Jeff Dudan | On the Homefront with Jeff Dudan #34

Welcome. Today on the home front with Jeff Duden, we are going to release a podcast that I was actually on a friend of mine, Michael Reddington, who is a certified forensic investigator and the owner of Inclasive, which is a training and advisory firm for interrogation and sales training and really disciplined listening and communication. Uh, and Michael allowed me to speak to some things that I am very passionate about. Coaching kids culture and living a life, going deeper into your purpose. And I enjoyed the episode and I wanted to share it here with you today on the home front. Enjoy.

Good morning, Jeff. It is so great to see you, and I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to have this conversation today. How are you?

I'm fantastic, Michael. Always enjoy my time with you, and I'm looking forward to this morning.

You are somebody with a wealth of experience and expertise in so many different directions. And when I first started conceptualizing this show, you were one of the very first people I wanted to have on. So I'm thrilled that we get to have this conversation today. When I think about your experience and expertise, growing and running businesses, your expertise, executive coaching, we were talking about earlier, kids coaching, which something we have in common. I'm really excited to get across today in our conversation. But you've done so much. You've achieved so much.

I.

So many directions I could go with this. But the one place I would like to start the conversation is honestly something that you and I have never really talked a lot about in the past, which is the episode that you start in for the TV show Undercover Boss and for all of the CEOs that I've worked with. I shouldn't say all, but many of them. One of the things that I find can be difficult for them to realize is the impact they have on the people around them. Just by their title alone, just by being the person in charge and being in the room. How people will change how they act, they'll change how they talk, they'll change how they behave, all of these things, because, oh, the CEO is here. But you ambushed people. You had a fancy disguise, which I think part of which might be memorialized on the sign behind you there, but you actually embedded yourself with your team. So for me to start this, I guess the first question I have for you is, what was the most surprising lesson you learned getting to interact with your team at their level while you were running it?

Advanticlean well, thank you for the question. And I can say that there wasn't some great epiphany or some great reminder. It was confirming it was confirming. And there was also pride inside of that because when you go out, Advanticlean was just created off of, you know, out of nothing. And one of the things I like to say is, is leaders. The highest order of leadership is to be able to stand on nothing and create something. And we literally paid our employees $25 to come up with the name of the business. And we're like, who could come up with the name? And here's what it is. And so, I mean, when, when, you know, you think back to those early days and those great people that stood with you in the beginning, and then you come forward some 20 years and you're on this national television show with 7.1 million viewers. And it's something that was just created and iterated on over time. And then you go out into the field and you're there and these great people, I've always, I say, you know, a franchise system isn't 2,000 employees. It's. It's 200 families with 10 employees. And it's a totally different thing. And they're, they're working hard, they're trying to be relevant in their community. And it's just you go into these markets with these businesses and you're reminded like, wow, this is just like the business we started 20 years ago. They're facing the same challenges, they're doing the same work. And it's a great sense of pride that you were able to take a model that helped your family and create security and create financial freedom and create opportunities and growth and all of those things. And you've been able to give that to other people through franchising and they've been able to accomplish the same thing. So a great sense of pride, a great sense of confirmation and also knowing that, you know, Advanticlean was a very values forward organization and we did lots of things that were evidence of that. And just to see how well these people were not only being treated as employees and staff of the various locations, but also how well they were treating the customers. And you know how that there was a through line of servant leadership, there was a through line of community and accountability and results and excellence inside of all of it. And, and that was, that was one of the more, one of more rewarding parts of the experience.

I appreciate the illustration. None of that surprises me just having worked with you the little bit that I have. Thankful thinking back to those days when we originally met, when you were still there, you've obviously since exited and gone on to many other things which we'll talk about during our time together today. Once there was the reveal at the end. Did you see people change at all, how they interacted with you once they knew who you were?

Yeah, it was. So this show is exceptionally well done, and I think some of my confidentialities are perpetual, so I would never, I would never disclose exactly how they do the show. But what I can tell you is that it is a material production and in. In the size and scope of it is such that people would never think, even up until the end, that it's Undercover Boss, even though they've watched the show for years. And it's. It's very, very well done in the way that they do it. And when we considered doing it, you, you, you have to think about the risk. You know, I sat my family down and we were. We had a little. Built this. We had this little bonus room and we had a couch, and behind on the wall was a quote from my college football coach, a guy named Jerry Moore, who was legendary at Appalachian State University and, you know, kind of a giant killer and won lots of national champions level, and now they've moved up into the bowl level. But it says always do more than is expected. And then, you know, we have our family values there, which is trust yourself to take chances, fail fast, and move forward, those types of things. And when we talk with the family about the risk of doing the show, look, this could go poorly. We could get some negative press. People don't know what kind of business we have. Your friends are going to. Might treat you differently. At school. I had no idea what the impact was going to be, if it was going to be something that was a thing in the town or if it wasn't going to be a thing in the town and. Or in their schools and whatever. So there's all kinds of risk to each of us, things changing for how we were perceived or how they were perceived at school. But if you honor your values and if those what I just spoke are true, then you have to say yes, and you have to show up and you have to take risks. So there was risks inside of that. And then, you know, another big tenant of leadership is accessibility. So being accessible to the employees of the franchisees and going out and doing this was, you know, so everything was aligned for us to say yes. So it wasn't a hard yes, but it was a fast yes. We had about a week to decide because somebody had dropped out and they needed somebody for season eight, and they're like, they came out the next day from La Shot a sizzle reel. They, for all afternoon, they put together a clip. They got it to CBS. CBS usually turns down nine out of 10 of them. And we got through and then we got the contracts and the paperwork and we had to get all that done. And it was all within a 7 to 10 day period because they needed to get us out on the road and to, to get this spot filled for their next season. So for whatever reason they didn't show it that season. They chose to do a rerun. The la. We were going to be the last episode of the season. But for whatever reason, and I think maybe it's because the episode was good or some other reason, they held it over and they kicked off the next, the next year with it, which was great for us. So we had to wait an extra four or five months for it to come out. I'm like, oh man, is it gonna, is it ever gonna air? And then they ultimately aired it in January. So to kick off the new season. So that, so that was, so it was real. It was great. And then I'm trying to get back to your original question, which was what?

Well, number one, I don't want you to break any of your contracts for sure. But my general question was, once people had an idea of who you really were, did it change how they reacted or communicated with you? Like at one point were they kind of buddy, buddy, and then once they knew who you were, was it, oh, no, now I'm back to he's the CEO, I need to change how I interact with them.

Well, put yourself in their shoes. They just got major, major bling laid upon them. You know, you, you have to give away, you know, a quarter million dollars in value over a handful of people. So, you know, not, not everything that these people got was even aired on the show because, you know, we filmed over 100 hours to get the 42 minutes that ultimately aired. So, you know, they were, they were excited and. But I think it was probably more excited based on the windfall that they were just given. You know, and I was a beneficiary of a nice thank you and all that stuff, but it could have been anybody. I mean, think about it. You don't care who sells you the lottery ticket. You're going to be very grateful that somebody did.

That's a really good point. I'm going to hang on one second so I don't cough in every. Apologize for that. Sinuses have been killing me recently as I was listening to you go through that, talking about your values, your decision Making process, bringing your family into that. All things I would love to get back to throughout the conversation. But one of the things that I couldn't help thinking about is knowing a little bit of your story and how you got started. And I think Hurricane Andrew was the first hurricane and then it was Katrina after that. For you to stay in touch with your roots, for you to remember what, what it was like for you as you build franchises and you work with these families, does that experience that you had standing this up from nothing and doing so much of the hard work yourself in the beginning, is that what makes it so easy for you to relate and resonate with people at all.

Levels of the organization?

Because I feel like as time goes on, that's something that CEOs can begin to struggle with.

That's fair. And I think we can all get caught up in reading our own press clippings. We can all get tone deaf to the needs of it. But yeah, at the end of the day, and we've talked about it, you're, you're coaching now children. I, I coached over 30 seasons of my kids sports. I really like franchising because you get to work with business owners, first time business owners, people that are building, you know, they're traveling that same path that we traveled back in the mid-90s to start a business, introduce a new business to the marketplace. That's where I love to be. I, I just love to be in that creation mode, that market introduction mode, building a, you know, galvanizing a team to go win a championship or to go win a market or to take a brand national with a bunch of people that like have a stake in it and it's just great. I did, you know, franchising is the greatest wealth creation business model ever invented according to our industry people. Surely people have made a lot of money in oil and gas, real estate, technology and all these other things too and those great business models as well. But you know, for the accessibility to on Main Street USA to create financial security, freedom and generational wealth for you and your family and the people that you care about, franchising is a great, great option. And there's and it and there's no real limit to the size of business that you can build being a franchisee. So, so to me it's exciting and you know that getting back to, I never seem to get too far away from that because I'm always driving back into what do these people need to be successful? What is it going to take for what do they need to hear what what is their perspective and mindset need to be? What do they be, you know, what do they need to be willing to risk? What is what, what's in it for them to gain? What are the upside for these people? So, you know, that's kind of where I get fired up. I unfortunately, or fortunately, like, I'm. I'm pretty purpose driven. We're all wired differently. I mean, you know, finance people make tons and tons of money, man, and they love just all day digging into these spreadsheets and these numbers and these ratios and like, they understand, you know, where value is uncovered and how to unleash value in companies. And, you know, by. By reading the tea leaves of the numbers and combining that with strategy and additional resources and stuff. And that's all great. You know, my leadership, you know, I need those people in my world. But, you know, I would prefer to be leading a class or speaking to a group of people and really informing them, you know, who they need to be to be successful inside of that. So, you know, that's the kind of leader that I am. And I never really stray far away from coaching, teaching, and influencing as best I can people to do things for themselves and to take accountability and to commit and to really change their station in life to something better, something that they desire, something that they want, something that's meaningful.

And I'll vouch for that because I still have notes from a conversation you probably don't even remember having because you have so many of these. But once upon a time, we ended up at Old Mecklenburg Brewery after a training seminar with a couple of leaders from your team. And just in a casual conversation, you were in teacher mode still. And that was, I believe, when my wife was pregnant with our son. So it was parenting, it was business, it was everything in between. And so I can vouch for you consistently being in. In that teaching mode. So I've got two questions for you based just off of what you just said. The first one is you mentioned there just towards the end, what do people need to be? So when you think about standing up a franchise, when you think about running a business, when you think about growing a successful team or organization, what do people need to be in order to be a successful leader that develops a company behind them?

I had Vern Harnish on my podcast, and I asked him that question, and his answer was people, his. And remember, like, he's the guy who started eo, he's the guy who had gazelles and started scaling up. So this is a guy that's Built organizations that are some of the, in their disciplines are some of the biggest organizations in the world today. He's the guy who got 28 year old Steve Jobs to come speak to his group of entrepreneurial club that he, that he built when he was in college. So, and he said leaders, great leaders are number one. They're intensely focused. And Jerry Seinfeld said, and this is where I get my philosophy right. I'm trying to be a stoic, but I'm learning, I'm studying stoicism, but it keeps me, I think it helps. But I also go to comedians to get a lot of perspective. So he said lack of focus leads to lack of greatness. And the more intensely focused that you can become around things, the deeper that you're going to see into it, the quicker you're going to iterate on it. You're going to remove latency between the time you make a decision or an insight becomes apparent to you and taking the action and measuring the results. So intense focus really accelerates anything that you're doing. The second thing is rabid curiosity. And I've become very attuned to people and to me when I'm working, we have a new manager in our business or even an executive. One of the most important things that I observe is their level of curiosity by the questions that they ask. Are they taking information and writing it down and saying okay and then walking out of the room? You know, one of the great things that you say and is, is how many questions did I just create for you? In every conversation, questions should be created and are created. So intense focus, rabid curiosity are two things that you know, what are you reading, what are you listening to? You know, what are you, what are you learning about the marketplace? Where does that lead you to go next? You really have to be, you can't be mentally lazy when you're starting a business because there's just, there's the, it's like a puzzle. The answer's always there. It's just a matter of finding out which way you're going to go to find the right and the best answer and then how quickly you can get there. And then third, I mean, you've, you've got to, you've got to be a great communicator. You have to be constantly, constantly communicating to the people that make a difference to you and to your business. That's your team, that's the people that report directly to you, that's speaking to the troops. If you have people in your organization that do not Report directly to you. That's to the marketplace, that's to the referral partners. Every business has people that they need to be relevant to. So communicating, in our case, franchisees being, you know, communicating what we stand for, what we're here to accomplish. And then at our convention, at our homecoming last week, the evidence of everything that we told them that we stood for, the evidence that those things are happening and those things are delivered, you know, we told them we cared about, you know, attracting dynasty builders to create generational wealth on Main street usa to address the, the widening wealth gap in this country. We, we care about children and young people. So we rolled out a partnership with Carson Scholars to build reading rooms across the country. We care about transitioning veterans. So we rolled out a partnership with the appropriately named Operation Home Front to, to provide funds and resources for transitioning veterans. We did build a bike and we built bikes and the National Guard came and got them and they took him to children of veterans. So you know, you, you have to put your, you got to put your actions where your mouth is and you can say things right? But then there has to be the affiliated action and follow up to go with that. So is it from a perspective, if it's not you, it's nobody. I mean you are, at the end of the day, you are accountable to lead the hearts and the minds and the strategy and then how that all gets communicated to all the people that it needs to be communicated to, to, to build a great clear positioning within your marketplace and to create a firm foundation of who you are and what you stand for and, and what you, where your excellence is inside of your organization. So those are, those are the things that I think about and anybody and it doesn't matter if you're a two person company, those things still matter.

That's a great list. And even reflecting back as I was listening to you, as I've seen you operationalize those within your organization, as I've seen other people share similar sentiments and then if I've seen them operationalize or not, I think that's a tremendous list. So previous to mentioning or saying the phrase what people need to be, I also heard you mention what people need to feel. So as you look at your role in building great leaders and building organizations and bringing greatness to Main street usa, as you illustrated if from your perspective, what do people need to feel as they buy into a leader or an organization in order to develop their own personal greatness?

Well, I'm going to go to a Facebook meme here. I've got it up on my wall. I saw it and I'm like, well, this is on Facebook. But it said never treat a loyal person in such a way that they no longer care. That kind of spoke volumes to me because we're. Everybody has. I don't care who you are. There's an emotional side to it. Now great leaders and great managers use numbers, not words, right? So if you don't have a, you, you can't. Without a business model and a business plan and you know that, that clearly demonstrate the economics of what you're trying to accomplish and being disciplined to that you can get yourself in trouble. That being said, there's an emotional side, there's an effort side, there's a. There's an alignment that great people need to be great. They also need autonomy, right? So if you go back to the, the great book by Tony Hsieh as founder of Zappos, which is Delivering Happiness, it's. People need perceived control over what happens to them. Nobody likes to be micromanaged. Good people like to be, be curious. Think about it. If you, if, if you want to be intensely focused and you want to be curious, right? Those people, people that have those qualities are not going to like to be just so, you know, put this widget over here and then you're done. That doesn't serve them well. So if you want those types of people, then you got to create the conditions where people can have that kind of impact within, within their area. Perceived progress people, negative progress is one of the biggest dissatisfiers in life. You know, I. Nobody wants to be backwards in their relationship, making less money, you know, stuck in their job, doing whatever it is and with no perceived chance of progress in their life connectedness. So, you know, whatever culture it is you set, it's going to be good for some people, not good for other people because there's. We're all different and, and nobody's wrong. And everybody's got their ability to say, these are my experiences, this is my values, this is how. And that's not gonna be a good fit for every organization. Organizations can't be all things to all people. So somebody, I mean, there's people that we've had that, you know, clearly wanted to just move, came from a big company. They just wanted to move deck chairs around and not really make any progress. And you know, the work reflected that and the questions reflected that and the progress reflected that. And it's like, you know what? I can't leave you to yourself because you don't do anything outside of, you know, what you were told to do a week ago. I mean, it's you, you. We need, we need creatives. And especially with, by the way, I mean, if, if I remember, I was at where is that Salesforce years ago and I was in an AI seminar and they were talking about, you know, our workforce is going to be increasingly more creative because it's going to be about the quality of the question and the curiosity of the query that's really going to, you know, have more value than, than you providing the answer or, you know, moving things along marginally. So in Google, by the way, this great book called How Google Works and it talks about how they, they identified early that they wanted to hire creatives and you know, they know what it looks like and they know how to, they know how to discern whether somebody's a creative or not. So, you know, you want creative people. Especially now because the tools. When I was asked to write a few things this weekend, I'm like, oh. And then I'm like, oh, wait a minute. Chat GPT. Let me just dictate. I dictated a, you know, a paragraph and I smacked it in the chat gbt and then I made an edit to it and something that used to maybe would have taken me two or three hours, hours to do took me 20 minutes. Wow. But I knew, I knew the questions to ask, I knew what to ask for and it was good. And then I just made it my own and off you go. So. And then I think that, you know, the last thing is, you know, from, from he's, you know, a worthy ideal pursuit of a purpose or a worthy ideal leadership's responsible really to connect with what everybody in the organization is doing with something that matters and whether it's tom shoes, you know, one parachute, you buy one you1's getting delivered somewhere else in the world to somebody who doesn't have shoes or whatever it is. I mean, you know, the, the, you know, we all have a, at the end of it, I'm not going to say we all, because there's all kinds of different. But the majority of people given the option would want to create some sort of value, some sort of, you know, benefit to people. You know, I'm working, I'm getting my pay, we're doing the widget, we're delivering on that. But when we all deliver together, you know, one plus one equals three, and we're able to have this ancillary benefit to some group or some other people and, you know, maybe just make the world a Little better place while we're here.

And again, something just like you said at your Home Front event last week, between the Build a Bike and the Carson foundation and the Home Front foundation that, you know, you exhibit every time out. As you were talking earlier, especially about franchising, it's not necessarily a company with 2,000 employees. It's 200 companies with or 200 families with 10 employees. Hopefully my math checks out on that one.

I'll run that by the business office. I think it's good.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for not embarrassing me. You have family working for you and with you. And as I work with businesses that they have family within the business that can have its great benefits, it can also create its challenges as well. What are some of the things that you and your family have learned in order to help balance business excellence with family relationships and responsibilities?

Family seems to work best when there's an actual professional skill set that is required. And they've proven that they have excellence in that discipline so that everybody kind of knows where the guardrails are. That's been my experience. So I've had family since the beginning and with maybe a 50% hit rate, because if somebody's just like you, like family's not a good enough reason in a high performing organization to be employed. It's just not. I mean, and if it's, and if it's not working out, the, the negatives far outweigh the positives, especially if people are taking advantage or that they perceive that they play by a separate set of rules. So, you know, so over the years I've had people in the business when we were a contractor and doing things, and sometimes it worked well and other times it was clearly not going to work well. And it's just. And you know, family's no different. I mean, they have to be able to perform. And you could make the case that they need to perform better. They need to, because they have to overcome the stigma of family inside of that. Now, you could say that you trust family more because they should be aligned with protecting the company and all that. But I've also found that not to be. Be the case. I mean, everybody's. Everybody's who they are and you know, inside of that. So where right now we do have family working in the business, and each of the family members that are working in the business had. Are uniquely qualified. So my brother Mike, who was the CFO of the Carolina Panthers NFL football team, is our cfo. So he, you know, that was a. I don't know, $350 million business between the stadium company and the team, maybe, I have no idea. Somewhere in that ballpark, hundreds and hundreds of employees, collective bart, all the things that, you know, a complex franchise is the NFL. And so he is more than qualified to be the CFO here. And so it works. And he doesn't report to me, you know, he, we have a president of franchising and a coo and that's kind of the reporting line right there when it comes to the franchise stuff. And then on the family office stuff we work together. And then my son was an econ and finance degree and did a little sell side advisory, came into the business and then he did all of our M and A. But again he was skilled and experienced in doing that. And then he moved over to leading our building our development team which was a new skill for him, but he's done exceptionally well at it. So that, that works. And let's see. And then, you know, I've got, you know, if you read my book Discernment, I would say that everybody needs a side hustle. So I have a 19 year old, you know, material science engineering major at Virginia Tech, freshman, my son. But he grew up as a, you know, YouTube guy. Like he knows so much about YouTube. Well, he's taken a real interest in our on the Homefront podcast. So moving, you know, and, and because that, that's his side hustle. So he is actually now moving into producing the podcast because he was actually digging into it deeper than our team was digging into it in terms of, and then because he's such a YouTube guy, he's like, you know, he's like, well if, if you look, if you change the intro to this, you know, people are going to listen this much longer. And you know, so he started testing and, and doing all that kind of stuff and he's fully engaged with it. He's part of a team. Again, doesn't report into me, but he's added super and he's super high amount of value inside of that. So he's uniquely qualified to do what he's doing and if he didn't do a good job on it, then that would stop immediately. So he, he seems to be, you know, overdoing it and I mean working till two in the morning and getting, I see him coming in on my phone, you know, all the, creating all the shorts and the clips and, and then looking at, you know, changing things depending on how the marketplace is reacting to these certain things, which is something that we were using a Bunch of, we were using some outsources and who were using some AI tools. And candidly, what they weren't doing was they weren't looking at it close enough. So, you know, they were like, AI will basically produce a podcast for you. But it doesn't really make sense. What AI said made sense or did it not land like there, there still has to be that human that looks at it and says, that's interesting, or that should start there and stop there, or this is one of the three things that we should put up front as a hook. AI can't do that because they're just not. It's just not human. So it can organize them, it can tell when things start and stop. You know, so it can get you like 80% of the way there. But in the competitive world of podcasting, 80% is not good enough. That means you are going to be like super last. So you've got to get everything right and you've got to be able to do it long enough to where it catches. And we're making good progress there. But I, I can tell you so, but yeah, so, so, you know, those situations are working out and, but I would, you know, if you. The other thing is a lot of people get family in the business when they start a business, and it is. There is a correlation between how many partners start a business and how fast they can go. That are. So if you, I see it in franchising, if you have a husband and wife team and they're properly skilled and one takes sales and one takes operations and they're actually skilled in those things, those businesses start really fast. If, if it's a husband and wife team or whatever it is, or, you know, who know, whatever it is, then two people start this business, but they're not properly skilled in the areas that they are assigned, then that tends to go poorly. So you have to, you know, they got a higher sale, so they've got to hire these other things in. So. But there is definitely a correlation to the ability to divide and conquer and for people to be focused on getting a business up and off the ground. But again, the startup phase, the market penetration phase is going to be different than the let's what's business, you know, the business as usual phase with incremental growth every year cost, adding another truck, adding sales people. You know, at some point you got to have professional management, you got to have talented sales people out there. So, you know, those are, and those are the things that the, the family business, you know, maybe the best thing would be that one of the two original founders leaves the business and goes back and gets a job and, you know, the other one runs it. It just depends. So those dynamics, we see it play out in an accelerated fashion in the franchise world because their intention of the way that it would work out and their satisfaction with doing the roles that they're assigned it, it comes to light relatively quickly.

I'm curious and thank you for such an in depth answer on the family question. I appreciate that. And by the way, masterful, masterful job dropping your book and your podcast in the middle of that answer so very.

Did I done? Oh, did I, Michael? I didn't, I didn't know.

Very well done. Let that be a lesson for people, how to weave in what you want to promote into another answer. That was very well done. And there's another book that we're going to talk about coming up too, so we're not, we're not going to forget that one. But when you talk about the expectations being different, I guess the right way potentially to ask the question would be specifically from the franchising world. But I imagine this can correlate beyond the franchising world to people as they take on new roles or start businesses. If you had to say, what are the most commonly misunderstood expectations that cause partnerships or businesses to fall flat?

At some level, it doesn't matter what somebody's doing anymore, but it always starts there. And being in Vistage for so many years, I had a conversation with a business owner just last week and he's considering leaving the partnership that he is. And they started the partnership and now he says, well, I'm doing all the work, right? And they're, the other partners aren't doing the work and they're creating the economic, he's creating the economic benefit. So now he feels like his piece of it is he's creating an outsized return for them. And, you know, that's where a lot of small businesses start. I saw it in my dad's business with. He had a, he was an engineer and he had a partner. And my dad ended up doing a lot more work. He worked, he just worked longer, harder hours. So over time that created this rift between them and stuff like that. But is that really, you know, I would suggest that if that thinking is inside the business, it's going to be an impediment to its ability to scale. Because at the end of the day, it's the shareholders, partners, leaders, job of the business to constantly be replacing themselves to be able to scale the business. And some businesses lend them. Some businesses might not lend themselves to scaling. Some. Some people might decide, I'm going to be an independent. I'm going to be an individual contributor, and this is the business and I am the talent, and this is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to make a. I'm going to create leverage in these ways. And I mean, I know people that build businesses where they make, you know, two, three, four million dollars a year, man, but like, everything runs through them. And it's, it's, it can be done, especially today with technology and all of the things that, that we have. But, you know, it's, It's. It's really not about when you, when you, when you're building businesses of scale. I mean, the higher that you get in the business, the more that you get paid for, the fewer number of that you make. And they have to be good ones, the impact that you can make in the business. I mean, it's hard for me because when I see people, like, working hard and working late, I'm like, man, I'm feeling guilty because they're working so hard on this business. But if I try to. All of my executives are better at me than what they do. All of, all of them, every single one of them has towering strengths. Marketing, legal, franchise development, business office. All of these people, they have. So if I were to try to go in and say, well, I just want to work alongside you, because, you know, that's, that's what I want to do, the business would suffer, right? I would be slowing it down. I would be taking away their ability to have autonomy and to deliver the results in the way that they are. Because now, you know, I've got positional power and I'm coming in and everything I say would probably be considered differently and maybe under its merits or whatever. So, so, you know, it's, It's. If you're gonna, You've got to have a little bit more of a. If you're going to scale a business. Like, that's why some people scale businesses over and over and over again because they understand that their job is what Richard Branson. Okay, here's. Okay. Richard Branson would say, I'm going to cast a clear vision and I'm going to describe it in every way possible. You know, what we mean to the world, what the market that we're going to be in, how big it's going to be, how many of this, how many of that, how fast it's going to scale. All of this I'm going to create this vision that says we are going to go into this space and this is what we're going to do and this is what it's going to look like and this is what it's going to mean, and this was going to mean to us and anybody else around it. The second thing is, is then he says, okay, well, if that's true, who are the best people in the world if I gave them this vision that they would be able to build it? So then he goes out all over the world and he finds the best people that he could possibly find and recruit to build that, that team of initial leaders that can, that have proven that they could bring that business plan down to the, you know, put a business plan around the vision and then bring it to the ground. And then he makes sure that they have adequate resources, you know, they are not resource constrained to be able to execute on that vision. So inside of that, right, if, if that's your, if that's the scaling a business strategy, well, then, you know, you know, saying, well, Michael, you know, you didn't do this estimate. I did this estimate. That's, that has nothing to do with how that business is going to scale. It's a, it's a, you know, so it's the, the thinking around that, right, is different. But like, but that's kind of where you are when you're starting a business. It's a small business because number one, you're probably needing to eat out of the business. So like, you need to get paid and you're, you're, you're resource constrained. You don't have, you know, $10 million to build this business. You know, you've got what you came into it with and you got to make some money to be able to make additional investments. So now every, every, every person has to actually pull deep on the oars. And that's where, and some people have a bigger motor than others and some people are going to pull deeper and some people are going to say, I'm bringing more value because I'm doing sales and you're bringing less value because you're doing ops and you know, this kind of stuff. But you still need all of those things to get done. So that's where, you know, small businesses tend to stay small and other businesses, you know, the conditions for scale are set from the very beginning. And the quicker that these people can resource their areas and move themselves out of it and get those key functional areas of the business led by people that, that have the ability to do it. That's, that's where businesses can scale and that's really, that was our approach with.

Homefront Brands, which is very demonstrably paying off for you. Based on the event that I was able to see a small piece of last week, I would love to continue down this rabbit hole. I'm keeping an eye on the clock. I'll be very respectful of your time. I know you have a lot going on and there's a.

No, I'm good today. I'm good today.

Yeah, I appreciate that. But there's another topic, so maybe we'll circle back. But there's another topic that I know you don't get a chance to talk about as much as you would like to and it's one that we have a shared passion for and that is coaching youth athletics. And I've had to have small conversations with other folks about the topic. But I believe your book is titled hey Coach, do, do I recall that correctly? I'll have links to all of your books, your podcast, just everything. Jeff Duden, I will make sure is linked in the show notes for people to find after this. But I know that you are a person with a well honed philosophy on coaching youth sports that has many ties into your family values and personal values and business values. So I used to try to tee you up for this conversation for you when we as parents are volunteering or spending our time developing kids through sports because that development goes well beyond sports. I think we all know that. What are your first areas of focus or priority when you're coaching kids?

I love it. I love the ability to opportunity to speak about this because I never get to anymore. And so, so when I decided to franchise our business and come off the road and build a team that could help other people create the business, one of the big things was I wanted to be present in the lives of my children and I that manifested in my ability, my saying yes to coaching over 30 seasons of my kids athletics in all different sports. Some I had expertise in, others I had to learn a little bit and round it out. But you know, fortunately with other coaches and whatnot and then you know, near the back half of my career there it, you know, I developed, I was developing leadership of franchisees at the same time I was developing leadership of a group of 10 to 12 year old kids over a four month season and launching a franchise. And the steps there was very, very similar in coaching these kids. It was, you know, it was, I mean leadership is clear communication, simple goals, you know, filling out you know, letting everybody know up front what was going to be important, how we, you know, getting a set of values, you know, as to how we, how we make decisions and, and what we're all committing to here. So we just developed this, this methodology. And so I would have coaches come to me all the time. And I mean even at the local middle schools and high schools and stuff like that, that would be around these youth teams who were coaching, they'd be like, you know, tell me, you know, I want to know like what you do. Because we go to the drafts for these little teams and you know how they have parents that make requests and they write them on a little note and they'd, so they don't start opening the request and they'd read them and it was like every kid wanted to be on our team. Well, why, why was that? And it was really about the framework with which we approached a season kind of broken down into thirds. And the goal there was, you know, at the end of the day, what was the purpose and the goal? We want you to play fast, loose and happy and for each other. And we all want to be the best we can be on the last day of the season. Okay, so that's coaches, that's parents, that's children. So that's a pretty clear directive. We're all going to be the best that we can be on the last day of the season. We're going to play fast, we're going to play loose, we're going to play happy, we're going to play for one another, right? And then there's a huge under score of autonomy inside of that. So what does that mean? Well, so we ended up with these three little tomes, right? Player rules, coaching commitments and parental expectations. And each one had a little list of things that, you know, they were accountable to. And so we would very, we would have a meeting and I would, where most coaches would say, leave your kids with me. Don't coach them from the sidelines. You know, don't, don't interrupt with what we're doing. We've got your kids. I would say I want every parent here involved in this team. You know, we need a timekeeper on the sideline, we need a, we need a special teams coach. We need somebody to count plays. We need somebody to do this. We need team parents. You know, some of the stuff we did was in faith based league. So we need people to do, we would do a 10 to 15 minute talk before. We need people to do a devotion. We need people to, to bring A lesson. So we would have a team of, you know, 20 kids, and we'd have 14 coaches, right? And some of them had experience in this. There's a football by example, but some of them didn't. So now my job is to do what? Coach the coaches. Provide. Provide clear. Provide a vision for the team that was absolutely clear about what we did and who we. Who we were and how we went about it, and then to get the best people and the best. If you're. If they're interested in their kid, right. And everybody wanted to be quarterback, but that's not how we did it. Right. You know, some people would just help, and they wouldn't help the other kids, and they would just, you know, follow their kid around practice. And I've talked to him and say, look, you're here for you. Coach them all. That was one of the things. Coach them all. So. And then, you know, and then properly resource it with education and stuff like that. And we did. So it was the same philosophy in doing it. And in the first. So one of the first things we did was we. We made sure that we broke clicks because usually you would have some returning players coming back, and the expectation is that they were going to get the football and, you know, they were going to be. And there was, you know, and they were. They were kind of clicking up. So we did things to break that out and identify leadership and talk to them about their. What their role is in, you know, making this, like one team. And then we installed everything with a strong focus on fundamentals. Every position had five to seven things that led to success. You know, in that position, you know, alignment, responsibility, art. Alignment, responsibility, and technique. Okay. If you're a defensive end, you know, start on the outside shoulder. You know, keep your. Keep your outside arm free, get two yards up the field, keep your shoulders parallel to the line of scrimmage, right? Get to the depth, fight yourself to the depths of the quarterback. You know, if something's inside and you can squeeze things down, like, so they knew, like, that was their exact job in our defense is to, you know, we got to stop speed before it gets started. And we're going to make. We're going to keep them in the box. And if we could find two kids that could do those five things, that's what they did. They were playing their role. And then the tackles and then the linebackers and then the corners and the safeties. So what would happen is, is so we didn't recruit. We took. We took any of the kids because that were who wanted to be on our team, it didn't matter. We didn't play the, this kid's got a ride with that kid game like everybody does, you know, because they're the best player and all that kind of thing. We didn't do that. We just took whoever they gave us. We're typically small and oftentimes we would lose a game early because we just drilled on these fundamentals like you could hear it. And I think that's in. The refs were like, you know, they were. I mean, we would just constantly be working on these fundamentals, just getting the kids to do what they wanted to do. And, you know, and then, and so, and then we installed all of that. And pretty much 90% of what we were going to have for the season, we would install in the first couple of three weeks, maybe two, you know, maybe four weeks, maybe the first two games into the season or whatever it was, you know, and then what we would do is then we would look at it and then we would kind of make personnel adjustments, we would know who our players were, and then we would kind of start to move kids around to get them in the place where they could, they could have success and, and all of that. And then the third, you know, there's some other things in there and then the running along. But the third thing that we would do would be, we would say if, if none of the coaches could show up in the championship game or the last day of the season, whenever that is, that you could do this yourself. Right. So, you know, if you looked at our warm ups, we. It wasn't like you kids get on the line and do a bunch of push ups and do this kind of thing. It was, it was like we'd warm them up and we do some dynamic stretching, but then we'd let them go with their position groups just like a college football team. And we gave them autonomy. Right. Okay. You know, if you're a linebacker, take some pass drops, you know, catch the ball a little bit, loosen up your pads. But we taught them how to do that and then we let them do that. So. So it's subtle but significant. Okay. If you're just looking at your coach and saying, tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do next. You're taking, you're taking the ability away from that kid to be great on their own, situationally out on the field when you're not out there anyway. So if you can teach them that and you teach them the accountability and then they're helping each other stay accountable to it. It's subtle but significant, but it was all about their mindset and how they approached it. And we won championship after. Like, we would. I mean, there was one game, man, we. We had this Nemesis team, and they had literally scored 250 points in a season and given up six. Right? And they crushed us early in the season, like, beat us like a drum. And they had a little film crew out there. They had their postgame party all set up like it was. We were just a matter of course. Right. Okay. Eight to nothing in overtime, we beat them. Wow. You know, we held them to nothing. We held them to nothing. We did that several. A couple years in a row. It was like. And. And it was. And it was, you know, and so. And then now. Okay, so now from a coaching perspective, what are the coaches responsible to do? And I'm. I'm sorry I'm doing this all football, but I also did basketball. I did baseball and all that kind of stuff, Did a little soccer. So. But the coaches are responsible. Now. You. Now you're. Now you got the kids, and they're on their program now. What are the coaches. You are responsible to create one turnover a game that we wouldn't have had through a. Pressure, through something. Okay. And then to create one score. And if we can give our kids one score and one turnover and, you know, then we've done our job. Now it's up to them. Like, if they play even then, then we. We win the game. And. And. And that would be, you know, what they were responsible to do. And then what the parents were largely responsible to do was support the. The program and not ruin everything that we're trying to do in the car ride on the way home. Because that was. Because that's what happens, right? It's. Everything you do is undermined by, you know, them, you know, saying, are you getting a fair shake? Are you getting enough playing time? So, you know, that would be the thing is, you know, support what we're doing here. Don't undermine it. You know, we've got a good thing. And. And, you know, after a couple of years, man, it was like the program was. Was pretty much set. And. And that's. That's the kind of stuff we did. So it probably sounds better than it does. I'm looking at it from my perspective. I was very proud of these kids and these parents and these coaches, and. And it was always. I mean, it was probably the most rewarding stuff working with all three of my kids and the various things that they did. I wouldn't change, I wouldn't trade anything.

For it, nor should you in for me. Number one being 100 aligned in philosophy. Fundamentals and fun come first, especially with kids. Yes, Just understanding even the building blocks that go beyond sports with learning the fundamentals, implementing the fundamentals, having fun, playing for each other. We were talking last week, I just came off of coaching a 6U baseball season and one of the things that we did to help start getting the kids to think like leaders and take ownership was we had little wristbands and every game one or two kids got to be captain. So they got to leave the stretch and lead the cheering and do different things to try to take that sort of responsibility. But that fun, the fundamentals, all of those things are so important. But also listening to how you frame coaching almost perfectly analogous to how you frame your business. So what is successful in business, the successful structure for running business is often quite analogous to the successful structure of coaching youth sports. And there's lessons across the two. We initially met through Vistage earlier this summer. I was running a Vistage program and you know how it can be with a room full of CEOs. You tell people it's a 10 minute break and 35 minutes later they walk in like, what's your problem? So break had gone a couple of minutes long and I just called everybody back in and they all came back in and the chair looked at me like, well, where'd you learn how to do that? Like coaching T ball. And one of the guys looked at me and I said, you would probably be offended if I told you how many similarities there are between coaching 5 and 6 year olds and dealing with a room full of CEOs like attention span motivation, like, oh, 100, 100%. So many things are identical. But for me, when I looked at how I set up my team and my coaching staff and what we were doing, and I haven't got to that age bracket yet, my son is still 6, but I based a lot of it on how I build and run my seminars and workshops and what has, who has to know what in what order and who's doing what pieces for all this to run into place. So those same structures apply. And when you look at it as I'm dealing with human beings and based on the situation that we're in together, what do we want to achieve and what do they need to feel in order to achieve it, Things that we've already discussed today, keeping those high level values and priorities in mind makes such a difference for these kids that otherwise are going to get coaches that are screaming at them, telling them what's wrong, or parents in the car making excuses for them or potentially screaming at them, those kinds of things. So I know we share the passion and I could go on, but having the opportunity to positively impact kids lives through teaching in an athletic environment is such a privilege. It can have such an impact.

Let me share just a couple of stories on this because I never get to please, if you don't mind. I don't mind at all. So, you know, it's like, it's. It sounds like we were running some, you know, crazy program here, right? But at the end of the day it's, you know, if I remember Eric Magnuson, who's our offensive coordinator, his kids played with us for, you know, we were together for several years and I would take the defense, he would take the offense. And which is funny because I never played defense. I learned from a great coach with my older son who's Doug Moore, and I learned like how to coach defense from him. So. And I kind of liked it actually. Now I'm thinking I wish I would have played some defense. I might gone a little farther. But the. So but he would, he would say, you know, it's real simple, have fun, play for one another and eat popsicles on Thursday. So what we would do was Thursday night, you know, we'd play on Saturday, but Thursday was our last practice of the week and we would, you know, one of the. We would have popsicles like, you know, somebody would like that was our thing. So, so the working copy of my book, hey Coach was actually called the popsicle Plan. And that was it. And that was the, that was the working title through the entire thing. Now what happened was, is. So the Gibbs family, we went to South Lake Christian and the Gibbs family, Joe Gibbs, you know, hall of Fame coach and NASCAR family, they coach there as well. And because they had their grandkids. So my kids are all have friends, they're all with the Gibbs, with Joe's grandchildren and they have different ages and we, we all went to school together and just amazing family. They're just, they just are so, so great and every. They contribute so, so, so much to so many pot, so many causes. But so anyway, we had this little jamboree and they had great players and a couple of our players were on vacation, but it was a preseason like scrimmage and stuff and they were just throwing these like they were, had timing routes and they were just, they killed us, man. They, they ran Us, they had the best running back in the league. They had a good quarterback, they had some receivers and they were just throwing these timing routes down the sideline and they, they beat us, you know, five touchdowns to nothing over a, you know, 20 minute scrimmage or whatever it was. I said, okay, well we got a couple of players coming back that are pretty good. We've been working on our fundamentals. I said, but man, we have to take something away from them. We got to take away, you know, you have to take away from another team what they want to do the most. So we decided was we were going to teach our corners to jam. So, you know, you got little 8 and 9 year old or 10 year old kids and you're teaching them now, you're like, okay. So we worked all week on disrupting the timing of their receivers. So like whatever you're going to do, you're not going to beat us over the top. Because, because a 10 year old safety can't really go sideline to sideline. They're just not going to get the jump and that kind of thing. So they took the, you know, we took that away and we had our other players and we kind of hit them in the mouth and we ended up being up 14 to nothing at halftime. Okay. And it was the first game of the season and all of a sudden that, you know, it's like, well, I think coach Gibbs will have halftime adjustments. I think he will have adjustments for his team. And so he got them settled down because they were like, we give, I mean, we hit him in the mouth and they got them settled down and they pro, they were the more talented team. So they start coming back on us, right? And they start really. And so it ends up being 14 to 13 and we're going, you know, we end up with, we're on our own like 11 yard line and it's fourth and four and there's a minute and a half or two minutes left in the game and the kid that's now got his feet under him, he's back there to catch this punt. If we punt it to him, we're not gonna, we're not gonna tackle this kid with the linemen and stuff that we got running around there. I mean if we punted it to him, they were gonna score and they were gonna win the game. So again, here's where the coaching comes in. That last practice we put in something called freeze on tap where the whole nobody moves and they just hand the ball to the quarterback through his legs and he just Walks through the line. So we run that play, we get the first down, time runs out. You know, their players are like, they can't do that. And Coach Gibbs, like, yes, they can. And they did. And you know, they were good sports about it and all that. So we ended up winning the game. So later in the season, he's doing some ESPN NASCAR show and they're coming to the practice and they're watching the kids play and you know, for the show and they're interviewing him and he's. And there's like, wait a minute, Coach, you're seven and one. Like, how did you lose a game? And he goes, and he said, he goes, we got out coached. So I was like, so I have that article, it's up on my wall. And I highlighted that phrase, you know, just for me. Just for me. That shows you what kind of person he is. Like, he's like, you know, like he remembered back. And he's like, well, I mean, and on that day, I mean, they made a call that we didn't and, and whatever. So I met a charity event for veterans some few weeks later. And this is now I'm coming to the end of my coaching career. So I'm going to write the Hate Coach book. And I'm walking out and afterwards and all of a sudden I hear, hey, Coach. And I turned around, it was Joe Gibbs. And so we stopped and we talked and, you know, had a great conversation. And he's always just, you know, he's, he's quiet. Quiet. I mean, not to me. Anyway. He's, you know, he's just, he's just very, you know, very reserved and always very nice and, and thoughtful. He's always on. He's just a great man. And, and anyway, so I'm like, well, that's the name of the book right there. Hey, Coach.

That's awesome. And for people that don't know, Joe Gibbs is a multiple time super bowl winner in the NFL, a multiple time NASCAR champion team owner. So you're talking about people, a man who is coach and led champions at the very highest level of athletic competition.

In two different sports.

So to receive that kind of compliment from that person, if you named any your book, anything else, especially knowing the backstory, it would have been a missed opportunity. And you better have that article framed and highlighted in multiple places. That's, that's a fantastic story.

Yeah, I mean, coach is such an honor. It's like an, it's an honor and it's a privilege and it's an obligation. And then the other quick story I'll tell is I worked. My. My son was playing middle school football, and I was watching for a few weeks, and they needed some help, and I. I actually went on to offer to assist, and then I ended up, you know, working, and they saw me working with the kids. I ended up, like, being the defensive coordinator on that middle school team. And then we went on to win the. The only championship in their history. We actually. We actually, you know, it was. It was a great experience, you know, going from, you know, where they were and then being able to implement things and. And. And they had a good offensive. They had a good offensive mind, a good offensive coach going, and they had good talent, but, you know, they really needed some help on the defense, and that ended up working out good. But we were walking to one of the neighboring schools for our game, and, you know, these guys didn't know. These coaches didn't know who I was or what I'd done or anything in the background or whatever. And we're walking up and the other team's there, and there's maybe 30 kids on this other team, and about 12 of them just start running over and, like, the coaches all just stopped and, like, what's going on? What's going on? They all. They were all my players, so it's kids that I had coached and. And, you know, just, hey, coach. Hey, coach. Hey, coach. How you doing? And we all sat there and, you know, some of them gave you a hug and, you know, some, you know, high five or fist bump or whatever it was, and they were. We were just so excited to just see each other, you know, during that time and. And stuff like that. And, you know, and all the. All our coaches from our team were just like, you know, how does, you know, how does he know all these kids are. Or whatever. So as you walk around and you make this impact and, you know, what did they learn? Like, what did these kids learn from the effort and the organization and the leadership and the lessons and the testimony and all of these. Any of the experiences, the good, the bad, and how you deal with it, like, pouring that in and making that part of a child's experience into their understanding. Like. Like, you know, they could either internalize it or not, but, like, it's in there. Like, they know how to build a team. They know how to approach a situation where there's nothing and then to organize it and then to be able to do that. So I have to think that for some of them, if not all of them, that that effort will play out somewhere else in the world, somewhere in the future through these kids lives. And I think that's really the, you know, that's the reason that you Coach.

Amen. You're 100% correct. Whether they realize it's where they got it from, where they realize that's what it's. Well, that's what they learned and that's where they learned it. I agree 100%. We're not, especially with the young kids, we're not coaching kids to win the town championship, the state championship. It's nice when those things happen. But sure we are building life skills, problem solving, coaching, competition, success under stress, all of these things, values that you talk so much about, that's what we're really instilling. And to me, yeah, I know there's parents that get thrown into volunteer coaching because nobody else could or they don't really want to, or maybe they feel like they're supposed to because their mom or dad did or whatever. But if, if we're getting involved in new sports without the express goal of doing things and instilling values and skills to help these young kids be more successful later in life, then we're wasting everybody's time. That's what it should be about. And I do want to call out that right there. As you wrapped it up, you talked about the same thing for standing up a business, taking something from nothing. Even if the coaches aren't there, even if they don't realize it, they can start somewhere and they can build this and they can make it a success. So once again coming full circle for the skills on the ball field to the skills in business as well. And I'm thrilled that we had the chance to talk a little bit about youth sports because I know how passionate you are about that and I am as well. So to work that into a more business theme conversation was not an opportunity that I wanted to miss. But I think two more questions for you before we head out here. One would be as you look back through all of your experience, business coaching, even some of the CEO groups that you've been a part of, that we didn't get a chance to talk with today. We briefly mentioned Vistas and get to ypo, some other organizations for people who are filling a leadership role, whether it's business, family, community, doesn't matter. For people filling leadership roles, in your opinion, what do they need to always keep in mind to get the best out of those around them? Them?

Boy, that's a big question. Well, be. Be accessible, be authentic and pursue absolute Clarity. And by, by every measure that's possible. What looks like hesitation, what looks like lack of effort, what looks like disobedience is almost always a lack of clarity. When people don't know what to do or why they're doing it, they hesitate, they do nothing, they make something up that's not right, and then it doesn't work, and then they get in trouble, and then they get frustrated. So really part of a leader's role. I mean, one of the biggest. If Patrick Lencioni has a great book, it's called the Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary CEO. And every single one of them has the word clarity inside of it. So, I mean, it's just, it's. It, you know, when, when leaders get lazy or we think. Right. That people understand it and they're just not doing it, that's almost always never the case. So here's, here's, here's something that, that we talk about, right? Many, many people are conflict, diverse. So these three little words I talk about in our team building along with a phrase. And if you can, if you can, if you're a business owner or if you're a business leader, if you can learn to do this, number, number one, the three little words rush to conflict. How many times are you driving around in the car saying, well, so and so didn't do this, or so and so didn't do that, or why don't. Why can't they just do this? Or what. What are they doing? And, you know, and, and, but if you can rush to conflict, the minute you realize that there may be a misunderstanding or some actions that are not tied to results or something like that, that you can rush into that, but you can't do it in a way that's, that's like a grenade. You've got to do it in a way. So, so here's the quote, and I forget the guy's name, but it's the person who can most accurately describe reality without laying blame shall emerge the leader. So when you walk in, I don't care if it's a group project in college, if you can describe reality, here's the situation, here's what needs to happen, here's what the objectives are. And then without saying, but you didn't do this, and you didn't do this and you didn't do that, you know, generally starting with an objective view of the circumstances, the challenges and the goals, then people will start to have that conversation in that way, and then can. Now you can start to organize a, you know, now everybody understands what good looks like or what success looks like. And now you can start to organize your people, your resources, your tasks inside of that, you know, against that opportunity. If you just blow up and say, you know, you're, you know, why can't you just do this? And why aren't you doing this again? Now it might be. Now, sometimes people do need to be fired because they are disobedient or they are giving a lack of effort and they are just trying to rearrange deck chairs and get a paycheck and do as little as possible. People, those people exist in the world right now. Did we make those people? Some. Sometime the way we manage makes those people right. So, you know, it. Culture is a funny thing, man. Like, once, Once it, If you, if you're not intentional about it and you're not consistent with it, once it starts to turn, man, you got a big, you got a big surgery to do in your company. You know, you've got to cut that. You got to cut that out and you got to get clean margins around it. So being intentional inside of a culture, making sure that there's all, you know, that you can have healthy conflict and you can have difficult conversations and in a way that people don't get offended or to get hurt because it's just normal. Of course, when, you know, if you're in a meeting and somebody's saying that's something that's clearly wrong or it's clearly not aligned with the objectives of the organization, that people can call it out and discuss it and get the best answer and not, you know, it not be a, you know, HR problem around it and people saying, you're out to get me and this type thing, I mean, that's, you know, your, your leadership is your leadership. It doesn't have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be this. You can do it in your style. It doesn't have to be this rah rah thing. But like, people have to know that, like whatever, whatever the values of the organization are and kind of those, some of those fundamental tenants of leadership that because of those things, the consistency of those things, everybody knows where they stand. Because as long as people know where they stand, they're usually okay. And even when things don't work out with an employee, you know, I've had them, they. And if you're, if you lead the right way, they will take accountability for that and say, yeah, I just don't really want to work that hard. You know, I've got some other things going on in my life. I'm not looking for, you know, I'm not trying to climb Mount Everest here. I'm just trying to make my bills. I see everybody else is really bought into what's going on here and I should probably just go somewhere else. I mean, I've had that as well too, you know, because once you get a high performing team and then you get somebody that wants to come in and talk to everybody and lean on the walls and talk to everybody and lean on the walls, that's just going to make everybody else's job harder. Or, you know, high performing organizations will reject those people. People. And there has to be a mechanism for that inside of it. Like, it has to be like, I mean, they, they just, they just. If somebody wants to, like, waste time and, and be disruptive and, you know, cash a paycheck, then the organization needs to kind of reject that behavior almost at every level. Like they can't get traction, you know, well, hey, blah, blah, blah. Well, I don't know, but, but what about this? You know, are you getting that done? You know, so. And that's, I mean, that's the beautiful thing about it is, is when you have somebody new and then you have people from all over the organization saying, yeah, that person's not going to work. Like, it's not. You don't even have to do it from a managerial perspective, like, they're just like, no, we can't have this. It's not, you know, they're not here for the right reasons. They don't have good intent. They're not looking to be part of this team and they're not looking to pull their own weight. And you know, at the end of the day, like, high performing organizations get a lot done. And so I don't know if that's responsive to your question, but really, you know, building an intentional culture, rushing to conflict and being able to, you know, being able to have a mechanism where healthy conversations can include conflict and they're still healthy conversations and things are resolved in a healthy manner.

I love it. You answered my question in spades. And I had to chuckle a little bit here in the Clarity piece. Thinking back to coaching, there was one particular time late in the season where the kids were all out in the field and I yelled, bring it in. And they all ran right past me into the dugout and I meant come to me, but they all ran into the dugout and yeah, like, well, they're listening tonight. And I shook my head. I'm like, nah, man, that is all on me. And I walked into the dugout and I told them what I had to say in the dugout, because that's where. But yeah, if 10 kids do one thing, clearly they all got the same message. The messenger has to be the one who's wrong.

Oh, that's funny. Yeah.

I can't thank you enough for this entire conversation. I took a page and a half full of notes once again and we talk relatively regularly. So thank you so much for that. Thank you for all the wisdom you shared. Business, family, coaching and beyond. I really appreciate it. So the last question, there have to be people who are listening right now that are thinking, I need to learn more from Jeff. I need to explain experience more from Jeff. Hey, Jeff said a lot of things about franchising that I hadn't previously considered or wasn't previously aware of. So where can people go to learn more from you, to learn more about you and potentially learn what it may take to get involved in the franchising world through your organizations?

Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that. So LinkedIn, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Just Jeff Duden, Dudan, always looking for, for connection there. And then you can scroll my posts and see all the great things that are going on. You can go to homefrontbrands.com and learn about. I mean, we are one of the, if not the fastest growing property service franchise platform in North America right now. Incredible franchise owners, franchise partners that are joining us. Really quality, quality, quality people that are seeing an opportunity, catching the vision of, of what we're building here and, and coming all in with it. And I'm just so happy to be in business with these people. It's just, it's just a blessing. It really is. You can listen to if you want to know a little bit more about me and how I think about things. I do have a business book called Discernment. It is the business athletes regimen for a Great life through better decisions. It's available on Amazon. So just you can go there and get that book. I understand it's worth a read, especially if you're at some point, transition point in your life and you're thinking like, how do I make these decisions? These are all dozens of models of thought in there about decision making and you know, with, with stories and all of that kind of stuff built into it. And then we have a top 40 podcast on Apple called On the Home Front with Jeff Duden. So you can get that on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere that you get your podcasts. We've had incredible guests on there. So a lot of people that you would recognize, business builders, you know, just really. I got Andrew Zimmern on this afternoon. So that's the Bizarre Foods guy. I'm really looking forward to that. He has a lot to say and I'm really interested to have that conversation with him here in just a couple of hours. So we've had guests of that caliber on, so those are the places to get me. And otherwise, Michael, it's always a pleasure. You have an incredible mind. You are one of the best speakers that I've ever had the ability to listen to multiple times now. You were the highest rated speaker. You nudged me out at our event, which I really, I'm glad for you. Sad for me. We'll go at it again next year maybe. But, but you're, you know, in your book, everybody should read it because the better that we can communicate, the, the better things are going to go for us.

Well, I appreciate all your kind words. Thank you very much. And I, I welcome a rematch next year. So if the opportunity is there, I would jump at that with both feet. So thank you. And let me put a plug in for your book discernment as well, because I read that at a time where I was going through some reevaluation of decisions I was making for my business, and I took some of the question and consideration framework from that and worked it into what I was doing. So I want to make sure that I give a plug for that book and your podcast as well. I'll make sure I have links for everything here. Thank you so very much for your time. As always, so many wonderful thoughts and ideas. I can't thank you enough and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

All right. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Sa.