Ep 561 - Cameron Herold

Welcome to another episode of my Wake Up Call. This is the podcast where I get to know people and want to share them with my audience. And it's rare, I guess, with 570 episodes, probably a couple handfuls of people that I've had on twice. And I want to have them on because they're always a work in progress. They're lifelong learners and they have something great to share. And it's great to have Cameron Herold back again. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He's got a bunch of books that I'll mention, but he has a recent one out called Second In Command, Unleash the Power of youf coo. He's the mastermind behind the exponential growth of hundreds of companies. As the founder of the COO alliance and the Invest in your leaders course, he is a dynamic consultant. He's coached some of the biggest names in business, including Sprint Telecom, a monarchy in the Middle East. We could talk about the whole. Take the whole time to talk about that. He's known as the CEO Whisperer and he really is. He has a reputation for guiding his clients to double their profits and revenue in just three years or less. He's a top rated international speaker and he's been paid to speak in 26 countries and on all seven continents, including Antarctica in 2022. When he's not on the stage, he continues to teach through his Second In Command podcast and his best selling books. And you probably are familiar with them. Vivid Vision Meeting Suck Free PR Double Double the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs and his new one, Second In Command, Unleash the Power of youf coo. Welcome back, Cameron.

Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me. It's nice to see you again.

Well, it's always good to see you. And you know, what we talked about in the first podcast is what I talk about with all my guests is kind of their journey and I talk a little bit about their origin story, you know, and then wake up calls along the way. And I think what I'd like to do is introduce our listeners to a little bit of your origin story because, you know, look, I'm a shrink and my listeners are curious and, and there's a phrase I got from a mentor of mine, Warren Bennis. He got it from Saul Bellow, which was be a first class noticer. So what is it that you noticed early on in life maybe that other people weren't seeing and it kind of called out to you, maybe it even said, cameron, this is yours for the taking. Just do it, Cameron. So Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, and it's interesting. No one's even asked me that question before. But at a very young age, I recognized I was different. Probably as early as seven or eight years old, I saw the world differently. I saw education differently. I remember in grade two, looking around the classroom going, this is boring. I don't understand why people are taking so long to learn this. There's so many other distractions. I was in an open environment classroom where you could see all the way down to the end of the school. You could see grade three, grade four. All the classrooms were open air. It was the first school of its kind in Canada. I just remember being super excited about entrepreneurship, really. I was doing these little business deals in grade two and in grade three they continued. Almost every year I would have one or two different things that I was doing to make money. And this was way before being an entrepreneur.

Can you mention, can you mention a couple of those side hustles when you were supposed to be focused on school?

Sure. And this was again, way before being an entrepreneur was cool, right? Nowadays it's normal, it's encouraged. People want their kids to be. Back in the 1970s, entrepreneurs were vilified, they were greedy, they were capitalists, they were ostracized. I was this little greedy little kid in my aunts and uncles eyes and families even, and neighbors eyes. I remember reading Richie the Rich comics and just being so fascinated with this idea of making Money or Scrooge McDuck and the ability to make money. So my first one that I remember, I was 7 years old in grade 2. I was living in Winnipeg, Canada, and I noticed I was at a dry cleaner with my mom and she brought in 10 dry coat hangers and they paid her 2 cents per coat coat hanger as a recycling fee back in the day. And I thought, well, that's interesting. So I started cold calling the dry cleaners out of the yellow pages and I was writing down how much they would pay me beside their phone number. I still remember doing this in blue ink. And I called up the dry cleaner and I wanted 4 cents per coat hanger. And they're like, look, the most I'm going to pay you is $0.03 per coat hanger. And at one point I got this guy and I said, how about three and a half cents? And he started laughing and he said, how old are you? And I said, I'm seven. How about three and a half cents per coat hanger? And he said, okay, that's fine. And my mom walked into my bedroom And I had the telephone with the 40 foot long extension cord in my room. And she looked at me and she said, well, where are you going to get the coat hangers? And I started to cry and I went and opened up my closet and I had about three or 400 coat hangers in my closet. I'd been going door to door in the neighborhood for about 10 days asking people for their old coat hangers because I was going to recycle them and they were giving them to me and I was sneaking them back into the house because I told my mom I was out playing with my friends. I wasn't out playing with, I was running my business. But what I also recognized at a very young age, and I did comic book arbitrage. I bought comics from all the poor kids and I sold them to the rich kids. And, you know, I swam in the ponds and picked up golf balls and packaged them in three different styles of depending on the price range. Like, I had about 16 different businesses by the time I was 18 years old. I also though, remember that as different as I was, I was also giving up the fun of being a kid for that. You know, I was enjoying it and I found it fun and I found it interesting and I found it intriguing and I found it like, cool and I liked the rewards of it. But I was definitely cognizant that my friends were just out playing baseball or swimming or just laughing and being kids. But I didn't feel like a kid. I didn't feel like that was where I was supposed to be. And it's interesting because I'm watching my son go through it right now. He's 20. And he sent me a note the other day and he said, dad, I'm really struggling with being 20. He said, I know I'm in the top 1% of the way kids my age think. Like, I don't want to be out drinking and partying. I want to be running my business. I don't want to be wasting time in university when I can learn all this information in two hours on YouTube. Like, he's just seeing the world from a very different perspective. And I'm very empathetic to that. So I think I was. I think I struggled with that as a kid and not really having anyone or talking to anyone about that. I just lived in my head and feeling that. And I still frankly feel those exact same feelings today. I know that I'm often very focused on business and thinking about business and preoccupied in my head about business when I could just be Laughing and singing and dancing and enjoying the day now. And to kind of wrap that I'm very much not a workaholic. I don't work more than probably 40, 45 hours a week, but my head's always going right. You know, last week I took. Or last year, I took 13, 12 to 13 weeks of vacation time where I was just completely off the GR and not connected and not working, not doing calls with clients. But I'm still definitely thinking, you know, at work, and I wish I could slow that down a little bit.

Does your. And you're married now?

I am, yes.

So does your wife ever think that you're a little bit preoccupied and she can't get your undivided attention?

Yeah, she'll mention that a couple of times. But then she also knows that at times, I'm very, very focused. Like, she does definitely see me put work away and put my phone away. But I'm definitely, you know, guilty of that, for sure. I feel. In a way, I think I feel the uncomfortable silence with work or with the hustle. I don't just sit. If I'm out in nature or going for a walk or walking for coffee, I. I rarely just sit with my own thoughts or rarely just enjoy what's happening. I'm. If I'm walking for coffee, I'm listening to a business podcast. If I'm, you know, listening to a business podcast, I have to play backgammon on my phone at the same time. You know, like, my brain doesn't slow down as nicely as I would like it to.

These are conversational podcasts. So, you know, so can I share an anecdote that I hope is relevant to our listeners and to you? You haven't heard it, but our listeners may have heard it. I'm 75. I have four grandchildren, five and under, and we're fortunate. They come over every day. And. And so my daughters and my wife and my four grandchildren are occasionally in the kitchen, and I make a point to get there, you know, for the 45 minutes that they're in the kitchen, and they'll come over and visit. And my wife was right that we should keep the house with the pool because, you know, if we moved into a townhouse or whatever, the kids would get restless, they'd want to leave, and now they want to hang out and sort of play around. So I had this experience where I was in the kitchen, and when I'm there, I don't intrude. Nobody asked me a question if my. If my grandkids are playing I don't intrude on their play with, what's that about? You know, I, because I see they're in a state of flow. And there was one time when I sounded like my grumpy dad, who could be self absorbed, where I said, well, I'm leaving because nobody's paying attention to me. I mean, it was so pathetic. It was like nails on the chalkboard. Pathetic inside me. So I only did that once and, and I thought, well, I'm not being included. So. But here was the signal I got. Even though my daughters could be looking on their phones and multitasking as they spoke to each other and my wife, when I picked up my phone, everybody gave me the stink eye. What are you looking at your phone for? You know, and so I said, huh, there may be something to me just sitting here. So I put the phone down and I didn't look at it, but I was still thinking in my head, well, am I getting a text? Am I getting a message? You know, I've got a. Multiple projects going on. I wonder who's trying to reach me. Yeah, you know, nobody was including me. Although my grandchildren would occasionally look at me because they're playing, my two kids and my wife are talking and there's, you know, dumb old granddad at the end of the table. So they'd look at me and I thought, that's pretty crappy that I'm here, but I'm not here. You know, I put the phone down and then I, and then here's what I decided to do. I said, I'm not going to think of anything like zero. And when my grandchildren look up at me, I'm going to bathe them in utter delight. And, and I will tell you an utter delight. Looks like when they look at me, I so adore you, it hurts, you know, and they take a, they take a second take from that because I don't think they get utter delight. They get love, but not utter delight.

Yeah, I, I think that there's also something where, you know, they're not including me, but we're also not including ourselves. Right. We're not trying to proactively engage and stay present and be in that conversation. So then we, we end up removing ourselves from it as much as they're ever removing us. Years ago, I just sent myself a note about this a few days ago, and years ago I bought a little black book, like a little, like it could be a yellow book, green book, doesn't matter, a little notebook that was very thin, you know, probably 40 pieces of paper, and it could fit easily in any of my pockets. And I would carry that and a pen with me wherever I went. And I would leave my phone at home, and I would use that to scribble down the notes to myself because it still allowed me to have the flow that would come naturally, and I wouldn't be worried that I was going to miss it. But I didn't have the phone pressing against my body and my jeans or at my disposal, so it allowed me to stay very present. I sent myself a note to do it again the other day because I want to start leaving my phone much more often when I go for meals and when I'm with my wife, so that if we're watching a movie, I can write a note if I need to, but I don't then get distracted into the other things that might be coming in. I also turn off all the notifications on my phone. You don't see any of the badges with numbers on them. Like there's nothing there to tell me I have to go do things. But definitely guilty of the distraction. I learned it years ago when I was at my son's rugby game, and he would have been probably 10 at the time. And I missed a play because I was on my phone and I missed a really good play that he made. And I remember seeing when I kind of looked out at the field and I saw him looking away from me because he'd looked to see if I saw it and noticed that I didn't see it. And he for sure noticed that I was on my phone. And then he asked me if I saw the play later when we were driving home. And I almost said yes. And then I realized there's no way I can cop out of this. And I just said, no, I'm sorry, what was it? And I think I might have missed a good one. And I regret those moments. Right? Because there isn't anything that is. So at the end of the day, none of us are getting out of this alive, and none of this shit actually matters. This is just what we do to make money. And I think that the connection that we can have with others is not only what fills us, but fills them, but it also gives us the moments that matter. I don't sit down and remember all of the great ideas I had with business and bask in that glory. I remember the moments I've had with my kids and my spouse and my friends. I bask in those. So it's definitely a learned skill and probably a practiced skill and definitely One that isn't talked about enough, for sure.

So I'm going to channel my inner COO and ask you a question and be real. And I'm going to be real. Honest.

Sure.

As someone may be in your audience from the alliance, I envy the freedom that you have to ideate. And I can see that you're a great ideator. In my role as coo, I have to subsume my ideation to what is the CEO expecting of me? Yes, I do have my ideation, but I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place. And look, it's a good gig. I'm getting paid pretty good. I'm an executive. I'm riding shotgun or all these things. But when I look at you, I kind of envy that you're there, just free to think, and then you're free to take action on what you think and some of the ideas. And that's not my experience because I'm there to be. I am subordinate to the CEO. So what would you say to me?

Yeah, a couple things that I would speak to on that. The first is I don't take time or space to ideate. It just sadly fucking doesn't stop for me. Like, I just, I can't stop because my brain doesn't slow down. Right. I have 17 of the 18 signs of attention Deficit disorder. So I notice everything, I see everything. And that's one of the superpowers of add, is that you are hyper stimulated and you notice everything. So it spurts all of those ideas. So I don't think I take the time and take the space and decide to get creative or decide to start thinking. It's just, I'm always flooded and it. And it's. So you might think it's a benefit for me. It's called a disease. Like, it's called Attention Deficit Disorder. It's labeled as a disease. People are medicated for it. I wouldn't want it to go away, but it's not a skill that I've worked on. It's a. It's something that's just been happening since I was. I remember it at 4 or 5 years old, just hyper aware of my. And it seemed like everyone else was paying attention. And I'm like, they're paying attention to one thing. I got 17 things going on. Like, it's just too much. So that's the first part. The second part is I think any great COO has learned the confidence to bring their ideas and bring their solutions to the CEO. They found a way to communicate with that CEO, whether they've gotten coaching or been a part of a mastermind community or read about it or learned, but they've learned how to manage up and how to lead up. It's a skill to be able to turn to those people. I don't know of a single CEO that does not want a COO to come to them and say, you're screwing up or you're doing this wrong or you're doing like, I think you've made a mistake. They want that to be done privately. Maybe they'd like to go for a quick coffee or a walk and talk where you give them your six ideas. The other thing is that I think COOs need to learn to speak CEO. We often as CEOs tend to come with them with our all of the research we've done and all of the reasons behind the idea and all of the facts and figures, and that overwhelms the CEO. The CEO's brain is like a hard drive and it's already 99% full. What they need from you is the very quick one sentence idea with the very quick two or three reasons why that idea will help them make more money or save the company time or make customers or employees happier. When they understand why we're going to do it and what the ROI is and the basics of the idea, then they might ask you some questions. But if you try to give them all of the data and reasons behind the questions, they're going to shut down because they're overwhelmed. Very similar when they tend to come to the COO with an idea, they never give us all their ideas, they never give us all the reasons, they never give us all the facts. They expect us to somehow read their bloody mind because they just kind of drop it in our lap. So what we need to do at that time is say, I love your idea, CEO. Can I ask you a few questions to understand it more? I don't want to debate you, I love your idea. But can I ask you some of the who, what, when, where, why and how so I can catch up with you and understand understand you. So we just have to learn as COOs, we have to learn how to speak CEO. We have to learn how to lead the CEO. And we also have to learn the confidence that they don't want to have a subordinate, subservient, you know, yes man or yes person working for them who only does what they're told. That's not a leader. They need somebody who has the confidence to stand up to them and call them on Their and say the emperor has, you know, and to do it in a safe place and in a productive way. Right. Without destroying the energy in the organization or the trust in the organization. But I don't think that there's any entrepreneur or CEO out there who wants you to be quiet and doesn't want you to share your ideas. I think that might be a story that you've been telling yourself as a coo. That's what I would say to a person. You know, communicating that to me, that.

Is so brilliant, it's painful. No, what you just said. No, no, really, what you just said encapsulated so much wisdom about the best way and most effective way to be a coo. I want to thank you for, from me and people listening in because every now and then one of our guests just drops a chunk of wisdom that's incredibly not just wise, but smart. Meaning it's doable.

Thank you.

That was just so, so terrific. Something, Let me ask you this, can.

I, let me explain where my thought on that might have come from as well. Mark, is you. You identified quite clearly that I'm much more of a CEO and an entrepreneur than I am a CEO. So I definitely think entrepreneur. I definitely think CEO. Right. I had my first entrepreneurial company with 12 full time employees when I was 20 years old. So I've always been that entrepreneurial mindset, that CEO mindset. However, because I've been a COO a couple of times or a second in command a couple of times because I've interviewed 315 COOs on my second in Command podcast because I've had a few hundred members in the COO alliance second in commands from all over the world that I've spent time with in that group that I run. And then in me writing a book called the Second in Command, I've learned how to speak CEO. I've learned how to think CEO. I've learned how to operate CEO for sure in the small to mid sized companies. I don't understand the C level, the CEO role of an enterprise level, you know, plus 5,000 person company, forget it. That's, you know, all bets are off. But I definitely have learned. So I think maybe that's where my perception comes off as like, wow, that was very perceptive. Is I definitely see the issue from both sides quite clearly.

What do you think the difference might be? Like you said, you're not that experienced in the enterprise level Fortune 100 size company. What's your sense of the difference between a CEO and that size company?

And of an enterprise level. I was coaching the second in command at Sprint. You know, he'd been a C level at Sprint or Senior VP at Sprint for 25 years. His. His base salary was 2.4 million a year. Like, he was a very, very small, seasoned second in command. And I was trying to work with him on becoming more entrepreneurial and making Sprint more entrepreneurial to get ready to emerge with T Mobile. And I recognize that I don't have the ability to navigate corporate politics. I just say what I feel and feel what I say. Like it just comes out. Whereas in the corporate world, you have to be more cautious and be careful and thoughtful. I definitely. You cannot be in the command and control role at all. When you're in an enterprise level, you can't tell anyone what to do. You're more managing through strategy and managing through collaboration and managing through culture and leading even less than managing. And I'm definitely more a command, not command and control. But I go from idea to execution very quickly. And that can't happen in the enterprise level world. Enterprise level companies just. They work too slow for me. They don't. I like to go like, if an idea makes sense and it's intuitive, then let's do it. Or if somebody else is already doing it, let's just run with it. But they need to run it through all the channels and work groups and collaborations. And I'm just like, I don't have time for that shit. Right. So, yeah, it's just. I'm a different makeup.

I remember a conversation I had with Warren Bennis, and I was fortunate to have him as one of my mentors. And we made a distinction between leaders and managers. And it may be the distinction that we're talking about with COOs of enterprise level versus smaller ones. And the distinction was leaders go where they're looking and managers look where they're going.

Ooh, I like that.

Yeah. And so you go where you're looking because to you, the unknown's an adventure to be lived. But to the majority of people, the unknown is a danger to be avoided.

Yeah, I definitely am not worried about the unknown. I just. I know that I've always thought of this analogy that if it was completely dark and I was in a home that was completely dark, like, I couldn't see a foot in front of me. I could still climb up 20 stairs in that home by kind of feeling my way out. You know, I've climbed up a stairway before. I understand that if I just touch my toe, I'll know where. Where the Next stair is. And I know at some point there won't be any more stairs. And I can. Or I know that my eyes will adjust enough that I'll be able to see enough in front of me. And I gave that analogy to my ex wife when our first child was born 22 years ago and we were worried about what it was going to be like for them to drive a car. And I'm like, let's just worry about what it's like to change diapers for 6 months because we can worry about the 16 year old when our kid's 14 and all of our friends kids are 14, but let's not worry about how to raise a 16 year old when our kid's only a day old. You know, let's not panic about them using drugs or alcohol as a teen when they're not even latching on for breastfeeding yet. Right. That we'll figure out. So I'm very comfortable with that unknown as well.

Yeah.

And I, I guess that's why I would just be a horrible fit in the, this enterprise level. And I've never tried to play in that, that league either.

You know, I heard another quote two days ago. I don't know where this fits in, but I'll share it with you. And it, and it's being triggered by your discussion with your ex wife about your child when they were Dale. And the quote was what is is until it isn't. And I, and I've been wrapping my head around that. I want to. Go ahead, go ahead.

What's the, the Serenity prayer like? God, give me the courage to control what I can and to accept what I can't or whatever. Like the Serenity prayer. Do you know that one? Yeah, I just found it. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It's kind of similar there, right. Like I'm not going to worry about the unknowns or I'm not going to worry about the stuff that might be coming. I'll just deal with what's right in front of me right now. And yes, I'll be thinking about the future. I'll be driving towards that vivid vision. But I'm also quite comfortable being very present in the present.

I heard also someone who's become a friend and I guess she considers me a mentor is Melissa Bernstein. And she and her husband own Melissa and Doug, which is a big children's toy company for young children. It's maybe the top one in the States. And she shared something with me, and it good fit you. She said, you want to be irreplaceable because if you're replaceable, you're a commodity and people will squeeze you for price. So she shared a talk that she gave, I think, to the Harvard Business School about a month ago. And I thought, well, I could do that because I often don't give the same talk. You know, I customize it, and I just want to share it with you because it was just fascinating. She, she, she opened with, I've prepared this presentation exclusively and specifically for you, and I've never given this talk before, and I'm never giving it again. And then she hold up, held up some notes, and she said, I have a few notes because in preparing for this now, I wanted to give some thought about what I'm going to say. It's not going to be polished because I've never done it before, but I'm not going to do it again. And I hope some of you will extract value from it, and other people will be probably ticked off that it's not polished like it's supposed to be. And I thought, what an amazing opening. And she said several people started crying, and when she found out why, they said, we're on an MBA treadmill and our whole life is planned out for us, and we're prisoners of it.

Whoa.

Whereas you're free. You know, we'll go get a consulting gig, you know, at a big consulting firm, we'll make a bunch of money. You know, we'll get married, we'll have kids, we'll go on vacation, and our whole life is planned for us. But you're free.

You know, that reminds me of one of the reasons why I became an entrepreneur and have stayed being an entrepreneur was the ability to do what I want, when I want and control my own time. And so many people think being an entrepreneur is risky. I think being an employee is risky. When I, I think working for a company, hoping that they're going to love you, hoping that your skills are going to stay, hoping that, like, everything's going to work out, and having to do it all on their timeline, that doesn't feel good to me. That definitely feels like a prisoner. Right at the beginning of that, you talked about it was something about staying relevant or staying something about. Like, the thought that I had when you mentioned. I can't remember what it was you mentioned was, as a company scales, every coo, every CEO, every executive has to continue to grow their skills. You Know, if you're in a company today as a second in command and your company does $10 million in revenue, when your company goes to 20 million in three years, your skill level's got to be twice as good as it is today as well, to manage a company that is more complex. And I think a lot of leaders can get very complacent with, you know, oh, I've done it this way for 30 years. Well, you might have five experience six times in a row. We need to continually up level our skills and up level our network and up level our confidence. And I think that executives that are going to do well now going forward are the ones that embrace that change and stay ahead of that curve and want to continue to grow before someone tells them they need to. You know, there's a saying that I saw years ago that if the rate of change outside your business is greater than the rate of change inside your business, you're out of business. And that goes for any manager or leader today as well. That if you're not learning to adopt these technology tools that exist, if you're not learning to leverage the tech stack, if you're not learning to live and build a company in a hybrid world, if you're not learning to leverage AI, you're basically out of a job. Because someone is going to come along that has the wisdom of what you've learned, right? The wisdom of being a leader, the wisdom of the people side, and they can leverage all these other areas of the business. You're basically out of a job. And I think that managers and leaders have to wake up to that fact. And you also don't want to be having your CEO tell you that you need to grow and tell you that you need to change. The CEO needs to be watching you doing it and going, wow, this person's a role model. It's like the basketball player who's the first one on the court at practice and the last one to leave practice. People notice that we need to be growing and practicing as leaders inside of our organizations, too. That's why I started the OP spot. It's why I started the CEO Alliance. It's why I launched my invest in your leaders course. I want to give people the tools to scale because otherwise they're out of work.

So how does that jibe with. And as you said, I can see how the COO of an enterprise thing is a whole different things because they're having to manage politics every day. And I could see that there's a part of them that might Think, well, why bother learning new things when I'm just going to be stymied anyway? Let me try and survive in this and justify the security I get from having a check, a decent check, and I'll try to work around that mentally.

I would, I would find a new company where you're not going to get stymied. I'd find a company where you're not having to play defense and you can go play offense. Like there's not a single a player or high performer out there that would put up with that. You know, that none of us have to work where we're working today. We can all quit. We can all choose to move, right? We can all leave the city that we're in and move to a different city. Like sometimes the, you know, I can empathize and feel for you, but then after I've empathized and felt for you for a half hour or it's time to put on your big boy pants or your big girl pants and like, you know, get moving, right, Decide. And I think that managers and leaders have to do that as well. There's lots of great, there's lots of great companies out there that would look for you if you're such a good person, right? But if you look in the mirror and you're making those excuses, but then deep down you know that you're not hirable, then get, get yourself hireable. But, but stop blaming everybody else for your issues.

There's a word that comes to mind and, and I think I would use it if I'm hiring anyone in these kinds of position. And the word is curiosity. Because I think if you're innately curious, if you go where you're looking, if you saw I can sell coat hangers for three and a half cents a piece. And I, and I don't know how often people get screened for their curiosity. Because if you're not innately curious, it's going to be tough to be a lifelong learner. You're going to see it as a chore instead of something that, that you just spontaneously go after. I, I think you are innately not just add, but curious, I think. So what do you think? So what do you think about that?

As I think I'm probably less curious and more. Well, maybe it's the same. I was going to say I'm more interested than I am curious.

Well, I like that. What's the difference? I love distinctions. What do you think?

I think that I'm interested in the things that I'm interested in and I have zero curiosity to go and poke into the things that I don't even know that I don't know yet. Like, I don't. I just. I know where my rabbit holes are that I like, and I just stay down them. You know, I'm not curious to go. I wonder if I would enjoy history. I don't know, I've just never enjoyed history. So it. I just don't like. But I've always enjoyed business, so maybe I'll just read more business stuff. Like, I'm just. I think I'm more interested in the stuff that interests me, and I'm probably less curious.

Oh, I love that distinction because I think, like, even.

Even if I'm exploring a new neighborhood, you know, we've been nomads for two years and we're const. And new neighborhoods. This morning, I wasn't so much exploring the area that I'm in, in Tulum in Mexico, as I was on a destination to go get coffee at a place that I looked up because I knew I wanted to have my morning coffee. And I like to go for a walk for coffee and listen to a podcast. I wasn't so much curious about what I would see as I was like, I'm on a mission. I'm going to go get coffee because I like my routine. I like listening to business podcasts, and I'll come home afterwards. Whereas I know other people would be like, oh, let me just go see what's in the neighborhood, and I'll stumble on what's there.

I. I love that distinction. A friend of mine is. Do you know Dori Clark?

Yeah, of course, very well. We hung out at TED a few times together. The main ted.

Yeah. So she and I become friends and I interviewed her and. And she made an interesting observation. She said a lot of people don't know what their passions are. And when you ask them, what are you passionate about? You know, a lot of people, you know, will mention some things but they don't know. And one of the things she talked about was optimizing your interests. Meaning, you know, find out what it is that you're interested in and go pursue it and see if it sticks. If it sticks and you want to grow it, you know, that could develop into a passion. But this idea of what am I passionate about? And that's what I'm feeling, that when people say curiosity can go in too many different directions, but if you can really focus on what you're interested in.

And then I guess I'm lucky that I've Always just known. Right. I've known since I was grade school that I loved business. I've known since I was in grade school. I liked golf. I've known since I was in grade school. I like tennis. I've known since grade school. I like skiing. I've known since I was. At a very young age. I like traveling. I've always loved. Like, I just know what I love. And maybe I'm missing on something else, but I've sure enjoyed those rabbit holes of just going deeper on those.

Oh, yeah, no, I. I can feel that that's what you do. You know, sometimes when I have guests on like, you, I listen to you again from your audience and. And if I'm in your audience, I could admire you. I'd be impressed by you. But I think, yeah, that'll work for you because you've got it all figured out, and I'm just some schmuck in the audience trying to get a little bit better. Is there anything that you could get better at?

I could definitely get better at while being present that we opened with. I could definitely get better at not taking things so personally, not getting defensive, you know, responding versus reacting. I could definitely get better at letting my little kid out to play more, to just have fun. Those are three that come to mind pretty quickly.

So let me drill a little bit.

And Mark, I have a hard stop. I have to be very mindful of our time right now that we had this booked for an hour. I apologize.

Okay, well, then, look, you've wet my appetite. You've wet everyone's appetite. So where's the best a way to find you and find your book? This new book, second in Command, and so people can unleash their power. So give us that information.

Sure. Yeah. All of my six books are available on Amazon, Audible, and itunes. And then definitely check out the COO Alliance. And I would say if you love any of the leadership ideas or systems that I've kind of talked about, definitely check out investinyourleaders.com, which is all of my core leadership skills that I've worked to train anyone who's ever, you know, worked inside of any of our companies. And all of our CO alliance members get that stuff, too.

Well, thank you. And thank you to our listeners. You've been beyond great. So, you know, if we're both still around, I probably want to have you back on in about a year to see where you are then. So. So let's go.

Let's block it off. Let's block it off in the calendar.

Mark, we will do it. So go to your hard stop thing and I'll go to wherever I'm going on my calendar. So until next time, to our listeners, thanks for tuning into my wake up call.

Thanks.