75 - Sustainable and Strategic Solutions for SMBs with Seeker Solution's Jamie Seeker
15 Aug 2023 · 37 min
In this episode of Listening with Leaders, host Doug Noll interviews Jamie Seeker, CEO and founder of Seeker Solutions, a Phoenix‑based consulting firm that provides fractional executive services to small‑ and medium‑size businesses. Jamie recounts her career path from nonprofit operations—where she learned to do more with less during economic downturns—to a small‑business role that sparked her passion for fast‑paced decision‑making. Leveraging that experience, she built Seeker Solutions to fill the operational gaps of owners who are overwhelmed, over‑worked, and stuck in the day‑to‑day weeds. The firm offers a menu of services that mirror a CEO’s responsibilities: budgeting and financial forecasting, human‑resources and talent acquisition, learning‑and‑development, process and SOP design, and social‑media strategy. Their typical clients have 10‑50 employees and $2‑10 million in revenue, though they serve a broader range. Jamie highlights an all‑women consulting team (with a few male support staff), each specialist holding advanced degrees in finance, HR, education, or digital strategy. The business operates remotely, a model refined before the pandemic, allowing them to serve clients worldwide. Their delivery model is coaching‑centric: they either execute a 30‑90‑day transition to build systems and then step out, or they stay on long‑term as a strategic partner, always aiming to empower owners to run their own operations. Throughout the conversation, Jamie stresses the importance of listening—both to clients’ expressed needs and to the underlying emotional cues—as the foundation of effective consulting. She also shares her personal philosophy of work‑life integration, citing her own experience as a mother of seven, a 20‑year‑married wife, and a competitive athlete, and how those roles inform her empathy and resilience. The interview closes with a call to action for listeners to share the podcast and suggest future guests.
Chapters
Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.
Amy Seeger, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the CEO and founder of Seeker Solutions, and that can be found at Seekersolutions.com. Welcome to the show.
Thanks, Doug. Thanks for having me.
So you've got a really interesting business consulting firm in Phoenix. Tell us a little bit about your backstory and how you got there.
Oh, sure. So my background is in operations. My entire career was spent there. Um, I think the first 10 years or so was spent in nonprofit. Um, and so if you know anything about working in that industry, it's having to do a lot with a little. Um, and the unique part about my nonprofit journey, it was also in times of plenty and times of few.. So I think I hit kind of that director level when I was— when it was about 2005. So business was booming, everything was great. I don't think we had really seen any tough, tough hardships in the years before that. And so if you remember that time, right after that, all of a sudden everything crashed.
Everything.
Not just the housing market. I mean, it was the jobs. And so we were having to take layoffs and furloughs and taking on the work still to be done, but the resources were very few, and I think in a nonprofit setting it's few anyway. So on top of that, we really had to learn how to rely on efficiencies and our own ways of, I don't know, just ingenuity, getting things done. And so it was a really good time. Those years were just a very intensive learning training ground for me, and I was a new leader, new director, managing departments and things like that and, and kind of acquiring them as, you know, my peers, as we experienced, uh, you know, HR attrition. Um, and so it was, it was a time of, um, where I really— our team happened to be just very tight-knit and wonderful, so I experienced a wonderful growth, uh, foundation. And so I think that formed a lot of my love for operations and doing things. I mean, I don't know that many people's use love and operations in the same sentence, but I really do. I had a wonderful time. I had a wonderful team, good peer group to kind of form me into where I am today. But that's where I take a lot of my knowledge. And so when my time ended there, I actually went next to a small business and that kind of, you know, jolted my love of small business because in the nonprofit I was a really small cog in a very, very big wheel. And in this setting, I was an immediate decision maker. We could see we can make a decision today and have that implemented that afternoon. And seeing those kind of results and that pace was really— it went really well with me. I'm a competitor. I actually competed at a high level in college in sports. And so I think taking that, if you're in small business, small business owners, they know. I mean, everything is so fast, especially when you're starting up. This particular business had been around for 20 years, so it was well established. Established, but it was still, um, I loved being very effective immediately in the workplace. So from there, that's really where my love of small business came into play. So that married with my skill set and operations kind of led me to create Seeker Solution and being an expert and now working with small business leaders and helping to fill in their gaps with the services that we offer, because that was the other lesson that I learned there. So the hardship in nonprofit was the economy and learning how to do all of that, and then in my small business sense, it's realizing that you're the only one. Typically, you know, if you're a business owner, business leader, there's, there's not 5 of you in that small business setting doing that. And so it was kind of a lonely road, and I felt alone, and I had to really find a peer group of my own, other business owners, other, you know, that community to help mentor me and guide me and who I could lean on. And I realized that many people, if you're not seeking that out, you're doing it alone. And so that's really where my business was founded is like, hey, you don't need to do this alone. And so we kind of partner along with you and your business and help you to achieve, you know, your vision and your goals and your outcomes through our services. But really, the message is, hey, don't do it alone. It's, it's a really tough road to walk down.
What kind of services does Seeker Solutions provide?
Anything you would think of a CEO doing, most owners have all of these responsibilities on their plate. So it's having to forecast and manage a budget. So some business owners are great at numbers, some are not, and they're like, hey, come in and help me. Also, you know, human resources. If you're growing your business, you're growing a team, and in the beginning you're doing all the hiring, you're doing all the development and onboarding. But at some point it becomes more of a risk or a liability to you that everybody's reporting to you. Who do they report and any grievances to, if it's, you know what I mean. Um, so if you're the one owning the company, HR can become something that maybe needs to be outsourced as well. So learning and development, training, getting your staff team up to speed, and you might have some young emerging leaders that, um, you know, are hungry, but you don't have the time to pour into them. So we have a learning and development solution. We've got a process management solution. So those efficiencies that we're talking about, what do your standard operating procedures look like, and Are they efficient? Are they contributing positively to your bottom line? Or are you kind of doing things because that's the way you always did them? Social media. Some owners are super creative and they love being in that space. Others are like, I never want to open up anything. So social media strategy, just things that you need in your business operation to continue to do business. Anything you would think of, like I said, that a CEO would do, that's usually on that owner-operator plate as you're growing. Um, we kind of help come in and offload, um, some or all or one of those things, um, to help you move along and help you to kind of focus in on what you, um, need to be doing and, and take those things off your plate that just kind of you're feeling like are weighing you down.
Which— so you provide— it sounds like you provide fractional services of— in an entire business environment, whatever.
Absolutely.
What kind of— how would you describe your typical client?
Um, our clients typically when they come to us have a certain personality, uh, you know, profile. I would say one of the common things is that they're overwhelmed, they're overworked, they're constantly putting out fires, they have all of the things on their plate, they have a to-do list that's extremely long, or at least feels very heavy, feels very long. When we actually get down and kind of list it out, it, it it sometimes feels a lot more achievable. But just like that mindset and that feeling of always having something to do, always something going on. Um, but these are company-wise, uh, businesses typically the size of— I would say between, on the small end, 5, but I would say typically between 10 and 50 employees. Um, smaller than that, they may not be quite ready, um, for us, but bigger than that, they typically will have their own leadership staff, maybe have some C-level employees start to come in, um, I would say between $2 and $10 million in revenues. But like I said, that, that's like our wheelhouse where we start to see the most effective change immediately. But we do work with a lot of clients that are smaller, um, in revenue size and team size, and we also have worked with teams that are bigger in revenue and team size as well. But I would say if that— that's like our, our wheelhouse right there because that's typically where the owner is still very heavily involved in the operation and maybe hasn't kind of gotten out of the weeds as much as they should have. That's typically what we find in that size. And so that's really what we're really, really good at doing is helping to identify the areas where the owner needs to be and help them to get there and also identify some of those gaps and to fill them. And, and we come in with our services as kind of that transitional piece. And so we can come in, in a small, like I said, transitional time in like a 30, 60, 90 scenario where we're helping to kind of build a team and bring them in and train them. And then others we've been with for, you know, 8 years, because we've come in and it's worked really, really well. And it's a good fit for that company. So we come in long term with these services. So yeah, I mean, it sounds very much ambiguous, but I will say if you're a small business owner, small, medium-sized business that, you know, you're finding that you're in a lot of it, typically we will be a good fit for you.
You have assembled an all-woman team with your—
we do. Well, yes, we do have, we do have all of our consultants are women. We do have males that work with us as well. We have an HR assistant that is an intricate part of our team that does the majority of our recruiting and interviewing and phone screening, things like that, help with a lot of our HR and onboarding for our clients. So yes, we don't only work with women, but yes, all of our leadership team, all of our consultants are women.
And, and it sounds like they must— each of them must have a separate specialty that they, that they work in. They're highly special.
Yeah, they do, they do. We've got, um, because of our— the solutions are kind of segmented the way that they are to help, um, customers kind of interface with us, um, we actually also have people who have these specialties as well. I mean, I'm kind of our financial— I love numbers, um, and all those kind of details. And I've got Kristen, who's our HR guru. She's got her master's in workplace culture and really just loves working with people. And then I've got Andrea, who's kind of a jack of all trades. Her background is in education, so learning and development process, making things efficient. And then we've got Bri, who is our social media strategist, and she's got her master's degree in digital audience strategy. So we do have different levels of expertise in different areas, but we all, you know, work together and we all have you know, I mean, our clients can go to us with any of those solutions, but those tend to be what we gravitate toward because those are— that's what we're shaped for. So yeah, we work really well internally together and collaboratively to help provide those services for our clients. Do you—
I know you're based in Phoenix. Do you serve— you serve clients, clients all over the place? Or—
oh, all over the world. Yes. Yeah. And we're not just— I mean, I'm in— I happen to be in Phoenix. We have a pretty good base here with our employees. But, you know, we've We've got people in other states and actually other countries right now working. So we were pretty remote. And I think the world saw the pandemic taught everyone that remote work can be extremely effective. And we were doing this before that. And I think what that did is it just kind of conquered this huge barrier to entry for us, and everyone learned how to use Zoom overnight. And, and we've we've been able to be really, really effective from wherever we are. And so that you kind of see that on our website. You see like the office like outside in the desert. You can really be anywhere and we can be everywhere also and kind of help support in wherever you are.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
The, um, the, the pandemic changed the world, that's for sure. It sure did, in pretty amazing ways. I, I did a mediation 2 weeks ago and I had a lawyer in Paris a client in Toronto and a lawyer in Florida and another client in, in the San Diego County in Temecula. Wow. Settled the case, and it was, it was kind of phenomenal to think about it.
Yeah, bringing everybody together. And I think it— what it did is, um, I think a lot of, um, owners have a, um, this is the way we do it type of mentality, and I think it just blew that out of the, you know, we, we had to learn new ways of doing things because we couldn't be in person. And I think there's a lot of value to being in person. We certainly travel and we certainly go in and work with our clients as well still. But, um, from a, you know, day-to-day standpoint, most of the stuff can be done extremely effectively and efficiently, um, you know, wherever we're at. And I think we're all seeing that now, right?
Well, what is it that gets you really excited that gets you up out of bed in the morning?
Oh, I love seeing owners get back to getting into the business, why they started it in the first place. That's, I think, why we still go and do what we do, because we kind of get bogged down in, you know, in the day to day and we lose sight sometimes of what we're doing and why we're doing it. And so one of the things that we do is help identify, reidentify, and redefine Or maybe just it's not redefining because it's always, always been there, but just reminding owners, this is why you're here and this is what you need to do and this is what you're shaped to do. These are your strengths. These are the tasks you should be doing every day. This is what you wake up feeling full doing. And so that's what I love to witness, is getting them back to that and helping them have tangible, effective ways to get that done. And so that's what, that's what gives me life, is, is witnessing, being able to kind of sit on the sidelines and witness. It's life change, you know, it's getting back to that and helping people to, to realize, you know, what they— their joy again, I would say.
That must be really exciting to come into a, come into a small business and within a few months watch some really powerful transformations occur.
Yeah, yeah, it's really cool.
Yeah.
What is it—
what do you think is unique about you that you bring to the table?
Um, me personally, um, I think I've recognized that we're not like divided into our little parts, that we're kind of a sum of our whole. And I think that I am who I am because of my experiences, my personal life, my professional life, things I learned in my education. And I think for a long time, it's kind of been a journey, you know, for a long time, I kind of had my work life and my personal life and this and that and the other thing. And what I've realized is it's not one or the other. It's not this balance thing. It's this integration thing. And it's— and I'm all of it. And it's, you know, some of the things that look different or opposite, it's like, no, it's not this or that. It's not this or that. It's this and that. And we can do both. We can be extremely, you know, passionate and love our job and hate what we're doing. It can be, and it is sometimes every day. And I think as a business owner, that makes me unique is that I own my own business. So I'm walking this journey with you and I understand what you're going through. And I also understand that all of the— I understand hopes and dreams and also that, yes, you can do all of those things and be all of those things. I mean, I am a mother, I am a wife, I'm a business owner, I'm a friend. You know what I mean? You can be all of these things. And, and I think we sometimes feel like we have to sacrifice one for another or some for all or, you know, whatever it is. And I'm here to say, I think that's unique about me and that's what I have to offer is a perspective that you don't have to. Yes, maybe some things have to give. Time is, you know, we all have the same amount of time in a day. So if you're saying yes to one thing, you are essentially saying no to another. But is there a way that you can repurpose some of that perspective and some of that time to where, you know, show me, show me what you're spending your time on, show me where you're spending your money, um, show me, you know, all of those things, and I'll tell you what, what is of value to you. And sometimes what you think is of value and that you're saying is, I value this, I want to do this, this is my goal— when we actually look at the things that you're doing and the things that you're spending money on, things that you're saying don't line up. Um, and so that's where what I bring is that unique perspective and, um, focus on helping you try to align those things. And the way in which we do that is through our solutions. But at the end of the day, that's the core of what we're all about.
I love the idea— instead of talking about work-life balance, we talk about work-life integration. And I think that's the right attitude, especially when so many of us are working— we don't work in a traditional office anymore. For me, you know, I live— I've got 10 acres 60 miles south of Yosemite National Park in the center. Nice., and I walk out of my office and all of a sudden I'm on my beautiful land and go throw a disc for my border collie, or, you know, ride a bike, or, you know, walk around or do something. But I mean, it's kind of phenomenal how we can have these lifestyles today.
Yeah. And you never left it though. Like you said, you walk— even now when you were— the language you were using was like, oh, I walked out and then I could— but it's like, but you never left it. You were working in this. And sometimes I have those moments too where I'm like, hey, I'm in Arizona, I'm gonna sit outside and put my feet in the pool. And, you know, I've got— who said you have to do your emails like inside on a desk? Like, where we're at, like, and feel very blessed. And it's the 'and' part of it. We don't have to, you know, we don't have to compartmentalize some of those things. Some— sometimes it's appropriate to do that, you know, but I think at others it's, it's more appropriate to embrace, you know, all of it— your environment, who you are, what you've got going on. And, you know, and I think we, we benefit from that. And so I think, you know, in asking— answering your question, I think that's something that I've been blessed— that's a lesson I've been blessed to learn earlier, um, in my life where, you know, where my kids were still in my house. I have 2 that are out of the house now, but I was able to kind of—
you're kidding me, I mean, you look pretty young.
Oh, well, thank you. But yeah, I still have, I still have some, but I'm, I'm saying my, my point is that learning early enough to enjoy it when my kids were here, early enough to enjoy that in my career, in my business, to where it wasn't— I wasn't looking back going, gosh, what a great lesson to learn. I'm getting— I was able to have that aha moment, able to learn that integration is different than balance, and it doesn't need to be this teeter-totter thing that I'm always trying to do. And I really feel as if I'm able to enjoy being a business owner and really feel blessed in doing it. So every moment kind of going forward, it's not taking it for granted. And the moments with the kids, not taking those for granted. I'm understanding, hey, I've got 5 more of these first day of schools left, or you know what I mean? Like, looking at it in that way, not looking back at it like that. I think that can make a really big difference in the overwhelm that you feel. That perspective might shift it immediately, um, and, and give you that, okay, let me set my actual priorities because the things that are— I'm, I'm allowing to make me feel heavy and bogged down are not it. That's not really what's important to me. Um, so having that high-level perspective is something that I think our team brings to the table and keeps you focused on because— and that's why we tend to not get involved in the weeds. Sometimes we have to if there's a gap that needs to be filled, that we come in and we can fill that, that way. But it's always to be temporarily. And we have this like 90-day rule internally because we— our job is to keep that high perspective and to keep us moving along, um, in that vision, that goal that the, um, the business owner has hired us on to keep.
Um, so yeah, this, this show is called Listening with Leaders, and I'm all about— as you probably know, I'm really all about listening. I think it's a foundational skill that we don't pay any attention to. Tell me about the importance of listening in your life, in your business.
Well, the only way that we come in and know what we need to do is to first listen. Um, typically we're not— I'm not really one to reinvent the wheel. Um, if there's something that's already been done, said, proven, by all means, let's do it. And so most of the time when we come in and we, we're doing an assessment, the owners and the leaders and the the employees are already telling us what their needs are and, and what needs to happen in the company. They already know. So what we come in and bring to the table isn't necessarily some, you know, mind-blowing idea or some new fad of like, oh, you guys need this latest new innovation, you know, in your company. Many times it's listening to them and hearing some common themes that are coming out and putting some prioritization in addressing some of those things. So the importance of listening for us as a team at Seeker Solutions is of utmost importance. We lead with that, we start with that, we start by asking a lot of questions. Yes, we have our own SOPs and we have our own approach and how we implement a lot of our solutions, but the, the main thing that we start with is asking questions and truly listening to what the team is saying. And it's different. It's different everywhere. What we do, what we do is typically the same in coming in and interfacing as we integrate with teams. But how we do it is drastically different based on what we hear and what the needs are Um, so yeah, I would say it's, it's extremely important to listen.
How would you say the— what would you say the quality of the listening skills of your clients are, your business owners?
Um, so owners are low on the listening scale. I'm saying this as an owner. I'm saying this as an owner. The reason why we're entrepreneurs is because we're strong, we're tough, we have very very passionate views, and most of the time our gut instincts and everything, they're right. But what we tend to see is it takes an event or a breakdown or some sort of crisis that gets us to listen and say, okay, I can't do it. Not to say that we need to let go of our convictions or stop listening to our gut instincts about things. I think those are valuable and worthwhile, and we're entrepreneurs, I think, because of those traits. But not to let those things overshadow some value that could potentially be coming in. And we don't always listen to the red flags. They might have been there all along, and it's not until we're at our wit's end where we're like, okay, I need to do something different and I'm ready for help. And typically we don't come into businesses until, unfortunately, owners are at that end of that rope and it's like, well, I'm either going to close my doors or I'm going to make some drastic change in here and some miracle's got to happen, right? And there's typically— and not to say that there isn't anybody in between, there is. But I would say from— if I were to go and statistically give you some numbers of people that we work with, I would say we're either on one end of the spectrum or the other.
How often do you face situations where you've got owners and got big relationship messes in their businesses. They've got teams that fight, or maybe they got problems at home, and it— and all of that is affecting their business.
So I think it's easy if you're a parent to see, um, that your kids mirror you, um, and I think it's very tough for owners to see that their business mirrors them and, and their employees mirror their personality traits. So their strengths, their employees mirror. Their gaps, their employees mirror. Um, and so typical— I don't, I don't really, I don't know, I wouldn't say one or the other, that, that we come into a whole lot of toxic environments per se, um, or relationally broken. Um, but I will say that the business looks like the owner. It reflects the owner. And so if the owner is healthy, has, you know, certain work styles, that's what, that's what the company looks like. That's what the— that's how the employees work. Um, if the, if the leader— if some of those things are, are broken in the area— and I wouldn't say either, you know, completely healthy or completely broken. Um, you know, we have our strengths and our weaknesses, and I think in the areas where owner is typically has gaps, you'll see that the team reflects that as well. Um, really great owners recognize that already and have brought in others to fill those gaps. But for the most part, the reason why we're in is because they have been unable to fill those gaps on their own internally. And so we help identify them first and then help to create action steps to fill them.
How much coaching do you do with business owners?
That's all we do is coaching. So it's, again, what we do is is coaching. How we do it and how we interface with it is through our solutions. So we're filling this need, but what they don't realize is that we are teaching along the way. Because one of the things that I don't want to become is part of the problem. I don't want to make the business dependent on me per se. And because what that does is it's more of a survival thing for me, is I I am a mother of many. And so if I have created a tribe of kids that all need me to brush their teeth, well, guess what I'm doing all day?
Right.
Brushing teeth. And I've obviously through that phase already, but you get what I'm trying to say is if I'm creating many clients that are dependent on me, all I'm doing all day is fielding calls and putting out fires. And so what we try to do is I'm trying to teach kids to brush their own I'm trying to teach owners to feel their own fires. And so our approach is very much in always learning, always growing. So we're always coaching.
Yeah, it sounds like your business model is designed to put yourself out of business with a client if you can make the client successful.
So yes and no. So you know how I said we can come in? We are set up to either come in transitionally and we've come in in 90 days. They're like, hey, Hey, I don't have time to, um, to hire an operations manager. I don't have time to train them. I don't even have time to figure out what the heck we need them to do. So they bring us in to create job descriptions, to create org chart, to put policy in place, to recruit, uh, you know, the right person that fits in with their— to get them trained up and then to hold them accountable. So that is a 90-day to 6-month month project that we have done and we can do typically for clients. Now, we've also come in where they're like, I don't have time to do anything. And then, um, they're like, actually, we like this model, we want you to stay on. And then we stay on for years. So yes, we do— our goal is to, um, to come in and write ourselves out of a job per se. But if we're doing in a way that works well within their organization, what we do is we just move on to the next. Right. And so if we have an organization that is always evolving, always growing, always looking for new ways to identify gaps and identify areas where they need help in, and they're constantly evaluating themselves for that, guess what? We will, we will be there in some way, shape, or form forever. And, and we have clients like that and we have others where it's like, hey, we came in, we filled a need and we moved on and it's great. And then they tell other friends. So I'm not actually writing myself out of a job there. But what we really try to do is help to empower the businesses to be able to do that on their own.
Is that how you get a lot of your businesses through client referral?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think some of our experts, people try to really ask us, well, what's your expertise in? And they're talking industry. And I say, well, look, yes, we have an expertise in that industry, but only because we had one client there that told all of their friends. And so we ended up getting a lot of clients in that area. But really the principles that we use, like if you're going to write a budget and I'm looking at, you know, key performance indicators that tell us, you know, percentages of healthy margins for financials. Like I said, I'm the numbers girl. I love that. It's the same theories and principles in every industry. Now, some of those KPIs might be different and we've got to adjust those and learn what those are in every industry. But I'm writing the same budget. You know, you got to spend less than you're making in every— wherever you go. So make more, you know, maximize your profit margin. It's not something that is going to be different in every industry. Everybody wants to make more than they're spending. But how we do it and some of those laws and, you know, legislation, things like that, we got to get up to speed on. But other than that, I would say it's very transferable everywhere.
Business skills are business skills no matter what.
Yeah, absolutely.
No matter what you do. Well, I got one last question for you. Sure. What's the one thing about you, Jamie, that we would never know about? Unless you revealed it to us.
Well, apparently, I mean, I guess my age, not knowing that I have 7 children, that I had— my husband and I have been married 20 years. It's something I'm extremely proud of. In the days of the latest, newest, next big thing, I think there really is something to longevity and hard work and commitment. And, and I think that the reason why I share that is because we were talking about having it all and doing it all and and, you know, working moms is a thing. And that's something I always knew I wanted to do. Having a lot of children, always something I always knew I wanted to do. And I think the world tried to tell me as a young, you know, looking young woman who's sitting in a boardroom full of older— being honest— older white males, guys like me. I just— it never— I never shied away from it. I always felt like I belonged there, that I deserved to be there. And I'm just here to tell you that if that can inspire you even just a little bit, me sharing a little bit about myself that you wouldn't know if I didn't share it with you. Yes, that I am old enough to be here. And even when I wasn't, I still was. Even before I had, you know, that all of those things. But, but those are major accomplishments that I've already experienced in my life that I'm still, I'm still learning from today. So a lot of the battles that I I, uh, have to face at home and the lessons and the obstacles that I have to overcome in a day, um, it makes the work obstacles— that's where my perspective comes from, is, look, there, yes, this is hard, this is hard work and hard stuff, but we can do it. And I have, you know, 20 years worth of a marriage to say it's worth it, you know, it, it's worth it. Yeah, it's not the butterfly stage anymore, that's fun. It's not the startup phase anymore, that's fun. Um, we've been this, you know, your company's been here 20 years. How do you still come to work every day and feel the same way you did 20 years ago? So I think that that's something about me that I bring that you definitely wouldn't know about unless I told you.
7 kids. Wow.
Yes.
Amazing.
Never a dull moment, Doug.
I can imagine. Yeah, children. That is all. That's all. That's a big brood.
It is. Yes, we always come with a, with a posse. Um, you know, I'm, I'm never alone. Um, actually, ironically, in the summertime though, sometimes I am. They go to grandparents' houses and camps and, you know, all these kinds of things. So summertime is a little bit weird of a time for me. So right now I'm kind of a little bit out of my elements and things, but it allows for, you know, you know, it allows for looking at other things and going, all right, well, I'm out of my routine, and we're— what, what else, what else can we— this is where the listening comes in, right?
There you go. Well, this has been an amazing conversation, Jamie. Thank you so much for joining me.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
You're welcome.
Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would you think would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.
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