Let's Go! Ep.4 - EOS® The Visionary-Integrator Partnership feat. Mark Winters

So hiring's hard. My experience says that visionaries like to hire themselves. So anybody they sit across from that, they get the vibe is like them, they really like and they want to hire them. And more often than not, that's not who they need, certainly not as an integrator. And, you know, visionaries in general don't like to follow process, and process is your friend when it comes to hiring.

Welcome to the let's Go podcast, where we help the leaders of entrepreneurial companies take their companies to the next level. I'm visiting with Mark Winters, co author of Rocket Fuel and founder of Rocket Fuel University. You're into traction at eos and growing or scaling an entrepreneurial business. You want to pay very close attention to today's show and you'll probably want to rewatch and re listen and rewatch and re listen and rewatch and relisten. We're going to have some great conversations today about the visionary and the integrator. So over the course of my career, I've had hundreds of business books recommended to me. And as a byproduct, I've got hundreds of partially read business books on my nightstand. I simply can't make it through an entire book. But Rocket Fuel was different. It truly spoke to me. For the first time, I clearly saw the strengths that I bring to both an organization as well as to my life and people around me. And so I saw where I was lacking. And Rocket Fuel empowered me to embrace my strengths and really accept who I am. Mark, I see you're looking really, really proud. I hope that makes you feel good because it's truly from the heart.

I really appreciate that, Kurt. I mean, nice to hear some kind words. And I do hope you mean it. That'd be great to know.

Absolutely mean it. It's been four years since I was introduced to the book by an entrepreneur who ended up being a client. They did a Google search for an operational partner for an operational leader and or as the book describes it, an opera integrator for a visionary. They found me at Higher Better. And in Rocket Fuel, I discovered a playbook for things that I had been preaching since I bought Hire Better a few years earlier. Awesome. Today we get to geek out and all this cool visionary and integrator stuff with Mark. Mark has over 25 years of entrepreneurial leadership delivering a high level of success. His companies, or his experience includes companies like Procter and Gamble, British Petroleum, all the way down to early stage. Very raw startups whose business plans were, you know, started on the back of a Napkin. His diverse background enables him to identify and apply patterns for success for virtually any organization or any business scenario. Mark has an undergrad degree from Oklahoma University or University of Oklahoma, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. And. And He's a certified U.S. implementer in Dallas, Fort Worth. Mark, it's very cool for me to be visiting you today. Thanks for joining me.

Great to be here, Kurt. Thanks for having me.

Hey, Mark, I'd like to start with Some thoughts on 2020 before we dive into Rocket fuel and Rocket Fuel University. You know, let's start with the macroeconomic environment. About six weeks ago, we shifted from our survival and thrival mentality that we've been preaching here on the show and change it simply to let's go. We're championing a no excuses and figure it out mantra simply because we need to find a way. No matter what 2020 or the, you know, the business world throws at us, we need to figure out a way, and it feels like the business world agrees with that. We've actually seen a very positive momentum shift over the past 60 to 90 days, and many businesses have crept into a level where they're, they're at or near their 2019 levels. So I know you had your finger on the pulse of hundreds of entrepreneurs and CEOs. What are you hearing about their businesses? And are you seeing a similar momentum shift?

Yeah. So the observation I would give you first, Kurt, is that in a time of uncertainty and lots of moving parts, lots of craziness, adaptability is key. And to be able to adapt effectively, it all hinges on how clear you are, on where it is you're trying.

To go in the first place.

And so if you've got that foundation, if you've got that clarity in terms of, you know, the horizon, the vision, but then, you know, kind of the path that we had intended to follow to get there, then when the uncertainty hits, it puts you in a position to quickly reevaluate, adjust course, correct. But be decisive quickly in order to get yourself as close as you can back on that, on that track. In my personal experience, and kind of the companies that I see and work with, the vast majority of them that were in that, that stage when, you know, the uncertainty hit, they've done pretty well. They've. They've held onto most of what they thought they were going to get, if not all of it. And actually there's a few of them that have, due to some development in the marketplace, have been able to, to tap new opportunities that they hadn't even seen before and actually be exceeding what their initial plan was. So, you know, I think, I think that's the key. The key is be clear on where you're trying to go. Be able to adapt and pivot and move through the now, whatever the now is, you know, to get yourself back on the line you're trying to get on.

So, Mark, I'm not an integrator, so let's move on to the fun stuff. Numbers, budgets, even though I'm a recovering cpa, bore me stiff. Right? So let's get onto the fun stuff. I want to just make it happen. Right. So let's talk a little bit about the visionary and the integrator. And let's start with you. Are you a visionary or an integrator? What do you match up on the, on the chart?

I'm a high visionary, low integrator. So. So, you know, my visionary index score is about a 96 and my integrator one is like high 30s, low 40s. So, yeah, I'm pretty clearly on one side of that equation.

Well, it's funny, I'm actually very similar to you. I don't know if I, I don't like the word visionary because I don't. It feels grandiose to me, but, and I know you've touched on that before, but I definitely am not an integrator, so let's go there. But I'm detail oriented on certain things. And the reason I knew that you were a visionary is because as I was looking at your LinkedIn profile this morning, getting ready, I noticed that you misspelled the word implementer at the bottom where you said you're an EOS certified implementer. So hope you're okay with me pointing that out here on live tv.

So I'm going to guess that I actually didn't misspell it, that someone else misspelled it and I just didn't catch it. Spoken like a true vision, because I have your same tendency to kind of editorially look at things and find little, little mistakes and little stuff like that. So. But I must confess, I have not scrutinized my LinkedIn profile like that.

Well, I think you just touched on a great thing. Visionaries who understand themselves and know their strengths and weaknesses compliment themselves, find the skill sets that they don't have to partner with them. And, and you've got somebody on your team that does exactly what you just described. So let's dive into that man, because that's really, really speaks to me. So I'd like to. For the group, for whoever's watching, to talk a little bit about my takeaways from the book. And then I want you to set me straight. Right. The biggest part for me was the visionary skills and things that I finally accepted as my own. Visionaries tend to have things like strong relationship skills. They have a grandiose plan. They might have tons of ideas, probably too many ideas, but some of them are probably pretty good. They might be able to sell ice to Eskimos. They might be able to inspire a team to climb a mountain. But the integrator is the one who makes all that happen, the one who sifts through the hundreds of ideas and finds the nuggets that we should tackle. The ones who makes that vision into a reality. They're the ones that take, create the task list, climbing that mountain, setting the schedule, holding people accountable. Did I get that relatively close? Does that sound fairly fair?

Yeah, really close. So, you know, they both have their superpowers and they both have their kryptonite. And so it's about, you know, getting the right pair with the right understanding of that, the right role definition so that they can play in their superpower and together be greater and not get tripped up in these gaps or weaknesses that they may have. But, yeah, you're close.

Well, as I said before, I really, I appreciate it because it gave me license to be myself. And I'm sure I'm not the only person to tell you this, and I'm sure you and Gino hear this all the time, but. But thank you. It's okay not to be detail oriented at times. It's okay not to be a great manager at times as long as we have that counterbalance to put the rocket fuel in the jet engine. So let's talk a little bit more about the visionary and integrator. Actually, specifically, I'd like to talk about the relationship between the two. Okay, so we're going to skip ahead and say we've already. We've already found somebody that complements us and we understand now we've got somebody working with us. You talk about a few things on the rocket fuel journey, I'll call it, and that is crystallize, connect, and maximize. Can you tell me a little bit about what you mean there? And then I'd love to dive into the five rules.

Sure. So crystallize is just getting your arms around this structure, the visionary integrator structure. What are a visionary and an integrator? How does this thing kind of work enough to decide if it's something that can be helpful for you. You know, you may look at it and decide, you know what, this isn't going to help me, I'm not one of these, whatever, and kind of move on. But if it can help, then you move into the connect phase and connect is all getting matched up with your complementary counterpart. And you know, there's a, that's a whole big process and you know, people out there like yourself that can help folks with that to do it, do it well. But then once you're together, the maximize phase is about how do we take that natural friction, that natural head butting that they're going to want to do and, and blend that into something positive and powerful that can actually take this company to, to a higher level. So that's where the five rules really come into play.

Let's talk about the five tools. I think they're, they were spot on. And so let's, let's dig into them. I've got my handy rocket fuel book here in front of me to go through them.

Nice.

I'd like to start with the first one is. Excuse me, is first let me highlight something that you said in the, in the chapter, page 97. It's a quote from one of your clients. And this is, this is powerful stuff. This is from your visionary client. If I have the slightest suspicion that we're not on the same page, I start to meddle and unconsciously communicate to employees that if you don't like my integrator's decision, then you can come negotiate with me. Everybody who's been in a visionary position understands exactly what he just talked about. And I'm sure every integrator is appreciate. Oh shit. That's exactly what my visionary destiny. So that's why the five rules are so important. The first rule, and I'll let you go ahead and dive in and I've got a couple comments. But tell me what the first rule is.

The first rules stay on the same page. And it's number one for a reason because this is the one that people think, oh, I see them every day, we talk all the time. And so they think they've got this handled and they get away from the discipline of staying on the same page and they get bit because just like the example that you referenced there, when they get out of sync, when our visionary integrator get off of the same page, that's when problems happen. And you know, so staying on the same page is about this discipline of same page meeting which happens at least once a month, more often than that in the beginning of a new relationship. But that's where they sit down and really, you know, dive into this relationship. So the first part of the agenda, it's a super simple agenda, but the first part is just a check in on a deep level. So like a personal level. So just like any meaningful relationship in your life. And I have clients that refer to their counterpart as their business spouse. So think of it out of that kind of a relationship, you know, what's going on, what's. What, what are you loving right now? What, what's driving you crazy, you know, what big milestones are happening, you know, in your, in your personal world, what are you excited about? Whatever, anything that you want to share, kind of open up with that, kind of, you know, connect there first. And then the second thing is really just get these issues out on the table. And both parties, the visionary and the integrator, may have thought of some things beforehand that, you know what, I'm not sure we're on the same page about that. Or here's something that's coming up that's going to be really important that we got on the same page before it starts. Or here's something that you're doing that's driving me a little bit crazy, whatever it might be. Both kind of come in with your list and then that's your issue lesson. You just work through that and you work those issues and lots of different ways to do that. We can take turns, we can put them all on the board and kind of prioritize. But a lot of times a visionary integrator will just kind of back and forth. So I pick the one that I feel is most impactful and then it's your turn. You pick the one that you feel is most impactful and we talk it through and we nail it all the way down to the grass when we finish that issue. What must be true is that we must be 100% on the same page. And in that meeting, we're going to spend as much time as we need to to get through our list. So maybe it takes an hour and a half, maybe it takes six hours, right? But we've got to be locked in that room to work through that whole list to get on the same page.

To summarize what you said. Or one of the things is very key element is make sure you present a united front in the presence of your people, along with a consistent message that eliminates organizational confusion. That's so important, folks. If you are seeing something different out there, it's going to cause a. Just a divisive relationship. And you're not going to have a long relationship.

Yeah, we're shooting for basically two halves of the same brain. So that if someone were to come up and ask either one of you about that, you could both share the same type of response.

So I love rule number two, which is officially no end runs a little bit.

Yeah. So no end runs is about going around the integrator, and it happens in two ways. So think about our structure. So we got the visionary, we got the integrator, Then we got the leadership team reporting into the integrator. And so, you know, one form is somebody on the leadership team who before there was an integrator, they always went to the visionary. So they probably have a habit for that. And now that the visionary is there, they still want to do that the same way they've always done it the same way. They've done it for a long time. And when they do that, if the visionary gives them what they're coming for, which if they're coming for a direction or they're coming for a decision, or they're coming to complain about the integrator, if the visionary gives them what they seek, what are they going to do? They're going to continue to do that. They're going to continue to come around the integrator, and that is very debilitating for your integrator. So that basically kind of chops them off at the knees and makes it hard for them to be effective. So we train our visionaries to ask what we call the question. And the question is this. When somebody comes to them around their integrator, the visionary looks at, maybe listens, and here's what they have to say. But then in response says, well, are you going to tell the integrator or am I going to tell the integrator? Because somebody's got to tell the integrator. And confronted with that, your team member typically goes. And they're kind of shocked and frightened for a little bit because they didn't want the integrator to hear. Hear this. But then when they realize that the integrator is going to hear it, then that stops this behavior. So typically within about 30 days, you won't have this kind of behavior anymore. If the visionary will use the question, then the other pattern that we got to break here is the visionaries, because guess what? Before there was an integrator there, they used to go directly to that person. They used to go wherever they wanted down the organization and give direction and make decisions. And, and same thing, they've got to break that habit because when they go around the integrator, they may actually make a decision or give a direction that unwinds and undoes something that the integrator has in place, something the integrator has in process. So they've got to break that habit as well. They've got to get on the same page with their integrators so they can be comfortable doing that. And that's how we run an organization with no end runs.

I love it. This one speaks to me. By definition, most visionaries bring in an integrator and they're going to do things different than the visionary does. Almost, right?

Sure.

Especially if you're trying to scale an organization. And so there's people that aren't going to be comfortable with the way the integrators do things. They're not going to be like to be held accountable. They haven't been held accountable by most visionaries. The natural tendency is to end. Right. And you got to nip that in the bud. We feel so passionate about this when Mark that we created a program we call executive integration or onboarding where we basically play, play a marriage counselor role for the first six months of the relationship. I know you've got some cool tools at Rockefeller University I want to talk about as well. All right, so the third rule is the integrator is the tiebreaker. Talk to me about that one.

Integrator is a tiebreaker. So here's what happens in leadership teams is one leader, let's say it's the sales leader, says we got to go this way and the ops leader says no, we got to go that way. And they try to work it out but they can't. They, they get stuck. And what we can't let happen is we can't stay stuck. And so this is when the integrator, if they've given their best efforts and just can't get past it, then the integrator comes in and basically hears the arguments from both sides in the context of the greater good and the shared vision for where we're trying to go. And then hearing all of that, they take it in and then the integrator makes the decision. They break the tie and make the decision that needs to be made so we can get unstuck and moving forward it again. So again, this is just a, it's a protective mechanism. It's not an all the time thing. We would much rather if it's a decision that one leader can own, that they own it make it and are accountable for it if it's one that crosses over. We love it when they can work it out, but every once in a while they just can't. And so we're not going to stay stuck. And so that's when the integrator swings in, breaks that tide, gets us moving again.

This one struck me that one of the quotes at the end of the book, consensus management does not work. Not everyone will be pleased if, if they, if they don't get their way. But as long as their views have been heard and the team is healthy, they can usually live with the decision. So sometimes you put your big boy and girl pants on and make the decision, right?

Yep. We don't, we don't need a consensus. We don't vote. You know, decisions are made by individuals, not groups. And so we want to identify who the individual is that's going to make it. And hopefully they're the right person in the right seat, and then they're going to give their best effort to make the best decision and then they're going to be held accountable for it. Now, the integrator is also going to be held accountable for these tiebreaker decisions. Right. And so the visionary is watching this, listening to this. They're same page, so they're two halves of the same brain. So hopefully the integrator is going to use that approach as they're thinking about the decision.

Well, I bet you do a lot of counseling yourself as an implementer in these discussions.

Sure. Get to hear lots of these.

Hey, Mark, how about number four is you're an employee when working in the business.

Right. So this is about partnerships or, you know, forms of organizations where you have one or more owners that play an active role in the business. And what's important to be clear on here is that ownership comes with some very specific rights. By the way, one of them is not that you can be an employee in the company. The two rights of ownership are, number one, you got your share of the profits. So however the formula works, you know, we generate some profits, you get your portion of them. Second one is you've got your right to a voice in the major decisions that are reserved to what we call the owner's box. Okay. Which frankly, is a very small percentage of the decisions being made in the business. It's the big stuff. You know, we're going to sell the company, we're going to take on another equity shareholder, we're going to buy a building, we're going to something big like that. Okay. Owner's Box may make that decision, but the other stuff is delegated to the visionary and the integrator and the rest of the leadership team to make those decisions and work them through the company. So if an owner is also going to sit in a seat inside the organization, they got to play like the example of an employee that we would hire off the street. They cannot pull out the owner card and throw it down and go, well, yeah, but I'm an owner, so I don't have to be there. I don't have to be on time, I don't have to do that report. I don't have to do it this way. I don't have to be held accountable. Right? So once they start doing that, it blows the integrity of the whole system because other people see it, they say, well, why is she doing it that way? Or why is he doing it that way? You know, they're not being held accountable. And then it makes it that much more difficult for us to hold everybody else accountable. So owners, they're going to be an employee. They must play by the rules just like anybody else that would sit in that seat. In fact, they should be better at it. It's like the coach's kid. The coach's kid should be held to a higher standard than every other kid on the team. Or else you're going to point the coach and go out study ball, right? So there's that. And then the last point I would make here, here is they can be fired. So if they are not living up to the expectations of that seat and they are not wanting to, you know, play by our core values and not use the owner card, then they may not be the right person for that seat and they can be fired.

Those are tough conversations, but the right ones need to happen if you're truly going to try to scale your business. And I love the analogy of the coaches. So the last one or the fifth one is maintain mutual respect. Talk to me about that one.

So this is about being at eye level in your relationship, right? So, so we shouldn't have the visionary looking down on the integrator as something less than they are. And we shouldn't have the other side of that, the integrator. That's all kind of in awe of the visionary and, you know, afraid of them and whatever. It's got to be strong, it's got to be eye level. And however, you know, out there powerful the visionary is and, and, you know, all the way to 11, the integrators gotta be that way too, in their own way. In their own style. Right. And so that they can. They can kind of lean on each other and be equally strong, eye level. And that gets us right in here. That gets us right in this sweet spot where we can both do what we're great at in balance and really become our strong duo that makes big stuff happen.

There's naturally gonna be some friction, guys. It's just what you do with this friction, how you treat the relationship. As long as you trust and respect and really communicate with each other, you've got a rocket fuel for the jet engine to seal the analogy. So thanks for the five tools. I want to get back for just a few minutes back to hiring. And I know a part of what I want to talk about is hiring the integrator, which is going to be a challenge for most visionaries. But I want to take it a little a step further, Mark, if I may. And that is my belief, and I've talked to enough people out there that, who have the same belief around visionaries. We suck at hiring. I mean, let's just be honest. We, for me, I'll speak for myself, and we can go from there. I like everybody. I want to find the good in everybody. No matter whether you've done the job before or whatever. I'm going to find some emotional tie, whether it should go to the same church and your coach and the same team with me or whatever the case may be. And so I'm going to find a way to like you. Integrators are different, so they're going to hire different people. Talk to me a little bit about hiring in general. Let's talk about hiring an integrator. Specific. Right.

So hiring is hard. My. My experience says that visionaries like to hire themselves. So anybody they sit across from that, they get the vibe is like them, they really like and they want to hire them. And more often than not, that's not who they need, certainly not as an integrator. And, you know, visionaries in general don't like to follow process, and process is your friend when it comes to hiring. So you need to run the steps. You need to screen four core values. You need to be systematic in how you. You flesh out their experience in terms of the capabilities that you're after. You need to check the references in the background and kind of do all this stuff. And so, you know, somebody's got to have that process laid out. And whoever's doing the hiring, whoever's doing the interviewing needs to be following that process. And generally, visionaries aren't great at that.

Well, you're exactly right. Let me touch on one thing that I realized that may have thrown some people off. I obviously own a recruiting firm. I run a recruiting firm. I'm the visionary for a recruiting firm. I've got an integrator who is kick ass and they don't let me hire people. So I do other things well. But I've got a team that's great with the process and all the other things you just described. So let's set that record straight. How about hiring the integrator?

So a couple of things. So in the vein of what we were just talking about with how visionaries hire, when they're interviewing the right integrator, it probably won't feel very good because it's not going to feel like them. And that's going to be strange to them unless they understand objectively what we're looking for, why they need something different. So that's just an important awareness thing. And then it's kind of the process for how we figure out who to hire. The best way to think about it is a three piece puzzle, okay, that you've got the two pieces of the visionary and the integrator themselves. And you know, along where a puzzle connects together, you've got the shape of that edge, right? And so it starts with the visionary really looking at themself and figuring out the shape of their edge. So we talked about the assessments before, the visionary integrator assessments. They need to take that and get both of those scores. That's going to help them. Profiling tests, you know, whether it's Culture index or Colby or Strength finders or Predictive index or whatever it is that's going to help them, you know, going through their wish list exercise and think about what, what, what they're trying to get done that's going to help them. And so all of that stuff kind of helps shape that edge with their integrator. The other piece I want to talk about is the business piece of this puzzle. So the specific business that we're talking about on the visionary side, we have something we call the visionary spectrum, which is how much visionary does this business need? And you know, some businesses, if they're, you know, rapidly changing, super complex, there's, there's, you know, big crazy regulatory environment, tons of moving parts that's probably going to require a lot of visionary. On the other end, some business that's kind of stagnant and not moving much, not growing much, really no complexity, pretty simple, that just doesn't require as much visionary. So we want to understand that as the visionary plugs into the business, right? And then on the other side is the integrator spectrum. And for the integrator spectrum, you know, think about how much integrator your business needs. Do you need just project management?

Right.

It's kind of simple, bringing the people together in the process. You're going to get stuff done, but it's kind of at a project management level. Or do you have an organization that's in, you know, multiple geographies, maybe multiple business lines growing like crazy, tons of complexity? Right. You're probably going to need a much more robust integrator in a business like that. So we've got to understand that. So if we understand, you know, the visionary plugs into the business, the shape of the visionary edge that's going to plug into the integrator and the integrator spectrum is it's going to plug into that integrator piece. And that sort of backs us into the shape of that integrator we're looking for. And then it's all about how do we get the word out there, right? Do I use somebody like you who's great at this and knows how to go find me somebody that's going to be really good? Do I try a fractional solution? Do I bring somebody in part time for a while, one of these fractional integrators that can come one day a week, two days a week or whatever just to kind of get me started and maybe they grow into somebody that can fill the spot full time? Or do I just put the word out through my network? Do I let it be known I am looking for an integrator? Here's what that is. We've got an integrator job description that people can use as kind of a starting point for here's if you know somebody looks like this, let me know and then leverage your professional network to kind of get that word out. We see lots of folks that get matched up that way and then there's the community side. So, you know, we've got communities where we bring visionaries and integrators and other folks that are interested together, where, you know, we have grassroots connection that get made frequently and those somebody will post a thread. I'm looking for my integrator or I'm looking for a visionary to get matched up with and we have people that organically get, get matched up in that way as well.

I love it. The one word of caution I would have on using the network is oftentimes visionaries are they Have a, perhaps a flawed belief in that anybody that comes through their network is good. And so I would encourage most visionaries to have a coach or a counselor or a friend or confidant, somebody who has more of those integrated tendencies to give them some guidance along the way, whether it's an implementer like yourself, or whether it's YPO or Vista Circle or, you know, something like that.

100% agree. It's back to process. Right, so, so that's just the source of the candidate that's not saying anything about the process that you should be running them through. Right. So, so you should have a rigorous process just like we talked about for hiring in general, that any candidates gotta, gotta run through before, before you hire.

Tell me one thing about you that we wouldn't know from reading your LinkedIn profile. Something under this, under the covers, if you will.

Business or personal?

You pick.

All right, so I have intercepted a pass from Roger Staubach in Texas Stadium and run it back for a touchdown.

I'm assuming it was in a family backyard football game of some sort, but tell me more, tell me how it happened.

It was a flag football game. That's absolutely right. And yeah, so that, you know, he was 64 years old at the time, but he still was moving pretty, pretty well and running pretty well for a 64 year old.

So yeah, Mark, those are details that aren't really that relevant. As I tell my wife, don't let the truth get in the way of a good story. I like the first part better.

So that's it. People don't know that? Not on my LinkedIn.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I appreciate that. All right, so Mark, anything else you'd like to add before we close out today?

I don't think so. You know, from a visionary integrator perspective, figure out who you are and, and then go, go find the other, the other side of your duo and make it happen. Entrepreneurs are the answer to a lot of stuff. So let's go, let's go make the world better.

Let's go. Hey, we're going to put the URL in, in the chat box for LinkedIn. But what is the URL? We would go to to take that assessment.

Rocketfuelnow.com for all things rocket fuel. You can go to Mark zwinners.com for basically all the stuff I'm working on and then on some socials. Arc C. Winters.

Awesome. Mark, we didn't cover one more thing. Shoot. We forgot. I forgot. Tell me about the new book you've got coming out.

So Next project is called Exponential Freedom. And it's all about the idea that we each have our own unique freedom. So your definition of what freedom looks like, my definition of what it looks like, my wife's definition. You know, this, this entrepreneur over here's definition, everybody's is different. And if we're actually going to have a chance of realizing whatever ours is and making it real, making it happen, we must be clear on that definition for us, what it looks like. And so exponential freedom is about defining that over multiple time horizons so that you can begin to look in the future and then play that back into what you need to be focused on now if you're going to make that happen. So we got to get clarity, we got to focus on getting it done, and then that's how we're going to be able to experience our own unique freedom.

I love it. That sounds like work life balance on steroids with a plan and a future and a vision. So I'm excited to read that.

Awesome.

Mark, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a real pleasure. I love Rocket Fuel. I love what you're doing with Rocket Fuel University. You're making a positive impact on the entrepreneurial community and I keep up the great work. You're doing great work.

Well, Kurt, thanks for having me. I appreciate what you're doing as well.

To all of you out there, thank you for joining us. We'll be back next week with another edition of let's Go. My guest will be the second in our series that we're doing around traction and EOS and Rocket Fuel. We're going to have hall of fame EOS implementer. My words, not his, by the way, Damon Neff, who is also the author of Exploration about interim executive leadership. Then we've got Mark o', Donnell, the EOS visionary. We just took that role about a year ago. Going to keep the conversation going about visionaries and integrators and why when those guys and gals work together, it's like rocket fuel for your jet engine. Until next week, no excuses. Let's go. If you guys need any help with any of the stuff we talked about today, please reach out to us@hirebetter.com we are the strategic talent partner for entrepreneurial companies and we love to see how we can help you today.