Ep.03 | "Leadership VS Management"

Take it away.

Welcome back to the Lead Fast podcast. I'm your host, Daniel joined as always, with our fearless leader Tommy. What's going on, Tommy?

Hey, what's up, guys?

So let's address the elephant in the room real quick. We sound really good. We sound really good right now. If you heard last week, I'm so worried about.

Yeah, we got a couple.

This is the one I'm going to choose to address. So last week, you know, obviously we have a different setup than this week, so. And it sounds really good.

We're. We're professional.

We're very professional.

Look at us.

I don't really. I'm gonna get tangled up in these cables.

I know.

Other than that, we're on the right track. So for those who don't know, what we're gonna do is we're gonna listen to conversation on the couch. And conversation on the couch is just a conversation that we have on the couch where. I'm nervous. Okay. I thought you were about to hit one of the.

No, I have buttons. I'm gonna be so, so, like, distracted by the fact that I have buttons that I can.

Distracted.

We're. We need to hire a show producer that can just run buttons.

Somebody just reach over her shoulder.

Yeah, that would be cool.

Until then, Tommy's managing the buttons. And I'm extremely nervous. I think I'm going to be for a while. But what we do is we're going to go back through conversation on the couch. If you guys haven't heard of conversation on the couch on our social media, we release conversation on the couch where we just talk about topics. And usually it's short, like a minute. I think we've gone over a minute, but there's things that we can't really unpackage in a minute. You get the gist of it. So what we do here is we're going to play an episode of conversation on the couch for your you guys to hear, and then we're going to unpack you some stuff from it. I haven't even heard this. So everything that we ask is going to be unscripted, as always.

Hey, guys, we're back. It's conversations on the couch. All right, guys. So today we're going to talk about the difference between leadership and management. A lot of the people that tune into our content are leaders in their organization by title and maybe title alone, because they're really managers. So managers, what they focus on are doing things right, but leaders focus on doing the right things. And there's a big distinction there Right. Because management gets given a set of circumstances and said, find success within the circumstances. Leaders can be given open field and say, design a way for us to get. Do the right things, to get us from one side to the other. You can choose to be a leader. You just focus on doing the right things instead of doing things right.

So this is a good one for sure, because I have kind of ran into this before, and I'm sure everybody at some point has ran into this, but the difference between leaders and managers. And so, yeah, you've. You kind of broke it down really well, but let's. Let's unpack some of that stuff. Managers are given the title basically, and they kind of like, focus on doing things right, but leaders focus on doing the right things. Why is it important for a leader to exist instead of just a manager who just focuses on doing things right?

Okay, so let's. First, let's be clear that it's crucial that an organization have both. Right? You've got to be able to have people who can take a project and manage it to success. Like, that's. I mean, I would. I. I know that there are people that exist in both lanes, right? So there. There are people that are manager, leader, slash leader, you know, and they're. They're good at both things, and there are people who are good at one thing. Right. And so I definitely fall into the leadership mostly only category. Right. Because I'm not a great manager if you give me, like, hey, here's here. Here's the. The com. Confines of the. Of the game that you can play, and I need you to manage to success. I am always looking for ways to get out of those confines without breaking technically a rule. Yeah, I'll spend more time looking for that than I do actually worried about winning the game. Right. And so. Yeah. And so I just. But that's. That's me, right? That's. That's who I am. That's who my. That's what my makeup is. And then there are people who will never even consider bending or getting outside of the box or breaking a rule at all. And that's who they are. That's their makeup. You know, that's what they're. That's how they are. And so. And then there's the people that are in between that are phenomenal at both, where they say, all right, here's. Here's what we need to do. Here's. Here's the right thing to do, and here's why and how we need to do it correctly. I'm going to always just fall more on the. Here's what we need to do. I don't care how it happens as long as it gets done. So those people are equally important, right? You can't have. You can't have effective management without first having effective leadership. And you can't have effective leadership that gets executed, vision that gets executed without effective managers. What I don't want that to sound like, when I say you can be a leader and not a manager, is that you should want to be a leader instead of being a manager. I say that to people who desire leadership. They want to be leaders. They feel called to leadership, they feel like they are gifted with the abilities to lead. And so I want them to do that most effectively, right? And so for them to be leaders, if they're going to step up and they're going to be leaders, then they have to free themselves from the bonds of also trying to be a manager. And that's. So that's why I said that. I just don't want it to come across as if I'm like, you know, pooping on. On management because. Because management is necessary. I don't get. I don't get anything done. Like, you know, Mackenzie, who's been on this podcast, we went and hired her to be the manager because I can't manage, right? And so, like, that is. That is a glaring weakness for me. If you know me, if you, if you've ever hung out with me, that is, you know, that's. That is what it is for me. And so. And I own that. Like, I'm. I'm proud that I'm polar like that. Like, that I'm so polarized. Like, I'm. I'm not. There's a lot of, like, management coaching out there that would tell you, like, hey, you need to go shore up your weaknesses, right? Like, you need to go become stronger. You've identified an area of weakness. You could be. You could be a more complete. No, I don't think I'm called to be a manager. I don't think I was built to be a manager. And so making that weakness stronger doesn't make me more complete. It just doesn't. And I think that's the thing. Like, people feel like they need to make all their weaknesses. Strengths to be whole. Some of you just aren't called to lift a car. Just because you can't pull a Mack truck with your teeth doesn't make you less complete. You're not being asked to do that, right? So for me, it's about becoming who you really are. So if you are being called to be a leader, people are relying on you for leadership, then you need to lead. And if people are relying on you for being a manager for management, then you need to manage. And if people are, if people are relying on you to be manager and you're a leader, then you should either leave that position or you should staff it with people who know how to be managers.

I agree.

And lead. Those are hard questions because people don't really get the opportunity to ask that. And I think people get. At a low level, leadership gets recognized. Right. So at a low level, leadership gets recognized. If you're, if you're an entry level person in a, in a company, your ability to manage isn't going to get recognized because you're not going to have anyone to manage.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. Right. So. So unless you're just managing yourself and going above and beyond, which takes a level of leadership, you know, you being a leader in your own, in your own self.

Right.

What gets noticed for entry level people is always leadership. And then you get promoted because of leadership. But most of the times you get promoted to levels of management.

Okay.

And so you can quickly get outside of your debt.

Yeah, there's dichotomy there.

Yeah. So most organizations are looking for managers because when you get too many leaders, you get division. You get, you know, like split vision. That's what that means. Not because division is bad, even if it's not deadly. Right. So you can have division and have a happy staff. You know, I've worked at organizations, I've seen organizations where there was a very clear like vision from the top. This is what we want to do, this is what we want to accomplish. And then like a vice president level and executive level below that was now put in charge of accomplishing those things and had a different way of doing it than the leadership. The leader would have done it. And so even though they're going out to accomplish those things, they get the vision. You get two visions of how to accomplish it. Because there was two leaders involved at such a high level, things get tricky. Things get tricky, people get upset. People, you get different camps where people who understand because they have a relationship with that or are connected to somewhere else in the organization, that highest leader, the person in charge, they understand that that's not what they would want. And so they take personal stakes. You create divisions. Like we've, I've seen that a bunch of times in organizations. Most people should only ever get promoted to management. Most, most visions, most Elite missed organizations need more, 90% more managers than they need leaders. You know, and if you have a vision, that's yours, and you're part of an organization that doesn't see your vision, doesn't follow your leadership, it may mean that you should be an entrepreneur. It may, that may be the great call to get out of that organization and go chase your own vision.

Yeah. So let me ask you this. Leaders, it sounds like to me, and clear this up, clear the statement up. Leaders can be managers, but it's probably hard for managers to be leaders. Just because I feel like. And again, like you said, you're not saying one's better than the other. But I think to be a leader, if I'm understanding correctly, you have to be able to manage properly. But I think managers don't necessarily always have to have the leadership quality to where they have the vision. And all the other stuff is that.

I think it's easier for a manager to be called a leader. I think it's equally difficult to do both tasks. Right. So if you're not, if you're just not cut out for it, it's hard. We tend to give leadership titles to people who are responsible because we think leadership is responsibility, but leadership's not responsibility. Leadership is knowing the next right step and getting there before anyone else. A mentor of mine said, a leader has to know the way, go the way and show the way. Those are the three things that a leader is responsible for. He has to know where they're going, he has to go there first, and he has to show others how to come with him or with her. And so a manager doesn't have to do those three things. A manager has to know the way and he has to go the way. He doesn't have to show the way, he doesn't. He's not responsible for turning around and like bringing others with him. Because the assumption is I'm managing the trip, we're all going together. That's the, it's the difference between being the pilot and the flight attendant. Pilot's responsible for the well being of the passengers on board and making sure that everybody lands safely and has the right flight and does everything that success, everyone gets there. Managers are making sure that everyone is happy along the way, making sure that we all are on the same page about what's about to happen, that everybody's being treated fairly and safely. The vision is being maintained along the trip.

Forest? Yeah.

In four. Yeah. Enforced along the trip, the pilot's not worried about whether or not the guy in 14A is getting peanuts because he's so focused on the terrain ahead of him. And a leader can't go back to make sure that somebody's getting peanuts because you might hit a mountain. You know, like, that's. That's how.

That is a problem.

Yeah, that's how that works. And so everybody has the same experience. And the plain analogy I don't think I've ever used before, but I was about to ask. Yeah, no, I don't think I've ever used that before. I talk about buses a lot. Like, so if you live in a city and you take public transportation, the guy sitting in the front seat driving the bus has the same experience as everyone that gets on and off the bus. It's the same environment, air condition, noise. Everything about his experience and their experience is the same, with the exception of he knows the route and he's responsible for carrying out the route. No one else in the bus has the responsibility of carrying out the route. Right. But he didn't determine the route. The route was handed to him. Bus drivers are great examples of managers. They have all these things that they have, like, complex situations that they have to manage and they have to drive, but they have a route. The vision for public transport happened at a leadership level. And then that was passed down and said, here's the vision. This is the route. And then you're responsible for getting people on and off and on and off and making sure that the trip, the experience they had while they were with this organization was positive.

Can you see the light bulbs clicking in my head? I mean, I've thought about this and never to this level, but I don't think I would. The plain analogy is when you just write it down. Because that was a good one for me anyways. I'm a hard learner, so that helped me out. But I like that. So how would you say, how would you go about. Maybe if you're listening, people are listening and they're not sure if they're a manager, they're a leader. Like, right now, the difference. It may have just became clearer for them. And they say, oh, this is what a leader does. This is what a manager does. They just know they're called to, like, leadership of some sort. Of. How do you identify which one you are? I mean, do you. Do you know, do you think you automatically know?

I think it's easy to know. If you're a leader, turn around. If people are behind you and they're following you, you're a leader. You're a leader.

That's good.

If you're not, you're just a guy out taking a walk, right? So like, if you're, if you, if you go and people follow, then you're a leader. And if you're not, you're just taking a walk. That's. That's the easiest way. Once you have, once you've self identified, right, you can desire to be a leader. Like, you can desire to be a leader. That's no problem. And then you can go, you can go set about learning the things that a leader does and how to do that effectively in your organization. You can definitely become a leader if that's what you desire. If you desire responsibility and you desire a promotion and you desire to rise in the ranks of an organization, the best pathway to that is to be a manager. It just is. And so there are sets of rules and parameters that govern all that. And so it depends on what you want out of life. If what you want out of life is to be a leader, then learn how to be a leader. Lead Fast is a great organization to plug into because we're going to teach you how to do that. If you want to be a manager, you gotta, you gotta play all the, you know, games in your organization that managers have to play. The best way to become a manager is to succeed. You know, like, go succeed. Go play the game. Go do things right. Go, go get your TPS reports in on time.

You know, like, I don't know what that is, but it sounds very important.

You've never seen the movie Office Space?

I have, but it's been forever, bro. I think somebody made me watch it. I wasn't into it.

Oh, that's sad for you.

But I've heard, like, since then, you know, I've heard so many Office Space. I need to go back and watch that.

Yeah. TPS reports things in Office Space reference, so.

Okay, I dropped the ball on that.

It's okay. It's okay. We. The last, last podcast, I said something to and you were blank on that one. He's never seen that movie.

But that's why this is good for me, because I'm learning so well. Let's do something really fun. We. We've had these hidden from you guys, but we're going to bust these yellow cards back out again.

And I always, like, start sweating the moment the yellow cards come out.

I've been sweating because I knew they were right here, the yellow card. Okay, so this is. These are cards that have questions on them and they're really deep. Some of these and There are six categories. We just chose one, the yellow cards.

In there because they're the scariest.

What do you think? Like, I guess, mental. It's got, like, an image of a head.

It's about how you think, what formed you. Like, what shapes your thoughts and stuff like that. But they're. They. They are, I think, the deepest questions, I think.

I agree. We typically try to avoid these and, you know, not.

But we're answering the challenge.

We're just going for it. So who wants to go first? I'll go first.

You're going to go first?

Yeah. You can read it.

Here's what I'm really excited about for everybody watching is I thought I was the only one doing cards today. So if you're willing to do a card. Oh, no, no.

You know what? No, I'll do a card.

I'll do it. Got it. Describe the last time you misjudged a situation and what you learned from it.

The last time misjudged a situation. Oh. So, okay. I was at a red light. This was Friday, actually. I was at a red light, and I was just super in a hurry to get home, and the light turned green. And this is a light that is notorious by my house for being green for maybe five seconds. Like, traffic piles up and maybe one or two cars can go before it's yellow again and it turned green. The person just sat there. And I always like to wait before I honk my horn, because you never can tell. And then I wasn't taking any chances. I honked the horn and they didn't go. And I kept honking the horn and they didn't go. And then the light turned yellow and it turned red. And it come to find out, the person's vehicle in front of me just completely broke down. So I felt really bad. I ended up getting up and helping him push their car to the side.

Oh, you better had.

Yeah, I know. I felt really bad. And then, of course, like, it was awkward because now they got honking. I was like, oh, oh, you. Do you want some help? Like, I had to totally be humble and go back on me just being.

Like, you got humbled?

I got humbled because I was a doofus. But, yeah, so that's. That's. That's a good. That's a good one. Yeah, that's case in point right there.

That's hard. But so that's the difference. Like, again, that goes back to, you know, some of those traits that leaders do is that they wait till they have enough information, you know, like, so.

What he's saying is I'm a manager.

Not at all. I think you're a great leader.

I'm just kidding. This is the moment I've been looking forward to asking you your question.

It's gonna be an easy one. Watch.

I bet it is an easy one. Well, kind of. I guess it depends. Describe the moment you became a grown up. It's gotta be good because your son's sitting right over there.

It's. But that's. Honest to God, that's. That's the answer. Is his birthday.

When you gave me that.

Yeah. The day I became a dad. But like that, that whole, that whole experience was traumatic. It just was for me.

In what way?

So, you know, we've been married four and a half years and, you know, found out we were pregnant and Jackson was coming and everything about it had been really standard. We picked the day he was gonna be born on October 22, and we were really excited about it. And we go in to the hospital and family and friends are there. Like 3 o' clock in the afternoon, we start induction. And the doctor was like, yeah, everything's great. This is. We're gonna put this stuff on and blah, blah, blah. And what everybody?

Yeah. I just wanna say I have two kids and I still don't know what induction is. You don't have to explain it. I'm just saying that's how I touch scheduled delivery schedule. Delivery ups. Yeah, exactly.

So we. But we basically called Amazon and we were like, hey, listen, we're gonna be at the hospital between three and eight and we're gonna need a drop off of a kid.

I need one, Jackson, please.

Yep, exactly. So Jack was scheduled to be born on the 22nd and had some complications and so he just refused to come out. He's been stubborn since birth. Like, he's a great kid, but when he, when he, when he wants to dig his heels in, he can. So the 22nd came and the 22nd went and Jackson was still not here. And we were going on like 14 hours of active labor and. And then we finally, you know, Jackson's heart rate went down. Kelly, my wife was not, you know, her body wasn't responding to things they were doing. And up until that point it was all like, oh, we're going to have a kid and I'm going to be a dad. And this is exciting because all these things and, you know, all the things you think about when you think about becoming a dad. I was so focused on the next 18 years that I was not focused on the next 18 minutes.

Oh, I know. Okay. I relate to that for sure.

Yeah. Right. And so. And there's. I've learned since then, I've heard these guys that say, you know, the years go fast, but the days go slow. Meaning that just days feel like they go, you know, like, oh, we got another day, we got another day. And then you turn around and he's 11. I remember the moment, not the day I became a man, the moment they came in and they said, all right, listen, things are getting weird. And so we're gonna do an emergency C section. We're gonna go ahead and take Jackson. So. All right, great. And so they're pushing us out of the room and the doctor's sort of talking to us and like she's not raising her eyebrows or acting panicked or anything, but sort of just off the cuff, she goes, hey, just by the way, you know the way the female body responds, the way it stops bleeding is it contracts. Well, your uterus has been trying to do that for 14 hours. It's tired, it's not doing it anymore. So you could bleed out. And none of those things were we prepared for. They wheeled us out of a room and across the hall into the surgery room and then said, dad, you can't come in, sit here and not til we're prepped and we're ready to go. And so that moment where like they turned the corner and my wife and baby were leaving me and I was sitting in the hallway of this hospital room at 5:15 in the morning, that's when I became a man. Because that's when I realized that, like, hey, nothing matters. But the next minute, right, the next two, the next three, the next four, the next five, it was like, okay, now, now, now I'm serious. Like now it became a matter of like, serious thought and prayer. Like every up until that point, it was just like, oh, I've got a onesie picked out that says world's greatest dad. You know, like that's. That was. That was as far as I'd done with my dad planning.

Yeah.

It was in that moment that it was like I would die right now to make this not be the case that we're in.

Yeah.

And that was. That's the scariest I've ever been in my entire life. I called everybody that I knew.

I mean, what was happening?

Oh, that moment, because I didn't know how much time I had. Like, you know, the parents weren't there. I was calling everybody. And then that, that moment that they handed Jack to me, and then, you know, he was fine. Everything had happened fine. And then they took him, and they were like, all right, we're going to take him into the infant room and clean him up and all that stuff. But Kelly wasn't out of the woods yet because the last thing I had heard was there could be lots of complications. And they said, all right, dad, time for you to leave. We need to work on Mom. And I had to leave. Like, that was.

And they don't tell you. They tell you what could go wrong. They don't tell you.

Yeah, yeah. They're not like, hey, in 15 minutes, you're gonna be able to come back and see here. Don't sweat it. We got this.

Because they don't want to, which is, you know, let's. Let's incorporate that into the speech. I think that would help dads who have no clue what's going on. But.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Docs, if you're out there, that's. So that's a place you could manage.

Better, at least read our faces. And if we look confused, I'm sure.

They were reading my face. And it was a lot of other things because I was clammy and ready to pass out and all kinds of other stuff. It just. I don't know. It just. It was a scary moment, but that was the day I became a man. And ever since then, everything's been easy. Since then, there's. There's not one thing that'll be harder than that, ever. All our other kids, you know, we did with C sections and scheduled deliveries, and nothing was weird about it.

Yeah.

But Jax was, like, traumatic for me. And so every time he's, like, acting up at the house and I want to, like, you know, put my foot in his rear end, I'm always like, you know what? I asked for this.

No. We had a similar experience with. When my first child was born, Bennett. I was. We were in a military hospital because I was still in the military when this happened. And what I didn't know is that they would do that. They would explain all the bad stuff up front, I guess, just the level with you, and they wouldn't say any good stuff. But the problem was, it was since the military hospital, it's like a residency, so there's a lot of people learning. So it wouldn't be one doctor come in. It's always, like, a team of doctors, and, like, one of us in, you know, an ACU and other. Others are in scrubs, and so you've got, like, a team of people Telling you different things. And all these people are learning at the same time, too, which I didn't realize that till after Ben was born, But I'm like, why are all these people in here? Like, is this a big deal? And of course, we had a few complications where they explained, okay, this is what's happening. This is what could go wrong. And I'm like, you know, like flashbacks to all the movies I've seen of people, you know, in the pioneer days that dialed a childbirth. And I thought this was happening.

This is the Oregon Trail. We're living in the Oregon Trail. I was scared I'm gonna get dysentery and die.

No clue. I was like, I am, you know, I am ill prepared for this, but.

I think dads are always ill prepared.

Yeah, no, you're right. Like when you say Justin Shay said, yeah. When you say that you had the ones you picked out, that's kind of what it was for me. Like, when they gave me Bennett, I kind of, like, I didn't. I didn't go and pick him up first. I just kind of sat there and was like, look at this creature, this mine. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, they've just gave me this. This is now my responsibility. And I knew as a dad, you know, you got to change diapers, you got to get up, you know, but, like, I'm still looking at this. I'm like, I have a human's life that is now in my hands. Like, it depends on me. And that's when I was just like, I. Seriously, they've got video of me, and I don't think anybody knew what was going on, but I'm just like, what? Wait a minute. No one. No one told me about it.

What no one told you was that the changing the diaper era was the easiest.

Oh, my gosh. Yes, it was.

Just to bring it full circle. That's what leadership is, though, because that, like, when you're starting a business, no one tells you that's the easiest. It seems like all the work, that's the sleepless nights, that's the 18 hour days, 20 hour days, that's the. There's always crap everywhere. You're having to get new equipment that smells like everybody smells, like, that's. And everybody, like, sort of romanticizes that, and it's like, oh, like, duh, duh. That was the best days. Like, no, they were super hard. What you don't realize is that teaching a business to grow, like, just. Just watching a business grow, because you don't teach A kid to grow, right? You just don't. Like, you know, you have a baby and they just grow as long as you nourish them. So, like, watching your business grow and teaching a business how to be a good citizen, a good. A good human, like teaching a business how to have morality, teaching a business how to be responsible, teaching a business how to do the right things is incredibly hard. It's way harder teaching Jackson, who's over there behind that camera, it's way harder teaching him to be a good 11 year old than it was to watch him grow. No one teaches you as a leader that maintenance is more difficult than watching someone grow. I had nothing to do with his growth. Nothing. Like my wife was responsible for feeding him. I just got to be dad and hold him and cuddle. Like, watching him grow was so easy compared to, like, having to teach him how to be a man. Having to, like, you know, pull him aside and teach him how to, you know, take care of his friends, how to, like, help him be kind to his siblings, like all those things is so much more responsibility and requires actual leadership.

Now let me ask you this. Do you. Because I do this, do you look back at those moments when you started up the company like you do as a dad, when you first started, you know, changing diapers and are they precious moments to you now?

They're precious. And I do. What I did with my kids is I forgot all the bad ones.

Yeah, no, that's. That's like, we can't even. I remember when we first, like, started taking his clothes that he, like we bought him for as a newborn, and he just started outgrowing and we had to. We realized we can't keep him in his drawer anymore because he can't wear them. So he's outgrown that, you know, like, you've got to a new place in business, if you will. And we had to take those in a box and hard. It's hard. Like, I could hold every single one of his clothes and just look at it and be like, I remember when he did this and this shirt. I remember when did this and this one's. And it was like a box full of memories that you felt like you were throwing away, which, you know, like every parent feels like that. And that's not what's happening, but cataloging it, putting it up. Yeah.

And like, so recently we closed down the mill viewer offices, like from our first startup. The. Everybody was remote now, and it was like two guys working in this, like 3,700 square foot building and we didn't need it. And so we closed down the offices just because we didn't get rid of any of the people. We just closed down the offices and had to go in and clean out. And we had plaques on the wall and, you know, all this stuff. And I was like, oh, I remembered where, you know, this trade show. We did this and this thing. We did this and we had all this stuff. You know where those are right now, still hanging on the wall. I didn't even take them, really, because what are we. What are we gonna do with them here? That's true.

Yeah.

Yeah. So some. Some. Some of that was utility, and some of it was like. It was that moment where I had to go, I can't survive tomorrow on yesterday's successes. It just. You just can't. Like, you've got to go, I get.

That tattooed somewhere nice.

That was the. That was not the response when you leaned into the mic. That was not what I thought I was gonna hurt.

I was looking for a tattoo. I did this whole podcast and that'.

Great. As soon as we're done, we'll go do that. When we were in Forbes, and it was like, here's the article from Forbes on a plaque. Don't you want that? And it was when we were voted, you know, the number three place to work in the state. There's an article on the plaque. Don't you want that? And then the letter from the mayor congratulating us. Don't you want.

No, because you've outgrown it.

About. I've. I've outgrown it. The company outgrew it, but I've personally have outgrown it. Like, I'm not. I don't need that anymore. I don't need those plaques. I don't. That was nice to have. It was nice to celebrate. It was nice to. I want more plaques.

I think that speaks to you as you are, because you can't stay in that moment. Like, you. I'm talking about. No, I'm talking about you as Tommy. Not necessarily. You like people. You. But personally, that's not enough for you. Once you hit that milestone, you're like, oh, that means I could hit this one. I didn't think I hit that one, but I'm here now. I can hit this one. So one thing that I think may apply to business. Let's use this birthing baby growing analogy.

Yeah. We're this far into it, and we don't know anything about that?

No, we have no clue. Uh, what was the word I learned Earlier, I don't even remember. I haven't forgot. Memory dumb. One thing no one told me, too, is when you first have a child and they're in that, like, pooping, screaming phase, you know, like the first maybe, what, month or so. That's a hard phase. I mean, that's. That's what we. We miss those. Like, we look as dads, we look back at that and, you know, like, you just. You miss how young your child was and the moments you had. But then there was a lot of, like, you're tired, you're screaming, your baby's screaming, and you're having to change diapers. You're having to wash and refill bottles and make sure everything's good to go. Those moments I felt when I was in them, like I was trapped. Like, that is forever. And like, I did never. I've never once gave up on my son. But I could see where people who do give up on their kids would. Because that's a hard phase to be in. And for me, for some reason, I thought, this is my life for, like, the next three years. I don't know why I thought that, but I guess because I've never been a dad, and I didn't know, but I thought, this is what I'm looking. Four, two for three years. And business. Talk to me about that. Is business like that when you first start up? Like, I know that for us, we've. We grind. I mean, we're still grinding. We grinded last week, we're gonna grind this week. We're cranking stuff out. And that. That means, like, we come in earlier, we stay late, or, you know, like, we do a lot of things that we know we have to do. But I think a lot of people may be in that phase, starting up in a business and not realize how important it is and not realize, this is not your future. This says this is not what business is gonna be about. If so, nobody would get into business unless you're just crazy. You enjoy that. But. So, like, talk to us about that. You know, like, the things you do that you struggle on startup, the things that you do that require the long hours and the. The. What's the quote? You know, like, entrepreneurs work 80 hours a week so they don't have to.

Work 40 hours for somebody else.

Talk to us about that.

Yeah, that's good. You're 100% right. I think you just said everything. The Daniel's learning. You could just learn from Daniel. Yeah. And so. But that is true. Like, the. The stage you're in is not the state. That's why it's called a stage, because it's not permanent. You know, like the, the. As an entrepreneur, the startup phase, where you grind all the time. Every. The grind isn't a phase. Right. The grind isn't a phase because the work is always the work. And so you can get to a point where you hire more people to do the work so that you don't have to be the one doing all the work so that you could have less time working. But the work is always going to be there.

Right.

So you can do one of two things. You can grow the business to the point where you can deploy other resources to complete the work, or you can do all the work, but that's. Those are your options. The work never goes away. Being a parent never goes away.

Yeah.

My mom still parents me to this day. My dad still parents me to this day. It's still important to me that they are proud of me, that they understand what I'm doing, that they approve of my life, all those things. They are still my parents and they still actively parent. I call them all the time for advice. They're the hardest working people I've ever met. So that never, ever goes away. The stage of my life has changed. My relationship with them, how they talk to me has changed. The relatability, how they relate to me has changed a million times. Their position never has. So as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, your relatability, your relationship to your business, the relative authority that you have will change a million times. You're going to hire vice presidents and people and CFOs and CEOs and office managers, and you're going to have people come in and be sales managers and all these other people. And you're not going to have to manage the sales team anymore or be the freaking sales team anymore. That is going to change. Your lifetime responsibility for the outcome never does. So as a leader, what you're really just looking for is outcomes. You have to measure it on a macro. If you're going to be a leader, macro measurements are really the way to go. I believe that. And I'll just explain that. Like you can look at things macro or micro. So this is how I explain it. And we'll use a different metaphor because I don't have another one. But not yet.

But it'll come to you. Yeah.

Yeah. So I always, I ask leaders, and we'll end on this. This is important for all you guys out there. How do you see? How do you how do you look at. Well, let's ask the first question, right? So I'll back up a step because I need to, for context. Why are things small? So we've had this conversation once. Do you remember the answer? There's two reasons that things are small.

I don't remember the answer.

All right, so the first one is they're actually small.

Okay. Yeah. So I think I remember the answer. I didn't want to say.

So. So they're actually small. That's the real reason. Right? So atomically, they're small. Like, so they are comparative to your size small. And then there's a second reason. And maybe the most important reason to me from a leadership standpoint is because they're far away from you. So the moon looks small, but it's huge. But it's just distance. Right. So when you want to look at small things that are actually small, what do you use?

Microscope.

A microscope. Right. So that helps you see the details and get in and really understand things that are actually small.

Right.

What do you look at? What do you use to look at things that are far away from you?

Telescope.

Yeah. See, look, you're following. All right, so it's a telescope. And telescopes do the same thing. They. But they let you see details and things that you couldn't see from where you were and give you a different vantage point. But what they're actually doing is bringing things that are massive and far away from you close enough to you in a moment that you can experience what you can experience some detail about something in a moment that you may not actually experience for years because it takes time to travel to the thing that's far off. Right. So leadership has to operate. You have to live your leadership sort of manifesto like that. It has to be about being telescopic, not microscopic. And so that's why you have to look at things from a macro standpoint. Because what you hope to do as a leader is not microscopically pick apart the people underneath you and like, be examining everything always. That's not what leadership does. Leadership lives its view. What people see, the vision of your business, the vision of your life when they look through the lens of your actions. What they should be seeing is telescopic. You should be able to explain this thing that is success that's so far away still, it's matt. It's way out ahead of you. And you should be able to let people see through the lens of your actions in your life and the way that you lead them. Details that make the trip valuable. So that they keep pursuing this thing that's way out in front of them. So you should be taking, you should be taking the win and bringing it close through like telescopic leadership so that people see what's out in front of them as if it's right there. So that they'll see the value of it. They'll see the details and then they'll pursue it at greater speed and at greater cost and greater commitment. And that's what leadership does.

Yeah.

So that's. I feel like I'm not going to say anything smarter than that today. We should probably end this podcast.

All right. Yeah, well, let's end it. That was good. So for those of you who haven't already, we're on Instagram Lead Fast co at Lead fastco, you can subscribe and get updates. When we post stuff like this, we're always posting good content and I love that.

I know, it's such a cool. I've got a button.

That'S so cool. Also, we have a website, leaffastcode.com and we post lots of resources on there. You can take classes. You can get so much stuff that is life changing from those two places specifically. So if you haven't already follow us on Instagram, subscribe to us and check out the website and we'll see you guys next time.

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