Episode 285: Hiring a Coach & Therapist (w/ Yonah Budd and Brett Boake of Score Promotions)

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Brett Boeck, who many of you know, is the general manager at Score Promotions, a team of over 50 dedicated promo professionals in the US and Canada. Brett is one of the industry's most inspirational sales leaders, which is why it's no surprise that this year Brett and the leadership team at Score Promotions hired an in-house performance coach and therapist Yona Budd. Yona Budd has been helping individuals and organizations reach their potential for over 40 years. He has extensive experience in the fields of therapy, human performance, and organizational development, and his mission is to help athletes, entrepreneurs, and business professionals maximize their potential and reach their goals. In today's episode, we chat with both Brett and Yona about this decision to partner together and why they made both wellness and performance a priority for the SCORE team We discuss how Yonah balances therapy and coaching, the practicality of how it works, and the incredible impact it's having on their progress. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Common Skew. Hey, before our chat with Yonah and Brett, this week we opened registration for our most anticipated event of 2024, SkewCon, held on January 14th in Las Vegas. Now this marks the 10th time the industry's most innovative thinkers will gather together to connect, learn, and reignite alongside other like-minded pros. Now, if you're a new listener, SKUCON breaks boundaries in the promotional products industry. It sits at the cutting edge of merch life because it features stories from pros in the trenches, fresh ideas from tomorrow's leaders, and a celebration of brilliant brand execution and growth. This year's event welcomes experience expert Joey Coleman, who is the author of the book Never Lose a Customer Again. Plus a lineup of the most progressive industry voices today, including Jeremy Lott, Jonathan Isaacson, Denise Tashrow, Danny Rosen, Kate Hallett, Andrea Stoll, Brian Duran, Isaac Hetroni, Reba Joy, Kate Nash, and Kirby Hausmann. Plus the most important part of SKUCon, you, the community. Join us for SKUCon as we celebrate our 10th journey together in the only way we know how, by imagining a bolder tomorrow. SkuCon always sells out quickly, so be sure to register you and your team today at skucon.com. Today's episode is brought to you by Commonsku, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more, visit commonsku.com. Now here's my chat with Brett and Yonah.

Brett, why did you think, as I mentioned in the intro, This is a fascinating foray into helping employees and helping colleagues and helping teammates. Why did you think it was important to bring on a performance coach and therapist for your team? And I think we get why a performance coach would be important, right? We're all in sales. This is a very sales-driven business. But the performance coach and therapist, that's fascinating. Why did you think that was important?

Well, Bobby, we've had significant growth here at SCORE. So we're 60+ employees. And team members now. And that's happened rapidly in the last couple of years, actually, since you and I were together for the first time. And, you know, after the pandemic, we really could see that we wanted to be there more than just a coach or just a manager for our team. And I first got to meet Jona and had some great sessions just himself and him and I just one-on-one. Talking about, you know, a day in the life. And it just made sense that why can't we share this with every single employee and have someone that's not management, not just their team leader, teammate that they can lean on and talk about anything, whether it's something to do with your family, your spouse, your dog, or a teammate.

Yona, how would you describe your role? I mentioned your bio in the intro. Why do we need both a performance coach and a therapist?

Well, I think need is maybe a strong word. I think every company needs a people mechanic. I think the best way to look at it is if you're running a, you know, I've said this many times. I apologize if you've heard it before. But you know, if you have a, if you're running a company that's manufacturing stuff and you got a ton of equipment, chances are you're going to have a mechanic on staff, or at least on call, readily available, in and out a lot, keeping everything moving properly, greased, shiny, ready to rumble, right? Same too. If you're running a people organization, you need to have a people mechanic. So in terms of having a coach, a performance coach, I think every organization needs to have someone in their organization that can provide the opportunity to give people a boost, help drive them forward, give them goals to be set, and give them a pat on the back when they reach them. Maybe a bit of a kick in the bum when they don't. I think that's an important part of corporate structure. The advent of being able to add a therapy role which is what I'm able to offer to SCORE and other clients, is that in today's day and age, and probably forever, a lot of what people bring to work and ends up being an issue at work really has nothing to do with work. So, if you're employed, you're in the HR department, there's a very fine line between what you can talk about. It's difficult to have a discussion about, "Hey, look, you look like you're a little stressed lately. Everything okay at home?" You can't really ask that as a manager. But as a coach and a therapist, you can ask the question. A coach isn't equipped to deal with, "No, I'm having a real difficult time. My husband's leaving me and my life is upside down. I don't know what to do next. I got 3 kids." A coach isn't equipped necessarily to deal with that. A therapist is. And today, since the pandemic for sure, people are now recognizing that there's a connection between how they feel at home and how they feel at work. And I think someone who's capable of doing both things on both sides of the line, so to speak, kind of hits it out of the park.

Is this, Yona, a growing trend where you're seeing this is something unique to our post-pandemic culture that requires the breakdown of the professional and personal?

Yeah, I mean, for me, it's always been the case. I've always, with the 20-odd years I've been doing this kind of coaching work, it's always been a mixture of performance-related, job-related, success-related stuff and what's keeping you up at night. And if you don't mix and match, for me, it's kind of hard not to make it all work, to make the whole person, the whole machine function properly. So, I think today, especially since COVID people are recognizing that they're not as resilient as they thought they were once test— now that everyone's been tested, right? So, we're all pushed to the brink. How well did you do? So now, you can look back and reflect on where your resiliency is and perhaps where your weaknesses are. And there's more and more opportunities now to help help the whole person in terms of inside and out and at work and at home. So, most companies have, most corporations have a program where you can reach out to an online social worker, or therapist, or drug counselor, or whatever you need. Most people are kind of not ready to do that. The folks at SCORE over time reach out to me more because I'm there more. And they hear little successes around the water cooler, so to speak. Hey, I spoke to Yona the other day. Man, the guy was amazing, or whatever they have to say. Hopefully, that's what they're saying. And that then breeds trust and it grows from there. So, the ability for Brett and the owner, Tommy Greenberg, the guys that run the operation, they recognize that if they're at work 9, 10 hours a day in our industry, in the promo industry, it's not a 9-to-5 job as you know. It's important that there's someone there on the ready when at 11:30, they have a terrible phone call with their brother about something about an ill mother, God forbid, right? Who do they go to? Well, most times they would have to leave. And then they would go home. They'd be all stressed in the car on the way. So, it's better for, safer and better for the employee to have a place they can go kind of down the hall.

Yeah. Brett, this is a practice that is usually employed by much larger companies. I mean, the fact that SCORE did this is kudos to you and the team for doing this and Yona for investing in SCORE yourself. How did you introduce this to the team? Was this a hard share? Was there, did you have some ground rules for privacy? I'm looking for some practical tips on other folks that want to consider something as well?

Absolutely. So, at first, it was Tom and I that really worked with Jono. And we were doing again one-on-one sessions with them learning about Jono, learning what we could really extract from Jono and take advice from and guidance. And when we introduced it to the team, we had an all-call because we were still hybrid at that point in time. So, we got everyone on and introduced Jono. Jono came and did a little intro on himself. And then Tom and I both spoke about what we've learned so far and what we've accomplished with Jona and what he's helped us overcome and be a part of. I shared a story with my team of just coaching that Jona and I were just— he was just helping me on how to deal with people and bounce ideas off him that I didn't want to bounce off Tom or really go to the owner and say, hey, Tom, like, I really want to "Look at this," or "I'm having an issue here with this department or individual." So, when we introduced him, it was very easy and it was just, "Hey, this is Yonah. He's our coach. He's going to be here for you whenever you need to. If you want to use Yonah and reach out to him and utilize his talents, then do that. If you don't, that's fine too. But he's here when you need him." And people were mixed, I think, at the beginning, if you agree, Yonah, where they were, they were, you know what, I'm going to reach out to him right away. And some were like, I don't need that. But you know what? Come to today, I don't think there's a person on our team that has not had time with Yonah. And Yonah hit right on the money when he said earlier, he's here in the office. He walks around. And when you— when Yonah's in the building, you know Yonah's in the building because he comes with energy. He's like, how are you? He knows little little pieces about everyone. And the nice thing when him and I speak, I don't divulge personal information about the team. But I'll say, you know what'd be really nice if you could just go over and say hi to this person today. And he's like, got it. And he knows. I don't have to cue him up. He just knows. And then all of a sudden, I see them go and have that conversation. And the other thing I like to say is Yona doesn't have to do it 9 to 5. So, there's people here that as you know, in Earnest, you're in a sales organization. They're just go. It's customer-facing. It's just, you know, they're ideating, they're selling, they're putting out fires. Where Yona says, "Hey, 5:30? Let's have a coffee over Zoom here at 5:30." "What? 11 o'clock at night because you're on the West Coast?" "I've got you for 15 minutes and let's talk about that. And let's recap it next week and really see if if this is working for you. And we're seeing such a big difference in the culture and just in people's demeanor when they're coming to work and they're working with their teammates. And as a manager, Yona can be that separation for us where someone's not going to just come— the department lead is not just going to come to me or someone on a team is not going to come to me. They can go right to Yona and I can deflect that and say, hey, I think you really should have that conversation with Yona. And then, And then, they'll divulge that information. So, privacy is number one. If they want to reach out to Yona, I don't have to know about that. I just see that Yona spoke to someone on a Wednesday and he was active for an hour on Wednesday afternoon. That's all I need to know. And then, Yona can speak to this but he'll go to that individual and say, "Would you like me to share this with Brett?" Yeah, so I love that.

I love how you're carefully mapping out the confidence.

Yeah, so I think that Brett led to a good thing if I can jump in here for a second, Bobby. I think it's very important that They understand that I am one layer separated. So, I don't impact their employment. I don't impact their compensation. I don't impact their bonus schemes. I don't impact any of that kind of stuff. May impact things related to their job that might help them feel better, be better, do better. And that we do that in cooperation with management, of course. But Brett now has me, once a week, I meet all the teams. Like I meet them in a team setting, almost sales manager-ish sort of. But we talk more about team team stuff. Maybe stuff they wouldn't share with their lead. They don't want to share with Brett because it sounds like they're nitpicking. No one wants to nitpick at work. I'm a great guy to nitpick with because it's that nitpicking stuff that isn't going to make you look bad. And it's that little stuff that eats away at you, right? So, it's the stupid little thing like, you know, my chair has been broken for a week and no one's replaced it. Like, not big in the scheme of things, but everyone thinks you're complaining too much if you complain about your chair. Well, complain to me and I'll say, "Listen, are you okay with me talking to management and getting you a new chair?" So, they'll get get a new chair, right? So, it's simple things or sometimes very difficult things. Sometimes, it's a dynamic between a lead and someone under them, or someone that works on their team, or between two teammates. Sometimes, it's Brett rubbing them the wrong way unknowingly. They happen to hear something nasty from somebody in their family and Brett comes in and jokingly says something that happens to feel similar. They think he knows. He doesn't. Oh, Brett's on, you know. So, we're able to cut that off right away. OK, let's get right in here. Let's talk about this together. So I think in a team setting, it works well. I think individually, it works well. And I think people recognize that there's a safe place to go to bitch and complain. And we all need a place to bitch and complain.

What I love about that too, Bret, this has surely given you some more latitude to focus on the most important things to driving sales. And I know any leader gets caught up. They want to build a great culture. They want to do all these things, but they can get a little sidetracked from a lot of these other things that Yona just talked about. But Yona is dealing with both the small and the big things, and we'll get to that in a minute. But has that liberated you somewhat, Brett, and able to drive different priorities?

More than you can imagine, Bobby. It's allowed me to really focus on the large picture, which is building, which is building our distributorship up to the next level and beyond. So it's allowing me to stay focused. And there's two parts of that. Number one is I personally me meet with Yona twice a week, regimented. So, one is offsite. And when we go offsite, we go to Starbucks. And him and I meet in the morning. And that's more for like what's on your mind. Are you, you know, as same as you, Bobby, we travel a lot, right? We'll be in Texas in a couple weeks and then here and there. And I'm away from the family and I have a very young family with the 5 boys. And You know, first thing we'll say is, okay, what are you doing here before you travel? Are you doing this, this, and this to make sure your family's set? Okay, now focus on the business. And then I can come to and I can bounce all that off him. And then the second part of it, which is on a Friday morning, that's more strategic. So now I use Yona more as a coach, a business coach for that. So Wednesday's more, more Brett therapy, Brett personal, and Fridays is okay, so Let's talk about this team. I met with this team and here's a couple things they really want your attention with. And then, it allows me to be focused and I can absorb that information. I can come up with a strategic plan and then, I can execute that plan with that team right then and there afterwards. And I don't have to hear it, absorb it from them, and kind of get all that mush. I could just get the actual finite details and move on. So, it's incredible having them. With us.

I imagine. You know, Jona, in some business cultures, distrust is a big part of the element. There are folks that just don't trust the institution, if you will. And how you said this was at first received slowly, but then gradually, and there's— sounds like a real shift in participation and response after you've gained the trust of folks and after you sort of demonstrated how it worked.

Yeah, I think trust comes, you know, proof is in the pudding, as they say. You know, there are situations throughout the time that I've been with SCORE and the team there where I've managed along with Brett and ownership to help people change situations within their employment that made their life a little simpler, a little easier. It might be as simple as an employee coming to me saying, "Listen, I think I've got ADD or ADHD and I've just recently diagnosed. I realize it's been affecting some of my follow-up work." The kid's a killer that I'm talking about in terms of sales but issues with follow-up. And so now, we recognize that there's an actual chemical, psychological, psychosocial reason why he's got that going on. And we're able to then bring— I'm able to then help him bring that to Brett in a way that isn't risky, right, where there's no fear for their job. So, he's the same person who's got friends in the office. And I'm sure they shared that conversation. So, other situations where one employee was having a difficult time with another one, bring the two of them into a group setting. We do a lot of couples therapy in the office, making sure that everyone's getting along nicely. So, that really puts an end to difficult situations for people. And they know about it. They hear about it. You know, this one and this one, we're having a brawl in the office, verbal brawl in the office, so to speak. And everybody kind of hears it because we're a big happy open family there. And then, you know, and then a day later, everyone settled down and they're going for lunch and they're going out for a smoke together, whatever they're doing. And so, the work that we're doing as a team, the work that I'm able to facilitate, certainly my involvement, Brett's openness, Tommy's openness to the kind of work that I have to do and their involvement in being on site or not. Sometimes they're not. It doesn't make sense. So, we move on to something else. I think that creates the trust, the delivery, the actual trying, the cultural differences. Since I've been there, we as a group, the management group, we decided to come up with something called score values. People recognize that we now drive ourselves by these score values. They weren't there before I got there. I'm not saying that I'm the one that invented them. But people see that, oh, since Jonah's been here, we're doing more of this and less of that and more of this. So, as the culture changes and as the hires get better and the hires get more synergistic with the people that are already there, people just get more comfortable with us as a team. And I think that's where the safety comes from is when they see it's a team. It's not just about Yona. It's about the team environment that we leave behind.

Right. And I'm sorry to be so pedantic about this. But we have many entrepreneurs who are like, this is amazing. I think I would like to do something like this for my team. How does this work in terms of scheduling? Scheduling? And can I— if I were an employee, Brett, would I have regular visits with Jonah? Is that something we can schedule? Is it episodic?

Or how do you handle it?

It's on a case-by-case basis. Every individual has the opportunity to use Jonah almost 24/7. So there's obviously limits to, to what Jonah wants to do because he also has other clients in a personal life as well. But, um, sure, no, we're open to anything. So if you need Jonah for half an hour and it has to be between 11 and 11:30 AM, as long as you don't have They're all big people here. So, they know what their day's like. But they'll schedule with you on either a day before or it could be, Yona, I think there's been cases where, "Hey Yona, I want to speak this afternoon. I've got something going on. I got a big decision I need to make." It might be a personal decision. It could be a financial decision. And it's even been a decision because this one employee, he told me afterwards, he said, "You know, this was very difficult." We had a compensation conversation. And you know how those go, especially for employees that want to come to you and say, "Hey, I need some extra money," especially during these times, or "I deserve it." But they asked Jonah. They said, "Hey, can we just go over how I should approach Brett with this conversation?" And he walked them through. And you know what? It was well received when he came to see me. I was very impressed at how it was put together. And we worked through it very easily, where I think it wouldn't have been so easy for him to get across you know, here's what I've been doing. Here's where I'm going. Here's my focus for the next 6 months. And this is what I'm thinking, you know, I deserve and need. So, things like that work out. But going back to your schedule, again, we have people that are on West Coast time and people that are down in the U.S. Well, Yonah works around that. So, we give them that opportunity during the work hours and afterwards.

I think, yeah, I think that's critical to Brett's point. I think to Bobby, to your question, people The folks that I work with, one of the conditions I have with the employer in working with the team is that if they need to reach me during paid working hours, they need to have the time to do so. They can't be— and if there's a boardroom available, or I have people that do it from the parking lot, from their car. If it's virtual or in person, we go for a walk or sit outside. So, wherever we can create a safe place. But the employer has to be open to this being done during work hours. Which to your point, in terms of entrepreneurs, I work with a lot of self-made real estate, insurance, stockbroker-type guys and folks. You always manage to find time to do what it is you need to do. And if you need to feel better, you just find time to hang out with me. Yeah, right.

And Brett, this is 100% vested by the company, or is this a shared expense with employees, or is this something Score did 100%?

100% on Score.

I love it. Yona, let's talk a little bit about crisis care because at one point I realized as a CEO of a small business around 30 people, and this is just my anecdotal experience, I realized one time when I looked up and realized 30% of our workforce is going through some kind of life-changing event. Like they were— someone was getting married, someone had just lost a loved one. It was incredible. And then I realized after a while you could almost account for that 30% any given time of the year. It was a shocking realization to me because that means a third of our team is sort sort of weighted by some major life transition. What's been your experience working with business and with employees? How have you seen these personal experiences impact an employee's work? And sort of a second part is I think the workplace has become a safer place for us to bring our life into post-COVID.

Do you? So, to answer the first question, I think it's clear to me that there's very little separation. You know, one of the things we talk about in a stay interview with an employee is what do you think about— one of the questions is what do you think about on the way to work in the Another question is, what do you think about on the way home from work in the morning? And for many people, coming to work is their salvation, is their freedom from what they're going back to at the end of the day, whether— no judgment, right? So, I think for many people, their collegial relationships, for many, those are their most social relationships, especially if you're a killer out there and you're grinding and working hard and traveling and coming and going. It's tough to cultivate strong ongoing relationships. So, your peer relationships, your collegial relationships, I think are significant. So, a lot of people find comfort in coming to the office because there's usually someone there that they're close enough to that they can talk to. The advantage to having someone that has my skill set in the workplace is, yes, you can come and talk to me and vent and cry and say, jump, do what you got to do. But at the end of the day, you're going to walk away with some therapeutic-based science-based skill sets and strategies that you can use as opposed to, "My sister's opinion was because she had a boyfriend's brother whose dog died and this is how he responded." Still very valuable. But I think I'd be a little uncomfortable if people were providing lay strategies for people who are actually in crisis. And let's face it. As great a manager as anybody might be, unless they're trained in the stuff that I'm trained in and have the experience that I have, they're a great manager, a great CFO, even CEO. They don't have the skill set to deal with people in crisis. So, it's important to recognize we have a crisis. This isn't an HR thing. This is they need help now. And I would say 30%, 40%, probably 45% of people that walk into the office, if they come to the office these days, walk in with some weight from home. And I think those that work from home frankly are having a heavier, harder time taking the heavy load off of them when they're in that environment. They no longer have that safe place to go to, that lunch break with their buddies, that coffee or Tim's on the way home with their friends. So, for many people, it's created a less safe work environment for them staying home than coming to the office. And for others, it just creates an opportunity for them to get away, whether it's your children or just the household chores. Sometimes, it's nice to get away and have something fresh and be treated like an adult and talk to adults. And I think that's what work provides for many people.

Yeah. Brett, what have you heard from teammates and colleagues about this since you implemented it?

Well, it's not just what I've heard, what I've seen, you know, what I've experienced in the demeanor and the culture and just the uplifting of spirits within the office. So, we all know COVID. Everybody was at home. You know, Bobbi, we were all trying to support each other and, you know, trying to run our business when everybody was so spread out. And now that we're all coming back, it's not like the culture is always 100% happy and rah-rah, so to speak. So, you know, with, with Jono coming on board and being a very integral part of our team, it allows people to have that sounding board or that just that third party almost away from, again, myself and Tommy and maybe their department lead. It just allows them to open up stop and get some really good advice. But also, just, just relieve a lot of pressure because like Jonas said, there's— we all have something at home or something within our lives, our personal life that is affecting our decisions maybe throughout the day. And then again, for myself and Tommy, it allows us to really focus on the growth of the business. And we're seeing that. So, you know, to properly answer your question, we're seeing growth here at SCORE. And that's attributed and Jonas is a part of that growth. It's not just the sales that's growing it. It's, it's Yona is growing the culture here. And, you know, he's going to be here for a long time to come.

Yeah. The ASI State of the Industry report just came out. And one of the interesting findings was that coming out of 2022 last year, people reported higher levels of stress. Perhaps that was the adjustment coming out of COVID For whatever reason, they reported distributors reported higher levels of stress. Than before. So the timing on this is incredible because I think a lot of us reentered the workforce and went, "I don't know who I am or what I'm doing anymore, or even how to go to work anymore." Another thing that's posed an interesting challenge, Yona, Axios recently reported a major shortage in mental health care professionals, citing more than 160 million people live in areas lacking enough mental health professionals to fit the need. Are we seeing a new form of responsibility shouldered by companies, even smaller companies, who offer this type of care? Are you seeing more corporate investments in this type of care?

Yeah, not nearly enough. But sure, I think that companies recognize— so, let's go backwards a little bit. If you deconstruct what it takes to run a company, part of it is the attraction and retention of good staff. I think that people are waking up because they can't find nor keep the kind of people they need to run their business. Whether you're a restaurant operator and you can only operate from now from 1 till 9 instead of 11 till 9 because you can't get staff for the morning. Or, or you're a manufacturing company, or you're in promotions like we are. We can't get it. Like we can't seem to get enough people to do the job that we have to do here, or the right kind of people to do the job that we need to do. So, I think recognizing that in order to do that, we need to be much more open to the whole human, not just their resume. And I think a whole human approach to hiring, retention, and promotion is a big part of it. So, what I mean by that is that that if you recognize when hiring someone that if you propose to them that not only are we here to help you learn more skills and do this, but if you're having an off day, like there's someone here you can talk to. By the way, it doesn't cost you anything. You don't have to set up an appointment. So, the problem with companies that have programs is that it's great that they pay for stuff. But who's helping them get that 6 or 8 or 9-week appointment early enough that it makes a difference? Because I don't know about you, but if I got something on my mind 6 weeks from now, I'm not in a good place if I'm carrying it around.

Right. You know, we often think of therapy only in terms of crisis care versus performance, which I think this has been a big part, Brett, of what you were really driving at. And, and by the way, kudos that you, you, you spent enough time with Yonah to begin with to know yourself, and probably because you needed it yourself to understand how to— you vetted this whole process. But this has to be, Yonah, for you, a very rewarding experience, helping employees perform at their best. I mean, do you have some Since we have your expertise here, do we have, you have some tips on how we can bring our best selves to work? Do you see common struggles today that many employees are facing?

Sure. I want to just jump on something though before you answer that in terms of the rewarding part. You know, we had recently, we had our all-company outing and we give away awards. And Brett was voted and got a really beautiful award and stood up. And I was sitting in the table next to where he was standing up.. And I was crying. And I'm crying just thinking about it. I mean, just watching this young man with 5 children take on an organization of, you know, out of 30, out of 60 people we are now to growth, you know, we got 45 killers. I mean, in a positive way, dynamic, strong, independent, opinionated, you know, self-empowered. Big job. And to watch him grow into this role of a more, I won't say polished because he's a very polished young man, but a more skilled caring manager in terms of setting himself back from the numbers and the performance that he's also judged by, by the way, to make sure that we're making time for the real person. And as a result of that, we're growing. So for him to see that, listen, the guy's a hockey player, an ex-hockey player. He's an ex-hockey, he's a hockey coach. He thinks like that. So to see him understand the emotional part of what it takes to grow a business, not just more sales calls, more phone calls, more kits out there, more decks, and so on. That brings me a tremendous feeling of joy and satisfaction as much as seeing all the younger people and then those that are new to the organization grow. Skills for people, strategies for people. I think you need to, we all need to recognize two things. Number one, We're going to work. So, if we're talking to people who are in the workplace, we're going to work. This is not our home life. It's not our family life, not our children, not our mothers, not our spouses, not our best friends, not our cousins, toxic aunts and uncles. None of that, right? We're going to work. So, I tell people all the time, I love what I do. I think I'm really great at it. But I go to work because I need to make a paycheck, right? I would go to work and collect a paycheck even if I didn't need the paycheck. Paycheck because the paycheck for me is the A+ I never got in high school or the stars I wanted in kindergarten, right? So, obviously, the more I make, the better I feel I'm doing in terms of success that way. So, there needs to be a remuneration factor in why people go to work. I go to work because I need to pay my bills. But I want to love what I do, right? So, there's a very fine line between going to work and loving what you do and going to work to make the paycheck. What's important that people have to understand is there needs to be a really good filter between the emotional sharing and the emotional risk we're prepared to take at work versus the emotional risk we take in our private lives. Meaning that if you take a little less emotion to work, make it a little more practical and a little more functional, than the hurt that we sometimes feel and the stress and the guilt that we sometimes feel and the anger that we sometimes feel. Less of that would be prevalent in our workday if it didn't matter to us so much emotionally. So, recognizing that there's a difference between our emotional gratification and our financial gratification. Work is to make a living and to do a good job and obviously to feel successful. But it's not where you need to get find the value structure that makes you your best self. You just need to be a good colleague, a good working, a good employee. You need to be a good boss if that's the position you're in. But it doesn't define who you are as a person. I think that's what the biggest thing that people have a difficult time with. The next 3 things are you got to eat properly. You got to sleep properly. You got to get some exercise every day. Meaning, I don't care how busy you are, how much money you got on the table right now on that deal. Get up off your rear end. Go take the sandwich that you brought from home, or go outside and go order something. Go sit in your car. Go sit on a bench. Go take a walk. Get away from your desk for 30 minutes every day at lunchtime. Reset yourself. Go slow. Get a chance to catch your breath one more time. And the third thing is on your way home, make sure that when you close the door in the office, sometimes I tell people wear a different hat. If you wear a hat, wear a hat on the way into the office. Wear a different hat on the way out of the office. You need to turn it off when the door closes behind you. Which then helps with the eating, sleeping, and working out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brett, can you speak a little more how this has helped you as well as do you have sort of an anecdotal story, obviously, without divulging particulars or compromising anyone's privacy? How has this helped both you and a colleague?

Absolutely. So myself, you wanna, first thing you wanna ask me was I have a long commute. I have an hour and 25-minute commute. In and home. So, you want to say, what do you do on the way in and what do you do on the way home? So, I told him, he said, no, no, no, no. On the way home, you shut that car door. He goes, what music are you into? I said, I love every music. I love Metallica. I love Neil Diamond. He goes, great. He says, you're playing that until you get home. Call your wife, tell your lover you'll be home in an hour 20 and play music and just decompress. And before I met Yonah, I had 6 calls. So, I made sure I updated this and then I told the person, don't talk to me at 2, talk to me at 5:15 because I'll be in the car for an hour and a half. And then, I took all that home and then, when I got home, I still had that baggage. So, that has immensely helped me in my mental state and I think I'm a better general manager for this company than I was before. And just little pieces like that. That. Or Bobby, when you and I are doing the podcast, it's funny because when I do live radio, you want to listen to me. And he said, show me the chair you're sitting on. Show me your position. He could tell everything about me and he helped me that way. So, as a public speaker, from time to time, he's again just helped polish me a little bit better than I was before. Now, going to an employee, there's a certain key member of our our team. And that person and I, we get— we're both very defensive sometimes, and we get talking, and it was just— it turned into a defense. You said, he said, she said, you said, those type of things. And it wasn't working with us. And but we, we were both so passionate and had a lot of respect for each other, but we just could not communicate the way we should, especially me being a leader. So Yona came in and he worked with this individual, and then he came and worked with me, and then brought us together. And now our relationship, which has made productivity go up, it made that person's team who's in charge of a team, that team is better for it. And Yona said, okay, I'm going to keep working with you and I'm going to keep working with you. So I see great results all around. And if it's just a one-on-one, which I don't know about, there's a lot of communication that goes on with Yona that we don't know about. We just know there's communication and we don't ask. And again, it's allowed our team to say, "Do you want me to share this with management? Do you want me to approach Brett? Do you want me to be there with you and Brett?" And again, it doesn't have to be— it's not that there's a conflict. But it just be just a communicational piece that that person just doesn't understand how to bring forward.

You know, Bobby, in our business, you're, you know, the business that you service and the business that we're talking about but a lot of alpha personalities, right? A lot of winners, a lot of champions. And the difficulty in managing, making a team out of a whole bunch of champions is that being able to— the ability to smooth out those edges. And I think what most companies don't have is a receptive management. And I think what we've cultivated and created at SCORE is very receptive management. Both Tommy and Brett are very open to ideas and changes and concepts and things that make it a better workplace. In some cases, more efficient. For others, in other cases. I think that's a big part of people that are listening out there. I think that big part of good management is being receptive to the words and the comments that you're hearing from your staff. And show them some modest change, if not major change. So, if it's just a matter of moving a few pictures around or redoing the showroom, or bringing everybody in a new desk set, or everybody gets something that changes, that's new, that's fresh so that it appears that they're listening, that they're being heard. These are the kinds of things that I think de-stress a workplace. And I didn't avoid answering your questions about examples. I'm just not prepared to answer it.

No, no, that's fine. Actually, what I really love, and I should have expected this, but I didn't quite expect how practical and tactical a lot of the skill sets that you're giving both Brett and his team to walk away with so they can go be better and perform better. How would you, Yona, how would you answer any detractors that sort of hearing this, they're sort of compelled, but they're also somewhat, I can't cross that line. It feels like I'm crossing a line in terms of a business and bringing on some of— there might be liability. And I'm sure the objections are many. And Brett probably went through some of these objections when he first started thinking about it. Yona, how would you respond to businesses who are reluctant to offer something like this?

I would ask them if they have any interest in growing and being more profitable. And if their answer is yes, then I would tell them it behooves them not to listen, if it's not to me, then to someone who does what I do as soon as possible. Because without that, over the next decade, if you don't have this kind of stuff in place, you're not going to retain great talent. You're not going to cultivate and grow great talent. You're going to have people that work out of fear and stress and guilt. And that doesn't generate great profits for anybody, both emotionally financially.

Yeah, Brett, how would you answer that?

Pretty well exactly what Jonas said. I mean, for us, it's, again, it's an attraction. So, when we interview and when we're speaking to people, that's one of the first things that we say is that we have a therapist and a coach. And he's combined into one and he does great immaculate things for our team. And he can help you as well. So, it allows people to really— you have that. And Bob, you know, in some of our mutual friends in peer groups. You know, I've mentioned this a lot of different— in a lot of different conversations, and it's making a lot of people think. And I know people are asking questions. So I really encourage everyone in the SCU community and beyond that, you know, reach out to myself, reach out. I can get Jonas' contact for you and talk to him and just hear him out. Because I mean, yes, the skeptics were there in the beginning. What, we need this? We're going to allow someone to come in and And then what if, you know, someone says you're going to find out information on me? Well, that's not happening here. It's, again, it's a, you know, it's a client or sorry, it's a patient privilege with doctor-patient privilege and Iona is not going to divulge any information that that person's not comfortable giving.

As we wrap up here, a few last questions for you on some helps, tips, practices. You're both coaches in your own way. You're both coaches. So this past weekend, I was listening to a few back-to-back interviews with a wonderful Canadian, John Verveke, a professor at University of Toronto. And he has this series called Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. It's an incredible series, but he was talking about an ecology of practices, things that keep him well, well maintained, if you will, going back to your machine analogy. And Yona, he, just like your decompression tactic with Brett when he's going home from work, Since you're both coaches, you know the practice of well-being. You have personal practices yourself. Maybe it's meditation. Maybe it's like your practice going home. Brett, what do you do to maintain mental, physical health, Yona? And then we're going to go to Brett. Are there a few tips you can give?

So, I live and die by mindfulness. That's everything in my life is driven by as much in-the-moment thinking as possible. I'm exceptionally well scheduled. If it's not on my schedule, it doesn't happen. If I don't see anything for a particular period of time, it means it's downtime for me. I can do whatever I want. I practice a ton of self-care in terms of reconditioning myself on the daily basis. I go out of my way to eat 3 meals a day at a minimum properly, regularly, as close to the same time as possible. Get a good amount of sleep. Laugh as much as possible in my life. Find as much joy. A little bit of exercise. I'm kind of restricted, but I do basic yoga, simple yoga, and exceptionally connected to my family. I have 3 children. I have a couple of grandchildren. I got a wife I'm in love with. I got a 97-year-old father that's amazing. I got a brother I'm close to. So all of those things on a daily basis for me keep me, keep me together. Yeah.

Brad, how about you? For me, it's the strict regiment of my work-life balance. And I know everybody says that, and it's easy to say work-life balance, but, but again, Jonah knows how much you struggle with that. I do. I do. So when I get home in that hour 20, people say, how do you drive an hour 20 to work? I say, because it's the best hour and 20 I have in the day to separate the two. So I go home and I focus on my, my wife and my kids. We've moved closer to, to the lake, so it allows me to, to get out and enjoy that with my wife and have downtime there. And work on my golf game when I can, once in a while, a couple of times a week. But, but when it comes to scheduling is making sure that I don't skip out on Jonah and he will call me out on it. Where were you? What's going on? Why are you canceling? If he sees a cancellation, right? And it might just be to move an hour or so, he's on me right away, like, hey, we need to get this half an hour in. And, and it's, it's— I need that because it keeps me focused and it keeps me like that drive just there for me to be able to work with this incredible team.

You know, sometimes being accountable to somebody, Bobby, sometimes accountability is usually a great motivator if you trust and respect the person that you're being accountable to. So maybe I offer a little accountability when I work with people that makes it a little easier, or maybe not as easy to duck out of.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. There's a CEO in our business that runs about a $40-50 million distributorship. And he just showed me recently a personal spreadsheet he has where the most important relationships— because he's a spreadsheet guy— see, the most important relationships are in his life are in a column, and he has these little— he created his own gaming system for am I investing every day in the right things. From, from everything that you just mentioned, you know, I thought it was fantastic. I mean, we all have to do those kinds of things to make whatever gets you through the night, brother. Yeah, whatever it does. Last question for both of you, and the community loves this question. I do too. What book book, podcast, video, or movie has made the most impact on you recently, the way you're thinking or reframed your thinking? Yona will go with you and we'll end with you, Brett.

Oh, so I don't spend time— I have ADD, so I don't do a lot of reading. It's difficult for me. So, and when I do read, it's usually short, short things. I'm a Kabbalist, so I spend a lot of time rooted in the Old Testament and Kabbalah. So the spiritual part for me is a big part what I connect to. A big Tony Robbins fan. I like listening to his stuff. Old Fraser. I do radio so old Fraser episodes are great. And honestly, I listen to recovery podcasts. You know, in my therapy world, I deal with mental health and addiction. So, I listen to a lot of young people in recovery on various platforms. No anyone in particular. And I find that very uplifting, very energizing, and very motivating.

That's great.

That's great. Brad, how about you? Summer for me. So, summer is very different. I kind of switch from doing podcasts and that. And I don't do a lot of reading. I'll have to say that. I admit that. But right now, I'm focused on two of my peer groups. So, there's some people that you know, Bobbie, in the SCUE community that I'm very close with. With. And I take twice a week, 30 minutes. So, 1 hour a week and I'm talking to them. And I'm asking them sometimes the most outrageous questions. Like, would you actually do this? Could we implement this in our distributorship? Or would you do this client-facing? And I'm just getting it all out there and soaking up their knowledge. And I do that again twice a week. And then, in the And coming into the fall, I'll get into a good book. I haven't picked it yet, but usually by about the first week of September, I'll have it.

5 kids and running a very busy, growing, fast-growing business, Brad, I'm sure you have very little time. But the fact that both of you have this rich community that you lean into is a great lesson for me. So, thank you both for taking the time to share the story, to share what you're doing, to be honest about the behind the scenes and everything. We appreciate you joining us.

Thanks, Bobby. Thanks for having me.

You bet.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkuCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SkuCast on iTunes or to our blog at community.comonscue.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.