Everyone Deserves a Great Place to Work

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Welcome to beyond your why podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and and actually helping you discover and live your why. And so if you've listened to the podcast, you know that every week we talk about a particular one of the nine whys. I go into a little bit of detail of that why, and then I bring on somebody that has that why so we can see how their why has played out in their life. And so for today, we're going to be talking about the why of trust. Creating relationships based upon trust. Being that trusted source, being the one that others can count on. If you can trust them and they can trust you, the sky is the limit. There's nothing you can't do. But if you break their trust, that's a really important thing not to do because it's very hard, if ever, to get their trust back. These are people that you might hear saying, I'll be there on time. You can count on me. I'll make sure it gets done. You can trust me, right? The data shows that or experts tell us that these people are usually calm and cool and collected and they're very smart and detailed and thorough. They follow through. They have the right answers. These are great people to have on your team. And so today I've got a really good guest for you. His name is Darren Virasami. He is the co founder and. I sure hope I said that right. He is the co founder and chief operating officer of 34 strong, comprised of a team that believes everyone deserves a great place to work and that any workplace can be great. He's a leading expert in the global employee engagement community. The 34 strong team leverages the strengths based approach to human development to create massive shifts within organizations both culturally and and on the bottom line. He and his team have created sustainable change in small micro businesses all the way up to large organizational teams at fda, bank of America and the California Department of Public Health. Now recently Darren has keynoted for Hitachi Global Women's Conference, the Rotary World Peace Conference, the Professionals Grounds Management Society and and Author Mike Michalowicz Profitcon Darren's 34 strong business partner, Brandon Miller is the co author with his wife Annalyn Miller of a strengths based parenting book titled Play to Their Strengths Due to come out in July of 2019. Darren, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much, Gary. I'm very, very excited to be here and talk about why.

Well, awesome. And I'm glad to to have you and tell everybody a little bit about 34 strong. What is it? And how did you get involved with it?

Yeah, so 34 strong. Our whole focus is helping teams and helping organizations become a great place to work. And that doesn't happen in the matter of just having a team building day, putting a foosball table in the office or something like that. It actually takes a commitment to work. We have a choice to, to create culture intentionally or it will be created accidentally. And we believe that you can get to far better results when we can anchor that into that being done intentionally and by design. So that's a big part of what we do. We focus on creating employee engagement, creating the culture that we want through focusing on what's right with people instead of trying to develop what's wrong with them, which has been at the core of many human development strategies for many years. So how I got involved in 34 strong. Well, what's fascinating is, as you mentioned, my why is trust. And it wasn't until I really dug into going through the why app and taking the assessment, it only took about four minutes. But I was blown away as to how accurate it was. I shared it with my business partner and he said trust? Oh yeah, that's completely ill. But when I think back to my original involvement at 34 strong, I got to take you back, Gary, to the big island of Hawaii. My wife, my daughter and I were on our first trip together as a family. My daughter was only four and a half months old. And every morning I was relishing fatherhood. And I would get up and I would go walk with her along the beach and I would come back, give my wife some time to rest. That was how I was investing in that relationship. And I was absolutely loving every moment of being a new dad. Now one of those mornings, my daughter was seated on my lap and I'm eating a papaya. And off on my right hand side, the Pacific ocean's roaring. My wife's just sitting there relaxing and my daughter looks up at me and she smiles and laughs out loud for the first time. That was mind blowing to me. And I was so incredibly excited in that moment and so incredibly terrified. And the reason I tie this back to trust, Gary, is I didn't know it at the time and I didn't even really connect the dots. Until I went through the process of actually going through the why app and digging into that. That trust is my why. And that moment that was such a pivotal section of my life was actually tied to that. So the way that tied to trust is I wasn't building a relationship with my daughter and my wife on trust at that moment. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. And here's why. Here I am on vacation with the two most important people in my life. My wife, my daughter. And I'm telling myself they're the most important people in my life. But at the time, Gary, I was living in the Sacramento area of California. I was commuting down to San Francisco three, four, sometimes five days a week, leaving before my daughter was awake in the mornings and getting back, and she was already getting ready to go to bed. So I wasn't building a relationship in trust. I was collecting a paycheck. I wasn't making an impact for her, and I wasn't modeling the kind of person I would want her to try to become, living a life of abundance. I was saying all those things, but it was truly a lie. And I had to look in the mirror and call that out. And I'm so grateful for that moment with my daughter. Oftentimes, I'll share that story on stage, and it can get me close to tears at times, still just reflecting on that. It was truly a gift. So the dots connected from that Gary to 34 strong. And then at the same time, I was in that job where I was a highly disengaged employee. I was also teaching, and I was helping my students connect to their purpose, going starting businesses, starting on the lives and then the jobs where they were making an impact. And my daughter, in that moment, revealed to me that she had all kinds of potential. And I still had potential in me. I still had something left to give and that impact that I had to give. I came back from that trip, and within two months of that trip, I met my business partner, and both of us believed that we could work to help organizations become great places to work by focusing on what was right with people instead of fixating on what's wrong. Now, we've had all kinds of failures and mistakes that have led to little successes along the way. And anybody that's encountered success in their life is built on failures. I'm sure you can attest to that as well. But that's at the foundation of trust for me. So that's just a little bit of my personal backstory as to how the dots connected. And truth be told, I've never looked back on taking that jump to be an entrepreneur making an impact and really trying to help people be the best that they can be in their work environments.

And so tell us what now, what exactly does 34 strong do? How do you help people? I'm listening to this, okay? And I'm saying, gosh, my business, I would love to have a better culture. I hear about how important culture is all the time on so many different levels, but I don't know how to do it. I don't know what the heck, what is culture, and what am I supposed to do to create the right culture?

Yeah, so what we actually do, one things that we have to start with is kind of taking a pulse on where people are actually at. So when we think of culture, we're thinking about how engaged people are in their work, how engaged they are in their jobs, whatever that is. We utilize the Gallup Q12 assessments. Some organizations have their own versions, and we've worked within their engagement surveys. A lot of times we're measuring employee engagement and what that studying is. Actually, when Gallup was doing the work on developing the Q12, they weren't studying, hey, why are you leaving a company? Why are you leaving this organization? They actually study. They spent 25 years studying why the best employees stay as a measure of how engaged people are in their work and in their roles. So we take a pulse on that, and it can tie down the things as I know what's expected of me at work. Now, we might hear a statement like that. We might say, you know, Gary, I told the whole team exactly what I expected of them. And what we find out is sometimes it's kind of like playing a game of telephone. You say one thing, but based on people's filters, they hear completely different experiences. So when we measure that engagement and then we also assess people's strengths, we utilize the CliftonStrengths Finder assessment to identify people's naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that can be productively applied. That's their talent. And it doesn't actually tell you what their strengths are. It just tells you the presence of their talent. It gives us a framework into how people think, how they align, and how they can connect. To give you an example of this, some of my talents are far more execution based. I'm one on a team that really I build trust, Gary, tied to that core. Why? By doing what I said I would do. So it's through the lens of execution that I build Connections. I've got team members and we have team members that are heavily relationship based. They will do things, but they are the ones that are. They're like the human glue sticks that are keeping the team together. They're highly aware and in tune with, hey, this person's going through this particular situation, we need to pulse check on this person. They're the ones that are planning to bring the team together because they understand that the team is greater than some of its partners. Each person has a unique way in which they can contribute. So we take the measurement of the engagement piece and we're able to help align talents to get to the outcomes that we want to have. Instead of maybe trying to. Maybe we have all the right players and all the right talents on the team, we just don't have them in the right seats. So we can help with that realigning, but it does take that commitment from the top of the organization. People have to identify what's their grind zone, what's their greatness zone, and what's their genius zone. And the more time that we can spend in greatness and genius, the more impact that we can have. Because every human wants to be valued for being valuable.

I love that Grind zone, greatness zone and genius zone.

Yeah, there's actually a free download I'm sure you can include in the, in the show notes just by visiting our website. They can go to the bottom of our page and take that download and there's a whole guided exercise on how to go through that to identify your grind zone, greatness and genius.

So why is it important for a company to have a great culture? What is the. I mean, again, it sounds wonderful. Why do I need that for my business?

So why do we need it for our business? Fantastic question. When we think about culture, it impacts all sorts of elements, right? If people don't have a strong culture where they feel connected, what starts to elude us? Right. People don't feel like they can show up the way that they can, the best that they can. They start not feeling safe. They don't contribute in the ways that they can. When we have a culture where people are actually encouraged to thrive, play to their strengths, what starts to happen is our productivity can go up, profitability can go up, expenses can be lower. People aren't quitting, leaving, stealing things, you know, hurting their finger and taking a worker's comp claim out by bumping into an air molecule walking down a hallway. Right. Those are the sorts of things that can happen with people. So there's huge, huge Elements that tie right into this. Gallup has done a lot of research on organizations that have really focused on developing their people through a range of. By developing their strengths and really focusing on employee engagement. And when they actually commit to that for the long term, it can have a massive impact on overall long term employee engagement. And because of that, Gary, you end up bringing out the best in people. Well, guess what? They start carrying and ascending the organization to where it can go. So it allows you to better serve your clients and it allows you to make the impact you want to make. Simple question we have to ask in the lens of culture. And again, creating a culture where people are engaged in and can really go far. How can we get engaged clients and engaged customers from disengaged employees? We'd never squeeze a tomato and look at it and be upset. It doesn't give us orange juice. Right? We would never, never do that. We'd expect it to give us tomato juice, but yet we do this in our workplaces constantly. In sports, we understand that we would never take the center on a football team, which is a giant strapping guy, and put him out on the corner to play wide receiver and have the wide receiver play center and expect great results. We'd never do that. So we see this in other aspects of society and in teams, in music, in arts and in sports. But in our organizational cultures, this is a way that we can play in the same vein.

You know, I struggled for such a long time with really understanding how culture affects the bottom line. And I was at an event recently where one of the speakers was from the Ritz Carlton, and she had all this data on how culture affects revenue. And I still couldn't put the two together. And so she says culture, just like what you said, culture increases engagement, engagement increases revenue. And why that is was different than what I was expecting because I always thought about engagement as far as the team being engaged. But what she was talking about is she said, you know, when we've created the culture that we have at Ritz Carlton, our clients become much more engaged with our team. And when our clients are engaged with our team, they spend more time in our resorts. And when they spend more time in our resorts, instead of going somewhere else, they spend more money. And that was such a. I couldn't ever put that together until I heard it. Just lay it out for me.

Yeah, it gives. That's a great, great way of looking at it. And obviously, what we do, we don't have a resort. But in the space of many organizations, I think That's a great analogy because it does tie into when people can show up in a space where they feel strong, they feel empowered, they're not needing to go after permission, that they're going to be supported. Well, what does it tie to? It ties into our why that we're talking about today. Trust. People feel safe and at the foundation of any great team is trust. And when that trust is actually there, well, people can go out, serve the clients the best way that they feel. And our clients, no matter what industry you are, will feel that sense of authenticity. Not a cog in the wheel, not permission. You're not just a box that we're putting you into. There's really a person that's there. And our employees are empowered to actually go out there and wow that client experience. Because we've all had that experience where you go in and you feel like you're just a number. You don't feel that personal connection and that doesn't feel as strong, that doesn't build that longer term connection the same way. Right.

It's kind of like, let me out of here. I just get me in, get me out of here. I don't want to talk to anybody. I'm out of here. I don't want to deal with your problems. I got my own stuff to deal with. Let's fix it, whatever I'm here for, and let me out of here.

Very, very true.

Yeah. Versus going someplace where you can tell they're enjoying it, you can tell they love what they're doing, you can tell they have great team. It's like, yeah, I kind of want to be part of this, you know, I'm going to hang out here.

You got it. You got it, right? What was it? Jim Rohn, I think he had that quote. You're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. And if you're an organization and you're a culture that people come to and they're spending time with your employees, or they're spending time around your culture and it's helping them up their game, maybe up their average 5 just a little bit. Just because you've given them an environment or some kind of an experience where they can thrive, they can move the needle, where does that lead them? That truly ties to a deeper level, because culture, we spend so much of our time at work. We spent, you know, nearly a third of our life at work. Right. The real question that happens, and this was my big aha moment with my daughter, was the lens of what happens when people are going home and, and they're talking about a job or work that they've done where they're committed, they're connected and they feel energized. How much better are they as spouses? How much better are they in their communities as parents, as brothers, as children, serving others? What's the ripple impact of that in that lens of it's okay to be me, it's okay to be uniquely me, because each one of us is so truly unique. And when we can play to that, that is the strength of a team. That's the strength of culture at the core of culture and successful culture. And the strengths based approach is a wonderful African proverb that I'll share with you. And it's simply this, if you want to go fast, go alone, and if you want to go far, go with others. That's at the core of everything that we do and the cultures that we're helping organizations to create. Because at the end of the day, and the work that we do at 34 strong, we always say this. We are not the actual change agents, the leadership teams are the actual change agents in those cultures. They have to want it bad enough and to make it there, we're just a tour guide to help you make that a reality for your organization.

So what does 34 strong mean?

Yeah, we get that question quite a bit. I've gotten that. So in the language of CliftonStrengths, so in the strengths finder, when Brandon Miller, my business partner, and I started the company, we were utilizing the StrengthsFinder assessment pretty heavily as a measure of talent. And when Dr. Donald Clifton asked the question, what'll happen when we focus on what's right with people instead of fixating on what's wrong with them? He launched into 10 years of research, studying about 2 million people to find there's 34 natural patterns of talent that exists within all humans in a ranked order from 1 through 34. And here's the thing, Gary. There's no right talents to have, there's no wrong talents to have. The likelihood of somebody having their top 10 in the exact same sequence as you is 1 in 6 billion. So our results are almost as unique to us as our fingerprint. We came up with the name 34strong simply because all of these 34 talent themes are created equal. And we're all strong no matter what our sequence is. And we can all be stronger when we learn how to partner, work with each other, and lean on each other's respective blind spots, if you will.

So what part does relationships Play in building the culture.

So very, very interesting. Out of those 34 themes, out of the StrengthsFinder world, out of those 34 themes, what has emerged is there's actually four domains of talent that all of those 34 themes tend to be broken into. One of them is executing, one of them is relationship building, one of them is influencing, and one of them strategic thinking. And this is this again, this is the Gallup language on the strengths finder as to what it is. What is fascinating is there's no most important bucket of talents to have, but for cultures to really stick. One of the pieces that has been identified in the research over the years is the most important domain of talents to have to make sure that a team stays together and thrives together is the relationship building talents. To give you an example of this, these are the talents, Gary, when if we're climbing a mountain together as a team, these are going to be the talents that are checking in, saying, gary, you okay? How you doing? Along the way, anything I can get you? How you feeling? What's going on? Tell me what's going on. They naturally have an acute awareness of the people elements and the relationships that keep us moving in the now towards the future that we're going to marching towards. So they are critical to have in the team. It's not to say that every single person on your team has to be a relationship builder, but those are the talents that keep us all together so we can stay strong together and plan to that direction. Relationships are huge as part of it and making the investment to dive into those is huge as well.

Yeah, I know. When we were talking before and we kind of broke it all the way down to what makes a great culture, what makes the right environment. Because you were talking about environment. You know, what is an environment? What does that word actually mean when it comes to a business? And how would you define environment? How do you use environment? Because I remember you used that word before and I'll let you elaborate.

Yeah, so the environment is the ground in which we can thrive. Right. So when we think of. This is a deeper question. When we think of environment that I'll kind of back it up to. And two words that get thrown around so often just in our world are leaders, leadership and management. And they get thrown around as if they're the same way. But there's an actual fundamental difference between the leader's role and the manager's role. Now, I realize many of us, myself included, wear both of those hats, but it is important to distinguish the role. So let's just envision for a moment, Gary, that we're off. You and I are leaders and we're looking at getting a vineyard going, right? So if we're a leader, we're going to go out there and our role starts is to go identify the different plots of land that are available and determine, hey, is this going to be good for our vineyard? Is this going to be great for growing Chardonnay grapes, Zinfandel grapes, or should we be growing grapes at all? Maybe it's a great plot of land that we have, but the way the sun is, the way the hill is going to be, maybe this soil is actually better suited for growing squash or for growing strawberries. But it's our role to really evaluate the environment and think of what can thrive in that area and cast that there. The manager's role, let's say we were able to figure out that, hey, we have the right environment here and we studied this here. We have the right environment for Chardonnay grapes to grow. That's what we're going to do. We're going to set this up for success so this environment can be right, so these Chardonnay grapes can thrive. The manager's role then comes to tending that garden. They're the ones that are responsible for making sure the irrigation is taking place properly on a day to day basis, dealing with the weeding of the environment so that we can maximize the performance of those Chardonnay grapes. So we're getting as many Chardonnay grapes as we can. They're as healthy as possible when the winter freeze comes in. Making sure that they're protected that day to day piece is the management. So the environment is really at the core of making sure that people can thrive. And, and if we have a leadership team that's talking about, we're really excited about the environment. We really think that Chardonnay grapes can grow here, they can do really well. But we're actually talking about it in the context of the, you know, the deserts of Arizona. We're not going to have much success there because we can talk about it all we want, but you actually have to do the work to make sure that you're setting up the right environment. That leader's role, making sure that they're spending the time in designing that environment for success, is what will allow the culture to thrive, which will also in turn allow productivity, profitability, growth. The connection, the impact that we all seek to have to actually thrive and to get to those places. But without that environment, we can't get to those outcomes.

So now why has all of this become important to you? Why are you making this your life work? Why are you? I know your daughter. You learned that you weren't setting your life up right to create the right relationships with her. But you could have picked anything, right? Could have picked any kind of business that's out there, but this is what you picked. Why is that?

I love the fact that we're getting to go here. Gary. Why did I pick this? I have personally lived through the brilliance of incredible leadership. And I've seen what that's done for myself personally, the teams that I was around, the lives that those people had, the impacts that they were making in their community. And I lived through that blessing. Now, I don't say what I'm about to say lightly. I also lived through the blessing of atrocious leadership. Lived through situations where I was a 22, 23 year old young man in great physical condition and was under leadership that was so harsh and so crushing to everybody on our team. We performed, but not out of the fact that we were actually being valued for being valuable, but the fact that we were just being crushed and it was out of a place of terror. But at that young age, I vividly remember multiple days per week, I would wake up, I would throw up at 2 o', clock, 3 o' clock in the morning. I would leave the project that I was on and I'd be sad and feel exhausted because I'd have to come back the next day. I saw the physical toll that that took on me and the relationships that it had. I had probably about two of those. I also was on teams where the leaders were trying but weren't really getting it to connect. And I was in a senior leadership role, but the owners of the organization operated from a different capacity. I saw what that did on a larger scale outside of me personally, but to the culture and how that rippled into other people's lives. So for me, this is a vehicle personally for myself and my business partner, Brandon. We see the workplace as a place where we can make an impact, but it's really for the seeds of change for generations to come. Re envisioning what the workplace experience can be. Because what happens when people have the opportunity to go home, tell their kids, hey, you know what, I enjoyed my work today. I'm actually, I'm valued for being valuable. And when we tell our kids, not you can be anything that you want to be, but you can be your talents, you can really think about your talents and developing that and honing that into something that can be impactful, that got me fired up because of the ripple that it has for generations to come. That's why I'm willing to do this. It's not a finite game, Gary. It's not that there's a game over. This is an infinite game that we're playing for the long term. And it's seeds of change. It's not me that makes those changes. It's those others, those lives that are impacted through the process that can make it happen. That's why there's a commitment to that from my end.

So, Darren, if you were to.

Talk about culture and environment from the perspective of creating a relationship based upon trust, how do you see those fitting together?

So if I was going to talk about culture, relationship based on trust, how do those two fit together? I just want to make sure.

Yeah. So what I'm getting at is, and I'm guessing the listeners can probably see this as well, that you're all about relationships. You're all about doing those things that create trust and create better relationships. And when you think about bad culture, I bet you can see that in terms of bad relationships, bad leadership. And when you see great culture, you can see that in terms of how we all relate to each other, the conversations that we have, the way we talk with each other, the way we help each other, and that's all what a great relationship is. That's how you build trust. And so I can imagine you seeing culture as a way to create great relationships.

Very, very much so. Very much so. And yes, thank you for clarifying that. That is so true. And to be very clear, we stepped in. A lot of our work has not been in great relationships in great cultures. It's been stepping into incredibly treacherous, landlocked places where people that report to each other, don't even speak to each other, and are going around that there's a process, a tourniquet technique. Right. Sometimes you got to stop the bleeding and get people to reestablish a baseline of this is another human being. This is another person that, yes, they see the world very differently than me. But why? You know, think about that question, right? Why do they see things differently? And it might not be that this person's crazy, they're out to get me, but maybe they're looking at it from a very, very different talent lens. Maybe their lens in which they view the world and the impact in which they're looking at it, the same situation might be very different than mine. And they might be covering some of my blind Spots. So a big part of it, yes, is relationships. And sometimes in cultures, just being able to figure out a way to restart the conversation, to really get each other seeing or teammates seeing each other through the lens of talent and through the lens that, hey, this is another person that's seeing the world very differently, not a matter of right or wrong. We can get comfortable with being uncomfortable, which is no easy thing to do. A question that we have to ask ourselves, Gary, is can we move from frustration to fascination? Can we move from frustration to fascination? Because sometimes when we're frustrated with other people and where they're coming from, it's not as much a reflection of them. Sometimes it's a reflection of us. And I mean that sometimes it's a reflection through the lens of our talents. I'll give you an example of this. There's some folks that have incredible abilities to, when they're thrown into a meeting or something like that, they're thrown into different situations. They can quickly see numerous possibilities. Oh, this is a situation we can. Here's path A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and 20 different ways of going through this. There's other talents that don't think like that, that they are more methodical. They see all these details. And those of us that are able to see those 20 possibilities in the snap of a finger, we might be looking at others frustrated, thinking, how come they don't see what I see? Oh, you just don't get it. And at the end of the day, those people that quote, unquote, don't get it might be the ones that are helping out with the details on whichever path that we choose. My point here in that is, if you're the one that sees those 20 different pathways and you're frustrated with another person, that very well might be one of your unique gifts. Don't forget to send the vision out there to help others see those 20 paths and know that when you've picked that path, that other person might be capturing certain details that perhaps you're missing that could be relevant. Those talents can play well together. That's an important way of going through that and thinking about that, that grind greatness genius piece that is such a great conversation starter. We've had many folks that have just many listeners on different. Other podcasts we've been on that have downloaded that and they use it as a conversation starter. Just say, tell me about your grind zone, your greatness. I had no idea you loved, you know, crunching numbers. I don't like that, but that's really good. To know that you do. Maybe we can. We can think of ways that we can partner better and it opens up those conversations.

So can you have. And I'm going to keep hammering this on you because I see something that I'm not sure you're seeing. And I really want you, us both to get this because can you have a great culture with bad relationships? Can you have a great culture without trust?

No, you cannot have a great culture without trust and with bad relationships. And if those bad relationships stay in place over time and don't get dealt with, particularly in the leadership ranks, if it's dying up there, it's not going to trickle through the organization at all. It will fall apart and it becomes toxic.

So can you see why someone whose why is to create relationships based upon trust would pick culture as a place to spend their life, work?

Absolutely. Absolutely, Gary. Very, very much so. I feel like I'm talking to myself in the mirror, right?

Yes. I mean, you're creating for people what you see as so valuable, which is the relationship. And without the relationship, how much fun is it to go to work? Without the relationship, how much fun is it to work with somebody without the relationship, how much fun is it to build something with somebody? If you don't have that at your core, then what the heck are you doing there? I mean, how can you translate that to the people that are coming to your business? You know, you can't build relationships with those people if your socks right.

Yep. Very, very true. Very true.

So it's making more and more sense to me why you would pick that and want to be involved with that. And I'm sure people feel that in you because that's how you think.

Yeah, that's a big part of what ties into me and part of our culture and our team as well, that we're committed to each other and we're committed to the impact that we can have and helping places become great places to work.

And I'm sure that's what you bring everywhere you go in your other relationships with people that you know outside of your business. I mean, I'm sure you do a lot to create relationships with people and establish this trust.

It is, and it very much so for me, as I'd mentioned, I'm a doer, but I build the trust by continuing to do those things. My wife knows like clockwork. One of our little rituals is she goes to CrossFit at 5 o' clock in the morning and I'm usually up right around that same time. I do a couple things in the morning. But by the time she's getting back, I make coffee for her that's always made. So as soon as she's come back in, that's there. And she's always just come to appreciate that. I just do it out of habit. But that's just the habits that build trust. Right. You can't, you know, tell your wife at the altar, hey, I love you, and then she comes up to you 10 years later and says, you know, you haven't told me you love me in several years. Well, I told you that, you know, 10 years ago when we got married. Still feel the same way. We need those habits to kind of reinforce these sorts of things, and it's much, much the same way. But, yes, it's relationships. And trust is not just something you do one time. It's the habits that we form that create that over time.

That's the incredibly important part for people to know when they're considering working with 34 strong. Because that's your gift. That's why you do what you do, which is creating relationships based upon trust. And you're using culture for businesses to be able to do that.

That is correct, yes.

And that's important to know because I can find anyone could talk about culture. I can find anyone to espouse how important it is. But there's few people that understand it to the level that you do, because that's how you live your life. That's how you think, that's how you breathe, that's everything that you're about, and that's why you're an expert at it. Does that make sense?

It very much does. It very much does, Gary. No, I definitely appreciate that. That's a big part of what's driven me, and that's a really healthy part of the balance for my business partner, Brandon and I and our team. The word trust is very much permeated in our culture. When there's different issues, if somebody has something, you know, one of our key team members, our chief of staff, she had a loss in her family this weekend, and she stepped in. She let us know. And right off the bat this morning, other team members were notified. And immediately I've got other team members. They're stepping in to fill in those gaps, not missing a beat, making sure that she's taken care of. And there's always that trust that's there, but it's the habits that reinforce that over time.

Tell us what it's like to work at 34 strong.

Well, it's got all its same Sets of challenges and bumps and everything. Just like any other company. It's work for us as well to make sure that we're eating our own cooking. We can get so busy and working on setting up a new client engagement, getting something set up, going after a new line of business, servicing a client, thinking of a system that we're working through. We face all of the exact same challenges as any other business does. But we really try to make sure that we take that time to pause to spend some time with the team. We have our weekly team huddles and different things like that that are going through just kind of trying to pulse celebrate each other for birthdays. One of the fun things that we do that seems to have taken track with some others that we've shared this with with some of our clients. I'll share it here to your users. We actually go through a process of pulse words now. We do this every single week. We take a pulse word on just what's your pulse of where you're at? Maybe it's a word or two words. It doesn't have to be just in your work state, just you, let's take some inventory of you. And people will share that word, whatever it might be and give a little context behind it, you know, so they might come in and say growth minded and say, hey, this week I'm working on growing some business for us. I'm actually going to be in the process of moving. And this is why this is the word that's, that's coming to mind. What we do as a team for birthdays is we actually come up with a couple of pulse words that we feel like describe that team member, what they contribute, what it is. And then we actually build out these giant posters. In each, there's a word, pulse word for each of them. So maybe we see what their contribution is to the team. Maybe they're a visionary, maybe they're an encourager, something like that. And then there's a short series of sentences that's written for that. They'll have multiple posters. So let's say you've got a team of 10 people and it's somebody's birthday, they're gonna have nine posters written about them to celebrate them through the lens of what they contribute and what others see. So oftentimes, Gary, we don't see the value of what the things are that we do in the day to day because we just do them and we just see the world through. That's easy. And others get incredible value off of that. So we try to create a culture where we value each other. We make sure that, you know, once every quarter we take just a day out and kind of shut down for a day and really just focus on us as a team, play hard together, practice being confidently vulnerable around each other. If there's new material that we're working on, we try to actually have it self facilitated on us, have one of our other, our main facilitators, run us through the cycle and develop that in us and just get to kind of play together a little bit too. So. But make no mistake about it, we have our share of issues just like any other company.

And you know what I appreciate you saying about that and what goes right along with trust is you didn't try to sugarcoat or say that hey, we're perfect and you're not because. Yes, exactly. But there are organizations that, you know, can maybe make you think that they're perfect and that's why you need to work with them. And you're like, no, you know, we got our same issues and we're working on it as well. And we're practicing what we preach and it translates into us being more knowledgeable about how we can help other people do the same thing.

My wife shared a great quote with me. I think it was this, this morning and it was from Gary Keller, one of the founders of Keller Williams Real Estate. He's my wife's real estate agent there. So she shares this quote with me and I think it's perfect. It goes something to this. He said, anytime you're looking at an incredible success, you're staring at a whole series of massive failure. And the more comfortable I feel like we can get in owning that, not only in our businesses but in our lives, part of Empowering Culture is not in saying that everything's going to be great. We're going around, high five and, and everything's perfect. It's actually stepping into our fails, owning them and being able to willingly work through those cycles together. That's where trust is fostered. It's not fostered when things are going great. It's actually fostered when things are really bumpy. Who's putting their hand out to pull you back up or whose hand are you reaching for when you got knocked on your back? That's what it's about.

Wow. Wow. Well, Darren, listen, thank you. I know we're running towards the end here and I just really want to thank you for spending some time with us today. And if someone, if one of our listeners is out there and they're saying, look, I love what I heard. I'd love to talk to Darin. I'd love to be able to get a hold of them and figure out how we can improve our culture, work to our strengths. How will they get ahold of you?

You know, Gary, they can reach me and they can reach 34strong. Just at 34strong.com. They can find us on Facebook. They can find me personally on Facebook, LinkedIn, all of those traditional vehicles are great ways to get in touch with us and just on our website, like I said, there's some great free downloads as well available that people can use right away.

So you better spell your name.

V, I, R, A, S S, A, M, M, Y. That is the last name there and it's Darren with an E, D, A, R, R, E, N. So did I spell it?

Did I say it right?

You nailed it. You nailed it. It's phonetically pronounced, right? Everybody. Everybody gets twisted about it, but it's phonetically pronounced. You got it.

Yeah. You see it and you're like, holy cow, how am I going to say this? And then when you do it, you're like, oh, I got this.

I got this.

I think I do. Well, listen, thank you so much. I appreciate you being here today and I'm sure we'll be in touch more over the years.

Definitely, Gary, really, really appreciate it. Thank you for the work that you're doing. It's incredibly important in the world. I can't thank you enough personally for helping me discover my why of trust. It's connected deeply, as you can tell, with what I'm doing. Yep.

Thanks, Darren. Take care.

Thanks, Gary.

It.