Matt Mochary & Faith Meyer on Culture Building, Leadership, and Growth | Conscious Creators

Each of these people was frustrated where they worked before, and that's why they became freelancers. They didn't want to work inside of a company, and they agreed to come and join this company because I assured them that I would fix those culture issues that they'd experienced before.

I've worked at companies that have all the perks, right? Oh, this is an amazing place to work. We've got ping pong tables and a gym, and we've got like, we'll bring you meals and all this stuff. Weirdly, those are the companies that often, not always, in my experience, often miss The mark.

And in my mind, the more people on a project, the more easily it should get done. But now I'm realizing the more people on a project, the harder it is to get done because everyone thinks someone else is taking care of it.

I'm really excited to do this interview because I think between you guys, you've coached some of the top CEOs, companies— Sam Altman, Naval Ravikant, companies like Sherpa, Disco, and One of the things that involves— that that involves is like creating a high level of trust to have these deep conversations. In talking to Sabrina, who works with both of you, something that she observed as an uncommon commonality between you guys was you create a sort of like a very like a warm, welcoming, and open energy and also create deep friendships with clients. So before you even start coaching, I'm curious, like, how do you think about creating that set and setting for that deep work to happen?

I think there's part of it that's just probably our innate DNA, just how Matt and I show up in this world. I think we're both deeply empathetic people and I've always been somebody So I think I just learned early on how to just like listen, like genuinely and really lean into whatever was happening in the moment. But it is really important to me to establish a really strong foundation of trust with my people and connection. And like, you know, the second you meet somebody, if you click or not, and if you click, it's like, oh, we're off to the races already. Like, it's just such a magical thing. I think that's so important. Matt, what would you add?

Yeah, it's a great answer. And then for me, what I would add is that what I found is that people primarily want to feel heard. So I almost always have answers to problems that people bring to me. And sometimes I'm too eager. And I'm like, oh, you do the layoff, and you need to make sure that, you know, it goes well. Oh, I've got a doc written about that. Here it is.

Boom.

And invariably, the reaction I get is, Matt, That feels like a cookie-cutter answer that you've applied to dozens of other companies before. I don't think you're really understanding the nuance of the situation that I'm in. That's what happens when I jump too quickly. But when I take the time to actually make the feel— person feel heard, and here's what that looks like, it's repeating back to them what they said until they say, yes, you've got it. And there's 2 ways to repeat back. I can simply summarize what they said sort of without emotion, or I can go one level further and sense what emotion they're feeling, make myself feel that emotion, and then repeat back to them what I think they're saying with the emotion, showing the emotion. And when I do that, people go, yeah, that's exactly it, because really they want to be understood. And once someone feels that they're understood, then they're open to hearing whatever it is I or anyone else has to say because they feel it's customized for their actual situation. So, and that's something that anybody can do. That doesn't require an innate personality. Anyone can repeat back what they hear people saying. And sometimes it feels awkward, like, really, I'm going to take an extra 30 seconds to repeat back what this person said? Aren't they going to feel patronized if I do that? And I have yet to meet someone who feels patronized by me repeating back to them what they said. In fact, just the opposite. They love it.

And, and in that is that feeling of like being really seen, which can then turn into a deep friendship. How do you both think about the boundaries between coaching and then really like becoming friends with your clients and, and how, how to separate that?

Well, I mean, they talk about something called transference in therapy, you know, and it is something you have to be aware of as a coach. If it does kind of feel like some line is getting blurred, In like an unhealthy way. But I think that any relationship, again, the foundation is trust, right? And like a genuineness to how you show up with each other. And like, I think I can confidently say that I'm friends with every single person I've coached over the years. I just adore them as people. They're incredible humans in this world. And so I don't know if you can really separate the two, like a friendship from coaching, because you go deep and you go deep fast. Because you're with someone you trust to like hold the space for you, whose entire intention is just to focus on you and what you need in that moment. And I think that really hotwires a strong connection very, very quickly.

Yeah, I have zero professional boundaries. I have no boundaries. I become deep friends and close friends with everyone I coach. They are some of my closest friends and we vacation together. They come visit me in Kauai. I come visit them. I stay in their homes. They stay in my homes. Yeah, I have zero boundaries. And, uh, yeah, that's it. I'm doing this because I want to connect with people, because I want to become deep friends with people. That's my motivation. So I do it.

I think Matt's exaggerating a tiny bit. He is a healthily boundaried person in the sense where, no, you do know where you end. I witnessed it. Just a little credit, Matt. A little credit.

Boundaries here, but okay.

That's good to hear because I've kind of like had the same with like certain clients. And, and yeah, like it's been Should I like not go to that extent or where should I sort of like draw that? And obviously like that magnified when in a company, when you go from 1 or 2 people to like 5,000, 100, that becomes culture. And Faith, you've talked about how in your previous company over 11 years, you're really like proud of creating a culture. So we can, we can sort of like talk about it 2 ways. I can ask you about how you did that, or I can sort of share what we're dealing with right now. And then maybe you guys can coach me through it and through that context, share how you guys think about culture.

Matt and I are hungry to coach at all times, so I'm leaning toward the latter. Matt, are you leaning toward the latter?

Absolutely.

Let's— Um, so, so one of the, the main things we do is we produce podcasts for, for companies and brands and, and creators. And I think about 3 months ago, I, I really sort of like identified this huge opportunity where there's a bunch of different freelancers that are doing this like separately. Like one person does data, one person does editing, and sort of like just saw this opportunity and also like something I really want to do to bring together this sort of like special forces A-team of really amazing creators and basically build a Pixar of podcasting. Because in a lot of like ways where maybe they're working with clients, like they don't really have any sort of future plans of like what they're going to do. They're not being treated well. And I figured if I can bring these people together and create that culture, amazing things can happen for both them and I, right? And so we brought them together. And it's been really challenging to sort of like bring together people who are all sort of like these like solo warriors and have maybe like their own clients and have all the different things that they're doing into one place. Some of the challenges that we've dealt with have been related to work quality where maybe like people aren't hitting the deadlines or QC isn't happening. And I know you sort of talk about the emotional side of it. It's led to a lot of sort of like this like mix of fear, frustration, and anger where it's sort of like. came to a head around like 1 or 2 weeks ago.

And what happened 1 or 2 weeks ago?

So there were 2 things happening and I can also describe from the emotional side of it where the work that I was expecting wasn't being delivered on time. And sort of the conversation I'd had with them was, let's get this one podcast going and then I can bring in other clients and then we can sort of like expand the business, right? Like leave that up to me because I have a lot of people reaching out to me. And so there were, there was a mix of 2 things happening. One was I wasn't getting work at the right quality. And 2, I saw sort of like a few of them going out and like, just like advertising for more clients and being on Twitter and all these different things. And it was like, guys, what is happening here? And I can also talk about it from sort of like the emotional side of it. We actually did an interview, last interview we published where this scientist has spent like the last 30 years trying to sort of like unpack like what emotions tie to what needs. And so in that framework, there was definitely like a frustration because We weren't now on track to achieve a goal, which is I have people who are emailing me to be clients and I'm waiting to like say yes to them till you guys figure out. There was sort of like a fear where we have all of this IP that we've created in the way we develop podcasts. Is this going to be used for like the other shows that you're doing outside or whatever when there's this, there's this need here? And I think, I think there was also like anger in terms of asserting a right, which was. This is— you're being paid to do XYZ. I've given you all this creative freedom to do it. And it still isn't happening. And maybe it's being taken advantage of.

All right. So I think I'll go first and Faith, let's have you go second, if that's okay. So I'm going to do what I shared with you before, Sachit, which is I'm going to see if I understood you correctly. And so what I'm hearing is, man, I'm feeling frustrated. I'm pissed off. I'm pissed off. I, I had this idea that I was going to put in one package, in one place, sort of the A-team of podcast creation, the technical talent behind it, the sound, the video, the, the editing. And therefore we could create a package that we could share with companies and, you know, all in one, one-stop shop, and you'll get the best output you can possibly get. You don't have to hire individuals. So I went out and found the best freelancers in the world and created this A-team. And on our very first client, this is like the demo. We haven't even, you know, launched yet. And already they're not performing. Already I see them out moonlighting and posting for other jobs. They're, they're not performing on mine, but they're moonlighting for more. And now I'm thinking, what the hell? And, and, and now I'm, I'm starting to imagine like, wait a second, is this team this untrustworthy that I'm gonna share with them my whole process? And all of a sudden they're just going to take that process and start applying it to other clients and charging more money for other clients and not even showing up for, for my job. So I don't want to take on more jobs because I don't know if these guys would even perform. And now I'm worried about is them stealing my process. Is that close, Sachit?

Very, very close. I think the big thing is, I don't know the exact emotion behind it, but sort of the feeling is seeing this really big opportunity, getting them to buy into it. And so there's almost this feeling of like seeing them shoot themselves in the feet and in their own foot because of it. And it's making us lose and waste time where I'm literally getting very amazing people who are like, we want podcasts. When are you ready to like go get more and more in? And we're losing business because of that.

It sounds like I've got this incredible opportunity. I've created this incredible team. And this incredible juncture in time where we have hot leads coming at us all the time. All we have to do is play to our strengths with everybody showing up at the top of their game, and we are gonna knock this out of the park. And yet the people on this team somehow like are just not taking this seriously. What the F is going on? Like, why is everybody unfocused and not coordinating and not executing the way that I know we can at a super high level? And like, guys, I'm so effing disappointed right now. Like, this is a, like, once in a lifetime lightning in a bottle moment of the culture that we could potentially have here. And what's happening? Am I close?

I think there's a culture piece because there's a lot of things that, and this is great because they're all going to hear this, just realize that in the culture piece, there's a lot of sort of what each of them has individually shared. In terms of what they didn't get at other companies or other creators that they worked with. And I think in some ways, because my background is working with a lot of creators behind the scenes, and now being the one in the front, I want to fix all of that. But there's a frustration that if I'm fixing all of this, it's like we're both buying into this deal and I'm kind of like holding up my part. And I think the other thing, there's also sort of frustration at myself because what happened 2 weeks ago is at some point I was like, okay, we just need to like make this happen. I'm going to take charge. So we followed the curriculum and sort of doing all hands. And I was like, okay, let's just bring everyone together. And one of the things that happened on the all hands was some of the people who were operating as an agency before, they brought their entire team. And on the call, we were 12 people. I had no idea, first of all, that we were 12 people. And we only need 4 people for this job. Why do we have 12 people and still can't deliver? And there was definitely like, frustration at myself for not seeing that sooner and sort of like taking that charge sooner.

Yeah. So maybe we'll bounce back and forth between Faith and I. So now what I'm hearing is, 2 weeks ago, I finally said these guys aren't— clearly aren't going to get this done on their own. So I'm just going to take charge, I'm going to become the directly responsible individual, I'll become the project lead. And I'll just get everyone on all hands, create a war room basically, where we just meet, figure out what the problem is, assign tasks, Everyone goes to a task, then we meet again. Probably you— I don't know if you've been meeting every day, but that would be a, uh, a common solution. A war room is a daily gathering. And, um, on the very first gathering of everybody, I realized that some of these people had teams behind them who they all brought. And in total, we were 12 people working on this project. And in my mind, the more people on a project, the more easily it should get done. But now I'm realizing the more people on a project, The harder it is to get done because everyone thinks someone else is taking care of it. And there wasn't clear responsibility of a full list of tasks, each task assigned to one person and one due date. And we simply went over that list each and every day and making sure each one got done. It was very visible, very transparent to the 4 people on the team, no more. And We didn't do that. And now I'm realizing that's what I need to go do. Is that close?

That is very close. Um, there, there's more in terms of what we've done in to solve it and, and where we are. Um, I can share that now, or do you wanna maybe talk about culture and then I share that? Either works.

Well, let's talk about what's the culture problem, because you also meant, but what I also heard was each of these people was frustrated where they worked before. And that's why they became freelancers. They didn't want to work inside of a company and they agreed to come and join this company because I assured them that I would fix those culture issues that they'd experienced before. But I don't want to spend the time to fix those culture issues until I see that we have a working team. So it's chicken and egg. So now I'm stuck. I'm stuck where I need to see performance first, but they're not giving it to me. And I don't know where to spend my time here. Is that correct?

The question for that becomes, um, I know I want to create a good culture, but maybe I'm missing sort of the playbook to actually do that in a way. Then that gets then invested, which then becomes a question of like, how do you go about creating a good culture?

And so now what I'm hearing is, man, I want these people to feel good. And to me, that's a good culture where each person feels great about being at the company and is therefore willing to give their best performance. But I don't know how to make these people feel good. Is that close, Sachit?

Or, or like if, if what I'm doing is actually doing it, is it a problem of like creating the right culture or not having the right people? Or, or maybe I'm thinking about culture too soon and that becomes that chicken and egg sort of a spiral basically in a sense, or a loop.

Yeah. Faith, what did you hear?

Oh man, you can get me up on a soapbox talking about culture all day, so I'm trying to like rein it in right now. But I think, I don't know if I can add to what, Matt, you heard. I guess if I take a stab at that, it's like I found these amazing people and we've all had shitty experiences before, and we had this opportunity to make this what we want it to be. And yet something's missing in order to, like, like Matt said, make people feel good while they're here doing great work.

Right.

Is that? resonant for you at Close.

Yeah, it's like, am I missing the playbook? Am I doing something wrong? Or am I— because I haven't like set a good culture, like, or worked in companies with great culture. So maybe I'm missing something.

Okay, now I think it's time for, for answers. Now, I hope you feel heard enough that when we share these answers with you, they'll feel custom fit for you. And so I'll share what I think is that the answer of how to make people feel good and inspired lies with the team. You can simply ask them, what would make you feel cared for? What would make you feel inspired? What would make you feel like this is a great place to work? They will tell you. They know. And I would do it in a written brainstorming. I would write that question out, gather the team together, have everyone take 10 minutes in real time, write down their answers in a private Google Doc. And then when they're done, the timer's done, copy and paste it into one common Google Doc. And then you just all read through it. And then you'll see and have everyone upvote the ideas that they like. So you can see what are most popular. They don't have to be the original creator of the thought to like the thought. And then you'll go through each one. And the one or two that are the most upvoted or seem the most doable to you, Ask the person to share those verbally because communication is 50% written, 50% verbal.

It—

to get the 100% understanding, you need both because the written makes it structured and the verbal adds the nuance. Each is incomplete on its own. So you ask one or 2 people to share verbally, then you make those people feel heard by repeating back what they said until they say, yes, that's it. And then you go, okay, I can do these. But again, pick the ones that you actually resonate with you and you're willing to do. And if you do that, I predict magic will happen. And then my recommendation is you do that on a regular basis. You do that once a month, collect feedback. How's it going? We have at Mushari Method, we have something called magic questions, which are intended to elicit exactly this information. And I'll go through it with you what the questions are. We ask, one, how are you feeling about your life at work? 1 to 5, 3 being meeting expectation, 1 being it couldn't be any worse, 5 being it couldn't be any better. 2, how are you feeling about your personal life? And the reason we go into that is because how people feel in their personal life definitely affects their overall work and people feel really cared for. When you actually ask about their personal life and help them make their personal life better. Now, of course, some people don't want to talk about it, so you don't breach that privacy if they don't want to. But you ask, are you open to answering this? And 90% of people will be open to it. So how are you feeling in your personal life, 1 to 5? How is your work setup, whether it's in an office or remote, 1 to 5? How are we performing as a company? 1 to 5? What's it like working with your teammates 1 to 5? And what's it like working with me 1 to 5? Recently, we've added another one, which is asking people to describe what their 5-year career goal is, and then asking, is your work here at this company getting you, moving you towards your 5-year career goal 1 to 5? So there's 7 questions. And we don't go through all of them. We simply look at the numbers and whichever number is lowest, that's the one we unpack. And let's say it's work-life. My work-life is a 2. Great. Then we ask one final question. What would get that to the next level? So if it's a 2, what would get it to a 3? And they say, well, it would get it to a 3 if you did blank. And, or if I did blank, or if blank occurred. You go, great, what action do you need to take to make that happen? They say, well, I need to do this action. Like, great, will you please do that? And then they do. And now part of their job is to make their own work life better. Now they feel empowered to actually do this action. They don't feel guilty about it because you as their manager have asked them to do it. And the result of this action is it makes their life better. And now they feel really cared for. And you keep— I keep doing this every month. I do it with each of my team members, and the results are magic. That's why we call them magic questions.

What I was just going to underline right there, what Matt just said, is that it's— you— he cares personally. And that's what any great leader helps their team feel from the moment they connect, is that he— you care personally, right? You feel that connection, you feel the magic of that connection, and you feel like the trust is there almost from the get-go because of the fact that he cares personally and that any leader cares personally. Because what is a company if it's not its people? And I think that culture Is it's that magic that exists between the people. That's where culture begins. And it's, it's sort of like this, this world is so crazy, right? Life is hard. There's no doubt about it. But with a company, you have something that's within your control, right? Whatever's happening outside in the world, you get to set the terms of what exists within those walls, right? You get to decide what is and is not acceptable in this workplace and what, what the values are, both implicit and explicit. Right. And I think that's the most incredible opportunity that companies have is to, to be that force for good in their people, people's lives, from the employees to the clients. And the ripple effect outward is through that culture, through that magic that they define. within their organism, but it all starts with caring personally, building that trust, really underlining that connection to each other, and then it all kind of ripples out from there.

It's so interesting that like a lot of people when they think about culture, it's like perks and football tables and all these different things, right? When you're thinking about the people that you've coached, what are some examples of companies that have made these changes or things they've implemented, whether it's values or tactically, That have created that ripple effect in terms of culture.

I've worked at companies that have all the perks, right? They're like, oh, this is an amazing place to work. We've got ping pong tables and a gym and we've got like, we'll bring you meals and all this stuff. Weirdly, those are the companies that often, not always in my experience, often miss the mark in terms of really having a great culture because they're so focused on like the sexy things from the outside of like, ooh, this is a fun place to work, right? but they're missing like the beating heart of the humans that are there, which is this piece of the connection and really building a strong foundation from the outset and really truly supporting your people. Matt, please take it away.

Yeah, no, that's a great answer. So I find that the, the key thing that there are 2 sides here. There's the CEO. And when we say culture, culture is just behavior, what people And so the CEO wants the team members to prioritize the company and work towards the success of the company. The team members want to do that, and they want to make sure that they themselves are taken care of, that someone is looking out for their lives individually. Well, if they feel that the CEO or their manager is not looking out for them individually, then they must look out for themselves on their own. And that's when the manager gets frustrated because he sees, wait a second, you guys are off trying to get other work outside of this job, or you guys are asking for a title increase so that you can get a better job later and it'll look better on your resume. Wait a second.

That's not—

In the best interest of the company, but there's a reason they're doing that. They're doing that because they don't feel that you, the manager, are looking out for their interests. If they felt that you were taking care of them, then they would be able to let go of that part that needs taking care of themselves and focus on the success of the company. But taking care of them is not paying them more, is not giving them a foosball table, Is not buying them lunch. Taking care of them is understanding the situation they're in, asking the question. We just went through those magic questions. And then helping them make each of those components better, make their work life better, make their personal life better, make their workspace better. You'd be surprised how important that is. Make the company perform better so they feel like they're part of a successful team. Make their relationships with their teammates better, make their relationship with you better, and make them progress towards their, their future career goal. If you help them do each of those things, or even just one of those things, they will feel taken care of, and then they will do what you want, which is focus on the success of the company.

Uh, so going back to this example, uh, we can continue the coaching. So, 'cause—

And by the way, that all without any increase in pay, any increase in title, any increase in anything. We've had people who work with us almost for free because what they care about— and Faith is nodding her head here— because what they care about is, are they being seen and heard and taken care of? And if they feel that they are, that's priceless. And there are plenty of people who don't need the money, but they want a great place to work.

I love that you said that because that was actually my first instinct talking to them about compensation or incentives and all of these different things. And then one of the ideas was, let's incentivize people for completing their tasks. And I was like, wait, we don't want to incentivize people for doing what they're supposed to do. So going back to that example now, my first instinct then was to come up with, okay, this is how the team should be organized and do an all-hands and just be like, this is how we're doing things, right? And thankfully, I came across your book and these sort of like issue problems and solutions decision-making methodology. And so I was like, okay, well actually we should like start collecting feedback from people. And I actually tied this in with something else too, because I have an EA who emailed you today. And I was like, hmm, what if I actually like have her be involved in this? So I basically sort of had her kind of like reach out to people, start collecting responses. And I have to tell you, it was so surprising because there was a few people that hadn't been really that involved. And when I read the responses, I was like, what? They care that much? I thought they were just doing this like one little thing and they were just sort of off into that old world, their own world, right? And so we're now getting responses and ideas on like how we should change things, how we should set standards. I'm curious, like once we've got those responses, what is sort of like the next step? And Faith, you've talked about changing and upgrading behaviors. One of the things I see we have to do is really like set the tone and standards for like how the team should behave because a lot of them are also really young. So I realized, oh, they just don't have even models or examples. So how do, what is the next step and how do I go about doing that from there once we start collecting feedback from people?

So Sachit, first of all, it's important there's distinction. Did you propose a solution? and have everyone react to it? Or did you simply say, hey, how can we make this work better? Did not propose a solution and then got people's ideas. Which one did you do? Because they're very different.

So it was initially going towards the first and then sort of like stopped myself and then had a call with my EA and I was like, you know what, we should actually collect responses from people. So we haven't fully proposed a solution. I kind of half did, but not fully. And then I had my EA reach out to everyone. and start collecting responses from everyone. And, um, they're, they're, you like literally right now, which is great that we're having this conversation being put into a doc. And, uh, then I read the, if you, if you can contextualize the loudest voice in the room for, for people who are listening, I read that. I was like, I can't give any ideas right now. I just have to like just completely go silent.

So glad you did that because you did the exact right thing. As CEO of the company, you do have the loudest voice in the room. So everyone else can propose a solution and it won't be intimidating and people will still give their feedback and reaction to that solution. But if you as CEO propose a solution, people will not give you real feedback. They will go, yeah, sure, whatever. They won't actually believe it. They won't actually buy into it, but they won't say that. So the only way for you as CEO to get buy-in is for you to not give a proposed solution, which you didn't do. Fantastic job. And then collect ideas from the team, which you've done phenomenal. Now the next key step is to make the team feel heard. And unfortunately, you cannot do this asynchronously. You've done everything you can do asynchronously up till now. The rest of this must be done synchronously to be effective. So you must gather the team and you must go read through each of these responses together. And then again, the 1 or 2 or 3 that seem the most relevant, the next step is to have those people share verbally what their idea is. And the 1 or 2 of those that seem like you want to use and as your decision, you repeat back to those people until they say yes, and then you have your decision. And you have the people feeling that, yes, Sachit really understood what I said. He read through all of them. He took the ones he liked the best. He heard those verbally. He repeated back the one that he wanted to actually implement. So he really understood it. I feel like I was part of the process. He considered my ideas and the idea he picked, I agree, it was the best idea. And clearly he understood what was going on. I am now part of this. I helped create this. I helped. In fact, this isn't Sachit's idea. This isn't Sachit's answer. It's my answer. I actually made this decision. And I don't know a single person in the world that doesn't buy into a decision that they feel that they created. So if you can get them to feel that way, that's your answer for buy-in. And the whole process takes about 15 minutes. So you did this whole, the async process you did up and down took 0 minutes of your time. And the process of gathering them together, reading through, hearing a few verbally, repeating back 1 or 2, then declaring what your decision is, that process can take as little as 15 minutes. So in 15 minutes, you get massive buy-in from your team. So Sachit, you're, you're nailing it.

Faith, uh, do you want to add? Anything to that, or?

I mean, Matt, he's shining in all of his glory right now. So like, I'm just celebrating all of it. So nothing new to add to this.

Nice. I love that. And would part of that process also be before doing that sort of like call with everyone, doing individual calls with everyone in person or individually to get that sort of like, ask the questions that you asked before in terms of the workspace and all, or does that come after sort of presenting this as a solution?

Well, that, with the magic questions, I think you're referring to, That's just an ongoing thing that I like to do in one-on-ones once a month. You could go and call each person individually and make them feel heard about their feedback. That's a lot of time. That's, that's expensive. I think that that level of investment I would reserve for a board of directors, that because they have the ability to shut down your company if they want to. I don't think I'd use that level of investment with a team. And, but also the team wants to see that you've seen others. So if you're going to take the time to repeat back each person, you might as well do that in a group setting so they can all see you doing it. But I think even that's overkill. I think you need to read everybody's. I think you need to hear 2 or 3, and I think you need to repeat back 1 or 2. That's enough.

When you're talking about doing it in a group setting, I think the thing that comes up for me is, oh, Would people not want like what they shared to be like shared with the group or whatever? So how do you create that culture of radical like candor and transparency in a company where maybe that didn't exist before in a way that people still feel safe and then don't sort of like shut down because they're like, oh wait, something I shared privately is now like with everyone or something along those lines.

Got it. Well, certainly I would set the context before, hey, please give me your feedback. We're going to have a group meeting about this to come up with an answer. So people know that their information will be shared publicly. If you haven't done that, then you can't share it unless you have specific approval from each person. But in a, and hopefully these answers that I'm giving you are things that you can do or the company. It's not like, hey, fire Joe who's sitting next to me, or like, that's the stuff that's dicey to share amongst a group where I say, you know, do something to my peer. But the way to create, I find to create trust in a group is to model it. So the diciest activity is feedback because feedback, I'm going to tell you what I want you to change about you, about your behavior. And in my experience, in my lifetime, that is the most likely time for a person to get triggered and defensive and angry. is when I talk about their behavior. And growing up as children, we all had the experience of an adult getting angry, and it was not a pleasant outcome. So our brains do not want to repeat that situation, even though we're now adults and we're not going to get physically beaten, likely. We still feel that fear from our childhood experiences. So The key is to make people realize that you are safe. So the way I do this is I first say, I would like to get the group together. And I asked the group to give me feedback. And I then model receiving that feedback. We have a doc on this called the 5 A's. I asked for it, I appreciate it, I acknowledge it, either I accept it or I don't. And if I do accept it, then I turn it into an action. And If I'm able to really elicit people's true and dicey and gut-punchy feedback, and I don't get defensive, and I really do appreciate it, and people are like, oh my God, it's safe to give Matt feedback. Then I ask each person, are you willing to receive feedback? And then invariably you say yes. And we do group feedback for each person. And by the time we get through everybody, the whole team realizes, wait a second, Everybody here just wants to learn. Everyone really appreciates this feedback. And now suddenly you have a culture of radical candor and transparency, but it requires group feedback for each and every person in the group. So you've got an 8-person team. That's 8 rounds of feedback, group feedback. Group feedback could take an hour each. It's a pretty big investment, but I find that it is a massive Reward if you're willing to take that time.

Yeah, and if I can add on to that too, part of why this provides such a huge reward is that as a company, right, in order for you guys to succeed, you have to exist outside your comfort zone. So for everybody to like be like, I'm fine, we're not saying the uncomfortable thing, that's all comfort zone stuff. People just want to feel safe and secure, but when you can show them How to baby step their way out of their comfort zone into a place of massive vulnerability, like in giving and receiving feedback, you really help to underline both consciously and subconsciously that the culture here really is safe, right? It's safe to take that step. It's safe to get vulnerable and to push yourself outside your comfort zone. And I just think it has this tremendous ripple effect from something so small. Outward.

And one thought you may be having, oh my gosh, that sounds like great in a theoretical academic setting, but in the real world of company building, there's no time to do this. No companies actually do this. Well, Netflix does, and they seem to perform pretty well, and they actually credit their success with this behavior.

Yeah, because that's the thing you'll find is that the person who's the most valuable player on your team It's the person who's gonna tell you the thing you don't wanna hear. The people who just contribute to like the echo chamber effect, it's like, okay, that's not helpful. Like, if we really wanna take the elephants out of the room, right? And shine bright light into the dark cobwebby corners of the, what we're trying to build here, what's working, what's not working. It's, it's that ability to be brave and to say the thing that is gonna make someone uncomfortable and likely elicit a reaction other than total happiness. Like, that is some of the most valuable, like, solid gold nuggets or platinum even that you will find in your individuals on a team.

And I love that it like start— it's simple and it's hard because it starts by modeling it yourself. Um, and I always sort of like started with emotions because I've also seen like where in a lot of companies there, there, there is a culture of like fear and anger that is used to drive people. And it's even in some of the book's language, right? Like only the paranoid survive. And in your book, you talk about really like working from joy instead. So 2 questions on that. One is, is joy the gateway or the result of this environment? And then how do you actually go about creating a culture? Let's say I'm a CEO that's sold on the concept. How do I actually go about making it happen in terms of creating a culture based out of joy?

Yeah. Joy can't be created. Joy results from actions taken. And the easiest thing to do to create an environment where joy can thrive is to remove things that are de-energizing. So we have this thing called an energy audit where, and of course we got this from, I got this from other people. I think I learned this from Diana Chapman at the Conscious Leadership Group, and she got it from Katie Hendricks, and, you know, so on and so on. So this is, this is nothing new under the sun here. This is not, not invented by me, certainly. And the energy audit is simply that you look at a representative 2 weeks in your calendar, and you mark hour by hour, red and green, this, the activity that I did during this hour, 8 to 9 AM on Monday morning, did it increase my energy or not. And if it increased my energy, I give it a green. If it didn't, I give it a red, even if it was neutral. And I go hour by hour by hour from the entire day, from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. And I do that Monday through Friday. I can even do it on the weekends, but certainly Monday through Friday. And then I go back and look at all the reds. We're trying to eliminate the reds. And I see which activities, what sort of like What commonalities there are. And oftentimes it'll be like, well, these are all one-on-ones with people that I no longer manage, and they're just like people that wanted to keep having one-on-ones with me because for an attachment that they had, but really there's no purpose. Or informational interviews from friends of friends who want to know, you know, career advice. Or spending time with a candidate that We ended up not hiring. That felt like a, you know, a loss of time. Uh, these are examples of common things that are de-energizing, or an internal meeting, team meeting that just isn't well run and no one prepares for. And so with each of these, the next step is to then say, well, how can I get rid of it? How can I get it off my calendar? And there's only 3 ways to do that. One is just eliminate the action altogether. Like, does this informational interview actually even need to happen? No. Okay, great. Say I don't do informational interviews. 2, if it does need to happen, does it need to happen by you? Could someone else do it? If the answer is yes, then you delegate it to them. But there are going to be a whole bunch that fall into the 3rd category, which is it does have to happen. We do have to interview recruits at a certain point. If they're going to report to me, I do need to interview them. Great. Well, what would make it exquisite? What would make it really fun and energizing? Well, what would make it really fun and energizing if I only met with a candidate that we were highly likely to hire, that everyone else already loved, and that I'm highly likely to love? Okay, great. Then meet with the candidate last, have your team meet with them first, and you only meet with a candidate that they absolutely go, oh my gosh, this person's an absolute A-player. And you're— we think you're going to love this person. And then you meet with them and then you go, whoa, this person is amazing. And now it's energizing for you. That's an example of 3 different categories and how you deal with them. And if you start doing that and you change your calendar, it becomes a little bit more green. A few more red things get taken out. And when red things get taken out, it leaves open space. And that space you're going to fill with things naturally. That you enjoy, that energize you. And if you do this audit 1, 2, 3 times, let's say every month for 3 months, eventually your calendar will become almost all green. And when it does, wow, life is going to become phenomenal. And then you may say, well, wait, that works great for me. I'm the CEO, but what about my team? What about the whole company? We can't do that for the whole company. If we did that for the whole company, then no one would You know, take out the garbage? And the answer is, you'd be shocked. For every action that you don't like to do, there's someone who loves to do it. And by the way, the only way you can be really good at something is by loving to do it, because then you do it, you put extra energy into it, you study it, you read books on it. And there, for every— again, for everything that you hate, there's someone who loves that. So I've had companies— Brex, for example, once did this energy audit with every single manager in the entire company. Said it was game-changing. People started rearranging how they did things, mostly how they did things, and everyone became much happier and much more positive, and the company started to perform better. So this can be done at scale, and it has been done at scale. Yeah.

And also just, again, you hear me with like underlines all the time because Matt preaches beautiful things. Um, I think what it really comes down to for people to experience joy, which Brené Brown says is the most difficult emotion for us as humans to feel because it's massively vulnerable to feel it, but I think the thing that really contributes to that the most is that people feel like their time's being respected. Right? That they're valued where they are and that you see them and you hear them. And look, we were talking earlier about culture kind of being that space between people, more or less, like the energy that's there in the room. I think when you're able, like when Matt's talking about the energy audit, what that really helps you do is play to each person's unique brand of magic within the company, right? Like, I have a big operational brain and that's why I did so well Was because I loved and breathed like systems and processes and solving problems. I'm like the biggest puzzle person in the entire world. So like, I love that stuff. Everybody else on my team hated it, so it was great. I was perfectly well suited for that. But like, that's the thing that really makes a difference is when you're playing to people's zones of genius on your team, everybody's got different strengths and weaknesses. And when you can help them feel bolstered in their strengths, and other people can step in where they're weak, that's like chef's kiss.

I'm almost thinking of sort of this like map where you're like mapping out in terms of who's in their zone of genius doing what and looking for that like harmony within a team. So are there maybe examples that come to mind that were like surprising for you guys in ways that people you coach actually put this into effect?

I mean, yeah, there's a great example that I have and luckily They've shared it publicly already, so I can. So Pedro and Enrique at Brex, this was— they were co-CEOs and they each took half the team and ran, you know, one took the sales and marketing, the other took the engineering and product and design. And, you know, one took finance, the other took— I don't remember exactly what the split was. But after doing this energy audit, we came to realize that Pedro loved the internal meetings and Enrique loved the external meetings, and Pedro hated the external meetings, and Enrique wasn't energized by the internal meetings. And we said, well, wait a second, why, why are you guys splitting each? Why doesn't Pedro take all the internal meetings and Enrique take all the external meetings? And they, we said, yeah, and all 3 of us like, let's do that. And that's what they did. And that's also a moment in time in Brexus history when certainly their joy spiked tremendously. But I think they would say that the trajectory of the company significantly increased because the performance also, the internal meetings became way better and the external meetings became way better. Because each one of them was doing what they absolutely loved, and it showed. You'd be lucky to have a co-CEO pair that is— yeah, yeah, it's rare.

Yeah, I don't know, it's rare to see. Yes. Yeah, I— my anecdotal references, I'm not sure are public, so I'll just say that it's similar to what Matt's saying. Um, I've seen it with co-CEOs, like through— there's 3 CEOs that were all the co-founders together, and seeing how they divvied it up I mean, I've also seen it play out when it's just one CEO, um, either somebody who's like started within the ranks and then moved into that position over time when it was needed. Um, but it is just really beautiful from the outside looking in. I mean, it's one of the greatest highlights of being a coach at this level is to watch how that happens in that world. And when they get it right, you watch them go from like a steady growth to like they're cooking with gas or rocket fuel for that matter. And Startup lingo.

Sachit, before we go on to the next, I'd like to cycle back to the very original question that we had, which is us coaching you. And you were talking about how, how could you share with this team this incredible opportunity? And you just weren't getting it across. Like, they didn't seem to understand, because if they did, they'd be getting this job done so you can go and accept the next, you know, 20 jobs that are coming flowing towards you. And you said, and you realize, wait a second, they're all going to hear this. And of course, that is the answer almost always when you're having to communicate something to somebody. When you tell it to Faith and I, you don't feel fear about telling it to us because we're not affected by it. So you're speaking without fear, and therefore you're saying everything. And when you— but when you tell it to somebody, you feel fear that they're going to get offended. So you hold back, you don't say everything, and then they don't get all the information. So a technique is to literally say to someone else like you did to us, record it, and share it with the person. Now you can skip that step, Sachit, because they're hearing it already through this podcast. But that is a known and very effective technique. So you already have your answer. They will hear this. They will understand. Now they will understand the opportunity and they will go and either they'll buy in or they won't, but at least now they'll understand the opportunity.

It was more like maybe they'll be like, oh, why is he talking about this publicly? But I think if we go like, we want to create a culture of transparency, then this is what's going to happen. Um, and they have to be on board with that.

Yeah.

And also just to underline what you just said, right? You want to create a culture of transparency. The best thing you could possibly do is bring this to them directly, right? Don't be like, hey, please go watch this podcast. Like, ask everybody to meet with you, sit down with them, and model to them how you feel, right? Like, hey guys, like, I wanna share with you something. It might bring up some different emotions for you, and I would love to hear what it, what it triggers for you, but I'm feeling a certain kind of way. Right? Because of XYZ. And just sharing your experience with them is already inherently going to be like trust triggering because of the fact that you're being open and honest with them. Like, hey, I'm feeling really disappointed because I feel like we had this incredible opportunity at hand and we're kind of missing the mark on it. And I would really love to find a way for us to really come together and like stick the landing on this to really preserve what feels again like lightning in a bottle or something really magical that could exist here. I think when you, when you speak from your experience and you own it, I messages, right? Not you guys are screwing it up. It's like, I feel when you, because like that's some of the most powerful language you can use.

And I think a lot of things that you said in terms of like making sure everyone's heard, their ideas are incorporated, because I definitely didn't do all of that. And so I can see once I start doing that, they're going to get more bought in and then they'll feel the vision is theirs, not, not just mine.

Yeah. And it's not just that they feel it, it's like it just is, you know? That's part of the co-creative process that Matt's talking about. You're not like pulling some weird like mental jiu-jitsu on them to convince them of something that's not true. It's like, it's just actually what's happening from co-creating.

One of the things that you sort of like mentioned here is this, when we were talking about the CEO split, one of my favorite videos that you have recorded is your talk with Naval. on why you decided not to be CEO. And maybe you can like put part of it in here instead of recapping it. But a lot of our audience is creators. And a lot of times, sort of like expressing that creator personality, most of them are running businesses that are, let's say between half a million to like a few million. And a lot of them are sort of like CEO by default, where maybe their creator personality is, I want to create the next product. I want to create the next product. I want to create the next product. And I'm going to connect a few different ideas from you here. And you also talk about sort of hiring an EA and promoting that to chief of staff. And I think one thing that when you shared it on the podcast, my mind was blown where you were talking about how having that sort of like chief of staff and super EA then go on to run departments. is way more successful than hiring someone from outside. So if there's all these creators that have these businesses that are stuck at that point and they're CEOs and they don't really want to be CEO and maybe they bring in an EA and then that EA learns stuff, this is sort of like one of these radically crazy ideas. Can you actually train an EA to then go on to run your business for you? Um, especially when it's not like billion-dollar outcomes, it's multi-million-dollar companies. And how would someone go about doing that?

Yeah. So you mentioned a lot of things. You mentioned Naval, and you mentioned people not wanting to be CEO, and you mentioned super EAs, and you mentioned men running departments and then companies.

Please answer the 5 questions I didn't even ask.

Exactly. Exactly. So I'd actually like to touch on each one of them. First of all, let's just do a hat tip to Naval. Naval is the single best extemporaneous speaker that I have ever met in my entire life. And I'm surrounded by very intelligent, very well-spoken people. Um, he is a unique talent in that way. He opens his mouth, he starts talking. There are no ums, uh, buts, likes, ands, nothing. It is just one continuous line of thought, and it ends up coming out structured like a very well-written book. But that's a unique skill. I don't know anyone else on the planet who can do that besides—

It's not the verbal vomit that I just did.

No, but the rest of us are mere mortals. Naval is not. He exists on a higher plane. Now, there's a reason why this— he developed the skill. And I think you shared this before. When he was a kid, he was growing up in Queens, and his mom was working during the day. And, you know, it was kind of a tough neighborhood. And his mom wanted him safe after school. So he— she had him go to the public library after school until she was able to pick him up in the evening. So he would spend after school for multiple years, every day, 4 or 5 hours a day at the public library. And eventually he's like, what am I doing here? I'm just gonna start reading. So he started reading books. Eventually he read hundreds, then he read thousands, then he read Tens of thousands. So there, he ingested massive amounts of information, much more than anyone else I know. And that is now at a young age. And that now has populated his brain. So he can speak like an authority on almost any topic. And again, speak like a book because it is books that are coming out of his brain. So that's it. This is not like Yes, he has an incredible talent, but it also came from a place of action. These are actions that he actually took. That's one thing I want to share there. The second thing is, you talk about most founders not wanting to be CEO. It's absolutely true. Most founders want to solve a problem. They see a customer who's got a problem and they want to solve it, and that's what really excites them. And so they're perfectly suited To get a company from zero to product-market fit. But then something happens. The product actually takes off. And then all of a sudden, they've got to scale the company because, well, they don't have to, but they usually want to. And that means hiring salespeople to put this product in front of customers, hiring customer support people to answer the questions that customers now have. Hiring more engineers to build out all the features that are on the future roadmap that the customers now want, etc. And those are more and more people, and people, as we've already been talking, talking about, have emotions and want to feel heard and want to feel cared for and need to be managed and want to feel supported. And the more of them there are, the more They want to feel like someone is looking after them. And this requires a completely and utterly different skillset and a completely and utterly different motion. It's managing. It's managing, first managing people, then managing managers of people, then managing managers of managers of managers of people. And most CEOs and founders that Faith and I coach, that's not what excites them. And as we just talked about in Zone of Genius and Energy Audit, If you don't love doing something, you're probably not good at it. And most of the founders that I coach, they don't love running the company. And I then ask them the question, then why are you doing it? Why don't you go back to being the product visionary, being the strategy visionary, and let someone else take the one-on-ones and run the team meetings? And some of them have accepted that premise and moved towards hiring a COO. And those companies are operating very well. And some of them want to tough it out and learn it themselves and do it themselves. It's a bit of a masochistic way to go. And the question is, can you get— now we'll come to your last question. Can you get an EA To run the company.

Or get, get, get, get to that point where they shadow you while you're building and then they've learned everything. Then when it gets to come, comes, comes to that point, they can just be that person.

Absolutely.

Yes.

And so the key, what we discovered was, is that this was by circumstance, by, by, you know, accident. Um, I found that, and Faith and I both found that what we do is We become the manager of the CEO. And if after 3 meetings, they feel more engaged, more enthusiastic, more capable, then they know that our management system works. And now they can go, it's all documented, so they can go use that with their reports. Um, and, but what we found is, both Faith and I, is that oftentimes after 3 meetings, the founder said, this system's amazing. I want to do it. But I'm not a process person, so I don't actually want to, you know, enforce all this stuff. I want someone else to do it. I want someone else to implement it. And they're like, you know, Faith, can you please now go meet with this other person, teach them how to do it so that they can go, you know, implement it in our company? And Faith and I, of course, said, well, no, we just met with you. We just taught you. Why don't we have someone sit in on our meetings? And observe so that they learn at the same time. So that's what we do. And we required a chief of staff or someone to sit in on our meetings. And what we— so we caused a lot of CEOs to hire a chief of staff that they didn't have before. And what we found over— and of course, the way to onboard that person is we didn't want to take any more time from the CEO. So we said, tell you what, don't have one-on-ones with this chief of staff. Just simply have them observe you. Have them observe you for 1, 2, 3 months, and then they will slowly start to take tasks off your plate. And they do. And eventually we said, if you give them full access to your email, sit in on every meeting, they'll see all the information that comes into you. They'll see the decisions you make. They'll start to put connection together. They'll start to see how you make decisions. And within 3 to 6 months, They will be making decisions exactly the way you do. And you can test it. You can have them do tasks and see if they perform the way you do. Of course, give them a little feedback, but eventually they'll be doing it exactly how you would want to. And we tried this experiment over and over and it completely and utterly worked. It was crazy. But then a really curious thing happened. And eventually these chief of staffs, especially the ones that were sort of higher level, the ones who sort of were, you know, in their 30s or even 40s and like had real, you know, work experience and wanted to do something bigger that they felt like this chief of staff was just a stepping stone. We, they got put, there would be inevitably a department would be struggling. And instead of bringing in someone else from the outside, it's because the CEO trusted this chief of staff said, will you please go run this department? Go run the people department. Go run the marketing department. Go run the finance department. And even though that person had very little experience, or maybe none in that area, it went well. They ran the department great because the CEO had trust and they were doing it as the CEO herself would've done it. But then we looked at executives that got hired from the outside with much more experience, and the success rate was about 50%. I mean, mind-boggling. You get a 28-year-old and they're outperforming a 38-year-old who's got 10 more years of experience doing this exact job. And the only difference we could see was this shadowing piece. That's what wasn't happening with the new executives that were hired from the outside. So then I— we suggested, Faith and I suggested to CEOs we coach started about 2 years ago. We suggested that they start having new execs start shadowing both the CEO and half the time, and the other half the time, whoever was doing the role of running the department, which might also be the CEO, but maybe not. And do it for at least 30 days, but better 60, and even better 90, before they were asked to really take over the department. The results were shocking. Now that 50% success rate also went up to close to 100%. And so it turns out the shadowing technique is just massively effective. And then we went the other direction. Then there was one CEO that said to us, Matt, I've been looking for a chief of staff. I just can't find one. Uh, you know what? I'm just going to make my EA my chief of staff. I'm just going to let her sit in all my meetings and access to my email. That's just what I'm— I don't have any other choice. He said, okay, great. So he did. And about 2 weeks later, he came back to us and said, oh my God, you would not believe the difference. I've had this EA for years. She's been fine, but now she's phenomenal. Now she's actually a phenomenal chief of staff, not just an EA. And we realized, oh God, it was the shadowing. It was the access to information. So it turns out that most human beings have all the intelligence they need to perform. They just need access to the information. Your EA, you think, can only do your scheduling and book your travel. Yes, he or she could actually run the company if she had the needed information, if she had the context. So once you give that context to her, she'll be able to perform. Now, not all EAs want to do this. Not all EAs want the responsibility of decision-making, but it's certainly possible. And we've done it here inside of my own organization. The first chief of staff I hired then went on to run the company. And then of course we had her hire someone to shadow her. And then that person now runs the company and that person is 24 years old and that's Nancy and Regina.

Yeah, I, I work, I've worked with both of them at Ondex. So, uh, it's been just really cool to see their evolution within your company.

Yes, they're phenomenal. But it's also, I mean, I, I don't want to take away from them because they are phenomenal, both Regina and Nancy. But the key was what allowed them to shine was access to the information they had full and unfettered access to everything that I saw. And then they're like, okay, Matt, we see how you're making these decisions. Great. We can do it too. And they do. And the way we test it is we sometimes will write down a question and I'll say to— now it's Nancy. I'll say to Nancy, let's each write our answer to this question. We both write it down. We compare the answers. Invariably, the answers are almost identical. That's the way you, you confirm that there is a mind meld. You don't have to take a leap of faith. That doesn't, this doesn't require like, oh my God, I give up the reins and I don't know how they're going to perform. It doesn't require that. You can actually see how they'll perform. You can actually put them in the place and you sit and continue to do the one-on-ones and team meetings while they run them and you reverse shadow and just see, see how they're doing and give them feedback until they're doing it better than you would. And you'll know exactly when that moment happens. And once that moment happens, they will run the— they are running the company better than you can.

So let's say you're a founder creator type who's again, not maximizing for like the billion-dollar outcome, but for getting ideas and solving problems. Theoretically, you could take a bunch of different things zero to one, have an EA sort of shadow you from the start, get it to PMF, maybe a few people, and then just have them run the thing and then be able to sort of hop innovation curves and go to the next one and go to the next one and go to the next one.

Absolutely. Um, now there's a key question here. There are 2 different types of people in this world I found. There's founder types who are problem solver types, and then there are process people. And there's very— I found very little overlap between the 2. There are some that are both, but not many. And so the person who's a process person will take a solution that's already been created and will follow it over and over and over again, a systems person, systems follower. And they're key. That's the type of person that you want to hire to scale your operation because the solution has already been created. Now it's just got to be repeated over and over and over again. But creating the solution, if you're— for example, you want to create new products. The person you hire to run the and scale the existing product is not likely going to be the one who's going to come up with a new product. You have to have a founder type for that, a problem solver type for that. But that problem solver type will get very bored by having to run a large people organization. So just make sure that if you, if you are the founder type and get it 0 to 1, and then you have your EA then go, scale it. If you want to add new products to that entity, you have to have a founder type create the new product.

That is so fascinating. Speaking of scaling, I'm gonna try and make the segue happen. In the last 2 years, you sort of like went from just you coaching to now building a team of coaches. And one of the things that Sabrina mentioned that was very insightful for me was she mentioned that there's a misconception that the curriculum needs to be followed to a T. It's more science. And what she said was, it's also art in the sense of like every coach that comes in sort of brings their own perspective into it, right? So Faith, I'm curious, like for you, especially given your background in art and film and theater, as you teach this curriculum, like how have you evolved it and how have you sort of implemented it differently or what's been surprising for you in that way?

Such a juicy question. Thank you. Also fun shout out to the arts. Um, we don't give enough credit to just how much that impacts the rest of your life and success everywhere. But I'm a big believer in what's emergent for somebody. Um, my boyfriend does organizational development and that's a huge piece of it, right? You can come in with all the frameworks in the world and try to impose it on a system, but unless you're really paying attention to what's emergent and unique for that company, like what those needs are, like it's all the stuff you could supply to the end of the day won't work. Right? So I like to tell my people that I work with that like, I'm here with an insane set of tools and resources, the method and all these frameworks that have been time-tested and proven, um, to offer them to you as a potential resource for you to try on, right? And see how it fits. And then I'm here to help you stick the implementation on, stick the landing on the stuff that does resonate for you. Um, it's a huge reason why Matt and I connected and why I resonated with him so deeply in the beginning was because I spent 11 years toiling, getting a lot of gray hair from trying to figure stuff out and reading all these things. And I didn't know Mishari Method existed. And then I read his curriculum and I was like, ugh, what I wouldn't have given to have had access to this like early on in my days of building that company and bootstrapping it from the ground up. So, I think because I have that lived experience of like magpieing it, you know, and going and taking a little bit of Radical Candor, taking a little bit of the Management Center, a little bit of, um, Creativity Inc., right? And now these, uh, the Imago technique, which is like a couples therapy thing, which is a huge part of making people feel heard, right? Because I've lived that experience, I know firsthand just how powerful that is. That's how I try to show up in those sessions. And just make sure people know that, like, it is not required that you grok 100% of the curriculum. If there's something that really does not work for you, I do want to know why, because there might be some sort of block that's coming up for you that might be a blind spot, right? If you're like, no, I hate making people feel heard, this does not work for me, it doesn't feel effective, like, okay, tell me why though, because this is a pretty core piece to Doing all the things we've talked about in this interview, right? Which is making people feel heard and seen and building the trust, building transparency. Um, yeah, so it's just, it's really a matter of what is true to you. Here's a bajillion different ways that we could go about this, but here's one really powerful way. If it's right for you, let's give this a shot. If it— you— it's your decision. You're in the driver's seat. I'm here to help. So.

And I know as part of the sort of learning for you, there's a process of you also shadowing Matt. So in terms of the curriculum, were there either like misconceptions that you had that you were like, oh wait, this was surprising, or just in the shadowing, things that you saw Matt do or learn that were very surprising for you?

Yeah, I think, well, the first piece, Matt and I have laughed about this together a few times now, which is like, he does an amazing job of making people feel heard. And the way that he does it is like, he'll take it. To like almost a comical place because he makes it so big, you know, to kind of exaggerate it to really get the point. And at first that didn't work for me because I'm an introvert. I like to just like really just take everything in and listen and just like reflect what I hear, you know. I've never really taken that approach before. But then over time of practicing it, I was like, oh, I get it. I get why you're doing this. It's the same reason we tell people when you're doing IPS, Stick a flag on a solution, even if you're not confident that this solution you're gonna run with, just stick a flag. It's easier for me to react to that, you know, than it is to react to nothing. So that piece, and then the talent density piece was really hard for me at first because, um, I come from a background of really leaning in, kind of like the radical candor piece of you have superstars in your organization.

Right?

And then you've got your rock stars, and then you've got people that are just kind of like, meh, they're, they're meeting par, right? They're not blowing anybody away. And my background has always been to like lean in with those people and help cultivate them and help empower them and feel, feel into where they were being blocked that was keeping them from being just like meh to getting to like, hey, that's awesome. You're like consistently at a 4 now, not a 3. You know, and so that part felt like inherently confronting to me. So like the idea of being like you're only going to keep your superstars—I was like, what? No, I'd never done that. But the thing that time showed me was just how critical that is. I totally get it now, more in my bones from watching firsthand the impact of taking that approach, especially at a time. When you must succeed, this company cannot take care of its people unless the company itself is succeeding. So you can't have bloat; you can't have dead weight. You need everybody to be at the tip-top shape, tip-top form, really pushing like superstars do. But those are the two things I can think of right off the bat.

And then this was actually a yeah a question from Sabrina. So obviously, like. People coach for different reasons. Um, I'm curious for both of you, what aspects of coaching, uh, bring you joy? Like, what specifically is the part of coaching where you're like, this is, this is why I do this?

So for me, the original motivation for coaching was I love to connect with people. I love to create deep friendships. And so this is where I said I have no professional boundaries. It's true. Um, and I That's why I got into coaching and I got into coaching because I could create deep personal friendships with really interesting people. And that's my primary and continues to be my primary motivation. Now, as we went along, I realized, wait a second, I'm, and we are supposed to, Faith and I are supposed to be coaching people about how to create $100 billion companies. And But wait a second, Faith and I have not created a $100 billion company. So on some level, it's fraudulent that we're coaching people to this outcome. So until we've created a $100 billion company, we don't really know what we're talking about. And so we said, okay, let's see if we can do that. And let's see if we can do that in the manner that is most efficient and effective. Now, we obviously haven't created a $100 billion company yet, But we are working towards it. And what's interesting, it allows us a laboratory to test out our more radical ideas because everything that we come up with, we then suggest to other people. But as Faith said, if it doesn't resonate with the CEO we're coaching, then the CEO won't do it. And often they'll say, well, you know, Faith, has anyone else Done this? And if they have to say, well, no, we just came up with this yesterday and no one's actually done it, then the CEO is probably going to say, well, I don't want to be the guinea pig. I'm not going to do it. And for some of our more radical ideas, we just couldn't get people to try it. So now we get to do it inside of our own company. And one of the things that Faith is talking about is talent density. Now that's very well documented. You know, Reed Hastings at Netflix wrote the book. On No Rules Rules, and he goes through it very clearly. And so we had already gotten to a place where we only had 4s, as Faith talked about, internally in our organization. We don't have 3s. We only have 4s. 3 is meeting expectation. We only have 4s exceeding expectation. And 5, of course, it couldn't be any better. So we only have 4s and 5s. But then one day, as I was coaching, I said to a CEO, because he was having a really hard time letting someone go, And I said to the person, I said to him, have you ever experienced letting someone go and then later regretting it? And he thought, didn't have to think long. He's like, no. And I said, well, then you don't know where the bar is. You're letting people go at this level of performance, but really where you need to be letting them go is up until this level of performance. And until you get to the point where you've let someone go and you regret it, you don't know where that line is. He was like, wow, you're right. But unfortunately, as I said those words, I realized, uh-oh, I've never let anyone go and regretted it. So then I realized I didn't know where the bar was. And so I had to look among our team of all outperformers and say, who do I need to let go? And I did. I let go someone who's phenomenal, incredible attitude, incredible skills, Do anything, happy about it all the time. But there was someone else in the organization that could probably do what he was doing and what she was doing. And so I did let him go. Now, of course, we have a way of letting people go that actually gets them to a better place. It gets them— I actively helped him find the place he wanted to start a company and he has and he's loving it. So we get them into it. We help them through the trauma of losing their job by getting them into an even better job or starting their own company. But the result, of course, was it was the right thing to do. And Faith saw that in real time, that experience. And that's what she, I think she's referring to. She said, oh my gosh, that freaked me out. But now I realize the end result was a better operating company because the fewer people there are, the less coordination there is. The less coordination is, the more effective and efficient things are. You said yourself, I thought I had 4 people doing this job, but then it turns out there were 12. Well, there's your answer. That's why it's not getting done, because coordinating 12 people is really hard. Coordinating 4 people, not so hard. If you actually go to 4 people doing the job, it will get done quite quickly.

I love my people. Every single person that I work with, I just am so inspired by them on the regular. And I just feel so honored to be in a position where I can be of help to people. Like I've made a lot of mistakes in my time. Like we talked about gray hair, you know, I've learned a lot of things the hard way, and I know just how transformational it was for me to have support along the way in my life's path at key moments in time. And so being able to be that for somebody else and to pay it forward with real skill and real Concrete, practical, tactical things. Like, there's nothing better than— like, this is a dream I had in my 20s. I met a life coach in my early 20s, and I was like, how on earth are you a life coach? You're in your 20s, you have no life experience. I'm 40 now, and it feels so good to have all this life experience and to be doing literally the dream that I had in my 20s. Uh, and I just walk away from like the sessions just feeling so energized. Because of the connection with my people and seeing the light in their eyes and seeing their, the results that they're getting, the inspiration they get from it and how that's rippling out with their teams. Oh, it's just, it's the best.

That, that sounds so amazing. And I think also from it, from that, it would be easier to assume that like every coaching session is like really easy and you, you end with joy and all these different things, right? So can you share your stories of some, without naming names or People's, uh, identities. Can you share some stories of like hard coaching sessions somewhere where like maybe like you were stuck and how you got out of it?

Yeah, to answer your question about like a bad coaching session. So coaching in its purest form— there's a lot of coaching out there, quote-unquote coaching. True coaching is you're not telling people what to do, right? You inherently believe that people you're talking to have all the answers they need, and it's just your job to help And clear out the stuff that's blocking them from their answers. So it's not your job to solve the problem, it's your job to coach the person, not the problem, right? And as us problem solvers are really good at is we're good at coaching the problem. Like, ooh, I have all these answers, I have all these solutions. So I say all that to say it's a really important distinction to make. And so when I coach, I design from my, with my clients upfront, This is what coaching is, right? I do have a consulting hat from all the experience that I had that I could put on, right? And I can talk to you from a consultant perspective of what I've seen work and again, offer frameworks, offer tools. Um, and we design that in from the outgo to the outset to make sure that it's covered. But the worst coaching sessions that I've had have usually just been when I get sucked into the problem. Not coaching the person because then I'm sweating bullets coaching somebody from like a $100 million company, right? Who's trying to solve a $100 million problem. And I'm like, well, shoot, I've solved a lot of problems higher than that through other clients, but like my own lived experience was not that high. And so I could literally feel the change in my body and my stress levels just go up when I start to get sucked into the problem itself.

Mm-hmm.

But the second I can sit back into my proper coaching position, then it's like all that stress dissipates and I can be fully present with my people again. Um, and I guess really the only other thing is like a tech issue, right? Where you guys are like in the middle of something like beautiful, you're deep in it, and then like the power goes out, right? Or a storm like wipes out like the internet for like the greater Tennessee area or something. You know, that's a tough one too.

Or you're doing a podcast and Riverside has its own— Riverside Sessions. That is funny. Exactly. Yeah. That's fascinating. One of the things you also mentioned in sort of the pre-interview stuff was some of the most common complaints you hear as a coach, and that you might have fun and funny things to share here.

Oh my Lord, yes. It's like, if I could just— I just recently wrote a write-up for the Mishari curriculum about micromanaging. Um, because I have the great honor of working with, um, CEOs, executive teams, everything in between, like the entire hierarchy. I've worked with it and have lived experience there consistently. People who are not the CEO are like, my CEO is driving me insane because they are either like not sticking to their word, um, they say they're gonna do something and they don't, right? Or They micromanage the hell out of me, and it's driving me crazy. Like, why don't they trust me to do my job, right? Or there's just poor communication. Like, those are the most common complaints that I hear from anybody but the CEO. From the CEO down, it's just the flip side of the coin. Why aren't my team getting their jobs done, right? What is going on? Why is there a disconnect between what I want them to do and what they're actually doing? They're driving me insane. And again, you could just look at the, like, communication breakdown that's happening on both sides. to cause this stress and frustration in general. But yeah, it's pretty comical to be on the outside looking in and be like, oh, this is fun.

On the first one that you mentioned, because I interviewed another friend of mine who was CEO of a company and he said something interesting, where his whole philosophy, and I think it's similar to what the curriculum here is, is the CEO should delegate and actually end up at a point where they have mostly free time. Right? And this was an insight from Sabrina. She said it's a very simple question, but it's actually a very deep question because for CEOs, the first part is creating the free time, but then it's what do you do with all that free time?

Yes.

Where it leads to like maybe like micromanaging and stuff because they're like, I just want to be in the business. So when you get CEOs to that point, like what happens there?

God, it's such a great question. So, What I would love to do really quick is partially answer that with the trajectory, because this is something that I don't think is understood commonly enough, especially for CEOs that go from 0 to 1, who like literally were the first person on this team before it even was a team. And then they're the CEO of like orders of tens or hundreds or thousands people organization, right? When you start out, let's give it an axis, right? Your XY axis. When you start out as the first person in the organization, you are very much in the trenches of doing the work, right? As time goes on, as a CEO and you move up through the ranks, or any leader that's moving up through the ranks, you spend less and less time doing the work and more and more time doing the vision, right? Holding people accountable, being the face of the company. So, this experience of moving away from being in the trenches to delegating, delegating, delegating, and you're really largely just functioning as vision and accountability, that can be wildly confronting, especially for people whose entire identity was doing the job really well, doing the work really well. So I think that's a piece we need to honor of the leadership evolution that I don't think is talked about enough. Because for me, that was wildly normalizing to understand, like, oh, I am doing my job. I'm making the best money of my life. Doing the best work of my life, but the best work of my life is, doesn't feel like the kind of work I used to do. It feels like managing people, like that's pretty much it. And like setting the vision and holding people accountable to getting the job done. So there's that piece of it. And then yeah, it's, it's, I think it kind of comes back to like a core values thing when you do create more time for that person, for the CEO that's at that position where they have more time than ever before in their life. And they're more well set than they've ever been in their life, to really work through where the shame gremlins are creeping in or the guilt's creeping in, and help them understand and reassess what does doing a good job mean where you are now? How can you hold yourself accountable to doing what you gotta do at a high level? And also give yourself grace for being able to like, you work damn hard and now you have time to breathe. And by being able to take care of yourself, and your family and your loved ones, like, you're, you're not burning out and you're therefore able to show up for your people in a better way than ever before. So does that answer your question?

So, so what do you advise CEOs to do at that point? Like, is it just like go like take like dance classes or something and stay out of the business or something else?

Um, I mean, it really depends. Everybody's values are different, you know, like some, some CEOs, um, like Matt was alluding to earlier, I think maybe Sabrina, Sabrina may have mentioned this, Some CEOs know that their families had to take the back burner for a long time. They've taken the sacrifice while they've built up their company. And so that's the top priority for them is leaning back in with their families and being able to, to make up for the time that they've been gone or absent from their lives, whether or not they have children. Other times it's really just a matter of like, what are they missing out on that they want more of? And how can you make space for that and get into it, whether it's dance classes or painting Or hiking or creating a mastermind group. Like what is it that you feel called to do? Like what's true to you?

And I think on that, we'll do one or two last topics that you mentioned that I was very curious about. Growth spirals, how you're not often actually going in circles when you revisit the same thing. 'Cause I've felt that over the last few years of I keep going in circles and I'm kind of like, it's like, is this thing again coming up? So I'd love for you to like sort of like share and talk about that.

Absolutely. So I don't know if your listeners can see me, so I'll give you a visual. A lot of the times in life, right, we'll revisit something, whether it's a person or a type of person that's a trigger for us, or it's a situation, right? Maybe you're in your dating life, you keep dating the same person over and over again. You're like, what the hell? A lot of the times, if you're looking at it in like a flat, like you're drawing a circle on the page, You're like, why am I going in circles? I'm chasing my tail. This is infuriating. But the idea behind a growth spiral is that you're not actually staying flat. You're not staying stagnant. So if this is the issue, right, I'm holding up a pencil right now.

Mm-hmm.

Take it outta 2D, which is just a little dot on the page, turn it into 3D. You're looking at an upward trajectory, right? As you go around, In life, you're encountering the same, like, stimulus, right? The same teaching thing, teaching moment, but you're becoming more skillful and you're leveling up each time you revisit it. And I believe that what's actually happening is that we're revisiting this teaching thing, whatever it is, in order to learn a lesson. And then this teaching thing will go away. once you fully learn the lesson from it and are able to make different decisions going forward. But this comes from my old business partner. He helped me understand this concept and it was, it totally shifted everything in my mind about those, those moments of, my God, why am I here again? I can't believe, I thought I did the work. I thought I was done with this. And it's like, well, no, clearly there's something I didn't get yet. So I always ask myself in those moments, like, what have I not learned? Yeah. Like, why am I here again? What am I meant to learn from this? And often you'll find that there's a fun learning or teaching that you haven't quite gotten your head around yet, and then eventually it'll fall away.

That's amazing. I think you just helped me contextualize my last 3 years. So that's very helpful. And we'll end on this note.

That makes me so happy.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it was like the same thing happening again and again. And so coming back to culture, And we'll end on this. I know one of the things that's really important, it seems like in the Mushari curriculum, Mushari curriculum, or sorry, the company culture is seeing business as a force for good. And I think it's also something that's important to you. You talked about a company that you founded in Scotland. So do you wanna share your thoughts on business as a force for good and then we'll end from there?

Yeah, I am a big sustainability nerd. I like to say I'm like Mother Earth's biggest fan. And I really think that, you know, for me, how I live my life in this world is I want to leave it better than I found it, right? Or at least know that I've done everything I could to have a measurable positive impact in the face of all the other difficulties of life. And one of the things that has been so inspiring to me is just how powerful, A, just focusing on your own stuff can be in your own life, right? And the impact that you can have just from staying focused on your own backyard. Forget about obsessing what everybody else is doing. Just focus on your own stuff. That already has a positive impact on the world. But business in particular, like we were talking about earlier, it's like you have the opportunity to create this universe through business where like you get to decide what exists within that universe. Like in New York City, like it was chaotic as hell out there and I wanted my people to come in. I wanted them to walk through the door. Leave all of the stress and everything else that was existing outside of our workplace. Leave it at the door. You are now in a space that was within our control, right? A space that was gonna be full of like true fundamental like respect and support and, you know, trust in each other and, and open and transparent dialogue. Did we screw it up along the way? I'm sure we did like 10,000 times, if not more. But business as a force for good in this world is just— it gives me goosebumps when I think about the capacity to enact positive change on a micro level, from just really genuinely sticking the landing and taking care of your people to the macro level of corporate responsibility. And you start to see all these different companies like Revive Eco, which is this company I've been like fangirling out on ever since I heard about them years ago. They're based out in Glasgow, and these guys have— they're not one of my clients. I literally just fangirl over them. They have figured out a way to create a palm oil substitute from taking in used coffee grinds from the community and then processing those, those coffee grinds to come up with a sustainable solution to palm oil. Palm oil is one of the leading causes of deforestation in the Amazon, all around the world and stuff. But it— but this is the stuff I'm talking about. If you have a waste product that you're able to capture and take and extract this other product from and then make it available to the cosmetics industry, the food industry, stuff that is— palm oil is everywhere. Like, that ingenuity to me is the stuff that gives me hope for the future and the future of humanity, because people are here trying to use business as a catalyst for positive traction forward, like triple bottom lines, people, profit, planet. Like, does it get any better than that? I don't know. I'm on a soapbox right now. I'll say no. I think that's probably as good as it gets.

Yeah, no, I think it's so clear that you care about like both the sort of like business force for good and culture. In our research, I was actually looking at your previous companies. I'm forgetting the name. website over the years. And one of the things I noticed on your careers page, the first words were paid forward. And I've never seen like, even a careers page talk about sort of how it can help others, right? So it's so clear that you care so much about this. We're almost at time. So the book is right here, The Great CEO Within. If you'd like to get the book, the website is musharimethod.com. Anywhere else you want to direct people to? Or if they wanna either, like, reach out to you, where, where they should go?

Oh, absolutely. They can find us on musharimethod.com. You have a link directly to the coaches. I have the great honor not only of just working with Matt, but with working with 5 other world-class, phenomenally gifted coaches. Like, it brings a tear to my eye just how fortunate I am to be in the company of these people on a daily basis. So check us out there. We're all on, I believe, like on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter. You can find us all there. But yes, come if you want to join the community.

Come, come check us out. And we'll have all those linked up. And if you even just go to the website and click on curriculum, you're going to have the experience that I had, which was, how the hell is all of this free and open? Yeah. Thank you for doing that.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Sachit. Absolutely. It's been such a joy to be here today. And thank you for Uh, spending time with us, getting vulnerable and, and digging into some coaching.

Thank you for coming on.

Yeah, thanks for having me.