Episode 254: The Future of Work with Aaron Dignan

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It's like Mad Libs.

Mad Libs. I don't know what's coming. So I gotta look at it for about a second, then I gotta read it. So here we go. Okay. So be it, my friends. Well done, Jeremy.

I knew you couldn't get through it.

Here we go. Strap on your moist. Here we go. One more time. Strap on your moist Leaf.

He loves moist.

I love that word. Oh my God. We're about to discuss an amazing book that needs to be in your archive. You're about to hear that and so much more on today's episode of Entrepreneurship. Elevated. Here we go.

Leaf.

Moist leaf. Oh my God. Hi everyone. This is Mike Michalowicz here. I am the author on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. You know what that is? It's. It's that gap between what the world perceives you're achieving, what you're really experiencing. The world thinks you have millions of dollars. The day you start your business, you just hang out on the beach and do whatever. You don't need to work because you're an entrepreneur. The reality is, most entrepreneurs make no money. We're working our tails off. We're impoverished on time. We're impoverished on money. We have nothing left to give. Well, we fix on this episode and every episode of Entrepreneurship. Elevated. Welcome, Kelsa. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Thank you. I'm great. How are you doing?

Good. Good.

That was great. I love this episode.

Oh, God. You really just. You really just dig me. Dig into me. You dig me and dig into me. Where am I? I'm missing some notes here. Well, tell me. You have to do your bit here.

Well, you can find us on itunes, Stitcher, tunein radio, or any podcast or anywhere. But you can also find us on entrepreneurshipelevatedpodcast.com.

That'S right.

And don't forget to leave us a.

Review and just subscribe. Right?

Yes.

Do the two big things. All right, guys. I was trying to read notes and talk at the same time, which I can't talk, period. So, Kelsey, I was listening to some past episodes.

Yeah.

And I can't understand a word I'm saying. I speak too quickly. I mumble. I make up words. And I used to. At least on the episodes. It sounds like you still understand what the hell I'm talking about.

Yeah, I know. Mike speak.

Yeah, I. I'm surprised we have any subscribers. Subscribers?

I feel like we're the opposite. I'm a super slow docker, and you're a super fast docker.

Really? Yeah. I thought you're a moderate speaker. Spocker speaker. Spocker speaker talker speaker. Spocker.

Spocker. That's a great one, actually.

Yeah. Right now, Spocker. I'm a Spocker. Jer. Jbone, I'm gonna start with you. Here's the big question of the day. If there was one fast food restaurant you could devoid this world of ever having to experience again, which fast food restaurant would you remove permanently from this planet?

I, like, did. Actually ties into the kind of like the story I was gonna tell you guys if we got time. I don't know if we have time.

We do. Oh, yeah, the J Bone story episode.

Yes. Yeah. So anyway, fast food wipe off the planet. I would say McDonald's. I don't really think they offer any value of anything.

Yeah, that's mine too. So definitely my least favorite.

So I still frequent McDonald's occasionally, so I can't take it off the planet. I think Wendy's.

I just really.

Yeah. Their hamburgers are just too much grease and there isn't enough balance. My favorite hamburger joint is fast food is Burger King. I think they nailed the waffle. Yours is White Castle. Oh, my God.

So delicious.

The gastrointestinal fortitude you must have for that place. Is there one up where you are?

No, Ledgewood is the nearest one.

Ledgewood? I haven't been to the White Castle except for once.

I've never been.

What? Really?

They're crazy.

Yeah, they're that good. All right, Kelsey, do we have any listener shout outs today?

We sure do. This comes from Frey777. They write, I love the Prover First System and Mike's passion to see others succeed while simultaneously meeting people in their current struggle. My Mike is authentic and caring and best of all, his profit first system works. I would highly recommend others try his system and start making profit in your business as well.

Oh, thank you, Frey. You, my fray, you're my best friend ever. Thank you for saying that. And we love to get these things. So you can email Kelsey L S E Y Mike Michalowicz dot com. Yeah, good luck spelling that one but mcallowicza but send us your feedback on the show. Unless it's nasty and you hate our show, then just don't say anything. Kelsey, you know, we do have corporate partners that make this show a reality. Nextiva and receipt bank. And maybe we'll. Maybe we'll share actually some stuff they really do this time. Yeah, I think so many times I've been saying like, you know, true voice technology, cordless phones.

It's really good. They don't listen to our five.

Those were all jokes. Receipt bank does not prevent asphalt. You know, like I say that as a joke, but I think this time we need to start explaining what they do because I listened to the last 12 episodes and I haven't mentioned once what they really do. This is the episode. We'll reveal it all. His name is Aaron Dignan and he's the founder of the ready a global organization organizational transformation and coaching practice that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self organization and dynamic teaming. Aaron is an active angel investor and helps build partnerships between the startups and end ups. He advises. Ooh, I never heard the term.

I know.

I love that he is the author and so we're gonna discuss today of a book called brave new work. It's coming out with in portfolio that's my imprint at Penguin. And it's my honor to welcome him to the show. Aaron, welcome aboard.

Welcome, Aaron.

Hey, thanks for having me. Look at that. Applause and everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes you get a hallelujah. Oh, there you got it.

That would give you that.

Yeah. You've arrived. Brave new work. What does that mean? It's a very compelling title.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm a Huxley fan. My son's name is Huxley, so the title really came from him. It's pretty simple, actually. I think the way we work for the most part, hasn't changed in the last hundred years. It came from a factory floor and all the hierarchy, command and control, bureaucracy, red tape, policies, things that get in our way, make us feel less human, have kind of come to a boiling point. And the reality is that the world is a really fast changing place with really demanding customers and employees and participants in it, and it's time for something else. So we kind of have to step away from what we know and into the uncertainty of what we don't know. And that takes some bravery. So it's brave new work.

Who facilitates the change? Is it the owners of businesses that need to embrace this, or is it the employees that kind of lead the revolt?

It's a little bit of both, in my experience. I mean, we've certainly seen both. I think the people who hold power, whether in any institution, do have to reach a point where they realize, you know, what, the way I get what I want, the way we achieve our purpose probably isn't going to look like the way it has looked in the past. And there has to be a moment where there's a willingness to change the way we get control, change the way we share power, change the way we achieve what we're setting out to achieve. And that has to come from the people that hold power or they'll slow us down. But anybody, anywhere can start. I mean, we have an enormous amount of control over the way we work. Even at the edges of an organization, even, you know, all by yourself, there's a lot of work that can happen. So it's kind of. I think it's both.

And so what's the vision that you have? What does the future of work look like?

I think it's really just. It's built on two ideas, essentially. One is kind of what I call people positive, which is this mindset that people are generally worthy of trust and respect. They are, you know, desirous of learning and growth and development. They're motivated by, you know, mastery and autonomy and purpose and, and meaning at work and things like that. And so they need to be in an environment that recognizes that and an environment where they can make their own decisions, you know, try things, take risks, fail from time to time, learn from that, make agreements with each other about how they'll show up and, and how they'll, you know, work with each other, for each other. So that's people positive. And then the second piece of it is what I call complexity conscious, which means accepting that the world is not nearly as predictable and controllable as we like to think that it is. That in fact, markets and organizations are quite dense and rich with complexity and different people and desires and states and contexts. And it's a little bit more messy than what we're used to talking about. And so we need an ethos that's a lot more about testing and learning, about trying things, about building capacity, rather than ensuring some mythical idea of perfect execution.

Okay, so maybe this applies to a business in the consultative arena. I'm just picking something. But what if I do own a traditional manufacturer or a retail store where I need people working the line, so to speak? Does this concept kind of apply to that community too?

I think it applies everywhere. I mean, we've really seen examples everywhere. You've seen Toyota do incredible things over the last few decades on the manufacturing line. We just finished up a project with a manufacturing facility in the pharma space in California that was incredibly fruitful. There's a brass auto parts manufacturer in France called Fabi that runs as a set of little mini factories, mini enterprises, where the employees are completely beholden to the customer and there are no kind of line managers or people breathing over their necks. And they're incredibly profitable and successful. I mean, they're the only manufacturer that hasn't been outsourced to China, really in that category in Europe.

But how do you bring about consistency? Almost to an extreme, it sounds like everyone has control over their own decision making. This may remove the consistency of the organization. Everyone may deliver their own service offering, take their own direction. How do we make sure there's a congruency in what we're doing?

Well, I think where consistency is important, everybody's going to recognize that. So there's, I think there's a myth that somehow when we remove bureaucracy, we automatically get chaos. And I think that's not what I'm advocating at all, actually. I'm not advocating the complete absence of structure. What I'm advocating is the minimum amount of Structure so that people can use judgment. So if there needs to be standards, if there needs to be consistency, if we want, you know, six sigma quality off the line, then that's a constraint that we're all going to agree to and desire, and it's going to ensure our success. Then we'll design a way to get that and we'll agree to that together. So a lot of this is about the autonomy to consent to say, yes, I agree, I'm willing to participate, I'm willing to play in this way that's going to serve us. And part of it is about recognizing that sometimes when we wrap too much red tape around the handle, it backfires. And so one of the examples I talk about in the book is the difference between a lighted intersection and a roundabout. You know, a lighted intersection, red, yellow, green light. It has these assumptions that we need to tell everybody what to do and you can't be trusted, and you stay in your place and comply. And we're going to need this elaborate system of controls and signals and algorithms to figure out how we're going to flow traffic around. The roundabout has a totally different set of assumptions. It assumes that we can be trusted and that we're accountable and that we're going to show up and be responsible in the circle. And there are just a couple simple rules binding all of our behavior. Go with the flow of traffic, give the right away to the people in the circle, and that's enough that for almost any imaginable scenario, the people in the circle can figure it out. What's interesting about the metaphor is that we have a thousand times more lighted intersections, but the roundabout is higher throughput, safer, cheaper to build and maintain, and works a hell of a lot better when the power goes out. And so as a metaphor for work, Right, and so as a metaphor for work, the idea is like, hey, maybe we need a few more roundabouts. You know, roundabout solutions to budgeting, to structure, to decisioning, et cetera. And maybe a few, you know, a few less on the, on the lighted intersection front. And that's really the question that teens have to grapple with.

So, and maybe I'm bastardizing the analogy here, so my pushback is, can I go too far? I mean, I think roundabouts in circles are where there's low volumes of traffic, traffic lights are necessary. And I'm doing air quotes because maybe you disagree, but is when there's this high volume of traffic and you must put everything to a halt and stop and have this order. So does this method, does it translate into business. You know, is it for smaller businesses that we have this dynamic environment, but if we have this GE or some behemoth organization that falls apart.

So I think a couple things are true. One, you've hit the nail on the head that there are different contexts where solutions need to be fit to the purpose, right? So there's no question that, you know, you couldn't do roundabouts at every intersection in Manhattan, or your land use would eat up all the space for the buildings, right? So, like, that's not gonna work, however, is it? A thousand to one in the other direction? Probably not. And the reason that we do it the way we do it is because we feel safer. We feel more comfortable in this, you know, compliant system than in the alternative. That kind of puts the onus on us. And in fact, there are. I mean, there are roundabouts in places in Europe where there's incredibly high volume and they're seven lanes wide and they work great. Actually, they don't always feel great. Sometimes they ask a lot of us, but they work very well. So I think that. I think that, that, you know, you're right. There's. There's going to be different contexts. And the point, of course, is that every team at any scale, and I've worked with GE and everybody else, is what's right for this context, for this scale, for this decision. And sometimes the thing that we think is going to be the killer app, even at scale, is wrong. So let's take something like a travel freeze. We're spending too much on travel. What should we do? The lighted solution is travel freeze. Credit cards are locked. Everybody needs approval from their manager before they travel. We only travel with these preferred vendors, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. And that immobilizes the firm, right? It slows us down. People can travel less. They're not making decisions in service of their customers. Perhaps they're. There are things that kind of get, you know, get frictioned. The alternative, the roundabout solution might be let's publish everybody's travel, spend once a week transparently to the rest of the system and make them indexable, searchable, you know, learn from that. And suddenly there's a social pressure. Suddenly there's an awareness of, oh, look, Phil in accounting is flying first class. Why the hell's he doing that? Or, you know, maybe. Maybe Sally in accounting has figured out an incredible way to get these great deals because she uses some site we've never heard of. So there's knowledge transfer, there's sharing, there's Awareness, there's consc. And all from a very simple solution to the problem. So the idea is just to weigh those and to experiment a little bit more with what might work and see if we can find some solutions that enable us to be more adaptive and to be more human at the same time.

Our listeners are predominantly small businesses. It's one boss man, one boss woman, and there's maybe four or five employees. So I would presume many people live under relatively regimented structure. The boss makes decisions, people follow and come back with more questions. Maybe some people. I'm interested in making a change from what you're sharing. How do we even go about this, though? We have such an established way of how we've been doing things.

Well, I think the good news for the listeners for a show like this is that you're probably already instinctually doing a lot of things right at that scale. Right. A lot of this stuff creeps in when you get larger, so you end up having functional silos and policies on top of policies from the age and size of the firm. So the good news is you're already. You're halfway there. And in fact, if you get ahead of it now, you can avoid a lot of this pain by making good choices now. So what I typically invite teams to do. And by the way, I was sitting around the table with five people two years ago, so we're not that much further in the journey now at 30 people than we were then. So I really empathize with that. But the thing for leaders, or any team member for that matter, to ask the rest of their team is this question that's. That's actually on the flap of the book, which is, what's stopping you from doing the best work of your life? It's the only question you ever need to ask, and the answers will tell you where to go. So if you march into the office tomorrow and you say, what's stopping us from doing the best work of our lives? And the team says, we have meetings to prepare for meetings, and we're wasting time, or we're always waiting on you, Aaron, to make decisions and we know what we want to do, we just need you to trust us. Or we don't have the information we need, we're trying to make all these decisions blind or fill in the blank. Right? We don't have the tools. We're using the wrong software, we have the wrong. Who knows they're going to say something and then that becomes the basis of an experiment. And the experiment is, what's one Thing we could try in the next one to eight weeks, that would move us one step forward on that tension. And if it doesn't have to be the solution, it doesn't have to be the end all, be all thing. It's what's one thing we could try that'll move us one step forward, get everybody to agree to try it, and then check in at the end of that round and say, what did we learn? What changed? What do we need to do next? And continually invite that question and the answers as the guideposts. And if you're doing that on a regular basis, if you're kind of what I call looping on the organization's operating system on a regular basis, as you scale, you'll avoid so many pitfalls and you'll invent some incredibly novel solutions to these problems that I'll probably write about in the sequel.

Little Teaser for the Future Braver. I really like that question, actually. We have a retreat coming up in Nashville. Our company's going down. I think there's eight of us now or nine of us going. I think this would be a great exercise. What's the one thing stopping you? But now I'm thinking about accountability. You know the response, Aaron, maybe we, you know, if I didn't have to fill out these forms and do these processes, I'd have the freedom to do what I need to do, which may be true. The question is, what about accountability? How do we get that feedback loop so we ensure that we're moving the company forward and people aren't going down tangentials?

Yeah, I think that's great. I mean, you hit the nail on the head about feedback. We move from an economy in the organization based on position. Right. A positional authority to one based on reputation. Right, reputational authority. What do you do for me? What are your outcomes? If you make an agreement or a commitment with me, are you going to follow through? If you don't follow through with that and your reputation takes a hit, I may not agree with you on the next thing. We may not partner, I may not invite you. You may ultimately be asked to leave. So there are consequences. They're just social consequences from around us. And I think the word accountability is interesting because it has implied in it a kind of a top down aspect. So there's a quote in the book from Pasi Solberg in Finland where he says, we don't even have a word for accountability. We have the word responsibility, but we don't even have a word for accountability because that's not really Something that we necessarily believe in. And so the idea is, I don't want to be accountable to someone. I want to be responsible to the purpose and to my calling and to my colleagues and to the agreements that I make. And it's a slight shift. It's a minor shift, but I think it's meaningful to say that's how we want you to show up. We don't want to show me to show up being afraid of me and what I might do if you fail or you don't live up to your hype. We want you to show up thinking about, I'm responsible to this company, these colleagues, this purpose, this mission, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna be an adult as a result, and I expect to be treated as an adult while I'm doing it.

And what about the boss? You know, in our little business here, I'm the boss. And the problem is I have ideas and thoughts, and people feel necessary to. It's necessary to comply with what Mike says because that's how you get your paycheck. And I don't think it's that rigid, but I think there's an inherent compulsion to comply with. Good idea, Mike. You're great. You know, and I could have the dumbest ideas, and I do. Ever. How do we come past that, that. How do we make everyone an equal. On equal footing when someone's controlling the purse strings?

Yeah, Well, I mean, first of all, let's. Let's give up the idea that we're ever going to be totally equal. So I think the reality is that reputation, experience, background roles that we hold, you know, they're all going to create power dynamics. So we have to acknowledge that and say there are going to be dynamics even if we all have an equal consent. Right. Even if we all get to participate, even if we all get to shape our own, you know, what we do and where we do it and how we do it more, more fully. There's going to be power, there's going to be influence and dynamics. So that's. Let's know that. So then let's just talk about the nature of them. And I think one of the things founders can do or leaders can do to minimize that impact and make sure that it's at least used deliberately is to say, rather than being one person with one role, let's describe the different roles that you hold. And let's be clear who's talking. So, for example, I hold a finance role in my firm. I hold a. Obviously an author and kind of IP related Role around theory. I hold roles in business development. I hold roles in kind of creating some of our content, et cetera, et cetera. So when I make a remark, I'll often clarify who's talking. It's very rarely the founder. It's very rarely the majority shareholder. It's very rarely the boss. It's quite often like, oh, as finance role. I think that's a stupid spend of money. As Aaron I kind of like it. Like, it's creative, it's interesting. Who knows? So let's debate it. But I want to clarify for folks who's talking because it helps them see. All right, he's a person holding a role in the firm whose job it is to look from that perspective. But the other roles he hold might look from another perspective, and that's okay. And so not only should the boss do that, but we all should. We should sort of talk about who is talking and what does that mean and how do we then perceive what we're hearing?

Aaron, these are fascinating insights. So much of this, actually, all this plus so much more is in Brave New Work. Where can our listeners get a copy of your book?

Well, currently it certainly is in bookstores everywhere. BraveNewWork.com is the site we've created for the community and the conversation. And you can find your way to so many booksellers there. So that's probably the best place to start.

Awesome.

Great. And you also own a company the ready. So that's thereaddy.com we'll have that, the book link, the gathering point for Brave New Work, all in our show notes. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us today.

Of course. Yeah. Thank you.

All right, Kels, So that was Aaron Digman. Dignan. I keep on saying, man, you had one job. Yeah, and one job. And I messed it up. And we're gonna do a few more things. We're going to recap what Aaron shared with us. Right. We have a game we're playing today. And do we have listener mail again?

We do.

Oh, my God. You can't touch that. Okay, then first let's thank our corporate partners. Right?

Yeah. What do they actually do?

So you wouldn't believe this. A lot of people say, Mike does. Does Nextiva do anything? And because they've listened to the last 12 episodes and they're just totally confused, so they do something. They're a voice over IP phone company. Do you have one of these phones?

J Bone, I'm waiting. You're supposed to give me.

Let's get one for Jeremy. They are Amazing, right? We use them. I have one at home. It is a fully functional, corporate, high end, out of control system at the price point of, you know, a commodity, inexpensive, affordable system. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and they also have a thing called next os. It's a CRM that integrates into your phone so you don't need a CRM anymore. They. You can use nextiva to the point where you enter your customer's information. Jeremy. Into next OS and it tracks them online automatically. It's just. This is true. You're rolling your eyes. This is true. Tracks them online and it will notify you if they're a threat or at risk of losing them as clients. Absolutely true. I'm not. Yeah.

Now you're like, if they're checking out.

Your competitors or they're talking badly about you.

Oh.

One of their niches they sell into are insurance agents. And insurance agents have a renewal period, usually annually. It's the month or two before the renewal. That's the most critical period of time. And the system will report saying, you know, customer is looking at competition or is badmouthing you on social media. It's called NEXT os and I'm not creepy. Yeah. I've lied so much about what they do. It's like. Yeah, I think.

Yeah, this sounds totally made up, by the way.

And they also have a hair master system. No, so. No, that's absolutely true. That's absolutely true. So Next os, you can Google it. All right. And then receipt bank.

Yeah.

Scan in your receipts. Like, did you do your taxes yet? I know this is where.

No, I was. I wanted to do it this last weekend and I just had other stuff going on.

Yeah.

I had my poker tournament, by the way.

All right, so you didn't want to comply with the law because you were breaking the law and illegally gambling. How'd it go?

Good. Yeah. I didn't win, but it's.

You hosted.

Yeah.

That's awesome, man. Yeah, that's awesome. Poker. There's nothing better. Texas hold them. You play?

Yeah. And I bought a table of Craigslist. Yeah. Tournament style. Yeah, we were talking about that 350 bucks. The winner got 350 bucks. And it was. It was a husband and wife, which was. That's why I was frustrated because it was. Me and them were down to the finals. And you can't play against a husband and wife because they're playing as one team. They're not playing as individuals.

I would actually revoke that.

So next time I'm going to wipe her out first. And then it's oh, that's good.

Tell her. Tell that to the husband. I'm gonna worry about your wife. She's out.

Yeah.

Does receipt bank work with TurboTax?

I don't know. Did you have to throw that one? The one question I told you never to ask me. Live. Does this work with TurboTax? I think it does.

Ask. Yeah. Because all. All. All those.

So receipt, bank, any. Anything you purchase, business related or otherwise, you scan it through receipts, it organizes it, it links it to your accounting software. I know it works with QuickBooks and Sage and I think fresh books. I don't know about TurboTax. And then when it comes to tax time, you have all your receipts available. If you ever have to get audited, God forbid, it will produce those things for you. And if you ever need to do an internal audit, it's all there for you. And no more receipts in your wallet. And I know you actually keep a very thin wallet. Never carry a receipt around. What are you doing through receipts? Are you throwing them away?

No, I. The ones that I need, I'll scan into my computer if it's like a big purchase.

Oh, my God. How many days of work is that?

It's not that bad.

It's horrible. If you had receipt bank, dude, it.

Would have done right.

You do it while you're at the store. All right, Kels, what do we have now?

Do you want to do listener mail now?

Yes, I do.

Okay, so this comes from Amy. She writes, we are on board to start Profit First. My partner and I have both read the book and we are going to the bank today. One question. When do you recommend doing payroll? Do you recommend doing on the 10th and 25th of each month?

Oh, great question, Amy. Do payroll whenever you feel is appropriate. Some employees get paid weekly. Other companies do it semi monthly, twice a month or every two weeks, which is similar but not the same. And some do it monthly. Talk with your accountant. What's the best, often, the least frequently, or the less frequently that you do payroll, the less cost you incur. So doing once a month is often better, but it may not serve your employees.

You.

So the higher frequency you have in paying payroll is really to comply with the needs of your colleagues, your employees, but will increase your cost. We do it here twice a month.

Twice a month, semi monthly.

Semi monthly. So we do on the 15th and 30th.

Yep. For the last day of the month.

Yeah. So the payroll does not need to be in sync with your profit first allocations. We do our profit first allocations. Weekly, I think. Right?

Yeah.

What day of the week do we do it?

Usually Mondays or Tuesdays.

Right. Monday or Tuesday. So it's not hard, fast. But then payroll is when it could be time later on.

Right.

So the money gets allocated out, goes to expenses. You transfer into the payroll account, and it just sits there until payroll is processed.

Exactly.

That's simple. There you go, Amy. Oh, I got to do a music effect. Okay. Yeah. I shouldn't cut. You want to answer me every time? Yeah, I cut it too quickly. All right, let's do the takeaways for today. I want to know what your takeaway was. What was your takeaway?

I really loved this. I don't even know what I want to focus on. I'll say. I think I loved. The responsibility of each employee is to the purpose. It's not accountability.

Right.

It's the responsibility to the purpose, to the mission of the company, to your colleagues, to the customers. Right. It's that personal responsibility. I love that. And I also really like that he mentioned that compliance is a more comfortable way to do things. Right. It's easier to just give somebody a task and they follow the task to a T as opposed to having onus yourself, like, you own this and you are responsible to us with the results. Right. And how smart was it to do the, like, the transparent travel expenses as opposed to just, you know, cutting off your ability without approval?

Just put people on blast and get results. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, the only thing, though, with that transparency is do other people say, oh, you know, so. And so is flying first class. I'm doing. Yeah, I want to do it. And, you know. And will you get a gossip kind of thing started? Like, what?

But isn't that the responsibility? Right. Like if you're flying first class and it's jeopardizing the whole company.

Yeah, that's true.

That's your responsibility to care about the company as a whole and what they're doing and to not be selfish in that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Touche. Good point. What was your takeaway, Jay Boner?

So really simple. I like the. I've worked for a lot of companies with a lot of levels of bureaucracy, and I think that for big companies, they need to get in their brain that just because you remove a level of bureaucracy doesn't mean there's going to be chaos. And I think that if companies think that way, then they'll. They'll work better.

My takeaway was, what's stopping you from doing your best work of your life? I thought that was A great question. I want to use that. Our retreat. I like the concept of positional authority shifting to reputational authority, to your point.

Yeah.

Yeah. And. Oh, and the concept of the role you're playing.

Yeah.

I wonder if I could use that. I was almost picturing, what's that game you play where you put the headband on and. Or you sticker on your face.

Yeah.

Or your forehead with the name, like, you know.

Yeah. You have to guess who you are. Right.

Yeah. If I had Taylor Swift on my head, you guys would just look at me and go. I'm like, oh, Style by Taylor Swift.

I recognize that. Yeah. No, I 100% think that's so smart because it gives you the. I don't say authority, but it gives you the freedom to express yourself from a role perspective, as opposed to, like. I'm just telling you. I really ixnay that idea. You know, I'm just explaining why from my finance perspective.

Right.

You know, let's talk about a little further. I also really like how when you're having a problem as a group, what's one thing we can do?

Yes.

And try and then come back to the drawing board. Right.

Yep.

Yeah.

Good stuff today. Really good stuff. Aaron Dignan, and he's the author again, of a book that you must have. Brave new work by portfolio. The reason I'm pushing it so hard is my same imprint. I wonder if we have the same editor over there, too. Do you work. Hey, Aaron, do you work with Kaushik by any chance?

Well, we've spent some time together, but actually, Leah was my editor, so.

Oh, you got the good one, Kaushik.

Wow.

No, I love Kaushik. He's my man. Okay. All right, so here's the next thing we're going to do. Should we do the game now?

Yeah.

Okay. Aaron, I want to invite you in to do this game. And, Kal, you choose, though. There's one of two games, so get prepared. One game we have is Name the Fake product. So these are three entrepreneurial products, and one of them I've made up, and you have to guess which one. The other one is pure Cheesy quotes. These are quotes, Aaron. You may be one of them from famous authors and people. And I insert my own cheesy quote, and you have to find the cheese. And there's a little actually bonus that I'll tell you. So do you want to cows play pure cheese today or do you want.

To do pure cheese?

Pure cheese. Okay, so I'm going to give you guys four quotes, and each of you going to vote, you have to pick. Now, there's. There's two things embedded in here. One of these quotes is mine. One is quote. It's from a fortune cookie. So that's a bonus. If you can pick mine, you win. But you also get bonus points if you pick the fortune cookie. Does that all make sense?

No.

Okay, I'm on board.

You know. Yeah. I will reveal the names of the other people in just a minute after we pick it out. Here he is. First quote. I gotta do a cooler voice. Action is the only way to make progress. Take action now. Don't wait for a convenient time. Okay, so that was quote one. This person said, action is the only way to make progress. Take action now. Don't wait for a convenient time. Okay, do I sound like a weather person?

No.

Better throw your glasses. Rate of the forecast. Yeah. Megastorm coming through New York. It's a snowbomb.

Mattress and lanes.

Mattress and lane. They're standing in, like, a foot of snow, and it's just a drift next to him. All right, second quote. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. Success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it. I said success. Success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it. Okay, ready for the next quote, guys. Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.

Fortune cookie.

And if. Could you relax? Maybe. All right, the fourth and final one. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. Don't be. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. So we'll give Aaron a little leeway here. I'll go last so he can kind of get gauge what the other group is thinking here. Jeremy, you're up first, man. Which one is the cheesy McCallowitz quote? And then the bonus. Which one's the fortune cookie?

The cheesy Mike quote is the first one.

Action is the only way to make progress. Take action now. Don't wait for a convenient time.

Is that accurate?

Oh, I can't reveal.

Okay. And then the fortune cookie is. Well, that's a tough. I was torn between two. I think I'm gonna say number two. Success comes to those too busy looking for it.

Okay. Okay. Got it. Kels, which one's the McCallowicz quote? Could you pick out the McCallowitz cheese?

I couldn't. I'm just gonna guess the success one.

Okay, so this is the McCallowicz cheese. And which one's the Fortune cookie.

Do you think I say the willing heart one.

Okay. Okay, got it. Calcium. Aaron, which one do you think is my own cheese quote?

I think I'm on the same page. I'm gonna say, success number two is yours.

Okay.

Number three is the cookie. Number one sounds like Tony Robbins.

Which would be the ultimate cheese. Would be the ultimate cheese. Okay, so Kelsey and Aaron, you actually picked Henry David Thoreau. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

Well, you're in good company.

And the fortune cookie two of you got Aaron and Kelsey. Nothing is impossible to a willing heart, but heartburn will come from your Chinese food. And then the one. That's my quote. Aaron mistook for Anthony Robbins. Jbone. Nailed it. Action is the only way to make progress. Take action now. Don't wait for a convenient time. That's my own cheese.

I knew that was you. I didn't know I knew that was you.

So just a funny backstory how this came about. I. There's a guy named John Rulin. He wrote a book called Giftology. It's amazing. He sent me a set of knives out of the blue. Just said, enjoy this gift. I mean, cutco knives, dude.

Oh, they're sharp.

Yeah, they are sharp. And must. No pun intended, must have been, like, 15 knives. And on there are these quotes, and it's like, you know, success is determined by your own determination. And, like, always, like, cheesy quotes. I'm like, oh, these are such nice knives. It's a shame that there's these cheesy.

Quotes run with the quote.

Yeah. So I'm like, okay, But I wonder who wrote these quotes. They were all my quotes. They were all my quotes. Yeah. So I. I'm the cheese. I'm the cheese.

Do you know. Do you know the. The circa. What year that that quote was from?

Action is the only.

No, no, Mike, the mic quote, was it. Was that from my toilet paper entrepreneur.

Yes. Action is the only way.

I knew it. You should have guessed. The book.

That's from the toilet paper entrepreneur. That was 2008.

Oh, I thought you just made it up now, like, on the spot.

Same. No, no, no, no.

These are all like. Like, if you type in Mike McCalla's quotes on the web, like, about 30 or 40 quotes will come up. I pulled them. So they're legit. They're legit. All right. We should have done the other one, the other game, because I'm embarrassed now. Kelsey, do we have anything else? Oh, listener mail.

Did we do that already?

Oh, we did it. I think we're good, right?

No, we have your.

Oh, my entrepreneurial tip. Yeah, we have two minutes. I gotta bang out.

What's it called again?

It's called the elevation point.

There you go. Elevation point. Yeah, that's it.

Jack wad. You know a lot. Here's my tip. A lot of people think I gotta do some music first to get excited. So a lot of people think that passion brings around success. Like, are you passionate about. You do. And my argument is passion is a stepping stone, but not the solution. Passion brings about persistence. The definition of persistence is. Is persistence brings about success. So if you are passionate about something, don't expect that will automatically translate. I'm passionate about cooking. Realize that the passion for cooking brings about persistence. You will always want to cook. Look how that persistence can turn into a business. So there's a step in the middle. That's my tip.

There's a really good argument that you got into about this with Diane Deutsch. No, no, no, no, no. It was an interview that we did a long time ago.

Oh, it came to fisticuffs, right?

No, no, I can't remember her name. I drove her to the airport. You know who I'm talking. I just can't remember anything. But anyway, your point, like, your point was it's not gonna make you successful, but it'll help you push through the times that you. That you need it because you care about it more.

Did she. Did she yell at me?

Yeah. She disagreed with you. Yeah, I agreed with you.

I thought it was a good point. I agree with her. Whoever that was, I now agree with her. You're totally wrong. I'm so wishy washy. All right. Do we. Anything else, Kelsey? Is that it?

That's it.

Take us out.

Don't forget to subscribe and listen to us on itunes. Stitcher, Tune in radio.

Yeah, and we're not doing any gifts or anything special right now for our podcast, because I think we milked that for all it was worth. But we do have something cool going on. We're giving away a free copy of Surge, a wildly popular book that I wrote. You can get on Amazon when I say wildly popular. Making that up. But it's a popular book.

Is that your newest one?

I said it's my newest one. It's like six books old. It's my oldest book that no one's reading, available for free. I mean, you can get on Amazon for, like, whatever, 18 bucks. Whatever. A discount too, but you can get it for free@mikemotorbike.com right now. All right, that's it.

That's it.

See you.

Bye, friend Sam.