then you have to go back to what does the business need? And you keep balancing the business and the people, the business and the people. I had a mentor once that said, you know, it's two sides of a coin and your job is to roll on the edge. And I keep that visual there. So I want to connect with people, I want to get into that vibe and I want to understand it. But I also, also need to get back to the business and look at what it's telling me. Are there moves we need to make that might not be popular? Talent wise, process wise, staffing wise, whatever. And keep asking yourself, am I on the rim?

The metaphor of being on the rim is so perfect.

I thank him every day for that. It might be one of my most used guiding posts, you know, in, in, in what somebody taught me. And I'm, I am forever grateful for him. His name's Jeff Grenzer, as a matter of fact, and he was my director in organizational development and he taught that to me.

It's beautiful. And yeah, that'll be passed on to me. I feel like the visual is so easy to think about.

Right.

In terms of maybe some more practical ways to do that, is there any way that you and your leadership team or you and the company as a whole try to keep everyone on the same page of what does that look like? How do we take care of the people? And where's the business going? What's important? Do you guys have monthly meetings? Are there reports that people are reading? How do you guys go about that?

Yeah, great question. I'd say that's probably one of the more tangible things I've implemented in my role. When I started, I would say our partner meetings were finance meetings and those were the only meetings that happened. And they were every two weeks since then we have re staffed meetings and said what's the objective and who needs to be there and what's the scope of the content? Because you can't talk about everything at every meeting and every level shouldn't be involved in everything. So now we have partner meetings, we have department leadership meetings, we have manager meetings, we have department meetings. Now somebody might say, is that meeting overkill? You have to monitor for that. You have to watch how much of your time is spent in meetings. But for us, we're very clear that there is a clear objective and then you establish the cadence. Is it monthly, is it biweekly, is it 30 minutes, is it an hour? And it's different for all of them. Right. Some of the things that have allowed us to. And I'll take our partner meeting as an example. Two things help us. One is we have metrics that we discuss with curiosity. We don't let them tell the whole story. So this person or this department is behind does anybody know why? Instead of just making decisions on it. And if we don't know why, we go back and we find out. So we make sure the qualitative and quantitative information is there. Because two departments could be off for very different reasons. So we discuss, we don't just send out a report and decide. We discuss a B, our strategic goals. Whenever I feel like I'm flailing a little bit or at a lack of focus, I go back to our 18 month plan, which we are 12 months into, and I say, I look at them and go, did we move the ball? It always recenters me. And then I bring that update to our partner meeting. And I'll say as an FYI, if anybody's feeling like we're all over the board, let's go back to kind of ground zero for a minute. This is what we said we wanted to do 12 months ago. In 18 months, here's our status. And fortunately this year all of our efforts keep driving those five initiatives forward. If you've got a lot of initiatives that are outside of that, you have to go where our initiatives wrong or is our effort wrong or has it just changed and do we need to re agree? But you as CEO, I think you've got to be the pulse keeper of your strategic energy and make sure that it's kind of going that direction. So I'd say discussion around KPIs and strategic goal updates. Those two things are huge. In deciding all of those things, a.

Big thing that's coming up for me is just avoiding assumptions when it comes to data and people. But like you said, really being curious and asking questions. I've talked about this a lot on the podcast because I just experienced so early on in my COO role of making assumptions and trying to figure out how do I lead people. I was so new and trying to figure out how do I protect the business. And you know, you see these numbers and you're like, okay, low number, you know, why is this person not hitting it? We need to get them out. But really taking the time to slow down and hear because all these things can be connected to other places. And unless you really go investigating, you know, you can make the wrong decisions, you can move people, fire people, and then end up regretting it later. And the other thing that you mentioned was the importance of having meetings with an agenda and a clear outcome, which we at our company, at Closers, there was a point where we got to just. I felt like I was on meetings all the time. And so Cameron actually has a book called Meetings Suck. And I believe this was even before I had even worked with Cameron as hiring him as my mentor. But I read his book Meetings Suck, and it was so helpful for me on, you know, one, one thing was condensing the time and then figuring out how do you create an agenda that works for that? Because everyone will book like an hour long meeting and then, you know, it might go over. It's like you might as well just like a 20 minute meeting and if you got an extra five minutes, that rollover, awesome. But really cutting it down and you're only focused on the most important things.

Really, and you have the right people at it. Like staffing meetings appropriately is a whole skill in and of itself, you know, And I'd say too, you know, back to the thing about leading people, I'm grateful I've got a. A good chunk of my prior life was in HR disciplines. You know, employee development, hr, leadership development, and so much of business challenges come back to leadership. And I'm so grateful that I have that I was given the opportunity to focus so much in that because it's my number one tool to look at good leadership solves so many things. And I very often go right back to that. Like, what is leadership doing when there's a problem? It's not a process problem. You've probably built the process five times, but nobody's enforced it. Nobody's Trained it. Nobody's inspected it, Nobody's given feedback back on it. The process is less often the problem. The people are usually the ones in need of attention more than the process. And. And if you still point at the process, well, who's managing the process, then it. It still goes back to a person every single time.

Right.

I. I keep waiting to think I'm wrong about that, but I just. I can't find it yet.

Well, what are some other leadership breakdowns or challenges that you find are the most common with maybe people in middle management that you're leading and kind of training up? What are some of the most common mistakes or challenges that you're seeing?

Oh, my God. Okay, so I. I could do a whole talk just on this.

It could be a whole episode.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, but number one is anytime you feel yourself comparing someone to what you would have done, like, I want you to. I want it to go like. Your job is not to make them like you. That's an old, bad management habit. Our job as leaders is to find talent that we believe has the potential to be great and help them become the best versions of themselves, not of you. So you should be hiring people that you can see that in. So when you get that. When I was your age, when I started. No. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Big mistake. Two, underestimating the challenge of it. I actually had the analogy when I was driving this morning, and I have no idea where this came from, but I don't know if you've ever tried to be a drummer before.

I've taken three drum lessons in Nashville.

All right, so you know how hard it is to make your left foot do one thing, your right foot do another, your right. Leadership is the same thing. You need to have your pulse and your hand on different people doing different things all the time. It takes coordination. It takes, like, multiple monitoring all at the same time to make this whole thing work together. And I think people think leadership sometimes is just telling people what to do. And it's not. It is separate functions, especially in a COO role, because you're not managing 12 people that are doing the same job. If you're like me, you know, I've got a shared services division. IT marketing, HR operations, they don't have a lot in common. So underestimating the challenge of leadership and not considering it a skill to get great at. Huge miss. Read the books, watch the videos, spend the time on it, like, don't underestimate that. And the third one, I'll say, just so that I don't take up the entire time is get great at feedback, like, at not making it a big deal. You know, somehow if you're the coach of a team, like an athletic team, you know, your job is to say, hey, that was great, but next time, try this. And somehow you get into the working world and that ease of feedback goes away. Get great at helping people get better and don't avoid those conversations or you're just. You're missing the power of the team. The whole point of this is to scale and to get everybody being great, not just you. So I could talk about that one.

Those are phenomenal.

Really good. I'm passionate about it. I just love it. It's my favorite thing.

I can tell. And I have very similar energy on these topics, so it's really amazing to feel that passion that you have.

I feel the same way. The second we got on the phone, I'm like, oh, God, we could do this sketch. And I.

There was something that you said in there that kind of ties back to when we first got on the call, and we were just kind of shooting back and forth, which is when you are managing multiple different departments. And like you said, you got to keep your finger on the pulse of so many different pieces and people. That takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. It's a lot of energy.

Yes.

And especially, I mean, coming from a company with 15,000 people and being in charge of HR, I can imagine just the amount of complexity or challenge, even in that space, versus the role that you're in now and how they all probably have such different opportunities for stress. So I'd be curious to hear if you would share some of the things that we were talking about earlier around, you had mentioned you just don't feel stressed anymore. Which, to me, I'm like, how do I take what is in your nervous system and your brain into me? Because that has been, hands down, my number one challenge is being able to stay regulated and calm while handling absolute chaos.

Yes. Um, I. Man, you know, I share this. And this is coming from someone who, 10 years ago, like, major challenges handling stress, anxious, like, it was manifesting physically. Like, I remember going to the doctor and telling him I thought I had something in an organ. And he's like, that's not where that organ is. Like, I was stressed. And I will say in full disclosure, like, it started with, like, I went to therapy to understand all of the. All of these pieces. And then. And then I learned a lot. And now, um, I'd say, you know, after a lot of self reflection and taking accountability for, you know, for a lot of those pieces, which it sounds weird to say taking accountability for being stressed, but you have to, you, you have to be willing to look in the mirror and go, like, but really why? And how hard am I willing to work on it? And now I would say, you know, a few things. 1. Know. Know where your Achilles heel is gonna be. Know where, know what's your kryptonite? For me, I have to have upwards of six to seven hours of sleep. If I get sleep, I can handle anything. If I don't, I can have nothing. And so everybody's might be different. Like one of my daughters says, hers is nutrition. She doesn't need all the sleep, but she needs to eat good. So know what yours is, mine is sleep. 2. When you feel that stress hit and everybody gets that feeling different. For some people it's a pit in their stomach. From some people it's distraction. Later on, you might find yourself scrolling on your phone and tuning out more. Like, everybody has their tell. When I see mine, I stop and I go, where? Where is this coming from? What's causing this? And what's the one next right thing I can do to get control of the situation? Don't spiral past that. Just what's one the one next thing I can do? And I use that at home if I'm worried about something. My kids, I use it at work. If I feel like a project's going off or if I feel like a staff member's in a weird spot, like whatever that root of the worry is, what's the one next right thing I can do? The third thing is I am not a conflict avoider. I started to share that with you earlier. I don't view conflict as like negative and starting a fight. I view it. I view it as addressing the elephant in the room before it's that big. And so whoever I need to talk to. And by the way, sometimes it's just yourself you need to have a talk with. But whoever I need to talk to, I might do it. My only disclaimer to that is, if you're too high or too low, don't do it yet. Like, just recognize like, I'm worried about what so and so is thinking of me right now. Let's just say that that's where a lot of stress comes from. I screwed up. So and so is going to think less of me. That I'm not saying, go run in there and, and go, hey, are you mad at me? Like, do not create that. But Think about that for a minute. Go, why am I worried about that? Do they. Did I met. Did I mess something up that I need to own up to? Is there a way I can correct that? And go, guys, after that last meeting, I had one more thought that I think will shore up where we landed that I wanted to share with you. Don't let the paranoia feed who you talk to, but, like, what's the one next right thing? And is there a group I need to talk to about it? You'll be amazed at what your central nervous system will do if you don't let it spiral and don't get emotionally hijacked. I'll share Studying emotional intelligence and crucial conversations. Those two topics game changers for me in stress management. This is another one I could probably talk about for a long time. But know your trigger. Do the next right thing and don't avoid the situation.

Those are so huge. I mean, emotional intelligence, I think is like, is the one of the most number one things that I'm looking for in people on my team. Because if, if you don't have it, if the people around you don't have it, it becomes very difficult to make any progress because I was stuck in a victim and it's their fault and what are they thinking of me and all these external things versus just focusing on the thing that we can control. And I thought of this. I don't remember who told me this, but the concept of open and closed loops where, you know, maybe that you. You felt this like little tiny weirdness on the call with one of your coworkers and you let it go, but every time you talk to them, there's this tiny little open loop in your brain. And over time, when you've got hundreds or even thousands of those with the people in your life, it takes up so much mental capacity. The amount of times that I've, like, felt something and like, I was worried about and worried about it and I let it build and build and then I'm so nervous about it. I'm thinking about how this person's going to respond and I'm going to get fired or whatever the case. And then I finally get to my breaking point. Like, I have to talk about it. And 90%, 99% of the time, it is not that bad. It's actually really good. And I walk away being like, wow, I cannot believe I didn't just give that feedback faster or receive that feedback faster. So I think that is such an important part.

Well, and you know, you. You just painted such a Great picture of all those, like, micro interactions, right? And it becomes clutter. And so, you know, the same way clutter on your countertop, in your kitchen, like, suffocates you and adds up, so do all those little unfinished things. So being able to stay in the moment and deal with them as they come, instead of, like, hoarding them all just takes away that weight and removes that stress that wakes you up in the middle of the night, which is really what we're all trying to avoid. We just want to sleep through the night. Big deal.

Totally. This is something that I was just talking about with my roommate because he has a YouTube channel called Wellness Daddy and talks a lot about sleep. But his first question, when I tell him, I'm like, oh, I got a horrible night of sleep, he's not asking if I ate before too close to bed, or, you know, if I put my blue light blockers on. His first question is always, is there something on your mind that you need to clear? Like, oof, yeah, it's true.

Because that's what wakes you up with that start. And you know, it's funny because now if I wake up with that start, I mentioned to you earlier that I like to do a lot of mindless listening to books like murder mystery, true crime, ish type thing, which does not sound light. But my point being, stuff that's not stimulating to me, it's like a form of meditation and a regulating calm that just listening to a story does for me. And so it's not uncommon. If I wake up in a start and people don't know how to get back to sleep. You've heard about 4, 7, 8, breathing. You've heard all of these things. I've tried them all. I listen to something in the middle of the night, I will turn it on. And it just calms me back down. Because how big something seems in the middle of the night is not real. It's like when you're little and you see a big shadow and it was a little toy. Same thing with stress in the middle of the night, it's not that big. You need to go back to sleep and think about it tomorrow. Sleep will help you deal with it the right way. I, I, I love sleep.

Sleep is the best. It's impressive that you only need like seven hours of sleep, though. Cause I'm like a, my baseline is nine, which I'm like, man, I'm getting like two hours less life to live a day than some other people. But, you know, we're all different.

Well, and, and I Also like, I might be at like a 7ish, but I'm also not afraid to take a nap like on a Saturday afternoon. So we might average out. Right. Like naps are magic too. When you need them, take them. They are. It's a lot of these thing. I love them.

Incredible. Especially on a Saturday or like a Sunday nap at brunch.

Yes.

Take that.

Take it.

A little bit of a kind of pivot here. I remember reading in some of the form that you filled out before was around some of the isolation that comes with being a coo. I'd be curious to hear you just expand a little bit on what that means for you.

Yeah. So it's really weird and I. This is a. I find this to be odd about myself. I actually have never liked Jobs where there was a ton of people doing what I was doing. I always found it distracting because you compare and you know, maybe some. Maybe that's a mountain I will need to climb someday to get okay with that. But when I was in jobs where it was easy to compare, it distracted me. I like to run my own race. I do. I like to go, are you doing your best? And just block out the rest of it. And it's easy to do in a role where you're the only one of it or it's different enough that you can't compare it. Maybe it's self preservation. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it just is. So I will say I like that part about being a CEO is that I'm the only one. But it's hard to ask for advice because you have to be the ultimate unbiased human being in your organization. You can't really let yourself be overly influenced by any one person except in certain areas where they're the superpower. Right. Like I know I want to go to this partner when I want to know about this and I know I want to go to that partner when I want to know about that. But at the end of the day I feel the need to be very unbiased. So that level of like kind of mental separation you need to always keep for yourself. It's. There's times where you just feel like a little bit the odd man out. Nobody really gets what you're trying to do and to even the CEO because he's one of the people or she is one of the people that you're trying to do that with. So you know, I think you have to. You have to find your outside board of directors. And, and for. I think that's what's kept me sane over the years is that I've. I have probably six or seven people that I will still reach out to that I can just talk freely and confidentially with and get some perspective, because you don't. You don't really have that safe place within your building.

I feel this, and I have so deeply, and a lot. A lot of CEOs feel this way. And I remember being in, you know, at closures and feeling like, man, I don't know who to go to to ask for help. And I also felt that me trying to communicate to people what all was on my plate because I had. I had created my role. I was the second hire. I created it over time, and people just have this idea of what they think you're doing, but there's so much more of all these little pieces. And I actually had a situation where at a company that I was at, the next person who took in my role had a conversation with me and told me that there was way more to the role than they expected or that other people on the leadership team had told them and was asking for my support on a couple things. Because there is just pieces that you cannot see if you're not in the role yourself. And. No, that's.

And nobody wants to know either. Like, nobody wants my update. It's like, so many pieces of it are boring and it's detail, and so it's. And it's so all over the board that it's also isolating that way because they don't even want to know it all. That's why you're there.

Yep.

And so, you know, when you're looking for performance feedback, you know, I'd give this advice to COOs, too. Like, you have to have a really clear conversation with your team to say, like, my job is to make your job easier. But the better I do, the less you see what I do. So how do we make sure that I'm bring that, you know, the value I'm hopefully bringing to the organization. Those were conversations I had to have.

Love that. Well, and if anyone is listening who really resonates with this, and you're in a role where you feel like you don't really have anyone to reach out to, or you don't have that board of directors, I mean, just gonna shamelessly plug Cameron, because that is exactly. That's how I built a relationship with Cameron. It's how I ended up hosting this podcast. Now, after joining the COO alliance and being able to be in rooms with other people who knew way more than I did about the problems I was trying to solve.

Yeah.

So if that is, you look that, look into that, there's a lot of resources online, incredible resources. Cameron Herald. The last question that I would have for you is, I love asking, what is the most exciting thing that you're looking forward to both in business and personally in the next six months?

Oh, goodness. So I'd say in business, we are, as a team, super focused on, you know, what is our next set of goals. As I mentioned, we had an 18 month plan. We're 12 months into it and we have really kind of executed on the dream of our founders as one rdg. And so we have built all of these things that are going to position us for success. And I feel like I joined at just the right time. And now I feel like I really get to be part of a team and we get to run now. And I am very, very, very excited to just like, feel the proverbial wind in our hair and execute on these plans that we've been working so hard on. We're just at the most exciting possible time. And personally, I have two daughters that will be in high school together, a freshman and a senior. And I adore them. I'm obsessed with them. I make every decision for them. And they're going to be in the same school for the last time before my oldest goes and graduates. So I am planning on soaking up every single second of time with these, these two lovely young ladies that I was blessed with and trying not to cry my whole way through it. But enjoy it. If anybody has advice on that.

Let her know. I mean, speaking of, if anyone wants to reach out to you, where would they find you? I know that you also, I think, have a podcast. So let us know how can we get in touch?

So I love LinkedIn. That's where you and I connected, right? So I, I'm not an ignorer of LinkedIn messages at all unless it's like a, you know, pre formatted sales pitch of nothing. So I'm on LinkedIn. Rippled radio is, is my podcast fledgling. We finished one season. We're getting ready to start season two here actually this week. And I, I love new friends and I love connecting with people. So if anything I've said resonates with anybody, I, I do not have too many friends, professionally or personally. So I love meeting new people. And I just want to say thank you for having me and thank you for such an incredible platform and resource. Thank you. I think The COO job is probably the coolest job in the world. Anybody in it is blessed. Anybody considering it should run after it. And any CEO thinking about hiring one should do it. It's just. It's magic. I love it. It's my favorite thing I've ever done.

Oh, well, Corey, this has been so fun. Thank you for saying yes. And thanks for acting. All of your golden nuggets I'm sure are going to make a massive impact on many people. So thank you.

I hope so. Pleasure to meet you and I fully enjoyed it. Have a wonderful day.

You too.