The $3 Million Mistake Most CEOs Make, And It's NOT What You Think | Rick Jordan

There is a formula to this, and the formula is not what I did.

Rick Jordan is the founder and CEO of Frequency Holdings, national leading keynote speaker, cybersecurity expert, and public company CEO. He's also the host of Frequency, which is a top 50 Apple podcast.

So, I mean, when you're buying companies, right, and you're scaling that quickly, I mean, you're buying entire infrastructure. I mean, you go from 16 people to 94 people in a matter of 2 years too. Yeah. Suit 'em. And terminated 'em on the same day. It was after that, over the course of the next month and a half, that clients started going to, like, just started going away, the ones we had just bought. I seriously don't care what anybody says about me at this point because when I look back, it's like no one's gonna understand that those are the things that are going through your mind. Yeah. But I think where I failed is that I held out too long before making those drastic cuts. There's people that you have to put into place that their job is to live in that dark place for you. And the one thing I didn't do is I didn't put those people in place. Like the people that'll get you to the $1 million that you're talking about and the people that'll get you to the $10 million and the $100 million, they're all different people.

Hey guys, welcome back to One Part Lion, One Part Lamb. Look, we have been on a roll the recent months and we have you to thank for it. We really appreciate all the new subscribers. We appreciate the 5-star ratings, the comments. You guys are really moving the needle. And to be honest, we could not do this without you. Our goal obviously is to continue to give you content that really resonates, really matters when it comes to carrying strength and surrender simultaneously. We like to bring you real-life stories with real-life people that are doing real-life things and have been there, done that, got the t-shirt. We don't do hype. We don't do gurus. We do real people who have done these things because we find that that experience is the experience that moves the needle. And today's no different. I'm super excited. The man I'm going to introduce you to is fast becoming a new friend. And what doesn't make— here's the thing that I'm trying to really phrase here. What doesn't make him impressive or What makes him sound impressive on paper to me after meeting the man is not what makes him impressive to me. What makes him impressive to me is not only has he been uber successful and then walked through some things as well, but more importantly, he has a beautiful heart, a humble spirit, and I'm looking forward to learning from him just as much as you are. So our special guest today, all right, invested in— well, let's call it professional life detecting threats and professional security of sorts. He built a cybersecurity company, took it public without peeing money, which is incredible. And became someone national media calls when something breaks. He's the guy that all the big players go to. Your USA Today, your CNNs, your ABCs, your EFGs, all of them—they trust him, which is one of the reasons we had to get him on the show—is because we, if they can trust him, we know we can trust him. And now that I've had a chance to spend some time with him, I know I can trust him. So anyway, we might talk a little bit about how acquisitions can go sideways. We're going to talk about what it means to be a full-fledged leader and lead people. We're going to talk about a lot of different things that we think are going to move the needle for you. But Rick Jordan, right, is the founder and CEO of Frequency Holdings, or Frequency Holdings Inc., uh, national leading keynote speaker, cybersecurity expert, and public company CEO, uh, not to mention some of the really, really cool things. He's also the host of Frequency, which is a top 50 Apple podcast. That's an incredible feat if you know anything about podcasting, with hundreds of shows. So super excited to have him here. Dude, Rick, man, what's going on, bro?

What's shaking?

Man, I'm super excited, dude. I, um, you know, I think I was— I think I was bragging to you that the, the, the folks that connected us, I was like, I really like— I'm gonna like those guys.

Yeah,

like a lot. They've, they've, um, they communicate really well, and I think they represented, uh, you really well. And then you—

That's good to hear.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, I mean, they're on point. And, you know, you, you've done over, you know, 1,200 media appearances. You know, I guess maybe one of the reasons— like, what is the reason why you enjoy Like making appearances? You flew out here to hang out with us today, which we greatly appreciate. Like, what's, what's driving you nowadays,

man? The, uh, if you're talking about media appearance, I mean stuff like this, it's really the in-person, you know, the, the social aspect of it. But I say social because there, there's always things that breed from that. Yeah, you know, and it's, uh, in business everyone calls it networking, of course, you know, that, that's the case of it. But I think you mentioned, you said Fast becoming a friend, and you feel that

Yeah,

when you're in person, and there's more that you can do when you have that type of connection than anything else. I mean, who knows, we might never do business together.

Yeah,

you know, but we might be able to connect people with other people for sure. Just be able to like, hey man, today's a rough day.

Yeah,

you know, can it— can I just run something by you?

Yeah,

yeah. And I love the— that's the best thing, man.

I'm actually glad you touched on that because I find that a lot of high-capacity leaders trying to do big things and move the needles in a big way Um, a lot of times they don't really have a community. True. They don't really have somebody they can pick up the phone and call. It's very, uh, isolating. Yeah. And I was telling somebody recently that, you know, a founder, early stage, you know, half a million dollars a year in revenue, um, a couple years in, like, you should be proud of yourself. He's like, well, I'm not here and I'm not there and I'm not there yet, I'm not here yet. I'm like, bro, it takes a minute. And if God gave you everything that you ever thought you wanted right now in this moment Like, could you really sustain it? Right? Could you really do that? And the reality was, of course not. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, this community obviously that is becoming more important to you, like, so managed service providers is something that you're really big on helping these leaders transition their way. I know you've got hearts to help them actually do what you've done and one day exit and then maybe through acquisition or something like that.

Maybe take cues for my dummy tax as well.

Bro, you and me both.

And so do exactly what I do. Well, and this is one of the reasons why I had to

I'm so excited to have you on because as uber successful as you've been, I think what most attracted me to what you're working on and how you've operated is you have a genuine heart to serve. Right. And then, I mean, I, I think I'll share. I don't know if you— I don't, I don't think our teams have connected on this yet, but about midway through my business journey, I was probably in business maybe 15 or 16 years. I had a team and that team made a decision to exit the company. Uh, in a very, uh, not happy way, not a, not a great way. Um, later realized I was missing $1.7 million. Um, and these are people that had been building with me for a decade. Like, so I think I—

So like a one for me, one for my homies kind of thing?

Basically. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, and I think I was more, I think, I mean, the money obviously stung, right? But I think what hurt me most was just the betrayal. And if I know, if I know your story well enough, I know you've experienced betrayal in building as well. And I'd love to hear part of kind of maybe that story that you feel is appropriate to share, mainly because I want the leaders out here to understand that you have to be strategic in choosing this community, but you need the community.

For sure. There's a— I was thinking the other day, because it's— if you take a look at presidents of the US, you know, obviously there's only a handful of them, right? The country's only been around for 250 years this year. Now.

Yeah, that's right.

Which is really cool to say that. But every year, I don't know if Biden did this for Trump. I don't think Trump did it for Biden prior to that, but there was always this legacy of writing a note to the incoming president. And it was something to where you would see throughout. So if I look back from Reagan to George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Obama, they all kind of formed this because they were the living presidents, right? I'll just exclude Jimmy Carter because I don't know too much. It's a little bit before my time, but at least I got the order right. They would always leave the notes and they became kind of this tight-knit community because there's not many. Yeah. In quantity-wise. And you don't actually know until you're in it. You never will. Almost nobody else can relate to you. Unless they've done that as well and sat in that seat.

Yeah.

I found out that's the same with being the CEO of a public company. It's the same with doing, I would say, anything of scale.

Yeah.

Because entrepreneurs, I mean, you can throw a rock now, dude. It's a major in universities. You can have entrepreneur. The first time I heard that, I was like, are you kidding me? And I actually had a college student, this was like 4 or 5 years ago, come on my show and interview me because it was a school project for her. And the reason I allowed it is because it's the first time I heard This was 4 or 5 years ago. You're majoring in what? And it's like, what about your professors? Have they ever even owned a business? Well, no. And I'm like, okay, well then, you know, so now everybody, it's like the, it's the glorified—

Payroll wasn't easy. Okay.

Yeah, no kidding. Exactly. So it's been, uh, you don't know until you're in it and you, you talk about the betrayal and it's ironic too, because when you go through tough times in business or anything, you could even throw Church is into this too. Those feelings I know are both ways. It's like, so you were telling your story. I can relate to that, to a mass exodus in Team. At the same time, if I look at them, they probably felt betrayed too, because of what was taking place. But it's different motivations, different values, different desires in life.

Yeah.

That this is the simplicity of it, man. It's like they stopped being aligned.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and if you don't recognize that in the moment, it can become ugly. And then those feelings of regret, remorse, resentment, they start to build. And then it's like, oh, you know, well, look at all that left, everybody who took off. It's like, why did they do that to me? And then if you look at it from the other side, it's like, What happened to our leader?

Yeah,

you know, that's the— that's the question.

Even in my— in my case, I mean, I had to go back. I mean, I just, um, had this epiphany maybe about the time we were wrapping up the manuscript for the new book coming out next year. And one of the things that we ran into with this whole situation was I had finally— like, it dawned on me, I was like, I allow the environment to allow that to happen.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, what did I do that created, um, an additional sense of maybe lack of safety or lack of trust within the team? Um, I know I took my eyes off the ball, right? I was— I spent more time in my other office building, period, right? And weeks turned into months, months turned into, you know, basically a year, year and a half, 2 years, um, of barely being at the initial. And, you know, historically, I have a, um, a bit of a gift. I can walk around, I can sense energy, I can just feel—

Yeah, yeah.

What's going on. almost, and almost with pinpoint accuracy, go and say, hey, what's going on over here with this thing? Like, how do you even know about that, right? Um, Dave Ramsey calls it management by walking around, you know. And I stopped walking around. I stopped walking around. And I thought, because I was— I felt like I was paying them well, well above market at the time, and because we've been building for a decade, that they would be happy for me in the endeavor that I was digging into at the time. And Turns out, you know, they— after building it for about a year, I don't know, you know, I'd already been building for 15 years. They're like, well, we built this. I'm like, yeah, you're right, we built this.

Yeah.

You know, so when it comes to high-capacity leaders, like, you know, I, I know one of your heart's passions now has become as much of a teacher as you are CEO, if not more. What are you wishing that CEOs knew that they don't currently know now That is pivotal for their success?

Yeah, this is going to come out probably pretty strong. It's, uh, it comes back to where I was talking alignment because the priorities are different.

Yeah.

And it's, uh, the understanding is different too. What I do know is if you look at it from this perspective, right, I've been an employee. I have been. The majority of people that will work for you have never been a CEO. They have never had to sign their name in personal liability to anything except a house or a vehicle. Yeah. Or much less, I think, in the rise that we had when we started the roll-up because it was $2 million to $15 million in a matter of 2 years. Payroll was something like $3.2 million. So I mean, divide that by 12 and you're talking payroll was like $300K a month. Yeah. Which still, when I look at it, I'm like, that doesn't even sound big to me. But for them, it's like, that's like 2 homes or the home that they have. And that's what's going out every single month just to pay people. I never saw it as pressure. However, the struggles of daily life is what they consider pressure.

And I'm not

trying to make this sound like a division of classes by any means. It's just a division of understanding.

Yeah.

And you never know until you're actually doing it. Back to the president's story. Yeah. And that's, I guess, never forget perspective.

Yeah.

And that means that you have to frame things in different ways. So when you said you set up the environment for it, you failed to set up the environment for that for your people, I feel the same way.

Yeah.

Like a lot of the same things because I was so focused on growth. And executed on the growth aspect of it really, really well.

Yeah.

But putting the infrastructure up to actually support the rapid growth just wasn't there.

Yeah.

And individuals that I had in place, they would have been happy to continue to do the role that they wanted to do and had been doing for the last decade or so, or 5 years if they were there that long. They had aspirations of becoming more. So I said, sure, no problem. So I'm like, well, we need somebody here. And, you know, I'm loyal to you, you know, my circle of people. I know you're loyal to me, at least I thought.

Surprising.

Yeah, exactly. But they were to a point, right? Until, until they got frustrated because things just became out of alignment with their own lives and what they wanted for their life. Yeah. The downside of it, though, is that this is another thing for CEOs is that Everybody needs a villain, man. And it's so easy to look at a person rather than circumstances. And dude, trust me, it's like I got my critics. I mean, being the CEO of a public company, it's like, dude, there's forums dedicated to your ticker.

Yeah.

To where, I mean, everything is just so negative, especially when shareholder value drops. And pointing it at a person is probably the easiest thing. But if you look at it, I mean, coming even back to Like the church aspect, which I've been in, right? The fall of a church always goes to the pastor, right? Regardless of anything else that takes place. The fall of a company goes to the CEO, the leader.

Yeah.

Regardless of any external circumstances. I was comparing a lot of it to even like a tornado because the other difference for CEOs to realize is most W-2 employees, and this is where I said it's going to be direct, right? They're not really thinking externally.

Mm-hmm.

You know, to be like, okay, what's out there? And then how can I take a look inside me to figure out what part I played in this? That just doesn't take place.

Yeah.

Whereas I think for those that are in the roles that you and I have been in, and, you know, that other small group of people that I was talking about, when you're signing your name to a bunch of things, The first thing that you tend to do is look internally and be like, where did I screw up? How, you know, what—

Don't often verbalize it necessarily. Exactly.

Almost never do, you know, but it's, uh, it's almost the thought, um, I wouldn't exactly call it depression because it's not. It's, it's mostly emotionally immature, but it can become damaging if you let it go too far and you tend to ruminate on it too much because then you start to say, oh, it's almost like you're, you're beating yourself up and you become a victim to your own self.

Yeah.

Like, you know, and back to that villain thing, it's like you're creating yourself as this villain rather than being able to take what you've learned from those, the learnings, and be like, okay, cool, I went through it and now I know exactly what I don't want to do again and exactly how I'm going to be able to do this and probably even faster the next time.

Yeah. Well, that takes a certain level of internalization.

Yeah, for sure.

So, one of the frameworks that my audience has heard, you may or may not have heard, that we share is called the 5 Constraints. So when I went back and looked at my journey, statistically they say, you know, lack of capital, poor management team, poor leadership, poor market fit are like all the reasons that businesses fail.

Yeah.

Right. When I go back and look at my own journey, while those were true at certain aspects at different times in the business journey, they weren't the core impactors. Right? They were symptoms.

Yeah.

Symptoms of my decision-making. Symptoms of my ability to hold a regulated state in very conflicted times. Difficulty not to take out things on the team.

Yeah.

Right? Early on, if I'm just honest with you, my consensus of leading a team was watch me do what I do. Oh, you're not doing it right. Let me do it. Right. That translated into, okay, at least a little bit of delegation, a little bit of control. Right. To, okay, great. Well, if now it's your fault, well, this thing happened. It's your fault.

Yeah.

And then I saw this interesting thing. I started, I started seeing the team kind of like start to fall, like push itself out like this. Like, like a death by a thousand cuts, if you will. And then it was, I don't know, it took a while. Um, one of the things that we do with this, uh, with our methodology of integrated leadership, um, is ability to carry strength and surrender simultaneously.

Hmm.

Right. And you can't do that if you're not willing to be open to looking at yourself. At the same time, my intentions were always pure. My actions weren't always great. So then I would beat myself up for the thing that I did wrong. So I would use condemnation as a way to tool my faith.

Yeah. You're both your, your own villain and victim at the same time.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Right. And then I think it was a pivotal moment for me. I went to a couple different seminars and stuff like that. It has a pivotal moment. I was about halfway in the business journey because I exited after about 25 years of building the company, founded from nothing, you know. So in theory, I did every job at least once, probably not well, right? But I had this interesting epiphany. I was like, I wonder what would change if I accepted the responsibility of what the team is doing But when the team won, I celebrated the team. I didn't celebrate myself.

Yeah.

Like, I didn't need the validation. And when I first made that decision, I made it very uncomfortable. It was very uncomfortable for me, right? Because I'm— in my mind, I'm like, I've spent 10 years just preparing a place for you, right? Um, multiple times. 2008 downturn was a perfect example of me going without pay for 4 months. I could keep the company afloat.

Yeah,

long enough to get us to the point where all of a sudden my competitors fell away and there was market share for us. We just garbled market share. Um, being debt-free in that moment would have been— would have been easier to take on debt, right, for, for the risk ahead. And, and really poor terms, by the way, because money was super risky then.

Um, there's always different levels of risk in money too.

Yes, there is.

Um, from the stable to the I need it tomorrow and it's extremely expensive. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's the interesting thing, because I feel like I had to confront myself. However, what I would do differently that I didn't do then was I went and sat alone a lot and talked to myself. And the things that I was telling myself and talking to myself about were not great. I was holding myself accountable at extreme levels that I would never have done with my own team. Yeah. When some of the business endeavors went a little bit sideways that you weren't expecting, how much energy did you put into almost like over-accountability?

Oh, man, into myself was incredible. The accountability that I placed on myself, and as I look back, it's like this is one of the biggest mistakes that I had, was when there was an inkling because, I mean, like the first thing that took place It was a bad acquisition. And this was the second. So I mean, when you're buying companies and you're scaling that quickly, I mean, you're buying entire infrastructure. I mean, you go from 16 people to 94 people in a matter of 2 years too. But the first inkling of difficulty, that's when I started thinking, it's like, okay, I thought I was strategic at the time.

Yeah.

In the moment of it. Now, when I look back, it's like, oh, I can see where the issue was. I actually poured so much of my heart into the people. And one of the biggest things that I prioritized was payroll. Mm-hmm. And I was like, cool, okay, we've got to get capital to continue doing this, even as we're hemorrhaging clients from what I look in hindsight was the sellers after I— because there was one that was bad, right? Sued them and terminated them on the same day.

Oh, wow.

Right. And it was after that, over the course of the next month and a half, that clients started going to— like, just started going away, the ones we had just bought,

you know,

in a $5 million business.

Yeah.

And it's like, where are they going? It's like you could kind of figure out where they were going and assume. And then we got some confirmation of that later on, that in essence they were just being taken back, you know, completely against the document and purchase agreement and everything. And it's But in that moment, it's like the, the clients were going, but the people that were supporting, the employees that were supporting those clients that I had, that client base that I just bought, I was like, okay, we're gonna keep them.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and then 3 months later, it's like, oh no, we really can't.

Yeah.

You know, and it's, it's probably the worst position to be in because it's something that I went into this saying, like, I want to build not, not a family. I hate that, you know, that Office Michael Scott. Yeah, yeah. It's like coming to this family. It's not. It's a business.

Yeah.

At the same time, I'm very cognizant that this is producing a certain quality of life for everyone that's there. So the accountability in the moment was like, well, all these people have bills to pay. And you start to take that on to yourself. At least I did.

Me too.

Me too. That was the roughest part, man, because And I seriously don't care what anybody says about me at this point, because when I look back, it's like, no one's going to understand that those are the things that are going through your mind.

Yeah.

Because in the moment, it's like— and when finally you come to, it's like, this just can't

be.

Yeah. And it took 3 months for me to realize that. And there was some series of layoffs and all that. But the truth is, it's like, you talked about the debt, right? When you go out to borrow because you can't make the obligations of the company because of what took place— ours was a bad acquisition. Yeah. There's a reason that you can't make those obligations. So something should change right now, not 3 months down the road. And unfortunately, that involves people and headcount, which is going to impact their lives. But I think where I failed is that I held out too long. before making those drastic cuts. You know, just say, okay, we'll go get it back, we'll figure this out, you know, or the lawsuit will pan out, you know, 2 years later is finally when it goes away. So it's— yeah, that stuff never takes the short amount of time that you think.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's, um, I've always been quick to act. Yeah, I've never regretted decisions. I mean, even the decisions that I made, you know, I, I don't regret them. I just know that I would make them differently.

So how do you— because it sounds like you're— one of your superpowers, I, I believe, is probably empathy. It also seems like it might fall. It might be— I was gonna say, it might be an Achilles heel.

Yeah.

Um, and a lot of times our greatest strength is our Achilles heel, if you will. How did you learn to balance the difference? Because, all right, so to give a quick frame of reference, um, one of the things I've told our audience before on stage here or whatever, yeah, is that I went from all lion, immature lion, to all lamb, immature version, right? So I vacillated from one extreme to the other.

Yeah.

Right. When I vacillated to the lamb side, I took on responsibilities that weren't mine to carry as a way to, in theory, save these people from pain. I realized after about a decade that I was doing that because there was painful times in my life and I wish somebody had swooped in and helped me. Yeah. And, you know, so I, I, I kind of look at that as a, a moment where you— where we recognize, okay, well, we were operating in one of these archetypes. Differently, and now I know differently. So I would assume after this experience, um, things radically changed. But if you're like me, you would assume that would radically change, but it took a lot more time.

Yeah,

yeah,

it sure did. There's one thing I realized during this, and it actually came from a Navy SEAL friend of mine, that I waited too long to implement. So we were talking about something, it's like I, I float political aspirations in my brain sometimes, you know, and it even to the point like a few years ago, it's like, well, maybe I might want to be president someday. And that comes from like, no joke, like you talk about, like the genuine care I have for the people that live in this country, all the citizens. Yeah. And just like, well, shoot, it's like I see some of these mistakes. I'll probably make some of my own big mistakes if I'm there, but I can do better than that. Yeah. I think it's not an arrogance. It's like, I think I could genuinely do some good. But then talking with My friend, his name's Larry. Ironically, that's the best name for a Navy SEAL. Hey,

Larry.

I know, over 200 missions, all successful. I don't want to know his body count, dude, but it's— I did a lot of executive coaching with him and then some intensive stuff too. And I said, it's like, I know there's going to be decisions. This is before all of this, right? This is like 5 years ago that I'm going to have to make. And it's like, but I understand the validity, the necessity of certain decisions. At the same time, I know that those decisions will also hurt people.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so we related it back to the presidency and wartime and all that. And he goes, the thing is, is that there's people, like when you're in those roles and there's people that you have to put in place. So this isn't my wisdom. This is his, man.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's people that you have to put into place that their job is to live in that dark place for you. So even though it's your decision, they're the ones that execute on that decision. You can see that in the federal government, of course, when it comes to the military or even the economic side when it comes to the IRS or whoever. Yeah, for sure. There's people that it's their job to live in that dark place. And the one thing I didn't do is I didn't put those people in place. And I think in order to do certain things, even if you don't like the certain president, whether it's Trump now, Biden before, Clinton way back, Obama, whatever, Republican, Democrat. I do believe that everybody who's desired to hold that office has wanted to do some good.

Yeah.

In their way that they think is good.

Yeah.

There's going to be people that dislike them. There's going to be people that like them. There's going to be decisions they think they need to make. And there's going to be decisions that they know that they need to make that they don't want to.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just to help the whole or because it's better for more people or it has to do with the safety of the country. Same with business, man, is what I found out. It's like there's decisions that you need to make that you just don't want to.

Yeah. Yeah.

But then when you're the one that has to implement them too, because you're going into this, it's like, I want to help people. I want to be someone who can build a safe place for them.

Yeah.

What happens when it becomes unsafe?

Yeah.

That even if it's not something that you're doing, but you're the person in that role that's supposed to handle the lack of safety as much as you're the person who's supposed to help create that safety.

Yeah. What's really interesting, and I have several thoughts that are popping up right now.

This is—

yeah, no, this is good. This is exactly what we need. We need to tell that because we need to tell leaders the truth. And I'll tell you one of mine. One of the things that I used to struggle with the most is oversharing or undersharing, or this is something I legitimately can't tell the team that's going to impact them.

Yeah.

And I don't know what to do about it. Or, um, always feeling misunderstood because, you know, that's a

big one. We could dive super deep into that.

Um, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you one of the, one of the most recent ones I saw when I exited my company.

Yeah.

Um, a couple of the gentlemen that were part of the equity team, um, I helped get to the table, right? Because they helped me build it. I wanted to reward them, want to give them a chance at wealth or to create wealth for themselves. So we had another plan,

yeah,

uh, within 5 to 6 years to re— you know, kind of retransition the company again, all for the betterment of the company and all, and would also bless them. And I remember butting heads with one or more of my C-suite professionals before the exit repeatedly over similar issues, like the same issue, same issues. And I, one time I pulled them to the side and, um, one of them specifically, I was like, man, dude, I do, I love you to death. Like, I see you as a ride or die, like, but you're not going to understand this decision until you're wearing this mantle.

Yeah.

You just won't. Right. And the reason I bring that up is like, it was like 6 months after the exit. Right. You know, they took on debt to obviously acquire the company, which I had no debt on. The company was a cash-free, debt-free deal. Um, and that in and of itself puts, puts additional pressure for performance.

For sure it does.

Um, you got metrics you need to hit to service the debt and all the things, and it's leveraged. Yeah, exactly. So what was really interesting is I remember we had, we had done a board meeting because I'm still on the board. And, um, pull this guy to the side. He said, remember when you told me that we wouldn't understand until we were in the metal why you made some of the decisions that you made? I'm like, well, yeah. He's like, I just want to tell you I'm sorry. I see it now. And, you know, for me, to your point about team members, like when, you know, when 2008 downturn happened, I chose them first, but I also chose essential personnel.

Yeah.

I couldn't have kept everybody and had, and done what we did. COVID comes around, right? No one knows what's gonna happen with COVID So we, we end up saying, okay, where, where do we need to be lean? Ended up making the business better, ended up picking up points because we had, we were, we were subsidizing our own dysfunction.

Mm-hmm.

So we were hiring people to cover up for other people's poor performance repeatedly, right? So we had this massive inflation of, um, Payroll, only to find out that actually the COVID actually helped us because we then we had to sit down as a group and say, okay, we have, you know, 60 people, 70 people on W-2 and the balance in 1099, right? What are we going to do? Who do we, who do we have to? And we had very difficult conversations out of love. It's like, we love that person. We love this person. We love what they bring, the energy they bring to the team. But we started looking at performance metrics. I was like, they've been underperforming for some time. We've been— and we've been letting it happen.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and then there's other times where, you know, when I went to go sell the company, we, you know, they come a point in time I had to tell the team. I wish I'd done it differently and better, um, because we did a public forum, um, and I was just like, I was so nervous, right? But I couldn't tell them all the things. But I know, like, I know now that a few of the team members that end up leaving over the course of the transaction and transition, you know, over the next year or two, they felt a little abandoned, you know, a little betrayed. And I was like, guys, you— I, I didn't have in the tank to take this company to $200 million.

Yeah.

Right? Getting, getting to nearly 9 figures was already hard enough, right? My heart wasn't in it, you know, but I couldn't sit down and tell them this honest stuff. You know, so for

sure. I mean, they're looking for you for the source of strength and the, you know, in all of this. And it's a— that's interesting because it— do you see the, the dichotomy like I do to where it's you don't have the heart that's in it, but yet you're the person that's right there? But yeah, people are looking. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then in the inverse on the other side, it's like if a W-2 heart isn't in it, they'll just go throw out some resumes.

Yeah.

You go look for another role somewhere.

They're not on the PG.

Yeah, exactly.

Personal guarantee for you guys. Yeah,

yeah,

yeah. No, I do. And again, I, again, I think one of the things that high-capacity leaders don't fully appreciate, and this is something, this is something, this was my epiphany. I can see if you'd agree with me here. I finally stopped caring if I was understood or not. I finally started executing as if I was making the best judgment call I could make after a time of diligence, after a time of digging in. And trusting my gut that that was the right decision. Most of them worked out, some of them didn't. And I think that's a benchmark of leadership. So because I feel like— I'm feeling like misunderstood, like you have to get the approval of everybody constantly.

Do you find yourself overexplaining at times?

Oh, 1,000%.

Yeah.

Like, you don't understand. You don't understand.

Yeah. Trying to draw it out and map it.

We had this— okay, here's a fun one. We had this time where I gave out profit sharing. Okay. We had to change the profit sharing program 2 or 3 times, timing of money coming in, right? We would do work. We'd have to wait 30 to 60 days for our cash to come in. That's just how that, that industry was working. Yeah. And, um, we had this one, one quarter where it was like, there was legitimately no profit. It was a break, break-even month at best. So you go to the team and you're like, okay, sorry guys, we didn't make profit. We had people that were irate cuz they didn't get their money. I'm like, we don't have profit.

Yeah.

Cash is tight. I had other times, and this is why we had to revamp it a few times, um, where I would pay out as if profit had been occurred. We would later find out with a, with a future closing of the books that profit wasn't actually made there fully, or at least at that number, and expenses hit in this, this month over that month. And let's just say it might've been willful.

Yeah, yeah,

stuff like that. So, oh,

for sure. And then, yeah, I mean, the whole point is like you're not going to pull it back either. It's just you think that they're expecting that. Yeah. And most of the time that, that is the case too.

Yeah,

it's different

even though you tell them 100 times, do not count this as your base pay.

Yeah, yeah,

don't do that.

You can't. Yeah, that never made sense to most.

Yeah,

yeah. That— did you ever figure out a way to transcend that mental barrier with people that work for you?

Um, I'll say yes and no.

Salespeople get it, bro. Yeah.

Oh yeah, for sure. Oh

yeah, you know, full commission. Yeah, operations, different story.

Salespeople take deals just to get paid.

Yeah, right.

Use the company money. I'd go with that one too. Um, you know, for me, uh, I think a lot of it came down to setting a proper expectation. Um, so we began being a lot more intensive with the hiring process. about what compensation was.

Yeah.

And then on occasion we, we would share, uh, you know, profits or overflow, overflow cash, right? And there was a metric for that to be hit. Um, and then we started creating benchmarks within it to hit it. So it's not just the company made money, it's what role did you play in helping the company grow? Those benchmarks started actually right-sizing the business because what happened was, is people who were overperforming and always killing it, started getting paid bigger checks, and people who weren't doing it weren't getting much of anything. And they ended up phasing themselves out, which needed to happen anyway. I was looking at some— this was years ago, probably 10 years ago— statistic came out, uh, you know, again, 10 years ago. So it's 2017, 2018, 2019, something like that. And in doing so, the statistic was— it was a, it was a track record. I think it was like a Harris Poll even, um, where from $1 to $1 million You could probably keep the vast majority of your team that you accumulate during that, that—

For sure.

Transition. Okay.

That's easy. Yeah.

From $1 million to $10 million, you start having attrition. 20, call it 20, 20%. I don't remember the exact number. 20%. Fast forward from $1 to $100 million revenue, you're lucky if you have 1% of your team left.

Yeah.

That was super hard for me. Super hard until I realized that the business was outgrowing the leaders. It forced me to grow. I didn't have a choice. I had to grow.

Well, there's that PG.

Yeah, yeah, there's that PG. PG, baby.

Yeah, you put that— I've always said too that, you know, it's like, like you need something behind you to push you through life, you know, to get the momentum. I've never looked at it that way.

PG's your villain.

Yeah, no joke. It's like I've always looked— it's like I want to put something out in front of me so that it pulls me into that.

Yeah.

And forces me to grow into that, you know. Yeah. Whether it's a personal guarantee or just a commitment to something, you know, a certain quantity with a vendor, whatever it is, you know. And it's going to force you get into that. That's not the way that it works for those who don't have the liability on the line. Yeah. It's a rough road, man, when you start to see people drop off.

Yeah.

Just because it's like, well, this is starting to become too much pressure. But that's where I realized too, you probably realize the same thing. It's like, did I keep that person too long?

Yeah.

The person who's been with me a decade, should I have done something? Because it got to the point— and there was one individual that I tried to have do that dark stuff, right? I'm like, okay, here's the layoffs. It's like, these are people that were in your department and I need you to have these conversations for me. And then it was right after those conversations, like, you know what? I'm out in 30 days. And it was just too much for that individual to handle. Yeah. And in that moment, because I had the thoughts, Years prior of, I really want certain people to do certain things and fill certain roles by my side, the ones who have been here for a long time.

Yeah.

I mean, that's

part of the reason I wanted to sell— when I sold my company, I wanted the guys that helped me build it to be at the table.

Yeah. But now, I mean, this analogy even just comes to me right now and it's like, oh, shoot. When I think about it, it's like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. We're recording this on a day when the new Apple CEO for the first time, John Ternus?

Yeah.

Yeah. Just did his first product launch. And I think back to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and Wozniak didn't stick around, and he was like the second person in Apple. That's it. I hate the clichés, man, but I hate them even more when they're right.

Yeah.

It's like the people that'll get you to the 1 million that you're talking about and the people that'll get you to the 10 million and the 100, they're all different people. It's not the same people.

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Well, and that's the thing is like, and this is one of the things that I'm glad we're having this conversation, um, because scaling a business, it sounds sexy on the internet, right? Hitting revenue goals sounds sexy on the internet. Hitting your profitability goals, it sounds sexy on the internet. Um, but building an actual business with deployable capital, with team, with risk, with customers that you know, not happy or happy or like, it's, it's a— what I think leaders get wrong about business is that at some point in time it'll just get easier. The problem is the business never stops growing.

Yeah.

And the only way that I found that business gets easier is for better systems and structures. The— that's the only way. And better expectations. Expectations clearly defined, measurements clearly laid out. Team members' performance, things genuinely evaluated against those metrics along with attitude and things like that. And then you can look at it— one of my favorite books is, um, by a guy named Lee Benson. You know Lee? Have you heard of Lee?

Okay, so I was thinking Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek, and that was like such BS, you know? I went my life—

I'm kidding, it's more of my life now, but it wasn't then.

Yeah.

Um, no, but, uh, so Lee Benson wrote a book called The Most Important Number. That book transformed how I saw team performance. He had, I want to say, 2 9-figure exits. He sold his company, he sold a company twice. I mean, maybe he sold the same company twice. Um, it was, uh, kind of, I think it was in the aerospace industry, like it was in the flight. Dude's super smart. Okay, so we, I was at him on the podcast, like when I first started, maybe 3 years ago. Fell in love with this guy.

Hmm.

Brilliant. I was like, how do you get your— because he had really high-performing team members with very high team member scores about loving working there, right? I was like, what do you— what are you doing differently than most of us, including myself? Because at the time I hadn't sold the company yet, but I was genuinely interested. Yeah. He said, it's very simple. Every role has the most important number. Every single role in our company Ties directly back to a number on the P&L statement. Every last one of those roles that has a most important number for that role. And I was like, I was thinking about HR. He's like, yeah, you can track HR. You can track retention, right? You can, you can track a lot of things, right?

Yeah.

And so I said, well, you know, does your payroll expense rise unexpectedly? Like, that seems to be just somebody just making somebody happy by throwing your money at, right? Um, your CEO, well, top-line revenue. Your COO, bottom-line profit.

Yeah.

Right. So we started like going through the roles and we're like, oh, oh, okay. And he said every last one of those numbers has 3 drivers for each of those people responsible for each of those roles and each of those numbers. He said, I just aimed all 3 people at each of those 3 drivers And I had them optimize it left and right, left and right, left and right, left and right, left and right, left and right. And each one of the most important numbers began to rise or decline if that's what the goal is, like reduce costs, right? Sure.

And I was like a service or a product manager. Yeah, your cost of goods.

Yeah, yeah. So what do you do with, um, you know, team members that, you know, they just come in demanding more money? You know, like, you know, the business just has it, right? They haven't— you can't really open your, your P&L and like, well, we really don't We're struggling right now. We're just— you're happy. You should be happy you have a job, right? You can't really do that, right? Or you shouldn't necessarily. That's an HR breach.

But well, that's when— that's when the overexplaining comes in.

Yeah. Well, yeah, but I mean, his framework, what I was trying to understand, he's like, we set a very clear expectation at the very beginning. This is the role you're being hired for. This is what you're supposed to execute. This is how we train you to execute it. This is how we test your competency. And this is how we're going to hold you accountable. Everything was structured and systematized. What, which, when you go to create a roll-up version for an IPO, my guess is every single business that was purchased during that season had varying levels of operational excellence.

For sure. Yeah.

Some were probably, oh, this is probably closer to a platform company.

Yep.

And was like, oh my God, what the hell did we buy? Yeah, right.

Spot on.

How do you roll up so many companies so quickly?

Yeah, it's poorly.

I was hoping you would say that.

Yeah, poorly. I was very focused on growth, and it was fairly easy to find companies that could fit in. Even as a CEO, it's like whether it's public company, private company, whatever, it's like even the reason why I go on such large nationwide media networks is they'll say things like even Fox DC, they're like, we need Rick to come on and break this down for America, like complex cybersecurity topics so it makes sense on a 7-minute segment. And they're excited because I just pulled in $1.7 7 million viewers, right, in the ratings. You know, it's a— you capture them out of the gate, but everything comes back to communications, the ability to communicate a specific message.

Yeah.

And dude, I can vision cast from now until the cows come home. I can say this is exactly how I see us getting here. You know, we might veer off here and there, but I, I know exactly what puzzle pieces have to go into place.

Yeah.

In order for us to do that. And when I'm focused on growth, that's what I'm is great, but then I tend to like, okay, so hey guys, you know, like the team, right? Okay, you got this. Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna go over here and I'm gonna keep—

I'm gonna go find something else to bolt onto your plate.

Exactly. Yeah, that was it. You know, I'm gonna go find another company, you know, 2 months later. Yeah, I'll be back. Don't worry, we're gonna have more people. It's all good, you know. Yeah, but to me it's like more people, more people can handle the more business. That was me, right? But then they're thinking, oh my God, I got so many more people to train and how do I bring them in? You know, so that's why I said Yeah. Putting the numbers on the books actually kind of became like the easiest part when it comes to a roll-up, and at least out of the gates.

Yeah.

What was difficult, because ours was probably a little bit of a different story, but the ones that— there was some bad apples that came in, and that really was like the first nominal. However, When I take a look back, I was just talking about this with somebody else the other day. It's like we vetted the numbers well.

Quality earnings, all the things.

Exactly. Yep. And even down to churn, like we were talking about before. And that actually became— communicator, right? That actually became a selling point for the first acquisition for me. Like, oh, well, we, we could, you know, keep doing this and keep putting money in our own personal bank account, right? The seller was like this and everything. But then you start to— it's like, but We want to grow and that's why we want to do this, maybe, but we'll walk away. I remember these negotiations, right? And I'd show them, I'd slide it over. I'm like, but bro, you're turning 25% of your revenue every single year.

What

do you

mean?

Yeah. I'm like, you're replacing it and you're selling new business, but every single year—

You're selling it and you're bleeding it.

Exactly. Yeah.

So you're staying flat.

Yeah. And that's where I'm like, that's where I can help. Yeah. And I can't because I'm good on the retention side, at least the ability to communicate with customers. A lot of it's just about engagement and all that. But then having the right people in the right seats to be able to handle that influx of both people. And that was really the issue, man. It was a huge— people say, you know, culture is the biggest thing in roll-ups and all that. We had a great foundational culture, absolutely great foundational culture. But coming in, I wanted to maintain— it's the empathy thing— like the same number of people, right? So my idea, it's like most acquisitions and roll-ups would be bring them in, cut 2/3 of the people right out of the gates. It's like, but I don't want to do that. I would rather keep everybody and increase revenue.

Yeah.

And that was the idea.

Yeah.

I don't know if that can ever be truly successful. Right out of the gate because everyone else, what I discovered, was used to— in the acquisitions, they were used to business being a certain way. And it functioned for them. And that was okay. However dysfunctional. Yeah, exactly. And sure enough, like a $5 million business can stay a $5 million business from now and 20 years from now when you're churning a fourth of it every single year, but you're replacing a fourth of it every single year. Everybody's getting quality of life pay increases, and that's only because the business is just raising their prices to make sense for any kind of inflation, any increased costs. It's not really growing.

Yeah.

And that's why when I would find, like you said, a platform company that this could be like, this can support an entire region as we're planting our flag, right? And this one, this is just going to be, we just want the customers and that's it because we'll do better with the customers than they ever could there. There is a formula to this, and the formula is not what I did.

But you learned the formula.

I did. And it's like, so what I know is I can still do the same thing. I can still go out and I can find companies. I can put them together. What I also know is that What we talked about is that the ones at that $1 million, the $10 million mark, and then the $100 million mark, some of them don't even want to be that. Because I would hear things like, why can't it just go back to the way that it was? It's like those should have been red flags for me in the moment. Hearing this—

Does it matter that I was one of them? I made more money at $50 million.

That's so true. In a lot of ways it is. But you know that there's a I mean, some of it's just fun, man. You know, it just is to be like, okay, I've got a target out there. I know I can get to it.

Yeah.

But in the meantime, when you're looking at, you know, you're hearing the things like that, like, you know, why can't it just be the way that it was? That should have been the flag for me that says, you know what, maybe some people who have been with me for a very long time are not the ones that are going to carry this forward.

I mean, I ran into that. I mean, one of the stories I've shared with the audience before is the importance of hiring well and firing well. Um, terminate, whatever, whatever words you want to use. They don't work there anymore. Okay. Um, I used to be very attached to the people and I felt like it was a personal failure if I asked them to leave, even if it was for cause. Okay. They did something stupid.

Yeah.

In any, any court under the sun, like they did something stupid. They should work somewhere else. Right. Go learn to go, maybe go backwards a few steps to work in a smaller company or whatever, but I would still take it very personally. I finally learned a lot of my lessons, and I had a couple leaders in the C-suite that were responsible for running entire divisions of the company. Well, we had a team member that helped us get to about— in this one silo, this one segmentation, we went from about $500,000 to about $5 million in top-line revenue. Okay, solid jump.

Yeah, yeah.

Over the course of 3 years. Um, now granted, the project sizes of this endeavor were large, so You could get one project, it was $800,000 or a million or whatever. Anyway, so we started getting, um, notices from clients that we had, we had built relationships with. Hey, something's, something's up, something's not running properly. We'd go out in there, we'd facilitate it, and we're like, okay, what's going on? We bring the leader down, like, okay, what's going on? Well, you know, this— okay, well, that technically makes sense. Do you agree, Mr. Customer, that makes sense? Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, well, this is what we're gonna do. This is our action plan, our— call it our own, like, like corporate PIP, uh, PIP plan, like performance improvement plan. And we would, you know, okay, it's handled, we're gonna, we're gonna jet. A month later, same kind of thing. A month later, same kind of thing. A month later, same kind of thing. A month later, same kind of thing. And I was like, I went to, I went to the, the executives, I was like, I— why, why, why is he still here?

Yeah.

Like, he's an awesome guy and he definitely helped us, but he's killing us. He's going to kill that entire department. And not because he was incapable, but it's because he had reached mass capacity for his skill set.

Bingo.

Right? He could only be— he couldn't manage remotely well. Right? And then all he would do is he would drive to different markets and he'd put out a fire. And he would drive to the next one, put out a fire. And he'd drive to the next one, put out a fire. And then by the time he made it all the way back around, the fires had started again. You know, and so much so, we're sitting there talking and the leaders— this is the truth, the truth comes out. I guess the leader goes, I just already have so much on my plate. There's no way I can cover for him if we do this. I'm like, he's going to destroy the department. If you need me to get in a truck myself, I will get in a truck myself and I will do it. No, we wouldn't want you to do that. Like, well, begin looking for his replacement. Okay, very plainly.

Yeah, yeah.

He can't work here anymore long term, right? You're concerned about having too much on your too much pressure on your plate, not going to cover. You're already missing family meals, all things. I I want you to have quality of life with your family. I do, right? But you are. You did sign up for this this role, and there has to be a strategy to make sure the business is taken care of, even if it takes short term sacrifices. And I knew his spouse well enough. I could have had a conversation with spouse like hey. FYI, we need 90 days. Can we have 90 days, please? And she'd probably be like, okay, yeah, right. We don't fire this guy for another 2 years. In the time that we were noted— we noticed that this person had been performing at that level to 2 years later, he cost the company, I kid you not, $3 million. Yeah, in mistakes.

It's like you're telling part of my story too, man.

Yeah,

yeah,

preventable.

Yeah.

You know, and I think that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have these types of conversations, because it's easier to look like— and this is something I say all the time— it's easier for us to look like we're winning on paper. Oh, Stephen, you know, achieved nearly 9 figures in annual revenue. Yeah, it was freaking hard and I barely made any profit.

Yeah,

like, it looks, it looks great on Forbes, but the real thing is I was like, I was trying to figure leadership out. How do I lead professional executives? I didn't graduate high school. These people have MBA and CPA and all kinds of stuff after their names. And they're coming to me for answers in some cases, right? The reason I wanted— I kind of mentioned that is because I consider that situational, right? Situation, situation, situation. That's where empathy can bite you in the butt, or it's using the lamb when the lion is needed, right? And part of carrying strength and surrender simultaneously is knowing when to apply either one of them. That's what my grandfather taught me. And a very quick statement, by the way, Um, which is kind of bizarre.

Very concise.

But you wrote a book about situational awareness,

right? Situational Ethics.

Yeah, Situational Ethics.

Yep.

Is there ever a wrong time to do the right thing? Like, how do you, how do you, how do you use ethics from a situation to situation to guide what it is you're going to be building so you don't have to repeat the same mistakes?

Yeah, ironically, that book was, uh, a bunch of stories where I was directly involved or observed situations. And most of the, most of the situations involve money, which makes sense because it's a lot of the decisions that we make as leaders. Yeah, they're financially based.

Yeah.

Even in the story you were telling me about the individual, which mirrors one that I had, it's like, yeah, after 3 years or whatever, it cost the business $3 million. It's like, that's how we equate damage,

you know,

or that's how we equate growth.

Not to mention damage relationship was clients. They started hiring other people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. You see that, and that, that's probably, uh, when you look back at it— I saw a boat going across, and it's like a, you know, it's— I almost felt medieval, like, uh, like we're in Game of Thrones or something, like off into the middle distance, you know.

We just call it pensive look.

Yeah, I like it.

What you don't know is it's just the ADHD kicking in for a second.

Yeah, yeah, true.

I saw an airplane coming from the airport and stuff. Yeah.

I love that. Yeah. With making the right choice, what you have to start to grapple with is sometimes the indecision, because I think you said it was 3 years, right, that he was there?

By the time it was all said and done, it was close to 3 years, like 2 and a half years.

Yeah. It's like the question came to my mind because it's like, I know my answer for the individual. It's kind of the mirror here was when you identified that and said, hey, I'll get in the truck and do it. Why did it take another 3 years?

And

I was like, I know my answer. My answer is because this dude had been there for a decade. And it was like there was a certain amount of loyalty. I wanted more for him than he wanted for himself.

And a certain amount of performance improvement meetings where he promised to do better and he would do better for short bursts, 3 months at a time, 3, 6 months at a time.

Yeah,

yeah,

you got it. And it's, uh, It sucks though. I mean, it's, uh, I had, uh, my vice president of M&A,

right?

Because the only times that I would be like, all right, you're gone, as in like, like the Trump, you're fired.

Yeah.

Was when there was something moral,

you know?

And that was the thing that was never, at least in my definition of what morality was, right?

Yeah.

Like, I remember one time there was a, it was like a level 2 technician or something like that. And I just happened to be walking by, you know, and his supervisor was there talking and like, I need you to go out to this client and all that. He's like, no, I'm not going to go. And it's like, no, I think you need to pay me more or something. I'm just not going to go on site to these things at this point. And then they sent something to me, like they were going to write him up with HR and all that. And they're saying, hey, just to let you know, this is what's going on. And then when I walked by, I overheard something. It's like, you can fire me if you want to, And then that's when I was like, all right. Yeah.

Thanks for permission.

Exactly. It's like, and it was more of like the, it wasn't so much that that individual was refusing work that was clearly in their job description, right? It was when it crossed over the line into disrespect of leadership by saying, you can fire me if you want to. Like, that's just a disrespectful, immature comment, you know? So it's like, all right, that doesn't need to be here.

It's interesting because I would call that a form of arrogance, which is one of the constraints that we teach.

Yeah, for sure.

And what's interesting about that comment is people don't say that unless they don't think you're going to take them up on it.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yep. Which I'm sure he didn't. And that was the other point too, because it's like, I don't think that his supervisor— his supervisor did not have the authority to do that. But one level up from that, one of my VPs did and knew about the situation. And this happened to be like that same person we're talking about right here. And that was another flag. It's like, well, Well, to take the actions, like, that person just disrespected somebody else with the arrogance, and I don't want that around here. But then you cross over to the other side, but we're okay somehow as leaders with the endless coaching of poor performance.

Yeah.

Not okay with the disrespect and the arrogance, but okay with us. So is that our own ego? Like, this is the rhetorical questions. I know I can help them do better, or I know that I want her to have so many good things for her life and she wants them too, so I'm just going to keep going regardless of the money that this person's costing the company. And then, in reflection, it's like, is that our own arrogance?

Is that our own fear? Well, it's either— so one of the other constraints is insecurity. So arrogance, ignorance, impatience, fear, and insecurity. Okay? Um, what will people think of me, or what would they think of me if I have to make this decision? Um, or I can cover it up, or I can, like, I can do enough to cover it to give this some time. Um, we had to put boundaries around that because I'm a very generous person. Like, I would have hard times in life, and they've been great performers for a long time, and then child gets ill, divorce happens. You just set people back, right? Those are major life events. And, um, you know, for me, when it came to those situations, it was like, can you evaluate the situation? But you still have to run them through the playbook. Like, they still have to go through all the, the processes and be documented and all the things. Um, but eventually, like, the coaching is also taking a lot of time. I mean, our principle, the principle I even share with the audience and teach, is hire slow, fire fast, but mentor often. This mentoring towards competency will tell you, can they hit the— can they hit the number? Part of it, I think, is overwhelm. Like, I've— with people that I've, I've seen, they're just overwhelmed. Like,

oh, for sure it is.

Like, if I let this guy go, all the guy or gal go, I have to go and now do what they're doing plus what I'm already doing. That's just too much, right?

Or you think it is in the moment.

You think it is the moment.

And it's another big lesson. I'll come back to that in a second here. Yeah.

You mean, so I think that, um, it's, it's arrogance to— arrogance to the— to one piece. I'll tell you one that, that used to get me. My nervous system got, um, probably a dopamine hit when the team— when the team needed me.

Yeah.

Team needs me. I'm important. Well, this guy's screwing up. Team needs me. I'm gonna go help him. You see what I'm saying? And

I do. I think that's probably something we can throw on a board as like one of the top 5 things that leaders do for self-sabotage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you almost— did you find yourself starting to create a system where everybody needed you?

Oh dude, that was my, my first decade. That was my first decade. And it started, you know, one of the things I jokingly say with that arrogance, because I give— when I'm teaching the material, I give them the contrast, what the opposite is, and I, I give them the, the mental reframe or the heart posture that's causing it. And like with arrogance, like one of the things that is, is I'll just do it myself. It's just easier if I do it myself. Or, um, well, if it wasn't for me, then the whole place would implode. I actually heard a C-suite professional say that one time. I was like, that's the dumbest thing you've ever said in your life. No. And to his point, like, it's only dumb because that's the most arrogant thing you could say.

Yeah.

He was making a significant impact, and he, he juggled a lot for the company. But I was like, I, I— before, before that transpired, um, some of the people from the prior management team were there. And one of the guys walked in, he's like, who they gonna get, man? We see HE, baby. I'm like, there is another Stephen Scoggins out there with a hammer and a nail. He's trying to figure stuff out, and he's coming.

Mm-hmm.

He is coming. Why? Because he doesn't have a choice. He's fighting back out of necessity. You can't get lost. You can't get lost in what's— we've been so awesome for this year, that year, a decade, or whatever, it's going to continue being that way. You have to work at it.

Yeah, all the time. Maybe you can diagnose me here. This might be one of the— you might say to me, this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard, right?

I don't ever call— I don't call people out because I've done some pretty dumb stuff. Yeah, yeah.

So I'm hearing it's like a lot of what you're saying is like creating the system because you wanted to be involved and wanted to be the one that save it, right, to do it right. So you created a system to where everybody had to come to you.

Yep, you're the decision maker. Yeah, the final veto power.

Right on. Mine, uh, mine was the exact opposite but just as toxic. So it's the inverse to where you referenced it like right at the beginning when we started this. You know, I love to teach people, dude, and the moment the dopamine hit for me is when they get it.

Yeah,

yeah. So where it's like, awesome, all of my effort— but this is the, the catch, right? It's like all of my effort to help you learn this has now come to fruition. And then there's my dopamine hit because— but I'm genuinely happy, you know, because it's like I can see their life getting better. Yeah.

To me, that's why it needs structure.

Yeah.

Like, it's okay, you get, you know, the 3 strikes or whatever, whatever your methodology is going to be. It has to be implemented and fully installed.

Yeah.

And you got to trust it.

I would do that endlessly.

Yeah.

And that's the reason why I didn't fire certain people that I should have, because it's like, no, I know I can get through to them.

Yeah.

And they say they want these things for their life. I want it for their life. You know, we're gonna get there. But then it comes back to the capacity of the individual, and that's just something that I could not accept in those moments.

Well, I think it also comes back to outside looking in. It also comes back to the situation of you want it so bad for them because you're, you're experiencing some of the benefits for yourself, but they're also not going to be you and you're not going to be them.

Yeah,

like I've, I've had play— I had a, I had a controller one time.

How arrogant is that of a leader? Yeah, like, how arrogant of that as a leader too, man, to be like— because you're almost expecting them to be you.

Yeah, yeah. Well, the funny thing is, I would watch— I would watch leaders hire people who could not perform at their level because they didn't want to get surpassed. One of our rules is never suppress your superstars.

Yeah,

raise them up. And, you know, I dealt with that once or twice because I was like, I was getting so excited, like, that, oh, this— okay, they're kicking butt. Okay, they're kicking butt. Okay, okay. What am I gonna do now? Like, I got a couple different times in the company, $50 million, $70 million. I'm like, I've got more time on my hands than I've ever had, not realizing that's— that means you go do more vision.

Yeah, no joke. So that's what I'm saying. I'm the opposite. It's like somebody who's dragging, it's like, I would drive like, come on, I know you can be a superstar. I want you to surpass me. I want you to do more than me.

Yeah.

You know, so it's like I'd be dragging, I'm like, let's see if I can just throw you ahead of me, you know, and putting so much effort into building up that person that it was draining the life out of me and draining the life out of the company. And I'm not saying any specific one person, just anybody who had decided that, hey, you can be a superstar.

Yeah. Can I ask you a question?

Yeah.

How much of that do you think is father energy?

Father energy?

Yeah, like fathering that person towards their—

There's a lot. And, you know, some of the— it brings me back to one person that worked for me that I— you know, the only person I actually ever suspended because they had— it was a project and I was like, I, I Didn't know what else to do in the moment. And like one 2-minute thing costs about $150 grand, you know, a mistake on their part. And it was something that I had said 6 months prior, like every single month, like, I need you to do this, I need you to do this. And it had to do with technical competency training, right?

Mm-hmm. You

know, that way when you face this, you're going to be able to handle it. And they just procrastinated, didn't do it. And then it did cost the company money. And then I'm like, it was almost like grounding a kid.

Yeah.

You know, I'm like, all right, you're going to take 30 days.

Yeah.

You're not going to get paid.

Yeah.

And in this 30 days, you're going to go out and you're going to learn that stuff that I've been telling you for 6 months. And then the only way you're going to come back is if you pass it.

Yeah.

You know, that dude, that was totally like treating that individual as a kid.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. And it was— I crossed over into that rather than objective performance because I didn't know what else to do.

Mm-hmm.

In the moment. This was maybe 10 years ago, man, when this took place. It's like, but I cared about the individual. It's like I had kids, right? I had at that time, 10 years ago, how old would they have been? Like 9 and 7, something like that.

Yeah.

And it's similar, right?

Yeah.

But there's a difference. It's like your kids don't have a choice as far as who their dad is.

Yeah,

that's true. Your employees have a choice as far as who their boss is.

Yeah.

So, it's like there's a different level of investment into that relationship. And sometimes as a leader, the father energy you're talking about, this person never said, hey, I want you to be that mentor role in my life. They're working there.

Yeah.

That's it. They're there to provide food for their family and that's it. And, as long as things are cool with the company, they're cool with you. So, it wasn't a father-type situation. And, that was a big lesson for me because this individual came back after that, did what they were supposed to do. This is where I struggle a little bit too with this, because it's like, I look back, I'm like, well, it worked because it came back, did what I told them to do. And in the moment, I'm like, what do you have to say? It's almost like the military. It's like permission to speak freely. And it was like, the way you went about this, Rick, is almost as if you were my dad. And I didn't need that in the moment. I had other stuff going on in my life. And I just wish you would recognize that stuff rather than just the mistake that I made, which I completely take ownership for. It's like, it's almost like I served my sentence, you know, kind of like a kid, right? Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen my friends in a month. Yeah, because they were grounded, you know. But it's, uh, even looking back on that, it's like, I don't know what I would have done differently because I got the result.

Yeah.

And the dude stayed with the company. Like, you

know, the only, the only thing that we did slightly different in situations like that to try our best to get ahead of something. So if performance dropped, we'd bring a team member in and we would say, we're noticing a drop in performance on this segment. We, we would love them with bringing them in. Hey, we're proud of you, you do this well, blah, blah, blah. We would then hit the isolated incident, in theory isolated incident, and we would just say, before, before we go much further, um, is there anything you need?

Yeah.

To be successful at this role? More training, better leadership, permission to speak freely. And if the answer was no, I'm good there, I would say, okay, well, performance is, you know, clearly performing. Here's the metrics, right? We could show them the metrics. Um, the follow-up comes, is there anything going on right now in your life that's just like holding you back?

Yeah.

And we had— we created a culture of peaks and valleys, so we would say it as a team, like peaks and valleys, and some people would share stuff when they feel comfortable to. And we had a couple of cases where someone's performance dropped temporarily while they were walking through a really hard season. So then we would create a different type of performance improvement plan. We would go to them, their team lead, their team members around them, and say, hey guys, Jessica over here, she's, she's running through, she's walking through something pretty tough. For the next 90 days, we're going to give Jessica a little bit of a grace. And if I could get everyone to help out. And just make sure the company doesn't struggle. And that seemed to work.

Yeah.

Um, it actually built buy-in for the— call it Jessica, I'm gonna just pick a random name— Jessica to work through whatever's going on in her life. It also told the other people in the room, oh shit, the company cares about us. So it kind of had like a weird byproduct. The only time it backfires is when you don't follow through on the expectations that you've offered.

Yeah, yeah.

Like where all of a sudden 3 strikes turns into 20. Right.

Because we're in the scenario we've been talking about for a little while. All over again.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

That's intriguing because when I think about it, it's like even the way that I fathered this individual in a work environment, I've never really fathered my kids that way. My kids have been more like, well, you're going to make a mistake and I'm going to let them make the mistakes. And they're going to understand what the consequences are ahead of time before they make that mistake. And then we'll talk about it. But I've never had that approach with my kids, which is interesting that I did with somebody in the company. I think some of that came from corporate too because you mentioned PIPs, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I worked for— dude, it was Best Buy and then Geek Squad before that, a lot of corporate environments launching Geek Squad across the US and Canada. And it came to the point where I was indoctrinated with some of that corporate stuff and I was only in business about 5 years at that point to where it's like, well, I guess this is what I do. Yeah. Which comes from Forbes. It's like they screw up so bad, okay, then you're going to suspend them and have them try to fix it. But really, that's a PIP. Yeah. And I don't necessarily believe in PIPs either because I think that PIPs are almost like you're out the door. I mean, the data is that anyways. It's almost like performance managing somebody right out the front door.

Yeah.

For the most part.

Yeah.

Taking a look back at that now, it's like, even though it worked in this situation, I think it was rare.

Yeah.

That, that worked.

Yeah.

Rather than setting the expectation ahead of time and then having the conversation like you're saying, like, you know, what's going on in your life? At the same time, it's like, you know, the consequences of this. So now that you've chosen this path, you understand exactly what's going to take place.

Yeah.

I never did that with any other employee after that moment. Yeah. You know, it was more like, all right. But then the expectations were set better ahead of time too.

Yeah.

As far as what performance expectations were for that role.

Yeah. I think one of the things that we struggle with high-capacity leaders is actually actually clearly communicating what the expectation is.

For sure.

Yeah, right. Just like, this is what's expected out of this role, whether it's numbers, whether whatever.

That in itself is—

And then we— and then we're like, how come— we go to some team like, how come you're not doing this? How come it's not working? Like, and they're like, oh, it's— I had, uh, I'll shut up with this and we'll enter the rapid-fire round. We've been talking a while, and you and I could talk for days. For sure. And I know people are gonna love this episode. Um, this, uh, one time where I had a— I had a leader who had Literally in the same calendar year, like, I think it was like 12 or 13 months, they'd been through the same position 6 times.

Wow.

And I was like— so on the 6th time, person walks in my office and like, hey, I think we have to let go of so-and-so. I'm like, wait a minute, do me a favor, shut that door for a minute, come sit down with me for a minute. I said, so in the last 13 months, we've been through 6 people. I said, do me a favor, This doesn't make sense to me. I want you to grab that team member and come on back to my office. So they run out, grab the team member, come back, and I'm sitting down with the team member and I'm saying, hey, look, this is more of a me asking questions. I'm just curious. Um, based on what we can tell, some of the metrics aren't being hit. Like, there seems to be some, some performance issues. First of all, will you do me a favor? You tell me what it is you think you do here. And have them walk me through what they thought they did, right?

Steve Jobs question.

Yeah. And how? Right. And how do you think you do it? Very quickly realized that they thought they were winning because they were doing something completely different than they were hired for.

Right. I love that.

And on top of that, they had received no training on how to do either one of those things. So here they are thinking they're being a linchpin and they're like figuring stuff out on the fly to help the company. And reality is, is their leader wants to terminate them. Right. So I said, well, let me pull out the— we use Dave Ramsey language from back in the day. We'll pull out your KRA. We'll sit down and go through your KRA. So well, your KRA that was never signed by that person, by the way, which means they weren't onboarded properly. Yeah. Says that you're supposed to do this, this, and this. You're held accountable for this, this, and this. You're supposed to have this type of knowledge. Da da da da da. And like their exact words. I haven't been doing that at all.

With that expression. With that expression. Yeah. Yeah. Right on.

I'm like so I looked over the leader, and the leader was like like this, right? I said, "Do me a favor." I said. I want to talk to your leader for just a couple of minutes. We owe it to you to make sure that you're trained properly and make sure you're aimed at the right goals, your expectations. Right? So do me a favor. Go back to your desk, whatever. You're good. Sit down with the leader. I'm like, dude. He's like, I was just— I got busy, man. I'm putting out fires. I'm doing this. I'm doing— I'm like, you fired this person 6 times in the last 12 months. I love you, bro, but this is a leadership problem all day long. How should I hold you accountable for the leadership issue here? It was like, wait, what do you, what do you mean? Like, even in that talk, they didn't get it. I'm like, bro, here's what we're going to do. You're going to cancel all your appointments for the next 7 days, next 7 business calendar days, and you're going to train them to this standard with these tools, and you're going to test their competency. And at the end of those 7 days, I'm going to evaluate that team member and whether or not you actually did the work, and then I will make my decision. They're like, go out. 7 days later, they come back. Training's done. Team member looks happy.

Yeah.

Feels like they're winning. Early-stage performance has drastically increased and improved. And I was like, how long did it take you legitimately to do this training with this team member? Over the 7 days, about 45 minutes a day. Exactly.

That's it. Yeah.

So us not doing this process and not leaning into this, this process well has not only almost caused us to fire people that could have been great team members who we never know— we'll never know, right? But I guarantee you the mistakes that were made during that time cost the bottom line by a lot.

Yeah, for sure.

You know, so anyway, it's a story I just felt like compelled to share.

It's great, man. It's because it's at the same time, you know, I would say respectfully to you because I would take it the same way. It's like, how am I training my leaders?

Yeah.

Because I know that's a, that's a place specifically, you know, that I failed as well in what I was explaining. It's like, you know, I'm going to go out and get the growth and I'm going to get the growth because I'm good at that. And you guys can just figure this out. Yeah. Rather than spending time with them.

Yeah.

And, it was a separation that was there to be like, hey, are you training your people? Because I'm seeing some of the numbers off in these areas and you're complaining to me about some of these individuals too. Yeah. We do have the programs in place. Have you done that yet? That's what I didn't do.

Yeah. Well, this is all learned by error, right?

Absolutely.

So, one of the reasons why I'm excited about the Frequency Leadership program you're building, because these are things that I don't know that entrepreneurs are even thinking. That's what I want to spend— we spent so much time around the dysfunction that's happening in the operation is manageable, it's correctable, it's fixable, if you will, like a permanently kind of deal, right? And I know that's your heart is to actually teach these leaders, hey, these are all the mistakes I made. This is the systems and processes you need to do to grow and scale your organization. Maybe they become part of what you, you're building with your own, with your acquisition strategy. Where can people find out more about that? Tell me more about it. Like, as I, I manage service product, I actually know a couple business owners are in in that field.

Yeah.

And they would tell you they're not great operators.

Oh, there's a gap for sure. Yeah. Most technicians, you think about it, when they're in— when they're IT people, right, they never expected to have a business. I mean, the, the majority of them are like, I got fired or laid off or something like that, or I just got pissed off at my boss.

Yeah.

You know, and I figure I can do this myself now. You know, it's, uh, it's become a lot easier today to just jump into business than it was 20 years ago too. When you and I were starting and going down this crazy train that we ended up being on. I appreciate that, man. But it's, yeah, I'm excited because it's genuinely, when the SBA, the Small Business Administration puts out numbers like, you know, the average small business owner takes home like $78,000 a year. Mm-hmm. I'm like, are you kidding me? It's like you could easily make, especially in this industry in tech, because salaries are always some of the highest gets paid anywhere, right? Like, you could easily make 2 to 3 times that working for somebody else. So why are you taking on, you know, a million-dollar business and you're only putting $78K in your bank account every single year? You know, there's— you can either make a choice to have a, a more profitable business, one that's efficient and scalable, or just hang it up. Yeah. Just go work for somebody else, you know. So if I can help you do the other side of You know, if this is something you truly want to do on your own. And this isn't just MSPs, you know, I would love this for anybody at the same time. But my focus is there right now. Yeah. It's because of how I grew up. And I think the community is great. And I mean, dude, if I can go from, you know, a technician, you know, from Merrill Lynch 25 years ago, you know, a guy that also plays guitar and, you know, chases tornadoes and all that stuff, it's like, Like into having a public company.

Yeah. So you like storms.

Yeah, I know. You know, somebody talked to me about that once. Are you drawn to the chaos? Like, I don't know. I'm an entrepreneur, right? Yeah, I know, right? Exactly. Like, dude, I'm sure you've had this too. It's like there's something that's like, I wish this was easier.

Yeah.

And it's like, and then you ask, it's like, when is it going to get easier? And then you ask the question, it's like, would I be happy? If it's easier.

Yeah.

You know, and I think the general answer is yes. And I think that balance as a leader or even an entrepreneur in general is getting it to the point where you're still challenged, but not to the point where you're literally throwing caution to the wind.

Yeah.

Risk is the game.

Yeah.

You know, and that is the difference literally between those 2 groups of people I was talking about. Yeah. You know, whether it's W-2s or entrepreneurs or the MSPs that have The technical chops that want to actually build a real business versus they're saying, screw it, I'm just going to go work for somebody else. It is about the level of risk that you're willing to take.

Yeah.

But the risk doesn't have to be pointless.

Yeah.

And that's the part to where—

Risk can be calculated risk. I don't see a problem with that.

For sure.

You got to weigh it all.

Yeah, yeah. And there's generally some times too to where it's a 50/50.

Yeah.

You know, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna roll the dice on this one.

Yeah.

But it's, uh, but there's a level, you know, it's, uh, I tend to be the— what was that? Was it Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber, right? Where it's like, so you're telling me there's a chance? That's right. Like, that's the case. That was the same with the public. I'm like, nobody else as an MSP has ever done this before.

You

know, like, isn't somebody gonna do this?

God's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Well, I mean, obviously you've, you've, you've been rebuilding and all the things. And, um, you know, I had to rebuild that company, uh, in 2017 upwards back to— it probably took me 2 and a half years, um, to get it back to where it was and then to scale it from there.

Yeah.

But I built it differently. And because I built it differently, it was more sustainable. It was better for everybody involved. Um, was it perfect? No. Like there's, you know, there's complexities in business in general, but it did become successful. So I have a feeling that'll be just fine for you.

So thanks, brother. Yeah, you do do it differently the second time around too. You know, you're more selective on the types of capital that you'll utilize as well. You know, like the $5 million funding facility we just got, you know, that didn't exist the first time, you know. So it's a different story the second time around.

Yeah. Are you still looking at more acquisitions?

Yeah, for sure, man. Definitely. That's, again, a different manner this time, right? Because before it was all about really me operating the whole thing at the same time. But that was under the idea that I had the right people in place. So the criteria is going to be a little different this time.

Yeah.

Because I truly, I mean, I can be a CEO, but I don't want to be the CEO that's also the operator.

Yeah. I

want to find the right people that can be in the right roles, you know, particularly like a CEO. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And that, that's— it was the people diligence part. The business diligence part we did pretty good on.

Yeah,

but it was the people part that screwed us, you know. And that—

Well, next time, next time you get the pickaway, before you buy it, phone a friend and I'll help you out with that part of it. Yeah, I'm good with the people part.

I appreciate that. I'll need that, man, because I mean, I, I just have—

We've done that for a couple PE firms. They brought me in evaluate the management team.

That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, that's what we didn't do. Yeah, we evaluated the business, which was solid on paper, and then, yeah, just said, okay, this will work.

Well, I love to see— I love seeing the, the turnaround. I love seeing your growth. I love seeing your heart to want to serve. I really appreciate going in the weeds, right? We could have gone a lot of different directions for sure. How do you raise your enterprise value? How to, you know, not buy a dud? Yeah, different things. And I just— and sometimes these conversations just take a life of their Right? Yeah. I think what hopefully what people saw today is they've got two seasoned operators who built from nothing, had to turn around and rebuild it again.

Yeah.

And hopefully don't have to rebuild it yet again in the same way. But I think we both learned a ton as part of that process.

So 100%, man.

Yeah, I'm excited about it. We have a we have a fun a fun thing. Where can before I go there, where can I find out more about you? Maybe where can they pick up the book? Well, like where how can they connect if they are? Someone who fits your acquisition strategy, how do they reach out?

Yep. rickjordan.tv for most of that stuff, including Frequency Leaders, or Mr. Rick Jordan across social. I'm in my DMs all the time. But on the site, you can reach out there.

Cool.

Yeah, I'm ready for this, man. This is going to be a lot of fun with just—

Yeah, you seem— your energy says, I've learned the lessons, now I'm ready to scale.

Bingo.

Yeah, I dig it. I dig it. All right, we have a rapid-fire round.

Yeah, shoot it.

We started doing this a few episodes ago and it's become fun.

I love the rapid-fire.

One of the— one of my favorite questions is ending up back in the list every time. And this is golden.

Yeah.

What is the worst advice you ever took?

The worst advice. Pick one.

Oh, wow.

Okay. My— you

got a 50/50 shot.

Yeah, it can take any situation, right? But, that's a scarcity mindset. I mean, I'm not talking the ones that are obviously that way, right? But then, after I made that mistake, which was the worst advice, it was like, well, why can't I have both?

Yeah,

nice.

Alright. So, we're going to piggyback off of that one. What is the best advice you didn't listen to?

The best advice I didn't listen to? Oh, my gosh. Um, you need to hire an integration manager. Okay. For the acquisitions. Totally. And that was from my friend Larry I was talking about.

Yeah, yeah, he's 100% right too.

Yep.

Yeah, especially you're bolting on one every couple months. I'm like, yeah, that's— I was like, that's a, that's a really fast pace, bro.

Yeah.

I was working with a, with a client who's, uh, scaling, um, health and wellness business, and, uh, they want to have an acquisition strategy. I was like— he was like, he goes, well, I think I can, I could add one like one every month and roll up and be out in 3 years. I'm Uh, bro, you can't do that.

Yeah,

like, how about one every 6 months and then adjust before you make the next acquisition? You can be in diligence, you can start a rolling timeline, right? Diligence while you're on, but you need to make sure operations are solid

for sure.

Bleed through cash super fast. All right, um, one thing you'll never automate?

Oh man, uh, me on stage.

No AI versions of you? No, no, no, no.

I mean, I see— yeah, I So that's, I think that's the one part. I was actually just at the airport here. You know, I had some sushi before I came here, you know, and the server, you know, I got excited because it was, I get excited about these things. Like she hands me the check at the end. I'm like, oh good, there's a QR code for me to pay, you know? And me, it's like, it's just simplicity. Yeah. She goes, no, I hate the QR codes. You know, we don't do that. I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, look behind you. And she showed me like this wine bar. It's like they don't even have servers that come out to you. You have to use the QR codes on the table to order your food. And I'm like, okay, so that's like a McDonald's, right? Pretty much. But as a wine bar, she's like, no. She's like, I go out to eat. I want to— I'm like, yeah, the people. And I think that's what we're seeing. You can automate even content on social. You can do anything. I mean, even a lot of what I'm doing with Frequency Leaders could be automated.

Yeah.

But the benefit, man, is what we're doing. Right here.

1,000%.

Yeah. And that's something that won't be replaced.

And that's why we do the show live, because the energy exchange, the truth, the truth comes out as a byproduct of energy exchange.

Yeah.

When you're, when your nervous system and your soul picks up that you can trust me and vice versa, you can have a beautiful conversation just like we did.

So, yeah.

So, all right.

Let's relate that back to like onboarding calls for new customers. Oh yeah. It's like automate everything after that. But you have to have that, that person-to-person.

Yeah. And even teach them the automation for that matter. Yeah. All right, we'll go. We'll go one. We'll do one more here. A leader you would follow into anything.

Wow. Huh. That's interesting. I had 2 thoughts.

Okay.

You ready?

Yeah, let's go for it. You got a 50/50 shot, so.

Yeah. No, I'm not picking one. No, I'll tell you the reasons why I took both too. Probably for the same reason, actually. And this is going to be such a controversial topic. Elon Musk. And I'll tell you why with him is because he's freaking relentless and resilient going after what he wants. And then the second thought, which is going to sound so arrogant, which is awesome, would actually be like myself.

Okay.

And it's It's for the same reasons. It's even going through, and I think that you can relate to this, even going through when you build something and it can crash and then you rebuild something, you can look back and understand again that you're the one— this is full circle— you're the one that's signing the papers.

Yep.

Yeah. And, you know, it's not even so much that you don't have a choice because there are some things that you don't have a choice on because you put yourself in there, but you just know that you're not going to quit, man.

Yeah.

And that's the biggest part. It's like there's so many that tap out.

Yeah.

And that's why, like, for him, I'm not saying he can't get crazy with Elon just the same. It's like, I'm sure I can get crazy in some parts too.

I love him so much.

Yeah, exactly. But it's like, that's the thing is that, and I think that the people that do stay with you longer are the ones that can see that, yeah, they'll run through a brick wall for you because you're already running through brick walls for everybody else.

That's good. I guess I would— I could say the same thing. Like, there's, there's an element of myself, of my higher self, if you will, the one that's the mature version of me now. Like, I, I trust myself now more than I did 10 years ago. Yeah, for sure, dude. Rick, thanks for coming on the show, bro.

Dude, thanks for having me.

Awesome, man. So yeah, we have to do this again for sure.

Let's.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay guys, that's gonna do it for this episode of One Part Lion, One Part Lamb.

I I don't know about you, I got a ton out of that, especially if you're an operator. Uh, we just saved you millions upon billions of dollars, so you are welcome. Glad you came today. Uh, in all seriousness, uh, seriousness, if you know of an entrepreneur or business leader, high-capacity leader who's currently struggling to scale and grow themselves in their business, I have a lot of dysfunction in the organization, uh, make sure you continue to check this out. Uh, make sure you, you check out, check out what Rick's doing. Like, check out the different resources that are available because most of us Even based on mine and Rick's own messaging that we shared with you today is we could have done better had we had somebody simply raise their hand and say, hey, I can, I can help you understand how all this really works. So with that being said, we want to wish you well. Please do us a favor. If you love this episode, please do like, share, subscribe. Please do all these things. Look, I'm not the only person on YouTube or on Apple or Spotify that's saying please do these things. Please do these things. The reality is it really helps. It really does. And we appreciate it every time you do it. So much so that we're starting to reward people that actually do these different steps that we can find. So there's a lot of cool things coming down the pipeline. But until then, yes, please like, share, subscribe. Please share this with a friend that maybe needs it, especially an operator. And yeah, man, what a day. This has been an awesome day. Awesome topic. Come check us out. God bless. See you soon. Peace.