Episode 233: Learning How to Put Your Oxygen Mask on First with Kevin Lawrence

In today's episode, we're going to talk about that self sacrifice you're making. You think it's helping your business. It's not. Kevin Lawrence is going to tell us why. You're about to hear that and so much more on today's episode of the Profit first podcast. Ow. Ow. I nailed it. Oh, we're in. Oh, yes. Here we go. Da da. It was a good one, right?

Yeah.

I got the timing down right. I love the Bob Ross costume.

Me too.

And I love that you can't talk through the beard. You pulled it down.

Yeah.

You look like a blend between the Amish beard. Weird cut.

Yeah. I was going for Abe Lincoln. No. Abe Lincoln with a fro.

No, but Abe didn't shave his mustache, did he? He had a stash.

No, he shaved his mustache.

He did the.

I don't think.

Did he do the Amish look? Now I gotta look.

I think so.

I would say you look a mix between, like, some kind of indigenous, oh, tribes person with a crazy hair and stuff and an Amish cut. Yeah, I'm. I'm loving it.

I'm a hybrid, so.

Hey, my friends, welcome to the private first podcast Amish indigenous person episode Obvious. I'm Mike Michalowicz. I am the author of Profit first and Clockwork, which I guess is still considered a relatively new book. If you don't have it, you better pick it up. And as I start working on my next one, and I am on a mission, a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.

Excellent.

I said eradicate. It's really eradicate.

I know. I wasn't gonna say it, but you said it. That's great.

Yeah. I'm aerating entrepreneurial poverty.

All the dirty laundry out there.

Aerating everything. No, I'm eradicating entrepreneurial poverty. You know what it is where the world thinks you're wildly. The reality is you're struggling. Check by check. You have no time to yourself. You're working like an animal, yet you got to carry on this air. There's the word air of success. That's entrepreneurial poverty, and we're fixing it on this show. And I'm joined in studio by none other than Bob Amish Ross, also known as Kessler. Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the show. You can find us on itunes, stitcher, TuneIn radio, profitfirstpodcast.com. yeah, or we're on Spotify now. Or iheartradio.

That's. You're doing this all without a script in front of you.

Yeah. And if you guys could please leave us Ratings. We're desperate. Some ratings. So if you could leave a rating, take a screenshot, and then send it to me, Kelseykemichalowitz.com and we'll send you a book of your choice. A Mike Michalowicz book of your choice.

Right. I was like, there's this great book out here. Your oxygen mask first. Can you buy that for me?

Well, in this case, we can do that.

Yeah, we can do that. So I got a question for you before we kick off the show today. Yes, I'm at the airport. I've been traveling like crazy, as you know. I'm at the airport yesterday. And you have the plane, and, like, everyone runs for the bathroom. Right.

So, yes, I do know.

Everyone go runs. Right. I go in there. And here's the question that I just want to. I. I think you've never experienced this, but. Or seen this, but I want you to give me your sense because it's.

Unique to a men's room.

Yes. The urinal. So people go to the urinals. And I've seen. There's a couple scenarios. There's some people that go to the urinal and then they. They finish their work there and they. They zip up, they do things. They kind of straighten their shirt. They're doing all this kind of priming and propping while still standing in front of the urinal. Next.

Wait, out of the way.

Okay. There's another scenario that happened yesterday where the guy didn't zip before the drip. What I'm saying is he started walking away, and the thing was still hanging out, and he's kind of walking toward the sink. Oh, yeah, There's. It enters people in the middle ground. They. They finish their job, they zip up, and then they do the prim and propering at the sink.

Yeah. I mean, I guess it's all a matter of your comfortability with.

Comfortability? Is that a word?

I don't know.

I think it's just comfort. I'm calling you out, so I think you should zip before you drip. Right?

Yeah, I think that's a great rule.

But. And I don't even. It just rhymes, so it doesn't really make sense. But. No, I think there's gotta be this balance. I think they should have a little poker and prod for the person behind. So there's a line like the guy's going to the bathroom. You're standing directly behind him. He can't see you. If he's taking too long, I think you should be able to poke him in the back a Little bit.

I think that's a great experiment you should try. I should tell me how it goes.

So here's the deal. We want you to send in the screenshot because the reason we're desperate for reviews is the fact that we didn't really put any emphasis on this. And there's these other shows with less listenership. We know now because we were at podcast movement, we learned about this less listenership. Yet they are ranked higher in all the different platforms because they get reviews. And we had like two.

Yeah. And subscribe. Subscribe is super important.

Yeah. So subscribe. So send us a pic. Yeah. So we're. We're doing. It's like an ethical bribe. We're sending.

Yeah.

Any one of my books, but only.

If you like us.

Will we mail internationally to. Is only in the US we can make. We can make Penguin Mill internationally. Here's the deal. If you're international, it can't be like profit first or. I mean, I'm sorry, can be. It can't be like one of the old books like Toilet Paper Entrepreneur or Surge or something like that, because that. We got package up here. But, you know, Penguin. Penguin said they'll do it now.

Yes.

Just don't go and listen to this episode. I want to thank our corporate partners, make the show a reality. So thanks to nextiva and Receipt bank. And now we're in negotiations with another one.

Yay.

You're handling it.

Yeah.

Did you see the email?

I'll kill him with kindness.

Yeah. You didn't see the email?

No, I didn't.

Okay. It's a really cool company. It's a little bit different for us, but it totally fits, particularly as we rebrand this show to entrepreneurship elevated. Yeah. All right, so last thing before we kick off, I just want to know what you've been up to. How's life treating you?

Life has been so good. Well, except that I twisted my knee last week and I have a cold this week, so.

You're low knee or your high knee?

That shouldn't have been that funny.

My low knee.

Captain Dirty.

Yeah.

Yes.

Captain Charity. How'd you. How'd you hurt your knee?

Kickboxing. Yeah.

Oh, you were telling me about this.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think I was just standing wrong and I twisted it. But I've always had, like, I think a lack of cartilage in my knees, so they're always like. They always click when I walk and. Oh, they hurt a lot when I do any kind of high impact stuff, so. Oh, yeah. But I tweaked it, but it's. I, I, I've never really injured myself like that before, so I'm not used to not being able to, like, move the way I should normally do. Like, I still can't really walk up steps. Right.

Did you hear in the huddle today was that. Who is that? You sharing someone? Oh, Mike Scalise, the wine lumberjack. A grandparent fell, broke both ribs, punctured their lung, and classic grandparents. I'm fine. I'm good. The grandmother's like, he's fine. He's just. He's always grumpy. There's a rib sticking out of his body.

I know. Yeah.

Yeah. My parents are the same way.

I think most of them are.

You know, my father, last night, I told you. And I'm almost immune to this because it happens frequently, but he passed out during dinner. Low blood pressure. EMTs came there. I came over to the house, check him out. He was semi conscious for 30 minutes. And we're like. I said, dad, you're going to hospital. I don't need to go, Jim. I'm like, my name's Mike. He's like, what? He's like, what? And he's, you know, I'm like, you're not. We're going to the hospital. And my mother's like, he's done this before. He'll be fine. I'm like, no. So we get there, he's super dehydrated. They're like, oh, if he stops, if he isn't drinking more water, like, this will put him in cardiac arrest.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. That's a fun. That's a fun way to start a show, I'll tell you that.

I know.

All right, Klaus, here's what we're doing. We're going to get right into the meat and potatoes. We do have some listener shouts later. We're going to talk about our sponsors later. Lots of stuff coming up later on in the episode, but I want to get some meat and potatoes. His name is Kevin Lawrence. He is a strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams across North America and internationally, where Penguin ships their books. His unique perspective working with hundreds of leaders inspired him to write a book. We're going to talk about today. Your oxygen mask first. You know that self sacrifice you're doing that you think is helping the company, it's actually destroying it. His book deals with the dark side of the leadership dichotomy and offers 17 practical steps. I hope we can get most of them out of him without being trampled with Life. Now, here's one thing you may not know. He's helped over. I think it was two of his clients achieved the Entrepreneur of the Year award. They're the US recipients in 2017. He also works closely with my friend Verne Harnisch. He wrote the participated in writing Scaling up, which was the kind of the version 2.0 of Rockefeller Habits, which is an amazing book. If you haven't read that, read Clockwork first and then read that book. But you got to check it out. So with no further ado, I want to welcome to our show Kevin Lawrence.

Welcome, Kevin.

Hey, thanks for having me, guys. I'm really excited to be here. It's going to be fun today.

Oh yeah, we're pumped to have you and to learn about the dark side of entrepreneurship. And I know you've personally experienced it. I assume that's usually the impetus for writing a book. So was that the impetus and what happened if it was?

Yeah, you know, it was the impetus for writing the book. Going back, this is more than 20 years ago and the impetus for starting my own business. And for me, if I this is back in. I was like 23 or 24 and I was one of my first serious jobs and I was just killing it. And I remember I was in sales and there's a sales contest and I had another guy in the office who, let's just say we didn't get along. And I'm like, hey, how did you know? I was trying to be nice, but I was like, there's no way he's gonna beat me. And we were like neck and neck in this sales contest. I remember real clearly. And I sat up all night one night going, I have to win. And I figured out a strategy the next day. There was a couple days left in the sales contest and I found a way to win. Interestingly, I got first place and second place because of the way the contest was. I destroyed the guy and I felt like, woo. I felt awesome. Got, you know, the company sent me to Europe for three weeks. That was actually one of the first prize.

Super nice.

Yeah, it was. So as a 23 year old kid, got to travel around. It was awesome. But then shortly thereafter, boom, I just hit a wall and just literally. And at that point in time, you know, I was high, obviously very high performing. I was kind of the golden boy of a lot of things. I got a note from my boss that said, hey, are there any more like you at home? You know, everything is just going my way and. But when I hit that wall I was basically just cooked and like, mentally destroyed. And it probably took me like two years to recover, literally.

Wow.

Now, thankfully, I'd done so well in my job that in the next year I could coast. And in sales, you normally can't coast, but I could pretty well coast and maintain where I was at. But then I just, I just go like, this is not right. And it got me on this path and this quest of, of figuring out one, how the heck to fix myself. And then two, it actually, it was the catalyst for me getting into coaching because it became clear to me that that's what I really wanted to do with my life. So then I've spent the last 20 something years learning what does it take one, not to get in that situation or, or when you do, how to fix it. And then two, just, you know, exploring this amazing world of coaching and working with. With great leaders around the world.

It's interesting how trauma. And now I have a new understanding of trauma is. Trauma can be with a big T or a little T. The big T. Trauma is like a heart attack or abuse or something, and there's little T's where it's these events in our lives where enough is enough and we just stop changes. But what I've noticed, Kevin, is us entrepreneurs were, you know, we wear the badge of self sacrifice like it's a thing of honor. Just as an example, I had a call with a friend, this is years back, named John Bates. You know him, Kelsey. And John's like, Mike, I had a grueling, grueling day yesterday. I only got four hours of sleep working. And I'm like, I only got three hours. I'm bragging, right? And I'm like, you know, and I didn't realize in the moment, but reflecting back, I'm like, what an idiot. Kevin, what's wrong with us? Why do we. Why are we so proud of abusing ourselves?

Because we have egos and because. And because it works. I mean, the truth is self sacrifice does work. It works like really, really well. If you're gonna work, you know, seven hours a day productively, and I'm gonn 14, assuming I'm productive, I can often make more stuff happen. So that's the problem of self sacrifice. It's one of these strategies that it works and until all of a sudden, bam. It stops working in an instant. And so. And when things pay, we're human, right? We condition ourselves to do it, and that's what happens. Like a lot of people I see, I was talking last night with someone is in their, like mid-20s and they were talking about how they're not getting a lot of sleep and they're pushing themselves really hard, but it all seems to work. I said, absolutely. I said, wait till you're in your 30s and one day you get a rude wake up call. And sooner or later, for most people, when it explodes, it's an absolute mess. So one, going back to why. One, because it works up until that point. Two, there's a pride thing. And three, because people that get that I'm helping and I'm sure, same with you, Mike. And my book is written towards are super high achieving people that are so driven. They've got so much to do. There's like not enough time in a day.

Yeah. These overachievers.

Yeah. So that.

Okay, so, but we got to correct this. But the same respect. If I go to an overachiever and say you just got to work less or slow down, they're like, no. Right? Yeah. That's how they laugh. Exactly.

Yeah. Like, what's wrong with you? No, I don't want to go get a government job. Right. I don't want to play it safe. I want this adventure called life.

Right, Exactly. I have a recording of Kelsey. Kelsey was. Because she's an overachiever. I was like, kelsey, it was like 10 o' clock at night. We're like just cleaning up the office here. And I'm like, kelsey, I can't do any more. Do I have to move these boxes? And here's the recording of what she said to me.

Do it.

Just do it. Right. I mean, like, that's the energy level.

Being a weenie, Mike.

Yes.

You're a weenie. So what do you, what do you do, Kevin?

And what I learned along the way. And I had an amazing teacher. This guy's name was Thomas Leonard. He's actually the founder of the modern coaching movement. He was absolutely brilliant with a big B. And sadly, he passed away about a decade ago. But the guy was master. But he said, generally, if you want to play a high stakes game in life, which all of us do, the people that are listening to this podcast, I'm sure do, then you need to take amazing care of yourself. And he actually redefined this thing called selfish. And he said, look, we'll come to selfish in a minute, but first thing, you have to look at this thing called self lists. And that's where you're so generous and giving of your time and your money and your energy that you do anything for anyone else and you become a Doormat. And you basically deplete yourself. You know, that's the martyr. That's, you know, and that's a lot of, there's a lot of thinking today which drives me bonkers, you know, about putting everyone else first. And even the principle of, you know, leaders eat last. I mean, that's actually a great book. I like it. But that. Or, or the servant leader principle. Yeah, being a servant leader. Oh, it's so sweet and it's just beautiful, but it's, it's dumb.

Ye.

Because if you focus on taking care of everyone else, you will get destroyed. No two ways about it. So he says, selfish, so selfless. That is a horrible strategy, but it sounds really nice in our world. Then there's this thing called self centered where you just suck and take everything from everybody. And he said self centered. They're not nice people and we don't want to be them either because they're like leeches. But in the middle there's this beautiful, beautiful place called selfish. And that's where you take spectacular care of yourself first. So you can be more generous and more helpful and more supportive in your work and in your life. But he goes, if you don't take care of you, the whole system falls apart. So you gotta figure out what do you need and take care of you in a way that makes you strong and resilient and happy. And then the rest can go with the energy you have left over.

You talked about this wall moment. Basically like where self sacrifice works until it doesn't. How do you know when it's not working?

It's really obvious, man. There's this thing called the mental health continuum. Look it up online. Many mental health associations around the world use this model. And it's got a green, yellow or green, yellow, orange and red zone. You just read the descriptors, it's obvious. So what it looks like for the CEOs I work with is that they'll call me and they'll say, hey Kevin, I just can't sleep. And this would be a person who normally can and I'm starting to lose it, or hey, Kevin, my brain function is starting to get weird. My brain is foggy and I feel dumb, like I can't think properly anymore. Or they'll say, hey Kevin, I'm on this thing called an airplane and it feels like a little toilet paper tube and I'm starting to have panic attacks and like I want to jump out the window. So your brain starts. There's fatigue and everything else, but your brain starts the Brain function starts to be dramatically different. And then the other side of it is, is that you socially will be more likely to withdraw and not socialize, which is the worst thing you can do. And finally, addictive behaviors kick in and start to run your life. So if you're a person that generally, you know, eats chocolate or shops or drinks and you have a certain pattern, that's normal. Well, that doesn't mean you have a problem. But if you can't control it and shopping gets out of control and it starts to run you, or instead of having a glass of wine every couple of days, you're having a couple of bottles a day. It's just these. These coping mechanisms kick in. So brain function gets weird and coping mechanisms kick in. The problem is, the real problem is, is that when it happens, you know, nobody wants to talk about it now. It happens to every high performer I have met. Now, they're not going to tell you when they're getting the Entrepreneur of the Year award or another client. The client, Nigel Bennett, who I think you've interviewed as well, you know, he got a Matt. He got a great big award from bcit, the. The school. He went to, like, a big gala event I was at last week for him. And he's on stage, but he's not talking about when, you know, he got knocked down. So the problem is, is that it's normal. It's part of the journey. It's like getting a cold, except for it's your brain. Normal. But because of our pride and our ego and all that stuff, we don't want to tell people about it. So when it happens to us, we're like, oh, I guess I must be a loser. Oh, I guess I must be weak. Oh, I guess there's something, you know, wrong with me. And then people don't get the right help. And it goes from bad to worse to traumatic.

Yeah. So interesting is that there is that that wall. We deny the reality of the struggle. In fact, it reminds me of Elon Musk's story recently. Did you hear about that one where he misses brother's wedding, basically. And he's working in the office five hours, five days, consecutive, without leaving the office. And yet in the news, Kevin, he's like. He's what we all want to emulate. I want to be the next Elon Musk. He's having a nervous breakdown.

Yeah. And at least he's slightly more transparent about it. But first of all, that behavior is not surprising. You do not do great things in the world without great sacrifice. That's the game. You don't climb Mount Everest without some serious toll on your mind and your body and probably on your wallet too. But, you know, it's. That's just. That's the game of life. So it's like Elon's behavior. Of course he's doing that. You don't build an empire by, you know, sitting on the coach Saturday mornings for five hours doing nothing. Generally, you don't. So if it's the norm to be that committed, I talk about. In the book. I talk about it. Basically, the problem is your commitment exceeds your capability. And that's the good news. The commitments aren't gonna stop. That's why you do great things. Why would you want to back down? But you need to build capabilities to handle that level of commitment. And in a book, I talk about, you know, the whole thing that started this for me was actually Elvis Presley when he died, and I was a kid. And I just like, how can this guy who's got it all, he's rich, he's famous, he's got a beautiful wife and a wonderful daughter. He's got his own heir airplane.

Right?

And he's a rock star. Why the hell would he end his life early? Because, you know, if you study him and Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse and Robin Williams and. And, you know, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, all these, you know, people in. That we see in the media, they basically said, thanks, I've had enough, and I didn't get it. And that's why I've been studying it for so many years.

Yes. These people, all those cases, they're. They've put in crutches, they set a performance level they can't maintain, and then they supplement it through. I remember when. Who died recently? Oh, my God. Purple Rain.

Oh, Prince.

Prince, like, so we made this felt into it, maybe at the end. Let's do it.

Yeah.

Yeah. With your Bob Ross outfit. But what's interesting is with Prince, at least my understanding, this is very periphery. But he died from painkillers, I believe.

That's what I heard.

And he had an addiction to him. And I believe what the painkillers did initially is they helped him continue to perform at a certain level through pain and then became an addiction, ultimately killing him. And maybe it's not manifesting in drugs for everybody, but entrepreneurs do. They try to put these crutches in place to keep pushing through even though they're injured, so to speak.

Of course. And again, there's alcohol, there's painkillers. Any sort of addictive substance gives you short term relief. Alcohol shopping is a painkiller for a lot of people. Literally all these things. And again, look at by nature, a lot of humans are addictive and a lot of entrepreneurs are more addictive than average by nature. From some of the research I've seen, I would be one of those people as well. And that's all cool. You just gotta learn to watch the behavior and know when it gets out of control. And things I talk about in the studies in my book are getting into things about what are the things and the capability building tools that you need. One of the things, one of the chapters I thought was called getting rid of your emotional junk or deal with your emotional junk. We all have historical traumas that keep, all of us have these that keep coming up and haunting us. And they're one of the reasons that we need distracting or addictive things in our life is to push them away. Well, and it also creates bad behavior. It creates behavior that we have and how we interact with people or solve problems that's less than optimal or damaging. So I believe most of us need at least 30 or 40 hours of therapy. I think that's a minimum for most people. If you want to play a big game because you're basically, your junk starts to get in your way and your junk starts to show up everywhere and forget about the people that you're throwing your junk at. It decreases your own peace of mind and unnecessarily creates more stress in your world. So there's lots of different things people have to learn now. People don't love to talk about this stuff. So for me, having worked with so many high performers around the world and having to help them fix themselves and get themselves happy and high performing, there's a lot of, I would call almost somewhat unconventional things that you need to do to get there.

So I know you have in the book, you have 17 habits. And so just so our listeners know, again, because I said in the beginning, but the book's called you oxygen mask first, which I love that it's a popular phrase and it's so clear what this means. You got to take care of yourself first. So let's go through some more of these things. So first you said deal with your emotional junk. And the solution is to get therapy. Just can you give a little more clarity around that? Is it, you know, hire a psychologist, get a business coach. What do you mean by therapy in 40 hours? What a week? I mean, that's all I'm doing. Now is therapy.

Yeah, well, it depends on how messed up you are, Mike.

40 hours a day.

I don't know. Hey, hey. No, it's basically, look it, you got two things you need for emotional junk. You need a workaround. So you need a strategy when you get into a situation where you're gonna likely have. So, you know, for me, often it's. If I'm in a hurry and I'm shopping, I am notorious to myself, at least that I will find something. And it's not. I know it's not right, but I buy it anyways because I'm under time pressure, and under time pressure, I make bad decisions consistently. Consistently. So I have a workaround. And it's a very simple thing because I also don't like to disappoint people. So if I'm in a store and someone's very helpful and I see an item and I'm not 100% on it, I'll say, hey, let me think about this for a little bit. Can you hold it for an hour? And if I still want it, I'll come back. And again, that is a tiny thing, but I've wasted, like, thousands and thousands of dollars buying stuff I don't want or I know, I know isn't right. So it's a simple mechanism to help me. And that's a basic one. You know, there's other ones if you're going to get angry and blast somebody and having a workaround. So there's the duct tape, I'll call it. And then there's dealing with the underlying issues so that you don't make bad decisions or have regrettable behavior. It's real. So. And if it could be a coach, a coach is an easier place to start. If it's deeper trauma, that's what a psychologist is for. And they're really good at dealing with that stuff. And people have stigmas around that, like, get over yourself. I mean, really, you've got something that went wrong in your brain. It's like someone dropped poison in your brain. Let's get the poison out.

Right.

It's basic, right.

If you break your arm, you don't. You don't bitch a moment about going to the doctor. Like, oh, yeah, exactly.

You don't. You don't have a. Yeah, there's no stigma about going to the doctor for broken arm.

Yeah.

So let's not have a stigma about when your brain gets messed up, because it happens to everyone. And that's the thing I tell people, look, it's normal and, you know how many times in the conversation I say, well, just say no, this is normal. I've seen this like a thousand times. And they're like, oh, okay, okay. I feel, I feel better. So, so yeah, that's, it's basic.

Got it. So give me some more. So there's one technique I think at 17, we don't have time for all 17, but give us some more techniques to get out of that self sacrifice mode.

The second one is double your resilience. I mean the core principle is like work life balance is an idiotic concept. It is impossible. And as an entrepreneur or leader in a business, you're never going to get it. So let it go. It just makes you feel guilty. So instead we talk about work, self, life and something I call passion ratios. It's how much of your best energy or if you think of an oxygen tank of your, of your best oxygen do you allocate to those three areas of your life? Because usually people put themselves last and there's none left. So like on the airplane, put your mask on first, then help someone else. So it's, you know, figure out your passion ratios. Like for me, I've seen the minimum somebody needs to take care of themselves and be strong and Resilient is about 10% of their best energy. And then that could be because you need to work out or you need to put energy into eating. Well, you need to do some sort of a spiritual activity or writing. And then you need to go to an art festival once a month or whatever it is. For me, it's racing cars. If I don't get to the racetrack with my buddies and go and go crazy on a racetrack, I don't feel right. Now you can judge that and you can have all kinds of things that you would say that make that bad. Fact is, man, it works for me. Nobody gets hurt. I feel amazing. But if I don't do it, it's like my system starts to get thrown off.

Interesting. So are you saying put, put a amount of time into something that's outside of your business? Because I think some people say, but my passion is my business. My passion is making money, you know?

Yeah, well, that's. Maybe you need to have a talk with someone if that's what you do.

So far, both we've diagnosed I need to see a therapist.

Yeah, well, here's the deal. Or just this is not, this is not there. You just need basic stuff like here's the deal. I love my business. I love helping people. Right. It's, it's what I do. And I get a kick out of it. But the way I break it out in the model is that there's body, mind and spirit. There's things you have to do for your resilience that is about your body and there's things about your mind. Most people, as they progress in their career, need something to start to manage their brain. You know, I studied with this crazy Buddhist monk like 25 years ago and he taught me a lot about the brain and meditation and how it helps. And you need to do something for your brain because it's like a muscle that needs to be trained and conditioned. And then spirit, there's just this stuff that lights us up. So, you know, people say, oh yeah, my work covers all of those. Or I run and it covers all of those. I say, yeah, that's kind of like cheating. Not necessarily the case. You know, what is the truth about what lights you up inside and makes you feel amazing and ideally think of different things.

What's it for you, Cal?

Work doesn't scratch at all.

Dancing. Yeah. So Kelsey started morning dancing.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

What's the third? Give me a couple more of these tips to overcome that. Self sacrifice.

Yeah, yeah. Well, so that'd be the one that, that links into is double your resilience.

Yep.

Is that you. You need to make yourself twice as strong. But again, the problem you have is that your commitments exceed your capability. So you have to build capability. So one is your personal resilience so you can handle more. Another one is, for a lot of entrepreneurs is it's make yourself useless.

What?

And this is. Yeah, make yourself absolutely useless. So it's basically to build a team so strong there's nothing much you have to do in your business really.

So the business runs like clockwork. For example, now available on Amazon. Hey. Boom.

Nice setup.

You're the man. So what do you mean by make yourself useless? That sounds absurd.

Most people have a crappy team, period. Most people are trying to play NHL level hockey. I'm from Canada. So we think hockey, they're trying to pay top level hockey with a beer league team. And then they wonder why. It's a bloody nightmare. So people and I work with lots of entrepreneurs that every one of them generally is something we talk about all the time. But if you're expecting and you want to do something great, but you have a good team, I'm sorry, it ain't happening. You know, I've been very fortunate to spend time one on one with Jim Collins, with. With, you know, groups of CEOs that I've helped to take to go and spend time in his lab. And the one thing he talks to every group of them about, I mean, that guy's. He's like guys like sitting with Socrates. He's amazing. But the one thing he talks about is, you know, if. If you don't have of your most important roles in your business, your key seeds, he calls them, if 90% of them aren't filled with the right people, you cannot be a great company. It's not possible. And most entrepreneurs are very loyal to their people. Very loyal. And as a result, they have a bunch of dead weight on their teams and they wonder why they hate their business or they wonder why it's over overwhelming or too hard or not growing fast enough or not profitable enough. And so the idea of this is to get real straight up with yourself. And generally you need someone to help you. If I'm going to be honest about it, because it's hard and basically have a team. In my language, it's an A to stay. So to be a direct report of any of the entrepreneurs I work with, the bar is you have to be an A, which means you fit the culture and you constantly deliver the results with no drama, almost no hassle. You're just spectacular. And most people don't have that. And that makes a huge amount of strain.

Yeah. And I've seen it. I've seen it where, you know, in the beginning, small stage of a business and an entrepreneur brings on a person like, you know, they're not great, but they either. Right. Came on the right price point. They're helping me, and now they're actually hurting the business. But the entrepreneurs, like, I'm loyal to them. They've been around forever.

Yep.

And you know, and A, they're, they're like D level. So are you saying if people aren't making, you got to get rid of them?

I'm saying that they have to make it.

Yeah.

So it's an A to stay. No different than an NHL team. If I'm having a bad couple of weeks, I don't play.

Yeah, right.

So what I'm saying is so. And I'm a very compassionate person and I love people like most of the, you know, CEOs I work with. But it's like, so. Yeah. So let's say that Kelsey was the CEO and I'm on the team. It would be like, hey, Kevin, man, you got it. You got to step it up. I need X, Y and Z from you. This just isn't working. How do we get you there. And that'd be, hey, Kevin, you know, maybe there's a way we could modify your role. Maybe you should be taking marketing instead of sales or, you know, and working with me. So it's basically try to make it crystal clear where the bar I need to jump over, which most people are horrible.

Yeah, yeah. So clear on the outcomes.

So crystal clear. And paint them crystal clear. And we go back to scaling up and Rockefeller habits. Crystal clear KPIs and quarterly deliverables, number one. And then so and try and get me to deliver in a role and as the leader, try and give me the coaching or mentoring or training I need. But if not, maybe there's a better role. If not, maybe there's a better company.

But it's the big realization for me too was I've let go employees. I actually was disservice keeping them. They were not successful in their role here. They weren't happy, but they were just staying for the job. Once I let them go, I followed some people. One woman became a judge. Another person went on to be a director at a major company. They actually, one person actually went on a sale trip around the world. They've achieved something that I was actually holding them back from. That's the way I perceive it.

Yes.

Give me time for maybe one or two more tips from your book.

Yeah, sure, sure. I think there's so many that I think are that are. The other one is invest in your sweet spots is to figure out what you love to do and are good at and the environment you like doing it in and have 80 or 90% of your energy into that. Like don't torture yourself, don't do things you're not good at, or don't enjoy. And there's an old, old school farm work ethic that you kind of just need to do whatever it is and suck it up. But there's no way you can sustain high performance if your work drains you. So you got to get real clear on what works for you and delegate or build a team to handle everything else and be just fanatical about it.

Love it. Give me one more.

Stop being chief problem solver.

Oh, I love that. The super mirror, the Superman syndrome, where you swoop in and fix things.

Right, Exactly. And our ego loves it. We can pound our chest and stand on top of the monument with a cape blowing in the wind and everything's amazing and we feel good, but then everything's on our shoulders. So our egos love to solve problems. It's the best feeling in the world for any human is just to like, let me tell you, and I'll have the answer. It's like the kid raising their hand in the class. I got it, I got it, I got it. But. But the reality is, is that when you answer your people's questions, you're taking the pressure off their shoulders and their opportunity to learn. And you will be answering their questions forever. So as a leader, your job is, is to not answer the questions and get them to solve it themselves. Most of the time my recommendation is 90%. The other side of it too is, is not even telling people how to do things. Because when you have high performing, strong people on your team, they don't want to be told what to do. Right. They want to figure things out for themselves. That's gratifying for them. But this one is hard for a lot of leaders. Really, really hard. Because it's a sense of control, it's a sense of pride and intelligence. And if you don't do that, you won't build the team that you need.

I love it. So tell us, Kevin, where can people pick up your book and if they want to work with you personally or your team, how they go about that?

Yeah, I mean, the best way you can go is Lawrence & Co.com L A W R E N C E A N D co you can find out about the book. There's audiobook, there's a workbook, there's videos on all the chapters. I've kind of put everything there you could possibly need. And the most important thing is there's a self assessment. You can go and assess yourself on the 17 habits and you'll find that on the site as well. So you assess yourself. It'll give you links to resources and other things that you can do to help yourself along the way. And if you want help with it, we've got coaches and other people that can help if you need assistance or, you know, you can take it to your existing coach or person that you work with and get them to help you through these principles. It's all straightforward stuff. But the book and a workbook are just written in a paint by number way. It's written for entrepreneurs. It's, you know, a few pages for a chapter and then a whole bunch of questions to contemplate or exercises to help you get there.

Bob Ross sitting across me, her ears peeked up when or perked up when you said, oh, it's paint by numbers. You're like, yes. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. Make sure you Stay on. We gotta ask you something at the very end, so hang tight. But my dear listening friends, I am telling you. How many times have you said that phrase, put your oxygen mask on first? I know you said it. Everyone says it. Now. There's a book that teaches you how to do it. I can't go any higher pitch than that. There's a book that teaches you how to do it.

I think that's perfectly high enough.

Yeah, get the book. All right, Kal, so what we're gonna do is we did the listener shout out. I think I missed that. I want to read the listener shout out. I want to thank our corporate partners. I want to review what we learned, but I wanted to do it randomized. Okay, so you tell me, what do you want to do first?

Right now let's talk about what we learned.

Okay, we're gonna learn. Okay, we learned. I'm gonna go first.

Yeah, go.

Okay, here. I. Well, I like the. The tips. I'm curious now about the remaining seven. I liked the commitment exceeds capability concept. I've never heard it said so concisely and clearly. So very succinct way of seeing it. And what. What kind of empowered me is like I look at Elon Musk and say, I want to be the next Elon Musk. No. Like, that's not who I am. I want to be the best of myself in that. Commitment exceeds capability brought clarity to it. I thought with the opening with be selfish, not selfless or self centered.

Yes.

That was a really interesting thing.

Yeah.

Because I can see how those extremes can work against you. And then the tips, man, I wish. I wish we had time to do all 17, but there's a book out there to solve that. What was yours?

I know, I know. So I feel like this is super important for anybody, not just entrepreneurs. Like, I think that learning the balance of self sacrifice and selflessness and like, finding that sweet spot where you take care of yourself enough to really fully take care of the people around you and to serve whatever your purpose is. And I feel like for entrepreneurs, it's an elevated level because I think that there is isolation that comes with entrepreneurship, and I think that there is an elevated pride or ego that often comes with entrepreneurship. So there's an even more of a barrier to, like, talking to somebody or talking about it. But as a rule of thumb, I think everybody should see a therapist. I just feel like you need a neutral person to just dismiss some of the narratives in your head. It's just like a calibration just so that you understand what is sort of reality and what is perception that you've concocted in your own head over time.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I just. I love this. I feel like it's super important.

I need to see a therapist. Could you. Could you tell Amy to line me up? Because I have that health day coming up. I want to see a therapist. Do you see a therapist?

I did. I don't see one currently.

Yeah. You know, I have that business coach come in, Barry Kaplan, who's extraordinary, and I do calls with him every so often. Just saying, here's what I'm thinking. And yeah, it's a great just event. But I like to see a therapist. Just. I wonder. It'd be kind of weird to go in and therapist, like, what's going on? Like, I don't know.

But that. That's it. It's just sort of like, you know, talk about sort of pain points or insecurities that you have.

Yeah.

And what is the root of that? Where does that come from? And you can kind of unravel some of those things.

Yeah. Okay, so I think it was a general therapist. Like, I don't want to go in. Like, you know, like, you know, I don't know, I'm harming myself or something. Therapist. So what's your problem? Like, nothing. I don't know.

There's like, social workers that. That's what they do.

Okay.

You know, okay. What would Ruby. Ruby tan? What was your takeaway?

Fat daddy.

Fat dad. That's what I thought. Okay, so what do you want to do next?

Oh, let's do the shout out because I want to send her mail.

Okay.

So this one comes from Justin. He says, I'm enjoying Clockwork and enjoyed your other books, Profit first and Pumpkin Plan. Wish I had these four years ago before I started my business. Oh, also, I like your Profit first podcast. I listen when I'm installing window film.

Boom.

Thanks, Justin.

Justin, you are the man. And I wonder when people put that O in there. Like, that's the weirdest. That's the most difficult thing to write. Well, you ever see that, like, on commercials, they're like, oh, this product does this and this and this. Oh, and we forgot to tell you, it's like, so not an O. That's probably one of the most difficult words to use, I think, in the written language to make it come across effectively.

Yeah, yeah. Are you saying my reading skills wasn't effective?

I don't know.

Like, I mean, yeah, this is a hard one for him to deliver.

Yeah.

What do you want to do now?

Now we should talk about our sponsors.

Okay, there came a little bit late. Did you know we may have a new sponsor coming? No, I swear. I swear. But we don't know if they're going to sign up because Kelsey's. Kelsey's got to negotiate that for us. Come on, man. No, I'm serious. I'm serious. So first, I want to thank next Diva.

Yes.

Voice over IP phone system. I committed to doing the email blast for them. They didn't even ask me. There was an article about Thomas Gorny, the founder. He's a. He came to the US when he was. He immigrated, I don't know, in his 20s, broke Eastern European, came here with a clear vision of how to serve. And he's always been about empowering small business and grew a billion dollar company called Web.com sold it and the Nextiva is approaching those type of numbers. And when I met with him, it's like, oh, this guy is like, you know, he just wants to be a big famous entrepreneur. He's like, I just want the small guy to win. Like, he's like, you don't know the struggles I experienced coming from Eastern Europe into the US and so it's. They're really on a mission. Yeah. That being said, They're a VoiceOver IP phone system. They're amazing. They're great. And I do owe them an email blast because I want to share this story out there and I forgot to do it.

Excellent.

And then the other company is Receipt Bank.

Yes.

You know, I finally got the advanced version. There's different levels. I got this advanced version.

Oh, cool.

I haven't installed it yet, but I got the password. So I don't know. Great story. I don't know what the functions are yet beyond it, but the base function is this. Any receipt you have, you scan in, it ties into your accounting system so you're properly tracking all your stuff instead of, you know, there's two things you're doing. Either you're collecting those receipts and you're throwing them in some kind of shoebox, or you're piling up your wallet. Or a lot of entrepreneurs just take the receipt and they throw them away.

Yeah.

And then if you ever get audited or you ever need to produce some proof of expenses, you're screwed. No more.

Yeah, no more.

No more. And then there may be another sponsor coming. No, serious.

Come on, man.

All right, Kelsey, what about the question for the day?

Yeah, so this one is a pattern baldness. So this comes from Christina Vinogradov I'm.

Sorry, what was the last name?

Vinogradov.

Oh, I have a different one here. This is weird.

Yeah. So I went to the next one.

Oh, okay. I see, I see. Okay.

So she says, I'm utterly confused about how to remove cogs, cost of goods sold and inventory costs in the instant assessment. We're a retail shop. In your book, you note that cogs is not the same as inventory, and I know that. However, I've asked the number of profit first Facebook groups, and everyone is equating cogs to inventory cost, and everyone's got a different method of removing it.

And she gives us some examples here. We don't go through it.

No.

So the core question is, she's so confused. Right. I'm inclined to go with the third option, which is another definition defining cogs, which is the best choice. Right. Here's the deal. Yo, Christina Vinogrova. That's totally not how you pronounce your name, but Christina, here's what you do. This number here is specifically there to get you to a taps, target allocation percentages. Basically, we got to put your company on the same footing as other companies. So there's some businesses, say someone that sells retail, say we have always books in this room. Right. Our sock room. Say we're a bookstore. A bookstore has to buy, procure a lot of books to put them on their shelves. So say the business does a million dollars in revenue, they. They accumulate these books and give them to the clients. Well, when those clients buy the book, instead of that client giving it to the store, they could theoretically find out where all the different authors and publishers are and drive over there and give the person the money. So the bookstore doing is providing the convenience of all the options in front of you. You give them the $20 for the book, they then are taking a portion of that, say $15, and giving it to the author of the book. So instead of you doing that, the service they really provide is the convenience of accessibility to the books. They're not writing the books or preparing them, so they're not making $20 every transaction. They're really making $5 every transaction and giving $15 to another party instead of you having to do that. So every transaction, they're making $5. And so we need to right. Size the business. So if they're doing a million dollars, but they're making $5 a transaction, we adjust and we take out that cost of the materials, the books themselves, and maybe the business is a $200,000 business. They have to treat themselves like a $200,000 business. So this adjustment is to make you put you on the same footing as other businesses and then find what's called taps. TAPS is research that our company did to identify what a healthy business is performing for different allocation percentages. COGS includes things outside of materials. It'll include things like salaries of your employees, which is really an ongoing expense, meaning if you sell that product or not, you can still incur that expense. The work of the owner themselves is sometimes percentage is thrown into cogs. COGS is a number that can be manipulated and get very confusing. In our system, all we do is subtract out material cost, physical things that you buy from a third party and give to your clients. Those are material costs. And if it's substantial, over 25% of your revenue, count it. If it's less than that, don't. And then if you hire subcontractors, other companies to do work for you, even though there may be individuals, that's considered a subcontractor, and we take it out. But employees, all their expenses, it's just an expense. Again, this is for an adjustment. Hopefully that clarifies it because this is the most confusing point that people get stuck on. At the end of the day, if you don't know what it is, put zero in for this adjustment. Just don't adjust. And run your business off of your top line following the profit first percentages. And they'll get you there. So hopefully, Christina Vinogrova, that answers your question. Now, I can do that because my last name is Michalowitz. You know, you can't with errors. Like, you can't make fun of people's last name.

Except you managed to say it wrong.

No, I said it right. All right, so we did that. We thanked our corporate partners. We did listener mail. Do we bribe people? We did that in the beginning.

Yeah, we can bribe them again.

Bribe them one more time.

Don't forget. Just give us a rating and review. Take a screenshot, send it to me.

Kelseykemcalowitz.com and what they get as a reward.

And they will get a book of your choice from Mike Michalowicz.

Right? And as long as it's one of my three books that Penguin supplies for us so we don't have to pay for it. Now, if you want toy paper or surge, we'll gladly send those out to you too. And you know why? But you can get one right today, right now by going to mikemotorbike.com that's instead of typing in Mike McCallow. It's because it's like vinegar. Nava pada.

Yeah.

It's very similar. Go to mikemotorbike.com My nickname in high school, which, ironically, I've never driven a motorcycle.

Ironic.

Isn't that funny? Yeah. I mean, it was also McAlischitz.

Yeah.

Which I was listening to one of the past episodes we did, and you're like, Wasn't your nickname McAlish? It was that too, so. But I don't. I should buy that domain.

Yeah. Yeah.

But go to mikemotorbike.com. go there. Would you do with like a zel. You go to mikemotorbike dot com and then click on the surge option. Get surged today for free. I'll email you the PDF immediately. Our automated system will. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

All right. Send us that review, kelsey@mike michalics.com and, you know, keep growing your business. Let's eradicate entrepreneurial poverty by starting with you.

Bye, everybody.

Nice. I'm firing it good today.

Yeah.

Bazinga.

Do it, do it, do it.

Just do it.

Sa.