Casting Not Hiring: Build a Thriving Company Using the Secrets of Great Theater with Dan Sullivan, Joe Polish, and B. Jeffrey Madoff - 10xTalk Episode #249

Welcome everybody. This is 10xTalk Live with Dan Sullivan and Joe Polish. We've got a very special guest today, B. Jeffrey Madoff. He's a thinker and he and Dan have a show which is dear to my heart. And now they've got a book coming out, which I think is going to change some things. And so today the conversation is going to be mostly Joe asking questions to Dan and Jeff about the book. The big question, of course, what's the official launch date?

17th of November. Yeah.

I've known Jeff for a long time. It's great to be here, everyone. So welcome to 10xTalk with Dan and Jeff. I, for better or for worse, I introduced these two to each other.

How long ago was that?

Probably 2012, 2000. I actually met him in New York before I met him at Genius Network. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yep. And, you know, Jeff, I met him in the mid-'90s by a dear friend, Ken Glickman, who used to be the vice president of marketing for Boardroom Inc. Marty Edelson started that company. Weirdest story, Jeff, I don't know if we should even tell that one, Jeff, but it's like you happened to go to high school with Ken and you had called in something related to a Bottom Line Personal subscription and Ken in some bizarre thing answered the phone and you guys reunited many years later. And so Ken Glickman, who's a dear friend, said, I really want you to meet this guy, Jeff. He Does all the commercials you see on TV for Victoria's Secret, and he did Ralph Lauren's documentary, and he's this like amazing guy, blah, blah, blah. So I went over and met Jeff in what was supposed to be like a meet and greet. Mm-hmm. I think we sat there for something like 4 to 6 hours. It was like all day in New York City, and we totally hit off a friendship. He's a really unique, bright individual, has worked with some of the, you know, top brands in the world. He's creative director, amazing at Oh, what's funny is I introduced Jeff to Tim Ferriss. I don't know how many years ago that was. And then, Tim did The 4-Hour Body. Jeff did all the photos that were in the book, The 4-Hour Body. He's been on Tim's podcast and different stuff like that. And then, over the years, just Dan and Jeff has started doing a podcast together, and this has now led to a really great book.

I want to start with something from page 10 that I think sets things up. I think this is sort of the subconscious thing that new that we haven't known how to codify yet. On page 10, the competitive advantage. We all want a competitive advantage. The competitive advantage you can't automate. Everything your business does can eventually be copied, automated, outsourced. Your technology, your business model, your marketing strategy, that can all be replicated by competitors with enough time and resources. There's one big thing they cannot copy, the unique combination of people you've assembled and the chemistry they create together. I think there's no better summary of the book than that right there. So I wanted to start there. I think that's the framework for everything we're doing. Dan, Jeffrey, you want to give us a thought on this or should we just go right to Joel and the questions?

Dan?

Yeah, I'll go ahead. Yeah. Well, Jeff and I have been conversational partners ever since we We have, you know, we just have a wide range of cultural interests, historical interests, but a lot of it's around entertainment. And that'd be film, that'd be theater and everything. And, but we just like talking about entrepreneurship and we've been at it. But Jeff and I are both from Ohio. We grew up around 90 minutes from each other. He's in Akron, which is a big industrial city. Yeah. Probably the world center of rubber tires during the automobile age. And I grew up in a small, more or less farming town up near Cedar Point. Cedar Point's a very famous roller coaster park. And we were both born in the 1940s. I predated him. I came in about 5 years early just to check it out so it would be safe for Jeff to be born. And But we hit it off and we had really great conversations. And Paul, you're the one that got us into podcasting. And Joe, you were the first podcast I had. So I said, Jeff, we ought to do a podcast. And he said, well, what would the title be? And I said, I'll have to give it some thought. But I came back quickly. I said, why don't we call it Anything and Everything just to narrow the scope? We usually every Sunday get together for about an hour and we just talk about anything that's on our mind for that week. But one session we were talking and Jeff was saying, you know, coming out of the entertainment business and also being an entrepreneur, I've often wondered why corporations, big companies don't take a theater approach to their bringing new people on board. And he said that it should probably be You know, they should be casting rather than hiring. Like in the entertainment world, you cast, you don't hire. And I stopped and I said, Jeff, that's the title of a book, Casting Not Hiring. And I got back to him probably in 3 or 4 days. And I said, this is what basically the theme of the book would be. This would be the structure. And off we were running. And that's about— I don't know, maybe 2 years, 2 years and 3 months ago. And so that's what we've been up to for the last 2 years. And we had— Joe had introduced us to Reed Tracy, the president of Hay House, and had introduced me to Ben Hardy and had introduced me to Tucker Max. And Tucker and Ben put together a deal for us with Hay House. We had 3 really great books with Ben, and so they were very open to the idea, but I had created a little book. So I write a new book every quarter, a little 60-page book, and we sent the book to them and they read the book and they said, sure, let's go with the big book. So that happened about a year ago, and here we are. The book is in print. Audio is being done and everything is done. So that's where we are with this. And Jeff, we had a division of labor. I created a thinking tool for the book and it's called the 4x4 Casting Tool. And Jeff did an amazing job of interviewing people in the entrepreneurial world, in the hospitality world, and lots of different people. And he just found that a lot of people who are really great at what they do, take a theater approach to their business and they do cast rather than hire. And so it really, everything slotted into place and everybody got the theme. We showed them the little book and it was Casting Not Hiring. And they said, oh yeah, that's what it's all about. So it's a book where the title itself immediately connects with people's understanding of how you put great organizations together.

And one of the things that happened early on was I was having a physical. I was with my doctor who was head of internal medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. And I said, so what are you working on now? And I said, I'm doing a book. I said, oh, what's it called? And I said, Casting Not Hiring. And he goes, oh, I love that. I said, why do you love that? And he said, oh, that's what I do. And I said, what do you mean that's what you do? I haven't even told you what it is yet. So he goes, no, that's what I do. And I said, well, tell me what you mean. And he said that being the head of internal medicine, he was the bottom of the funnel for all new hires at Mount Sinai in internal medicine. And he said, we were having turnover every 18 months. We essentially turned over staff and that just wasn't a sustainable thing. All of these people had tremendous resumes. Mount Sinai is a world-class health facility. So the people that apply there went to the best schools, had the— were at the best hospitals for residencies, did research, all of these kinds of things. On paper, they looked great, but they often didn't get along with each other. And he said, I love theater, And I started looking at theater and principles about theater and how people sort of planted their flag and how they used their talents and how they supported each other. So there was a common shared vision among all of those people. And I realized that that kind of collaboration is essential to have any kind of a good business, because I never thought this applied to a medical practice or a legal practice or a financial practice, but it does apply to all of them. And he said since they started employing those techniques, they no longer have the turnover problem at all because everybody is there to collaborate and work together and elevate the practice as opposed to trying to be the superstar, which is what was happening prior. So it was really interesting and the name resonated with people. That's one of the things that Dan found out in kind of your unscientific yet thorough marketing of strategic coach people, how fast people just picked up on what the name was and what that meant. So that's how we got started. And it was Dan's insight into recognizing what he actually— I'm going to do my imitation of Dan Sullivan when he said, when he heard Casting Not Hiring, he went, whoa, whoa, that's a book. And—

That's actually pretty good.

Thank you very much. I've been working on that, you know, 'cause I know I was rehearsing for this. And he, you know, Dan had the vision to see it way beyond what I saw it as, which was a conversation, and he saw it as a book. And in doing that informal marketing, we found that there was an audience for it, and hopefully that will prove out.

Let me ask you a question. So most entrepreneurs think their biggest problem is finding better people. Now, you guys suggest that the real problem may be that we don't know how to recognize talent, place it, or create the conditions where it can perform. What are we fundamentally getting wrong?

Jeff, you go first.

I think that recognizing talent and knowing how to listen to people and know how— I think it's really critical to not depend on a resume, just like what my doctor realized, why the practices were having such heavy turnover. And HR isn't great at what they do, which is supposedly filtering candidates because you need to meet people where they live, who they are. Will they get along with other people in your business? Dan, you have a story. I don't know if the person is here that you're referring to, but the person you know who was married several times. Mm-hmm. And you can always not mention their name, but it's a great illustration of something that Dan and I have talked about a lot with people, which is it's not just that they don't recognize talent, they may not recognize that they're the problem. Dan, could you share that story? I

love that story. Yeah. You know, periodically in our workshop, so our company operates just on workshops, and sometimes one of the entrepreneurs will say, could I just have a private moment with you? So I said, sure, let's go to a backstage office and we'll talk. And he said, well, first of all, I want to tell you I'm on my 5th marriage. And he says, you know, it's just not working again. It's just not working again. So, you know, I try to do a little bit of fact-finding before I make a judgment. And I said, so same kind of woman? I mean, it's the same kind? No, no. He says, no, very, very different. And I says, well, you're in your 5th marriage now. Is there anything that's the same for the 5th marriage, the 5 marriages? I mean, any common factor? He said, I can't think of any common factor. And I said, well, I mean, is there anybody who was there for all 5 marriages? He said, oh, you don't mean me. I said, well, I'm just asking the question. I don't know, but it just seems. And I find the same thing happens with teams of entrepreneurs. I don't call them employees. I call them team members. And they'll say something like this, and they've gone through a lot of people, and they say, you have great people here at Strategic Coach, he says, but you live in Chicago, big city. You operate in Toronto, you operate in LA, you operate in London, England. And these are big cities, and there's lots of great people. And I said, well, there's lots of great people where you are. But they're just not looking for you. They're looking for a great entrepreneur. You're not a great entrepreneur. And so the big thing with the casting, not hiring, it starts with the entrepreneur actually casting themselves. What is their role? First of all, is it a team that they actually have? And what is your role in the team? And they have to go through the whole exercise. It doesn't take very long. It takes about a half hour. And then you can introduce it to your team and the whole The whole aspect of casting, not hiring, is that you're not offering a job, you're offering a role, okay? A role in a team. And you have to be really, really good at your role and operating with all the other roles. A lot of it's already in the teamwork they're looking for, and they're looking for a great new team member. And we want to know whether you have what it takes to be a great— Team member. new role in our team. And it seems very, very simple, but it's not the way people are brought into new— into organizations. They're given job descriptions. And a job description is a checklist of everything you have to do not to get fired. It has nothing to do with teamwork. It's two-dimensional. It's, you know, the theater approach that we take. Theater is live. It's dynamic. It's creative. There's constant adjustments. There's constant new things that people can be a hero at. And the central concept of Strategic Coach is unique ability. There's something you're really great at. You love doing it. And everybody gets better when you're being who you are. And that's what we're looking for as a new role member in our company. So that's how it looks. Can I? Yeah. And I'd like Babs to say it right so that together we're correct.

Well, no, I mean everything he said. And you're looking, you got to know the role you're looking for. So like if I match it to the theater model, there in a theater production, there are different roles. I mean, and that's front stage and backstage, but let's just talk about front stage roles. You've got different roles you're trying to fill, and then they have to match up with the other people on the front stage. Plus they have to be, you know, supportable and all the things that happen between backstage and front stage, right, Jeff?

Yes, that is true.

Yeah, right. So, so you are looking for a role, so you cast yourself and then you decide what you're looking for, what, what role you're trying to fill. And, um, Gordon Vickman's on here and he was one of the very first people who was hired using this 4x4 before we called it the Casting Hiring 4x4, but it's a 4x4 matrix and it totally outlines the role that you're trying to fill. And so Gordon—

How do I have Gordon? Because he was actually number 2. I had filled another role. And so we went through, you know, we go through the normal process. We work through agencies, we work through referrals, and we're saying we're looking for a certain type of person. And we have another tool called the impact filter of saying what it is that we want to achieve. You know, there's something big. In my case, we started doing podcasting and I'm really good at producing podcasts, but I'm not really good at organizing everything it takes behind the scene. And Gord responded to the offer. He came in. But before he came in, I did the 4x4 casting tool and it was sent to him. And that's before I ever met him. And so Gord, just talk about what happened. You had gotten, you kind of knew what was— Needed to be achieved when you came on board, but what happened when you got the 4x4 casting tool?

What happened is I realized, I thought, this is cheating. It's like going into an exam and someone gave you the answers. So what I did with the 4x4 was I just pretended that the role was mine. I just, I had not received any confirmation that it was or was not. And I set out to satisfy the quadrants in the 4x4. And then when I returned for my 643rd interview, I had pretty much completed the first 2 months, or at least the structure, the skeleton of the first, what the first 2 or 3 months I think was going to look like. And I handed it to, I believe it was Karen Sklarick, and I said, could you see that this makes its way to Dan? I'd like him to have a look at it. And to my, to my surprise, she did. And then what happened after that was Dan and I had a conversation where we talked about a lot of things. None of which were the role. I believe we talked about nickel mining, grandparents, sushi. And shortly after that, Dan stood up and said, oh, by the way, the answer is yes. I was confused. And he said, well, it's a job interview, right? Isn't that the word you wanted to hear? See you later. And then he left. He left. And I, and then I looked over at the few other people who were at the table and I said, okay, I guess I'll see you Tuesday. They're like, yep, bye. That's what, that's how it went down.

You know what though? In, in what, how long have we known each other, Dan? Since 1997. I don't think I've ever seen Dan eat sushi. Do you eat sushi, Dan?

Oh yeah. Yeah, I do.

Okay.

We talked about it, Joe. We didn't have any. Nobody, nobody brought a platter out to us. That would've been, that would've been, uh, you know, first class. But no, we just talked about it.

Well, for context for everyone here that's watching or listening, explain the 4x4 in a way to where they make sense so they're not just hearing the name of a tool, but they understand what is going on here.

Yeah. First of all, the role in Gord's case and in other cases, it's your role in relationship to me. Okay? And I'm not going to change. Okay, so I just want to let you know that I'm not the person who's going to change here. Okay. And, but what it is, it's 4 quadrants and each quadrant has 4 parts to it. And the first one is how you show up when you're working with me. And what I want you to do is be alert. I want you to be curious. I want you to be responsive and I want you to be resourceful. And in Gord's case, I actually wrote out, I want you to be alert about this. I want you to be curious, responsive, and resourceful. Then the other one is results. And as you get better at your role and better at the teamwork, what I want you to do is to do things faster. I want things to happen easier. I want there to be a bigger result. I want there to be a better result. And I wrote out what all those things should be. Okay? And then what I said is, and if you want to go beyond, you really, really want to go above and beyond, Your role, I want you to be a hero, and I'd like you to be committed to creating a new capability that doesn't exist, and it's going to require courage. It's going to require courage. It's brand new. You haven't done it, and you're going to be way, way more capable in this way, and you're going to be way, way more confident in this way. And then the 4th quadrant is, I don't want you to drive me crazy. So what I require is that you show up on time, You do what you say you're going to do. You finish what you start and you say please and thank you to me and to everybody else that you're working with. And that was the game plan. Okay. But in the results section, it had specifically to do with his role of being a podcast manager. And, you know, and we need a lot of cleanup. We need a lot of organizing, inventorying. We need this. made a much bigger distribution that we're actually doing. So the person comes in and they know day one, you know, how they're pleasing me. Okay. And that's the big thing is that entrepreneurs never write their job descriptions in relationship to themselves. And my— I say, I don't care how you act with other people. With me, you have to be this way. This way. And, and one of the things I've found with job descriptions, and I've had those before, before we created Casting Not Hiring, is that it's like a technical checklist. As I said, it's a technical checklist. And I've known people who came and did everything technically correct, and I fired them because they drove me crazy.

There's something you said that I think— let me give some context of this too. So Dan had been talking about in Strategic Coach Frontstage Backstage for many years. Dan had always been talking about how you like theater, how you like seeing live shows because people can mess up in real time. So when you and Jeff kind of met, you almost had like a perfect fit because you both had interest in that and you both have companies and are building companies and stuff. But I remember you telling me years ago that someone's main role of working for you is to make Dan happy. And when there's a lot of people that go into companies and they're very intent on changing the way the person operates. So you made this comment, I'm not going to change. And now I've known you long enough to know whenever you learn a new skill or capability or something that's going to work better, you will change. I mean, you're very— Yeah. coachable, right? I mean, you run Strategic Coach and some people are not coachable. So when you say, I'm not going to change, define what you mean by that because it also goes back to your marriage with Babs. I mean, you said, I didn't want to work on a relationship, I just wanted a relationship that works. And after your first divorce, right? Which you call your practice marriage. And so The way I want, I'd love to hear how you explain so that I want people to understand you're not this person that is not capable of changing. There's just certain ways that you are that are just the way you are. And so what do you mean by that? What's the context?

Yeah, well, I think it's 2 things. Who I am as a person and then what my particular role is in the company. And Jeff, Jeff can really touch on this because he's actually done an enormous number of theatrical productions. And one of the real pleasures of working with Jeff is that he's got a play on the way to Broadway right now, a musical on the way to Broadway right now. And Babs and I have been along for the ride for the last 6 or 7 years, interrupted by COVID. It would've been there earlier. But he's the producer, he's the playwright, And, um, you know, I mean, the, um, the actors, when they come on board, the other, the members of the production, production team, when they come on, the prod— the actual director, the choreographer, the music director, uh, the, um, sound and, sound and scenery director, they have to adjust to Jeff. They have to adjust to the fact that he's the one who put this together. Well, along with Babs, I'm the one who put the whole company together. And we're the ones who put the program together. And you have to— you're coming in new, and in your role, you have to adjust who we already are and what we're already working on. So that's from the role standpoint. And from the personal standpoint, I'm not a manager. I'm not a manager. And Gord can count the number of management meetings that we've had in 6, How many years now, Gord? 7?

It'll be 8 this October.

Yeah. We haven't had one performance review meeting. We haven't had one management meeting in 8 years. And the reason is he's very, very clear about his role and he's very clear about who I am and what I'm doing. And so the whole point, I have particular ways of going about my life and that I'm, you know, I'm not naturally organized. I'm not a natural thing and you just have to adjust to that. And if you're going to make me happy, don't let my weaknesses get in my way.

That's a great line. Don't let my— and there are people well-intentioned that are trying to change people or get them to behave or adapt to another system. And a lot of times it's like, if you're bringing someone on to help you, their main role should be to help you. Now, if they see you stepping into potholes or different things, by all means, yes, you build rapport with someone. Well, I don't want to be surrounded by yes people. I don't want, and I don't think either of you guys do either. I want to be around people that are effective and help me be more effective with the talent and skills that I have. And yeah, so let me ask you, Paul, did you want to say anything? Go

ahead. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You and I were chatting a bit backstage and then Kristi Clark, MD summed it up in her So she said, so to clarify, the 4x4 is in the casting book? Yes. So, you know, it's kind of the book and that, and I'd love to hear the journey of the book to the tool. And maybe we will bring Jeffrey into this one. But how do you go from a book about casting to a, you know, to a tool? What's that transition?

It started with a tool. It started with the tool. I mean, we'd been using the tool for years. And then Jeff talked about, oh, I call it casting, not hiring. And then bam, it just, you know, that was where the book started.

So are you saying this is one of those business books that isn't just a bunch of ideas, but there's actually a practical tool that you can use and apply immediately to what it is that you're doing? Is, are you trying to say something like that, Babs?

Yes.

The answer is yes.

In fact, I've got a copy of, let's see, Gord's tool, I think.

Special bonus for those who buy now. Jeff, how did it feel to have the tool in front of you as the means by which framing the book? Did that work? How did that go?

I would say that we were very complementary. The knowledge that we were both putting forth was very complementary to each other. Dan didn't model the 4x, as Babs said, that was something that's been in existence for a while. My idea of casting, not hiring, they melded perfectly. So there's, I can't say that one shaped the other. No. They didn't, but they complemented each other very much. There was a thing that I wanted to interject when you guys were talking about just the nature of business in any business. And I'm going to now quote Stanislavski, Konstantin Stanislavski, who was a Russian director who created what's called the method in acting. And what he said, and I think this is important with every business is what are the given circumstances? So if you're talking to Dan at Strategic Coach, you need to know what the business is, who the people are that are involved, and what is the story that's being told and how do you fit into that? And so given circumstances is really important to assess in storytelling, in business, in building a business. It's really important. Because the other key question is, what do you want? And the follow-up to that is, what are you willing to do to get it? How do you get what you want? So Stanislavski is something I would recommend everybody to Google when this is over and look at his tenets in acting. And it's amazing how much they interweave with business and entrepreneurship. It's fascinating. And I wanted to say also, Gore, this is the first time I've really listened to you since you started, since you did the voiceover for Dan and I. And it occurred to me that if Dan and I ever had a son, which probably won't happen, the voice would sound like yours. So somehow—

That means so much. Thank you. I agree. I was just thinking that earlier today.

Well, then we're all in trouble. That's right.

Yeah, I'm going to see if I, you know, now those of you that are, boy, let's see. Hopefully I don't share the other things on my screen. For those of you that are watching here, can you see the, uh, can you see this? This is what it looks like. This is the tool. For those of you that are listening to the podcast, the recorded version, well, that's why it's best to show up on these live if you can, but that's what the tool looks like.

This is my role. This is my role.

Yeah.

That was done January 2025.

Yeah.

Okay. So you got best performance, better, best results. So it's alert, curious, responsive, resourceful, then faster, easier, cheaper, bigger, being a hero, casting, not hiring, final draft. It even shows you how he thought through this with the book. And then, yeah, there you go. Drives others crazy, right? So Dan has a thing that So that's just what the tool looks like. And just wanted to show everyone.

It comes with the book. And one of our team members, Hamish MacDonald, who's my cartoonist. So we create a book every quarter and it's, you know, people get their information in different ways. So we got the text, we've got audio, we've got video, but we also have cartoons. And he's been, we've been working together 12 years and he's the actual, In the book, he's the team member who tells the story of what it's like to work at Strategic Coach and to have your role being a function of the 4x4 casting tool. And so he actually explains how exciting it is, and he's been with us for 28 years. He started as a writer, but then became— A coach. cartoonist. He's a natural cartoonist. But everybody in our Strategic Coach company has one of these, and they're encouraged every 90 days to update it. And if they create an updated version every quarter, and then we have a master file where everybody's casting tools go in, they get $300 for it because we don't want this to be a burden to them. to something they do and they don't have to do it, but they're not doing it will be noticed.

Yeah. Joe, I wanted to toss in here something, which is what Dan and I did in the book is not theoretical. I did a number of case studies, companies like Ralph Lauren, for instance, who embraces these principles and has He just had the best year his company has ever had, and Ralph is turning 87 next month. So it's kind of amazing what he's done. And the case studies show you true business applications of this. So this isn't theoretical, this is for real. And you'll see the business cases of these and where these principles were adopted and how it makes not only your doing business better because you have less turnover, People are more engaged with the company. Your clients are more excited about doing business with you. But it also, like my doctor who said that we can't sustain complete turnover every 18 months, this isn't working. What are we doing wrong? And he realized that when you apply these principles, turnover slows down tremendously. And that's very important for a business because it's very important. It's very expensive to retrain And so there's a lot of benefits that come. And if you look at the book, you read the book, you'll see that, oh, this isn't just theory. It's not like I'm going to turn my company into a theater company, but those principles will help your business. And that's, I think, one of the most interesting things about it. And what Dan is great at doing with his tool is getting you to focus on what you ought to be focusing on. So the combination of the two, I think, makes it very, very powerful.

Yeah, no, got it. Well, I want to mention this comment that was earlier on that Dory had put in here. It says, I work with autistic and neurodivergent young adults and they face so many challenges getting hired because of the way the hiring and interview system is designed. They're the most innovative, loyal, and reliable employees when employers will take a chance on. them and support them. So oftentimes the support needed is really minimal. And this was a question that I had that kind of feeds into that where I was going to ask you, have either of you ever met someone who interviewed terribly but turned out to be perfectly cast? And what did others fail to see in them?

Well, for myself, it's not that they interviewed terribly, Because if they interviewed terribly, it's also a possibility you're asking the wrong questions and they're not prepared to answer it. And so to me, I never asked resume questions. I can see where you worked before. I don't need to talk to you about where you worked before. I want to know what was the last book you read? Have you ever gone out of your way to help somebody you didn't know and have an engage in conversation? So that you get a sense of who that person is, then you can start asking the right questions because you have some context to that person. Or again, quoting Stanislavski, the given circumstances about what that story is. And I think that's what's so important.

Okay. No, that's good. And if you could eliminate one question from every job interview, what would it be and what would you replace it with?

Dan?

Job?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think if I could turn your question around a little bit, and Jeff is really big on this, is what questions are they asking me? It's not so much the questions I'm asking them. And it was very interesting. We had 3 finalists for the role that Gord Vickman has. And but Gord was the only one who had listened to 10 Times Talk interviews. And he came in and he had listened to 30 or 40 of the podcasts. And he said, he says, can I ask you a question about the podcast where you talked about your father? Well, you talked about your father on the podcast, you know, and he asked me a question. It was a very good question about my father. My father was an entrepreneur and he was a farmer and then he was a landscaper. And I said, it's kind of interesting that people are applying for a role as a podcast manager, but they hadn't actually listened to any of my podcasts, which I think is probably part of the business. And Jeff has hundreds of stories about this of people who— You know, they're, they're applying for a play, but they hadn't read the play before they came, before they came in. Or, you know, it could be a technical hire or a technical casting that, that he's doing, but they, they don't really ask Jeff, uh, what his plans are, what he's excited about his own play, you know? And it's, it's just kind of interesting. It shows that they're not engaged. And what it tells you is they're probably not going to engage when they, when they come aboard. They're just not an engaging person. They're not alert. They're not curious. They're not responsive and they're not resourceful. So it's, it's not really what they think the job is about. They're, they're actually asking what the experience is going to be about. Why, what do we do here? What's exciting about what you do here? So Jeff, over to you.

So I think that words are important. Which is a good thing since I make my living writing. And I think that the words that we use are really important. I would like us to strike from the vocabulary interview and call it an audition. What do you have to do? What talents do you have to present in order to get the part? And I think if you look at it as an interview, like what Joe and Paul are doing, it's asking questions. And that's what you want to do. And if you don't do your homework and you don't have any questions, to me, as your potential employer, you're telling me you're not interested. And if you're not interested, I'm not interested in you. You know, why should I be interested in somebody that doesn't care enough to do the work? Remember someone that somehow I had a, I have a filtering system, so they had to go through a couple of people before I would even interview them. I haven't achieved Dan's status of not having to talk to anybody I don't want to talk to. But I said to somebody, because I could tell by their answers that they really didn't know anything, and I said, so I'm curious, are you aware of the kind of work that we do here? No, no, not really. Why don't you tell me? And I said, well, I'm not going to tell you that, but I'll tell you something else. And he said, what's that? And I said, the interview's over. What? I said, the interview's over. If you don't care enough to even know about the place you're applying, that you did no homework whatsoever, which is so easy now, you can Google and find out about companies. You can ask questions and find out about companies. Do your homework. And if you do your homework, that's going to engage the person you're talking to. Likewise, I think it's important if you are auditioning somebody to have specific tasks and questions so you can get to know them better, not things by rote. You know, somebody, I remember when I was being interviewed at one point and somebody said, so what is your least favorite kind of question or what secret do you have that you wouldn't tell an employer? And I said, I'm not telling you. What do you mean you're not telling me? Why would I tell you a— I would be showing I'm not trustworthy if I gave up a secret. You're asking me to give up a secret. I'm not going to give up a secret. And all the stupid questions that somebody took Psych 101 and thought they mastered how to know other people and gain insight. Talk to people. I mean, when Joe and I first met, the main thing that happened off the bat was we laughed with each other and we had fun talking to each other, and that's how we got to know each other and formed a bond. It's 30 years ago now. So I think that that's really important too. And that all comes through, let's say, auditioning, not interviewing.

Yeah, no, very good. You know, I got to do a shout out for this because we got, hopefully this is okay, We got US Senator Ted Budd from North Carolina here. And what questions would you ask these guys, Ted? No, look, I was just thinking about, I run 4 teams, a campaign, North Carolina team, a Washington, DC team, and then I've got a personal business. So we've gotten, I guess it's luck, but it's probably strategic coach principles going back to 2002. Bringing people in that don't annoy you and hiring slow, firing fast, and remembering that every person brings tremendous value. So this is helpful to get refreshed on these things. The principles of Strategic Coach tend to degrade through politics. So every time there's an opportunity to jump on and just hear these principles again is always refreshing. Yeah, how would you?

One thing I just wanted to say about Ted—he—he—he got elected by interviewing people, and you know we have a concept called DOS: dangers, opportunities, and strengths. And by the way, Ted, the next governor of Oklahoma will be a strategic coach. Mike Mazey is the new governor of Oklahoma, and but what I say is, you know, I said, you know, you should go out and talk to Democrats. He's Jeff is. In the Republican Party. And I said, you should go out and ask them some questions about how they'd like to see North Carolina go. If we were having this discussion and it was 4 years from now and we were back here talking, what do you want to have happen in North Carolina that'll make you happy about the progress of the state? And what dangers do you think we have and what opportunities? And the one thing it does is it neutralizes the opposition because You know, the Democrats think all Republicans are dumber than a fence post, and here's a smart one. It's not that they're going to vote for you, but they wouldn't be unhappy if you got elected. And I think it's a big thing. And you've custom designed it for your own reason, Ted. But I think that when it came down to getting the nomination and getting the actual election, I think that you were just very, very open to what was going on in your state. And if somebody was really smart but wasn't in your party, you wanted them to know what their point of view was.

Yeah, that really helped. We just modified the R-factor question. I think it was something like, you know, if you were me and you were considering running for office, what questions would you ask yourself? And they would just talk. And I had, you know, it was probably 100 different phone calls all around different parts of the state.

I had very low name ID when I ran, but people took an interest and it was You didn't ask for money. You didn't ask for a vote. You didn't ask for anything. You were just asking for their opinion and they sure enough gave it. And this was across the political spectrum.

Yeah. No, that's awesome.

That's great. Well, cool, man. Well, thank you. Glad you're here.

Yeah. Thanks, Dan.

So what is the, let me ask you guys this. What's the smallest test that an entrepreneur could give a candidate that would reveal the most about how the person will actually behave if you have any ideas on that?

Yeah, I can go there. And I haven't actually done this, but I know people who have. It doesn't really have to do with exactly what Jeff and I are dealing in the book, but you say to the person, there's a project you take on and it takes about 4 or 5 days and it just scares you. The project really scares you. And it requires you to do all sorts of activity that you're really, really uncomfortable with. And by the end of the 5 days, it's not a particularly good result, but it just wears you out. What is the project? What is the project that just wears you out? Okay? Mm-hmm. And then you go the other way and you say, let's reverse it. And there's a project that you take on and you have to deal with other people and it's just sheer excitement for you. putting this together and at the end of 5 days, it's a roaring success and you're just so excited about it. What's the project? And it shows them that they have to answer from an emotional standpoint of what wears you out, what charges your battery. And so, but the thing is, it's not really about a job. It's not about a task. It's just what kind of thing do you actually love being involved with? And you as the person who's making the decision can really, really see where that person actually is going to fit in, where they're not going to fit in. Yeah. You know, the Four Seasons Hotel, which started in Toronto, they have a jury way of interviewing people and they have 6 people and everybody in the, let's say it's a hotel and they have, you know, I think probably the Four Seasons would probably have, you know, 150, maybe 200 people. Top to bottom. And they have a jury and everybody has to put on the jury. So you might have the general manager of the hotel and you may have a dishwasher, dishwasher, and they're on the panel and they have to answer 3 questions, 2 questions. And that is, do you think that this person would represent the culture of Strategic— of Four Seasons? Would this represent— they would, if people from the outside actually— encountered this person, would this person represent the culture of Four Seasons? And the second question is, would you enjoy working with this person, alongside this person? And if they don't get 6 yeses for the first question and 6 yeses, they don't hire them. And one of the things that always strikes me, I've stayed in about 35 Four Seasons and there's just a real quality about every interaction that you have with a member of the Four Seasons. So that's theater. To me, that's— they're taking a theater approach. You know, it's front stage, it's backstage. And, but I'd just like to say a little something about the timeliness of, I think, our book. And it has to do with the impact of AI and the predictions that are being made, I think, by technology executives who really don't like people. And they say, you know, 10 years, all the jobs are gone. It's all going to be AI. And so my sense as technology becomes more pervasive, the actual experience of interactive personal interaction with people where the conversation's being created on the spot takes on great, great value. And when Jeff and I were on the marketing meeting for Casting Net Hiring. Reid Tracy was there, Reid Tracy, the president of Hay House. And in the 4 previous books that I've written for Hay House, he wasn't in on the marketing meeting. He said, I think this is going to be one of the timeliest books right now for You know, entrepreneurs, especially in the marketplace, but I think everybody who's bringing in new people, it's gonna take on more and more of a theater context. And so anyway, it was just a really interesting insight that Reid showed up for the marketing meeting.

There would be a couple of things that I would do when auditioning somebody for a job in my company. Going back to that question you had asked, Joe, and that is if I like them, I would say, go talk to other people here. You know, if you've got the time, go spend an hour talking to the other people in my company, ask them whatever you want. And that was a really useful thing. And, you know, because to me, an interview starts as soon as you, as soon as somebody from my company picks up the phone and says hello, an interview starts because what's happening is that you're talking to another person. How do you regard that other person? When you go out, when I go out to a business dinner, if the person that I'm with shows no regard for the waiter or waitress, they're out. Right. I want people who relate to people. Not who relate to the status of those people. And I think that that kind of crossover opens up so many doors in terms of how you look at people and what they can bring to something. So when you jump to theater and we're doing auditions in a musical, which is mine, is we have triple threat people, people who can sing, dance, and act, and that's 3 separate auditions. That we do. 3 different people, my choreographer, my director, and the musical director. And then when they have all of those things, then it's the people skills. And quick story, we were auditioning this woman. She's pretty good. And I said to Sheldon Epps, the director, well, she was, she was, she's pretty talented. And he goes, she's not going to work out. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, she's coming back for the dance audition. You'll find out. Sure enough, we go into the dance audition. There's 40 dancers working with the choreographer. This woman stopped at the rehearsal 3 times to call attention to herself, and then she said, can I talk to the director? So Sheldon went over to talk to her. Her back was to me. Sheldon could see me, and at one point our eyes caught and he did an eye roll. And when he came back and sat down, I said, how did you know she would be high maintenance? And he said, she needs to feel more important than anybody else in the room. So she does that by interrupting and we don't want that. So yes, she's talented, but she will cast a pall over the rest of the cast in that area. We don't want that. And I said, well, how did you even know that? And he said, I knew that because I said, I've done over 1,000 plays. I've auditioned that many people and you get to see patterns of behavior. And that's why I wanted you to see her too, so that you could see and begin to recognize that kind of pattern. And there's those disruptors, whether it's a player, whether it's a regular business, there's those kinds of people that disrupt and their talent isn't worth putting up with because you can find people who are just as talented and not more, but they don't bring all that emotional baggage to the job. So I think that that's also really an important thing to pay attention to.

Yeah. I think it's also like you kind of said earlier, I'm not sure exactly how you said it. I want people that relate to people, not to the status of the person. And the way that I judge my friends, my inner circle friends, or how are people that are more powerful treat people that are less powerful than How do they treat waiters? Do they say thank you when someone opens the door for them? Are they just nice, courteous, respectable humans, or are they arrogant jerks? And we've met enough successful people that will put on an air of who they are, but then if you're around them and see how they treat other people, their teams. And so I'm a big believer in Go to dinner, lunch, anything with someone outside of an office, outside of a business environment, and just see how they interact. If you can meet any of their other relationships. And I've made so many mistakes in this area by believing people too early because I can often build rapport sometimes quickly with people and people can be very charming, but The more you get to know them, the more you see them and observe them. So that's important. This kind of leads to what you just said about this person. This question is, what is more dangerous? Because I have a couple questions here. What is more dangerous, an obvious bad actor or a talented person whose negative effect on the team is almost invisible, even though sometimes it could be very visible?

What's the difference between the two?

No, but like, so how do you, you know, what, what there's, there's a lot of extremely talented people that just sort of, they, they have an air of negativity or it could be ethics to just ruin everybody else.

But the choice was between a bad actor and this, and I'm trying to tell the difference between a bad actor and the person.

They're both bad actors.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the big thing is that, and you had the case, Jeff, because we've been at all stages of the development of Mr. Personality. That's the name of Jeff's musical. And he's got an interesting situation in the play where he's got a younger version of a very famous is now a very famous rock and roll, Lloyd Price, who started, really he's one of the pioneer rock and roll singers from the 1950s. But the play requires you to have a younger version of him and an older version of him. And the audience has to believe it. The audience has to see that this is the same person. And The first person he had was incredibly talented as the young person. And, but he didn't really, and he's on stage with his younger self and older self are on stage and they're working together. And I got the feeling that he didn't understand his role in the play. He thought it was about his talent. He was a good dancer. He was a great singer. He was a good actor, but he did not connect. with not only the older version of himself, but he didn't really, really connect with the other actors when he was on stage. And that wasn't right. So the talent was there, but he wasn't a connector. He wanted the show to be about him, not about the play. Right. You know, so Jeff, do you want to talk about that? Because you've had so many different situations like that where, um, it, you have to have the talent, to even be in the cast, but you've got to make the other members of the cast better just because of your talent in the play.

Yeah. Having the requisite talent, that's just table stakes. That just gets you the interview or gets you into talking with the people that might bring you on. And I think that The person you're talking about, you know, is a really good example, and it makes me think of marathon running. If you run a marathon, marathoners peak when they're in their mid to late 30s because younger marathoners tend to go out too fast, too quickly, and kind of show off, if you will. But they can't do the full run in the same way. And marathon is a strategic sport also. And so is all, Sarah, all career-building things, whether you're an actor or whether you're running a company. And so I think that it's important to realize the big picture, and that big picture is how you get along with the other people who are on that team or in that cast. Or a part of that business. And is that what you were referring to, Dan?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not an individual sport. It's a team sport.

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

And not entrepreneur entrepreneurship. I mean, when we first started, it was basically about the entrepreneur, but now we're 37 years into it and it's now about the entrepreneur, who has a particular role in his team and needs great team members. So that's what we see now. But I think we're living in another age now. And, you know, it's very, very interesting that live performance entertainment, live performance anything right now, the popularity of it is going through the roof. And I think it's just because so much is becoming technological. Yeah. And people really want personal engagement. They want the unpredictable, and I don't mean negative unpredictable, but they want the positive unpredictability that comes together by being in a creative team that's producing new creative impact in the marketplace all the time. And it takes a lot to do that. Now, the big thing is the person may have the talent for that, But they don't have the structure for that. So that's what we wanted to put out in the book, that there's a particular structure that encourages people to be at their best in teamwork with other people operating at their best.

Which comes down to also having a shared vision of what the goals are. And that's really critical. And an understanding that's got to be communicated from leadership. And that's what makes a good leader, is aligning people so that that mission can be fulfilled. Yeah. And everybody understands what that is.

Yeah.

Can chemistry be created or is it something you either have or you don't?

There are, the stories are legion and legend about a leading man and leading woman who couldn't stand each other, but there was great electricity on the screen or on the stage.

Yeah.

And of course that's part of what's being professional. You realize you share a common mission, which is to be convincing about the relationship between the two of you. And so being professional, if you're truly professional, that overrides any personal feelings while you're on stage. Wow. So I think that's what's important to understand. And there are others famously like Humphrey Bogart and God, help me out here. I'm blanking on her name. Audrey Hepburn. No, Lauren Bacall. Lauren Bacall. But they ended up getting married even, and he always tried to get her in his movies and he was successful part of the time. They were fabulous and had fabulous onscreen chemistry. They were great. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, same thing. They had fantastic onscreen chemistry. But there are people that have Really good. The opposite's true too. You can have fantastic offscreen affection and chemistry and it doesn't translate onto the stage. So it really just depends. There aren't absolutes in any of this. And as a director, you have to understand what that means so that you make sure that that doesn't spill over into the performance.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, so in a company here, this question, A lot of people hate their jobs, hate their businesses. Some make a lot of money, some don't. How often is the person who's badly cast actually the founder?

It's a really good question. First of all, I think there are stages that you go through when you're— I mean, I started just by myself and now we have We have a significant team. And my sense is that I do far, far less now. I'm 52 years at this and I'm doing far, far less, but I'm only doing the things that are appropriate for me to be doing. I'm good at coaching, I'm good at writing, I'm good at— I'm good at putting together entirely new concepts in the program and everything else. So over the years, I've surrounded myself with a team that's freed me up from everything that I might be okay at, but I'm not really, really good at. And more and more, I just want to get to the point where what I'm doing is completely unique, but I also want everybody who's working with me also to be just unique at what they're doing. And to go back to the previous question, Joe, I think that's what creates chemistry is that everybody in the team or the ensemble, and as you have it in entertainment, is just totally unique in their particular role, but they're supporting the uniqueness of everybody else. And I think that's where the great chemistry actually—

Really interesting one from the audience that I appreciate the spirit of it a lot. And basically, Joe Kincart says, I respectfully disagree. That's always a fun way to start these things. I respectfully disagree with the tone here and submit that there are no absolutes when it comes to who is correct for your team. As someone who works with inventors and other creators, many are on the spectrum. A little tolerance allows you to accept them for their wonderfulness and brilliance if you can accommodate their shortcomings, which we all have. Is this an absolute thing? Is there room for, you know, those on the spectrum in the midst of all this? How do we filter this through?

Well, let me first say that Jeff Madoff said there are no absolutes. That's one thing he actually said, I believe. But yeah, Dan, Jeff, how would you respond to that?

Read the beginning of his comment again, please, Paul.

Absolutely. Hold on. I respectfully disagree with the tone and submit that there are no absolutes when it comes to who is correct for your team.

Thank you. That's an absolute statement.

Yeah.

Well, I would have to say teamwork is always dynamic and always developing. And we have people who have been on our team for, you know, over 30 years and they, the ones who keep creating value and keep growing with the company, like they keep making new things up and making them real inside our company. And we wouldn't be able to be where we were, we are now without them.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and we've got around 120 people on the team, mostly in Toronto, a whole bunch in Chicago, and then people scattered around the country and London, England. But they're all connected and You know, they all pull together. They work together on a lot of things even though they're from different countries and, you know, all that.

Yeah. Just a note about that. The foundational stone of Strategic Coach is unique ability. And unique ability, I think it's factory installed that people are born with a pretty— first of all, they have real skills and they have a real attraction to a certain way of going about getting results. And we have all sorts of— there's all sorts of profiles. We have the Kolbe profile, we have StrengthsFinder, we have Working Genius, we have PRINT. And before they come in, they go through these profiles and we can start really, really seeing just where this person belongs. in the team framework that they're joining. Okay? And everybody else in the company, they have outside their doorway in the office, they have a profile who their profile are. And some of them are great fact finders, you know, that if you want to make sure that all the facts and, you know, all the numbers match and all the details match, that this is the person you want to have. There are other people who are just good at starting things. There are other people who are just good at completing things. And I don't want someone who's a great starter but not a real good closer. I don't want them being in the role where they're any good, but you're constantly working with this. And for example, our entire knowledge products, we have a lot of books, we have a lot of CDs, we have a lot of things, hundreds. Hundreds of things. And the person who runs that department is significantly autistic, and he's been there for 25 years. He does all that work, and everybody loves him. He always does it right, but he's, you know, he's not for front stage presentations, even though he is a very, very good musician and a very successful musician. And so,

yeah,

he's a, you know, regular performing almost every week. He's performing in a club and everything else, but don't put him in a position where he's going to be extremely uncomfortable, you

know,

just line people up with where they naturally, the talent comes out. They love doing it and they're a good team member. And I would say that's a correct position for that person.

No, that's great. No, I wanted to just mention when you were asking about things that can be directed, something that cannot be directed is charisma. And people either have that or they don't. And you can go through all the training in the world and you're not going to be magnetic on stage. Joe, your unique ability is you're charismatic on the stage. I won't tell them what you're like alone. That's a whole other story. But charisma is something that cannot be directed, which is why there's so few really bright stars because it's a very difficult thing because people try to emulate, but they can't. Elvis was Elvis for a reason. Bruce Springsteen is Bruce Springsteen for a reason. And that reason can't be directed in terms of if you cast somebody, in a play and they are miscast, it really stands out because if the part called for a charismatic presence, that can't be taught.

Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you. And Jeff, you have interviewed so many entrepreneurs at my annual events backstage, and what have you found? Because you've been around so many successful entrepreneurs, What have you found to be the characteristics of people that are successful and unsuccessful at business?

Well, you know, it depends on kind of levels of success, but I would say that people who have, like Ralph Lauren, who was a client for 36 years, it takes a particular level of obsession beyond anything else. obsession and perseverance in order to make it as an entrepreneur. The thing to be careful about is not to do that to the exclusion of your family and friends. So that's my personal belief on that.

One thing I want to bring up, because both of you have been very, I mean, the entire time I've known Like you are going in New York. I mean, you walk everywhere. You have offices, you've had different buildings over the years, and you don't take the elevator, you take the stairs. I mean, you're very active and both of you're that way. And I'll tell you, I think that's one of the attributes of success is you treat your body. It's designed to move. It's designed not to become sedentary. It's designed to actually take you through your life. And so what have you, I mean, you're a very active, fit human. So what are your thoughts on that?

Well, your primary asset is you, and if you don't take care of that, you are destroying what your most valuable asset is. So I think that good health, trying to maintain good health, is absolutely essential. I think it's essential to happiness, to functioning well, ultimately, obviously to well-being. So I just think, you know, as a business person, you protect your assets and you are your greatest asset.

You know, for me, is what I'm doing exciting? And is my physical energy that which allows me to continually be excited about what I'm doing. So my thing is I want to do the work, and I'm 82 now, and I've been at it for 52 years, and I'm at my best right now. I'm doing the best work I've ever done right now. And Babs is the engineer, and she's been the captain of our physical health and You know, making sure we get the proper tests, we get proper sleep, we get, you know, we, you know, you get enhanced as you go along. There's supplements you take, there's drugs you take and everything else. And so, but for me, it all comes down is when I show up, you know, I just did a 2-hour Zoom call and I was at the top of my game this morning. So my whole point is, what do I look like front stage and do I have the energy? For Front Stage.

Yeah. Yeah. No. Well, so have, have there ever been a role that you had to fire yourself from in order for Strategic Coach to grow?

Yeah, I'm, I'm an okay artist. Okay. So from the beginning, I was a copywriter with a big ad agency and, you know, I could have, I could have made a career out of it. You know, I've got a sense for the craft and everything. But, and so when we started, you know, we needed an artist and I was the artist. And, you know, but as soon as we got a good person who was moving into the technological world and he can use the computer for artwork, I said, you're, it's over to you now. I'm not doing any more of the, any more of the artwork. And along about every quarter, I find something that I'm doing that I should not be doing, and I stop doing it. Okay. In, in, in, in the work, in the work. And so every, I'll tell you a little test I did about 8 years ago. I, I was watching television one night and I said, this is a complete waste of time. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? So I stopped watching television in 2018, July of 2018. And what I noticed is I got 800 hours back a year and I put it into reading. I really love reading. And so I read and, you know, more physical exercise, more interesting things. So along the way, where you know the center of your energy is and what you're really good at, anything that you're doing other than that, it's an interference and it has to go at a certain point. You know, and so I'm much simpler now. I'm, you know, I mean, I'm a really simple, you know, very focused kind of person, but every year I get more simple and I get more focused.

Yeah. So here's what I want to do also, because we're getting to the close. And I'll turn that over to you, Paul, in a moment. What I would say is in the future, so I'm probably going to do something very unique with Jeff and Dan here at our upcoming Genius Network annual event. That's in November. And I would like people that want to go deeper with this conversation to get a copy of the book, read the book. After we do that, I would like to do a future 10X Talk with you and Dan and then do it as Q&A. So that when people have a deeper context of this subject matter, we can just have an open discussion with everyone.

Joe, can I ask a question? Who's your client from California? And he and his brother are really great high-tech investors, startup investors.

Oh, Kamal Ravikant.

Yeah. Kamal.

His brother Nabal. Yeah.

Yeah. Kamal was at one of your Genius Network, one of the $100K meetings, and I was Had lunch with him and we got talking and I said, I want to show you a book I have. And I showed him the small version of Casting That Herring. And he looked at the COVID He says, I got to get this. I got to get this. And he says, this is the number one problem with startup companies. They don't know how to put together a team. They don't know how to bring people on board. So it's an instant. I've never run across anyone yet when I showed them the COVID of the book, they said, yeah, that's exactly what we have to do. So I think underneath there's this fundamental recognition that having the right people in the right place at the right time for the right purpose is the secret of their future success.

Right, right. No, that's great. And do we have a cover of the book we flash on the screen if anyone here does. If not, then no worries. But—

I think we did. I think we sent it.

If you go to that website that we posted, it's— There it is.

Yeah, there it is.

There it is. Build a thriving— Cassie Nothein, Building a Thriving Company Using the Secrets of Great Theater. Yeah, that's awesome. Jeff, any famous last words?

I would say that something that they can think about when they read the book and we all get together again for Q&A, Is it also becomes important, would you recast yourself? And sort of what you were alluding to with some of your questions, Joe, I think that recasting yourself at certain intervals, that maybe the nature of your job should change, maybe your role should change. And I think that that's really important to think about. And what do you do about that when you hit that point?

We've got 3 links to you. The first link is for castingnothiring.com. That's more information about the book and some really cool bonuses, including a New York City event that looks pretty fantastic. So, take a look at that. Part of casting, not hiring is not just you. Your whole team's got to do it. And this is a way and approach to leverage that. Next, you'll see strategicpodcast.com. There's 2 secrets there. One is the show with Jeffrey Madoff. And Dan, whatever his name is, their show, but also 10xtalk.com. A number of you have been asking, can I get a recording of this? Yes, this is a live recording of the 10xtalk.com podcast, which you can find out more about at strategicpodcast.com. This is also a way to get Gord on my side for things. And then genius2026.com is a link to the annual event where a lot of these things go down. where the hallway conversations are fascinating and worth taking as well. I will be there. Joe will be there. Dan will be there. Babs will be there. A number of you there. Jeff, do we see you at this one?

Yeah, Joe and I are talking about that. And so I hope so.

There we go. Fantastic stuff. But those are the 3, the links are all there. So thanks so much for joining us for this live recording of the 10xTalk Podcast with Joe Polish, Dan Sullivan, B. Jeffrey Madoff, about their new book, Casting, Not Hiring: What It Means and More. For these podcasts, head out to strategicpodcast.com. Thank you much, everybody.

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