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Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So Sean, thank you so much for taking the time to jump on today's episode.
Could you give us a top level view about what it is that you do right now and your journey
so far?
Absolutely.
So right now I do executive coaching and leadership training and development with
companies.
I also would love doing speaking.
So I speak at a lot of conferences.
and my focus on all of that work is just around developing great leaders.
I just have this strong belief that everyone deserves great leadership.
And I think, you know, probably all of everyone's listening can relate to the fact that at
some point in your life, hopefully you had a great leader.
in your life, even if it was a parent or a mentor or coach or someone and what that felt
like, like going into work, going to practice and engaging with great leadership, what
that feels like intrinsically, right?
Like it feels, it's fulfilling.
It's you get excited about life.
You're passionate.
it great leadership changes, not just, it's not just about hitting revenue numbers or
hitting a mission or do whatever it's great leadership.
changes the way people experience life and makes it more fulfilling.
And I, I hopefully everyone's felt that what I know for certain is everyone's dealt with a
bad leader, right?
Like a bad boss, bad manager, somebody who just kind of sucked and, and how did that feel?
Right?
Like you dread coming to work.
You dread your one-on-ones, you dread practice, you that is, right?
Like every interaction, you're like, my God, what am I doing?
So my goal is to
shift even the conversation and the expectation of what leadership and business looks like
and create great leadership cultures inside companies.
And ultimately that helps companies attract and retain top talent.
Right?
Because I think one of the most powerful questions for companies, which a mentor of mine,
Ken Proctor gave me was, everyone says they want to have great people on their team,
right?
Everyone wants the best.
want to work, hire great people.
want to, you know, I want to retain top talent.
I want all that stuff.
Outside of compensation, why does top talent want to work for you?
Mmm.
Yeah.
Because if it's just about money and benefits, you're competing on price, and we all know
in business, that's not a winning strategy.
So I think leadership is the answer there.
How I got here, and I'll give you the short version, is I was in the military, so I'm in
the US, I'm from a small town outside Kansas City, Kansas, right in middle of the country,
raised by a single mom most of my life, and right out of high school went to West Point,
the military academy, and spent four years there.
graduated and then spent my next 10 years as an active duty officer in the US Army, five
as an infantry officer, and then five as a special forces officer.
So we call it green berets.
So I was lucky that uncharacteristically of an officer's journey almost that entire time
was leading small unit frontline soldiers like infantry rifle platoon, sniper platoon,
regular detachment of
Green Berets and an underwater infiltration team.
10 years as an officer and I only had to do one year of staff time.
And was that last year as a staff officer where I decided it wasn't for me anymore.
So I got out to pursue my entrepreneur dreams.
I knew that I wanted to do what I'm doing now.
Even in the military, listen, I was all about the mission and being hard and doing
whatever we had to do.
But I was never really the gun guy or the gear guy or whatever.
It was all about
people and leadership and solving really tough problems and making an impact.
So I knew that I had crammed, you know, 14, you know, a lifetime of leadership lessons
into 14 years, right?
I mean, not only did I go to our nation's premier leadership institution at West Point for
four years, uh, but then, you know, my first job at 23 at 23 years old is here's 40
people.
You're 100 % responsible for everything they do or fail to do.
And by the way, you're going to go spend 14 months in Southwest Baghdad.
Like, so, that's where it starts, right?
And then you show up later, know, same thing happened when I showed up to my first special
forces team.
I always showed up as the commander, 28 years old, youngest guy on the team.
So I'm the commander, but the least experienced, and two months later, we're on the
Afghan-Pakistan border, in one the most violent regions of the world, right?
So there's a lot that got crammed into that.
But I didn't want to be the military officer who got out and said,
right?
Business leaders, like, let me tell you about real leadership, right?
When I've never been in business a day in my life and I know nothing about that life.
So I thought, what's the quickest way for me to, learn lessons, try things, see what
applies that I learned.
What am I missing?
What skillsets am I missing?
And, and make as many mistakes as possible, right?
Like iterate, cause that's how we get better.
And so I thought, well, okay, with the, you know, I'm a military officer, so a two prong
attack, right?
One, get a formal education in business.
So I got my MBA.
from, UNC Chapel Hill.
then the second was I thought, well, if I can start my own company and get it self
sustainly profitable, that seems like the fastest way to do all, to, to test things and,
get my feet wet and see every aspect of business.
and so I did that.
And as it turns out, starting a company with zero business experience and no industry
experience is the fastest way to make as many mistakes as possible.
So three years later, I went through a bankruptcy, kind of lost everything, started over,
started a new company, and then three years after that, applied those lessons and achieved
my goal, got it self-sustainingly profitable.
We got a CEO and a GM at each location.
And so the last four years, I was able to shift into what I do now, working with leaders
and helping companies build amazing leadership cultures.
That is an incredible journey.
You've managed to a lot of different things in a lot of different areas.
It's very, very cool to see.
And also the mission, going back to what you said about what you're doing right now, you I
love that mission where everyone does know about a leader.
And finally, there's good ones is very rare to find.
So I love the mission around that.
I'd love to zoom in a little bit more to, I guess, from the mindset point of view, the
shifts you had to make from going from the military into...
firstly out the military and then into your own business, right?
Because there's a lot of different shifts you would have had to make mentally to adjust to
that.
So what did you go through and what was that like for you?
think for especially military service members in the transition, but I will say what I'm
about to say, I think applies to a lot of people that in transitioning from sort of one
role to another, just in life, these same lessons can sort of apply.
So in the military, mission's given to you, right?
Mission's given to you your
Community is given to your tribe.
So I like to call it right like as human beings were were designed evolved To be members
of tribes like that's how we function is interacting with each other So we need that in
all the science and psychology point We know this that the quality of our life is is
really about do we have purpose?
Are we surrounded by great people and a tribe generally is like that means?
You speak the same language.
have the same values.
You're all working toward a common purpose and you're interconnected.
So I wouldn't call it tribe.
I wouldn't call it.
You have a tribe if you're solely independent and someone else is solely independent and
you just talk to each other.
You come a tribe when you start relying on each other, right?
Just like at a great company or a great team, right?
Like we're athletics, you know, it's like you're a team when you're getting to your spot
and your success is predicated on
your teammates seeing you and getting you the ball or whatever, right?
In the right time.
And that's when you're a part of a team.
And so the military provides that and in a really powerful way, they also give you a lot
of confidence, a lot of training, a lot of growth.
so you have purpose, you have tribe, you have growth and all that's provided to you.
And then on top of that, at least in the roles I was in,
The other thing is, and I didn't really just tell way later when I was out, I didn't
appreciate this, that they really look out for you and let you just go.
you know, the answer when things were, when you were cold and wet and tired and hungry and
scared, the answer was keep going.
The answer was keep marching.
The answer was get hard, like let's do this and push, because eventually the sun's coming
up.
Eventually the mission ends.
Eventually you redeploy and you come home, right?
Like all those things eventually will happen.
And when they do, someone is there, right?
You come back from a deployment, a combat deployment and you're, you're seeing and talking
with counselors, you're getting health assessments, your, your, your family has been taken
care of and you're going to recover your equipment.
You're going to debrief everything.
And then you're going to get 30 days off to go decompress and spend time.
All that stuff happens, right?
even things like physical fitness, like you, you're going to have hard days and you're
going to have easy days and someone's going to look at your training plan and like all
those things are happening for you so that you can do what you need to focus on what you
need to do, which is just be your best self and go hard, like just go hard.
And you know, still, I like this analogy, but especially they're like, I want soldiers
that I have to pull back.
Like I don't want to have to push you through a door.
I want you to be full throttle and I'll worry about as a leader, like pulling people back
and maintaining that.
And that's awesome in that setting.
But when you get out, especially when you move to something like an entrepreneur, if you
moved to a civilian world like I did where you're not going to like another organization
that's providing that.
And so then it was just all gas, no breaks until you break yourself.
And that's what happened to me.
Like got physically sick, put myself in the hospital.
I I spent 30 months overseas deployed, 22 months in combat, not one panic attack.
And I had three as an entrepreneur, right?
Because, because it's just all on you and it never stops.
And I never learned how to put, you know, put a governor on myself, right?
Like how to self-regulate.
I didn't really.
know how to self-regulate at a macro level because unbeknownst to me or in the background,
someone else was looking out for that, which facilitated me just going hard.
And I think that a lot of high-performing A-type people, maybe athletes, are just driven
in life, or maybe they came from the military, another high-performing organization, and
then they go into something like entrepreneurship, or they...
maybe get to a position in a company where they're senior and there's not as much
oversight, they can also, if they haven't developed those skills and that balance, they
can also burn themselves out.
And I think we're seeing that inside organizations.
And if leaders can't model how to self-regulate, they can't lead by example.
They also can't coach and develop and teach their junior managers how to do that.
And so it's just results, results, results, and manager are pushing themselves and they're
trying to be the best husbands and wives and partners and friends and everything else in
their life.
And they're distracted with a million different things on their phone and the world is
moving too fast.
And it's just go, go, go, And then we're just burning everyone out unnecessarily.
And it's completely self-imposed, but it starts with, you know, leaders at the top have to
lead by example and learn how to self-regulate.
And that, to me, that was
the biggest issue for me transitioning out.
And then we can get into if you want, but there's those other parts of, mentioned creating
purpose, right?
Like you transition out of one job to another or one role to another.
This is really universal.
I saw it with my mom.
That's when I really saw it.
Cause I saw it in veterans.
like, makes sense to me.
But my mom years ago retired and she was a school psychologist.
and worked with, uh, and special education needs.
So she worked with special needs children.
And that was her, you know, outside of being a mom and then that, like, that was her life.
And all of sudden she wasn't that anymore.
And she was like, I'd call and she'd still be asleep at 10 AM.
I'm like, mom, what the hell are you doing, bro?
Like, get your stuff together, you know, like what you, and it was just like, this whole
thing was like, she's an educator.
She's an educator.
She takes her, she takes her kids.
And that was the only way she defined herself.
And then you transition into something new.
And it's like, you're completely lost.
because you haven't established a purpose in identity outside of that.
So that's just one example, but purpose, tribe, community, and like self-regulation are
things that you have to create for yourself in your life that in some cases, and for me in
the military, a lot of that was basically just in great, it provided to me from the time I
was 18 to 32.
Yeah, no, definitely.
And I want to zoom more into that self-regulation piece because I know from my own
experience, like that's where, you know, I have struggled with is, is how do you regulate
that?
Especially when you're, when you've got that mentality of you just want to keep pushing in
kind of all areas.
Like you can only push so far before it would implode on you.
So from that self-regulation, kind of thing that you went through, like, how did you
figure out, this is how
I can self-regulate within the entrepreneurial space itself.
Is it just a case of, you know, kind of go in sprints when it's, it's, you know, you're
working on projects or how have you managed to translate that into the practical
day-to-day of what it is that you're doing right now?
That's a great question.
You know, for me,
It was, it's, I'm trying to think like, do I go like, here's my system now?
Or like, what was kind of the journey like?
Cause, but it really started with rediscovering mindfulness for me and, and even what does
that mean?
And sort of connecting with myself and what that has led to is being very clear about my
priorities and
priorities as you mentioned for a season, right?
So the priorities can change in that season you're in, but if you don't, but you have to
be intentional about setting them or they'll set you, right?
So you, you will let your, world dictate to you and the world or that mindset of just go,
go, go.
There'll always be something for, especially in the entrepreneurial world or a founder or
any of those things, but even just
honestly life for most people like you're, never done, right?
There's, there's all there's the, there's a do list is never clear for almost everyone
anywhere.
You know, if, especially if you look at holistically in your life, right?
You might finish one project.
but there's another one and now you've got a prospect or now you've got to spend time with
your family, whatever.
So being very clear about what's my priorities that allow me to be my best self.
And so I get really clear.
So my number one priority is, and always will be as far as I know.
me.
It's my health, my physical health, my mental health, taking care of me.
And that might go by the wayside for a day or a few days, right?
As you mentioned, there's sometimes, Hey, the workout's not getting done today.
It just doesn't fit.
Cool.
But it's not about perfection.
It's about consistency.
Right.
And so
But what I do is when I make these priorities, right?
So I'll start with making the priorities first and then we'll talk about scheduling.
my priorities, my number one and number two priorities are basically always the same and I
revisit these every month.
But it's me, my mental health, my development, my physical health.
Because if I'm not my best self, I'm not taking care of me, I know I'm not.
I can't be good for anybody else.
It's just, it has to be there.
And if you, you can make it not your number one priority for a very short amount of time.
But if you don't work out for two weeks, you are not your best self.
Like your energy is not there.
If you're not doing some form of journaling, meditation, visuals, something in there to
really, if you're never actually present, if you never actually stop for five minutes a
day and just be where your feet are, like, and put effort into doing that, you are not
your best self.
You just aren't.
And for some people that's hard to, you
They don't value.
haven't learned that they're worthy of that.
But one, you are.
And two, if you're not there yet, that's fine.
But everybody else you care about does deserve the best version of you.
So if you can't do it for yourself, you're going to do it for them.
Right?
The second is my relationship with my wife.
And now I have, you know, we talked, I think before we started recording, I have a new six
week old son.
So, you know, now it's him too, but really even before my relationship with him, it's my
relationship with my wife, because if that relationship is strong,
I can weather any storm, like any rejection, any, any abject failure, any, anything else.
On the other hand, if that relationship is not good, then like, I can't handle any,
nothing else is good.
Like nothing else is making up for that.
And so those two things have to be strong.
And if I see the foundation of one of those start to crack, everything stops and I get
back to it.
And it will happen, right?
Like, know, it'll start cracking.
You'll let your mind start having anxiety about the future or you'll be depressed about
the past or you you'll be in a disagreement with your significant other.
You don't have time to get to it.
Like all that will happen.
But as soon as that happens, basically everything else that's not an emergency gets put
aside until you fix that.
Because if those two things are good, I can do anything.
Like I can do anything.
And taking care of yourself involves sleep and recovery too, right?
like learning, you are going to, like whoever hard you're going to push, athletes know
this, you can do a hard like push workout and you will, but you have to recover just as
hard.
So you have to be able to balance that.
and because it doesn't mean just steady every day, perfectly balanced life.
It's just the being aware and intentional about how much time and energy you're putting
into the things.
So after that, then you have the other priorities.
Maybe that's your business line you're working on.
right now.
growing my speaking business line is really important to me.
like that's number three, right?
And then it's my coaching clients and then whatever it might be.
Um, and then those, I used to have five priorities and then I go to my calendar and I put
hard time blocks of time on my calendar for those things before, if for anything else
happens that week, like those are ideally reoccurring.
Okay.
I may, I may shift workouts.
I may shift time of my way.
may shift, uh, know, prospecting time, but before,
before the world starts to take control of what happens in my life, I take control what
happens in my life.
And those five priorities are on my calendar.
So, you know, I do, I do like a daily tracker of, well, it's on the ground over there, but
daily tracker of, what I'm to get done in a day.
And I track it off every day.
And so I have a 15 minute power morning routine that I do every morning and it's five
minutes of gratitude meditation, five minutes of journaling.
five minutes of visualization for my day.
And that's, if I get that done in the morning, man, you're it's 15 minutes, but I filled
myself up with the fuel of gratitude.
got my mind right for all the, how privileged I am to just be alive in this moment, in
this time, in this place.
And that set me right.
Then I journaled and got just free throw ideas.
Sometimes it's planning my day or thoughts I have about work.
Sometimes it's about my relationships.
Sometimes it's just randomness, but for five minutes, I just write.
And then the last five minutes, just like any high performing athletes knows visualization
and the power of visualization needs to happen.
so I know what's happening in my day.
Cause I look at my calendar beforehand and I think through my whole day and I think
through it just going perfect, just awesome.
so that's like one tool, but if you take those priorities, you put them on first, then you
make sure that those things happen.
Because if you set your priorities, right, if I am doing everything to take care of
myself, if I have a time with my wife,
If I have an hour a day to prospect for speaking, if I have speech rehearsal done an hour
a day to work on my speeches, and then I have two hours to spend on my coaching
programming, or maybe, know, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I spend two hours on that, and
that's just on my calendar, and I know that gets done, that's gonna be a good week.
That's gonna keep me regulated.
think my takeaway from that is proactivity.
You're proactive in all these different areas of life, not just the technical business
stuff that you're working on, but also the relationships and how you're showing up for
yourself, because all those things do need to be already planned for.
Otherwise, life will just happen to you.
You wake up in the morning, you don't know what you're gonna work on, then clients are
calling you, you're working on this, working on these different things, and you get to the
end of the day, and it's like, progress have I made towards the core?
three things that I want to be working towards on this sprint or this quarter or this year
or whatever.
So I think the biggest thing there is productivity.
And then I guess with the leaders you're speaking to right now, what are the pitfalls you
commonly see that they fall into, right?
Where maybe they're not being proactive in certain areas or what other things have you
noticed from them, which do you know what most people will probably fall into, which they
need to then try and flip and move on to that next level of leadership.
What have you seen in that realm?
from a mindset perspective, it's not focusing on, what they can control.
So the concept called an internal versus external locus of control and people in an
external locus of control means the world's happening to them, right?
It's an attribution of control.
and without knowing our mind, cause we have this like negative cognitive negative bias
and, our ego and all these other
things that are going on with psychologically and neuroscience, it's all outside.
We're looking for threats constantly.
And we're also looking for validation outside ourselves constantly.
it's a mindset of pulling yourself to an internal locus of control and focusing on what
you can control, right?
That includes things like process over outcome.
Because if you're focused on, I'll use this as an example.
I do martial arts, right?
I wrestled growing up.
fought MMA a while and then now I own jujitsu gyms.
do Brazilian jujitsu.
You can show up.
You can do everything right.
You could do everything right.
Practice and show up.
But you don't control who steps on the mat across from you.
So could do everything right and still lose.
You could also go out there and slack off on training.
Not do everything right.
Not be in your bed headspace.
And you could win.
But can you repeat that?
Like, and, the same thing happens in business.
So too often, if we just are looking at outcomes, we don't control, we don't control the
market.
We don't control other people's opinions, right?
You know, you could do a perfect sales call and you will do a perfect sales call and still
not get the sale.
You could do a crappy sales call and the person shows up ready to buy.
What, what does that mean for you?
Like, so if you're starting, if you're judging yourself on outcome,
all the time.
That's, that's like, that's how you get yourself worth.
That's how you judge your progress.
That's it.
Then you are out of control.
You are not in control and you will put yourself in this helpless victim mind state just
automatically.
And the same thing happens if we, which we reminate or ruminate, me, too much on the
future or the past.
If we, as a leader, I see people all the time, it's they're never actually present.
So they're never actually their best self.
because it's always the next thing they have to do in the next meeting.
And they're doing a one-on-one with one of their junior managers or they're in the board
meeting and they're checking their email on their phone.
They're not actually there.
And so what you're doing is you're sacrificing your performance and your wellbeing and
everything that you can control, which is only the present moment for some imaginary
future state of fear and worry and scarcity and
What if this person does that and what if this other thing happens and you what you're
doing is every moment, every moment that you spend focusing on that.
you spend an hour a day doing.
So not only do you just waste that hour, okay, right?
But you actually decrease the probability of getting the outcome you want because that's
an hour you didn't spend on the things you can control, right?
So that's probably one of the biggest things from a mindset perspective I see leaders make
is to your point about productivity or intentionality is they don't get really clear on
like what they can control and focus on the processes of their teams.
And now you can look at outcome and then say, we didn't get the outcome we wanted.
Cool.
Let's look at our process.
Did we do everything right?
What can we do better and improve process?
And when you improve process, you improve the probability of getting outcome you want, but
you don't control outcome.
You never can control outcome.
so judge yourself on, did I do what I said I was going to do today?
Did I follow the process?
Can I improve that?
Like what?
You can control your attitude, your effort, your presentness.
And that's like, would say the number one thing that I see leaders do wrong or struggle
with.
The second is not knowing how or not actually applying how you develop others.
Like the number one job, how we really judge great leaders is on the leaders they create.
Yeah
And so you have to be intentional and proactive on like, how do I develop other people?
No, almost going back, you know, for a circle that the common metaphor, like why, why
would top talent work for you outside of compensation?
Top talent work for you because if they're getting better, because top talent wants to get
better.
Top talent wants to grow.
Top talent wants to be able to push themselves and make mistakes.
And they want, that's the environment they want to and be supported in it.
Right.
And they want someone to pick them up and give them advice, like an empower them.
That's what top talent wants.
Top talent doesn't want to be micromanaged.
That's boredom top talent.
you know, doesn't want things to be easy and comfortable.
Right.
So.
So oftentimes I think that's what we think our subordinates are the people in our
organization want.
It's like we, they, they think they want us to completely protect them from the outside
world.
and make sure they're comfy and everything's going to be okay.
And I'll do these things for you.
And don't want to push you or the other extreme is you're just killing them with tasks and
treating them like some machine, right?
And not engaging with them.
Like one of the other things happening and both of them are roads to failure.
So, you know, if you almost look at this in two parts of like the first thing I saw about
mindset is like leading yourself and that's the thing really passionate about, leading
yourself first.
Leaders have to be intentional and proactive about leading myself first because if you
can't, it's the first thing I learned at West Point when you show up on basic training day
one is you're just in charge of right time, right place, right uniform, shut up and do
your job.
If you can't, it's that whole make your bed first thing in the morning.
If you can't roll your socks right, how am I supposed to follow you?
John Wooden, this famous basketball coach from UCLA back in the 70s had this thing, this
whole thing, his first thing he would teach the incoming freshmen, and this is like
multiple.
you know, the best college bathroom program in the country.
And he showed them how to, how to wash and fold their socks.
Because if you don't and you don't have clean, right, fold socks, you would have creases
and you would get calluses and it would mess up their feet.
So it starts with the socks, right?
Everybody wants crazy hacks.
Everybody wants, you know, that everybody wants the advanced, easy, tricky, crazy stuff,
but it's like these fundamentals and
So leading yourself first, because once you do that, then you naturally become someone
that others want to follow, which is the definition of a leader.
And then intentionally learning how to develop others in their capacity.
And if you could do those two things, you're a rock star.
Like you're great.
Your potential is limitless.
My company's name is called No Limit Leaders, right?
That's where you can head.
But.
those to me, that's the blocking and tackling.
Those are the fundamentals as a leader.
And that's where I see leaders fall short is one or both of those areas.
Yeah, I go back to that saying, is if you can't up for yourself, how are you going to show
up for others?
You know, on the foundational level, right?
If you're not, you know, waking up early, you're on a good routine, you're working out,
you're taking care of yourself, how are you going to empower others to do that same thing?
Right?
You're just not going to be able to do it.
But to that first point you made about the processes, I mean, I heard this quote, you
know, a couple of years ago, um, about, know, you've got, need to make it unreasonable
that, you know, you, that you, that you won't win basically, right?
How do we make it unreasonable that we're not going to achieve these things?
Um, or sorry, that we will achieve these things.
and it goes back to that process, right?
It's reverse engineering.
Cool.
We want to hit X X revenue, but then you need to break up the processes to get to that
point and then just repeat those processes.
But how do you make it unreasonable that when that, you know, we can even achieve this
thing.
it is so important, right?
Because I think, I think the other thing is that people underestimate the actions it
actually takes to achieve those goals as well.
It's like, we all want to get to this, to this end point, this end goal of whatever it's
going to be.
but it's not until they start doing the actions that they don't get the result and then
they judge themselves on that.
But actually they didn't take time to figure out, what is the actual inputs we need to
achieve to get to that result, right?
It's not thinking big enough on that level.
And then as well, when you are in that mindset of things where you're not kind of thinking
to that level is because you've not hit the goal.
you're then creating that internal stress on you, which is all self-inflicted, right?
It's because you've set the goal and you've not done the actions.
And then that will kind of tear you up as well.
And so it's such an interesting thing about thinking in processes rather than just the
outcomes itself.
And from a marketing point of view, because that's my background, is that's the only thing
we can control, especially in marketing, is you can only work on the inputs.
And there's a saying, it's like when people run a campaign or whatever,
One type of business owner will look at it and be like, you know what, it's not worked,
you've lost money on it.
Whereas what we look at it in is like, cool, we've done all the inputs that we've got
there, but we're gonna get two things out of it.
We're gonna get revenue or we're gonna get data back.
And then that data feeds the feedback loop or that revenue again will feed that feedback
loop.
So I think part of the process or the processes that you create for yourself is having
those feedback loops to figure out, are we on the right track to get to that end goal as
well?
Like that's more on the, I guess, the technical side of things.
but the feedback loops that you have in life, I think are so important.
Because otherwise, know, again, that saying is where if you're one degree off and you're
flying a plane, you're going to end up hundreds of miles from the desired location.
So how can we figure out, what's the feedback loops as well to make sure we're on track
with the goals that we've set for ourselves?
Absolutely.
And how can we iterate and learn?
And how can we shorten feedback loops?
I think, you know, as we get a little more technical here, like to your point, you know,
it's one thing if you can put a bunch of inputs and then a year later you get data back,
but like, how can we do that to in a day, right?
Or two days and, and we just iterate, iterate, iterate.
But again, the whole time, I love how you, you mentioned that we're going to get revenue,
we're going to get data, you know, in athletics, we would say maybe, you know, we win or
we learn.
Right?
Like you either, you're going to learn more from the loss than you do the win.
and either way is great.
So I agree like that iterative process and focusing on the process.
And if, and that's why, if you do a process enough times and you're not getting the
outcome you want, then you can reassess outcome.
but if you're strictly focused on outcome and don't fully understand the process, like you
mentioned, then you're really just like swinging in the dark.
And, and I, and I,
Yeah.
And I do think that, you know, it's your point about expectations about goals.
I don't remember who, I don't know if it was like old school, like Jim Rohn, or if this
was, you know, Alex Hermosy, I know he said it, but I don't think he came up with it.
But, you know, basically entrepreneurs, I think people in general, underestimate what they
can do in five years and overestimate what they can do in one year.
So I know for me, especially that has been
this time scale idea has been something that I've had to work on with myself because
especially these days, right?
Like we all want it all.
We want it now.
I want results right now.
I'm going to, and I'll just go, go.
And that's another path to like, to like burnout.
So, you know, really, you know, almost coming back to that, process and, and
self-regulation is like, if we,
what is the time scale we're looking at for what we're trying to accomplish and is it
reasonable?
you know, he, Alex Ramozzi, I was listening to a podcast one time with him and he said,
you when he decided to go into branding and content and he met with this, consultant for
YouTube and he said, okay, you know, they came with their plan and he's like, I want to
be, have a, you it like a million followers or subscribers.
And he was like, okay, well, just, know,
I'm going to do this for 10 years and if it doesn't work, I'll stop.
And the YouTube consultant was like, like everyone I talk with is like how in 30 days and
90 days, I want this, I want that.
He's like, no one's ever come to me and be like, I don't care what results that we get.
I'm doing it for 10 years and we'll just keep trying to get better.
And if it doesn't work in 10 years, I'll stop.
Right.
So it's just like, you know, and if you think about it like that, if you change your time
scale, you know, I have, I remember
I got turned down for this talking opportunity, a speech opportunity like a year and a
half ago.
I was really pissed about it.
And, um, cause like I should've got that.
And, after that, you know, there's since then, and so this process form is like, have two
things written on my whiteboard over here.
Right.
And one of them is, and they've been up ever since, you know, stay in love with the
process.
Life is just a process, right?
Like you, you don't win in life.
Like we're all going in the ground, you know, so you might as well.
Stay in love with the process of what you're doing.
Don't let the fact that I didn't get that speech ruin my day or be a, like it's a
reflection of my value, right?
Or my worth.
And the other one below that, she just said become undeniable.
Like just get, right over here I'm looking at, so.
It's just like, just do this process and iterate and
you know, and maybe it's not going to be six months.
Maybe it's going to be five years.
But, you know, if I think of it this way, like I want to be a seven figure speaker.
I don't want to be a speaker that just makes seven figures a year just off speaking.
Okay.
What if it takes me 10 years?
Am I willing to do, is it, is it still worth it?
Yeah.
Okay.
Cool.
Well, that means I've got 10 years, right?
Now, what if I said, well, it'd take me 30 years.
I'm like, Ooh, now in my seventies, maybe, you know, like maybe not, right?
But
Am I confident that I can do it?
Like what's the longest timeframe where it's still worth it to you?
Because every entrepreneur, especially when we're young, right?
We're like, well, by 30, I'm going to have this much money and 40.
Like what if it doesn't?
What if it takes you, what if you're, what if, know, you make a decent living and you
learn a bunch of lessons and you have this crazy experience and it's going to take you
till you're 45 or 50, but then you're going to make $2 million a year and work and do
whatever you love to do.
Is it worth it?
And if it is cool, that's like your time horizon, you as long as it doesn't take longer
than that, you're good, you know?
So I think expanding what that might take, also like takes that pressure off us and our
mind in the moment a bit.
And I do think there's something to, you know, self-regulation and also that time scale,
like taking the pressure off that we are, we're not our best selves when we're stressed
out, when we're in fight or flight, when we're
brains flooded with cortisol and we're happy from the next thing, the next thing and just
productivity, productivity and to do this.
We're not our best selves.
We're not open to opportunities.
And I'll tell you that, you know, I've, this is just recent for me.
Like I have two words every year I focus on.
And last year was simplicity and focus because before that I tried to do too many things
in one year and, and it, none, and none of it was as good as it should have been.
And I didn't see what I was, cause I was just like, I got a little traction and I was
like, let's go.
And, um,
And I was burning myself out again and like, had relearned these lessons and I said, no, I
know what I'm doing.
Three things this year.
have three, I have three services.
I offer, I speak, I do one on executive coaching and I do your group leadership
development coaching.
That's it.
I, I'm not doing anything else with that.
I'm saying no to everything else and my business grew.
then now that I figured that out, my two words this year on my other white board over
here, patience and consistency.
now stay, keep it simple and now do the same thing.
with patience and consistency, enjoy that journey.
and in the, you've mentioned this first, this, you know, first quarter before we came on.
And even though I've been working way less because I just had a son and I'm focusing on
that, I'm having more, I have more opportunities than have come to me in a two month
period and probably what I mean really ever.
Like if I think back, like because I'm giving it space to happen and
And on top of that, because I'm taking the pressure off myself, I'm actually like content
and enjoying life.
And like we said, life is just a process.
Like if you're not enjoying it, man, like, what's the point, you know, like get out and
take a walk, get some sun on your face, have some gratitude and like enjoy the life you're
doing.
Cause it's not worth it.
Like whatever you're going for, it's not worth being miserable every day.
Yeah.
And to your point about timeframes, I know I definitely fell into that trap initially when
I first started going.
Cause I mean, I was 18, 19 when I first started to get into this whole point of, and it's
like, by the time I'm 22, I'm going to have X right.
And, um, what I found though is having those short timeframes on it, led to a lot of
unfulfillment during the process because I was so stressed about, I have to hit this, um,
this goal in this very short amount of time that, as you said, you know, you need to give
it room to breathe and also time to breathe as well.
because things will always take longer than you probably initially expect for its take.
It will always be more expensive than you think it's gonna be.
And you need to factor these into the equation.
But to your point again about the processes, when it is a 10 year thing and you're looking
out to the horizon, is that you just fall in love with the process of doing things.
And if you do go through those setbacks, then it's a case of, do know what, it's just part
of the process, right?
You're not thinking, oh no, I've only got two months until I have to hit this goal, right?
It's a case of, no, we've got time, we can let it breathe.
It's part of process.
which is, think it's very difficult to do because you know, what you said about kind of
last year and setting yourself so many different tasks throughout the year is, you know,
we always want to be pushing ourselves to do as much as we can and in a short amount of
time, right?
Because maybe that's how we value ourselves is how big is our to-do list and how many
things have we've done in the year.
But at the same time, the focus element is so critical, right?
Is you can only focus on two or three core things in a year realistically, if you want to
do them to a high level.
So you need to pick those high leverage tasks or
or goals that you have for that year period.
But obviously over the 10 year period, you want to make sure that is that those kind of
micro goals that you might set ourselves each equal out to the end goal that we have in
mind.
Because I think the thing people might fall into if they set themselves a 10 year goal or
whatever is that goal is predicated on you doing the daily actions you need to do and
following the process.
It's all well and good saying, oh, I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30.
But if you're not doing the actions you need to do on the daily basis, you're not going to
hit that goal.
So I think that's also an important thing, is making sure you're following the daily
process to get to that end goal, even if it isn't 10 years time.
Yeah.
And I think when I first, I agree with all that.
And I think when I, know, 10 years ago, I was getting in military and I really started
getting on this like, you know, reading more, uh, entrepreneurial type stuff mindset, like
all this stuff really getting into like, okay, I'm going to be doing this.
got to, I've got a lot to learn.
I've got a lot of growth to do.
Um, and I was in that, you know, go again, it kind of, talked about like, as go as hard as
you can get as much like judging yourself by how
busy you are and how many things you can get done.
And, and I think that what I've learned is that does prior that prioritization, as you
mentioned, like the work, like you can only go as fast as the world goes.
So, you know, you can be going a million miles an hour, but like, you know, a lot of
business, is on relationships and it's on trust.
and it's on you proving yourself to one group so that they refer you to other people and
like that, all of that like takes time and there's a million other things going on.
And so if you will get yourself very frustrated if you try to like push faster than the
world is trying, the world's capable of like catching up to you.
And it's kind of an abstract concept, but it's something that I truly have had to learn
the hard way.
And I do think that where the world will reward you, the universe will reward you when you
get really clear on those few things and you focus on the process and you give yourself
space outside of that.
No one is gonna hire you in marketing, right?
You're like, I'm pretty good at 100 different marketing tasks.
No one cares, no one wants you.
But if you're like,
I'm the top 10 % in the world and this one marketing task and your door is being knocked
down.
So there is this, this case and then, and to your point, then what you want to do is just
lay out a plan where they, they, you know, they stack, right?
Like one supports the next.
So, you know, for me with speaking, that's the reason I decided that because what I found
was like, all all these different things I want to do, I can move them, but what
influences the other things, right?
Or like,
So my speaking and my podcast growth too, no limits leadership is my podcast.
And like that's starting to get some really good traction too.
And it's like, Oh, it may the quick, the quick money is go sign five new clients, 10 new
clients.
Right.
I mean, I have a, I have a, you know, a meeting in the rapids with hopefully a new
executive client.
Like I could focus there and I could probably double my revenue faster than if I focus on
speaking and podcasts.
But from a strategic long-term standpoint,
What I know is every time I speak, good things happen with my coaching business, right?
Every time as my podcast grows, I more and more doors open up and I get to meet bigger and
better people, right?
Like more influence.
And so I know that there's all those things naturally feed everything else as where one
new coaching client doesn't feed everything else, right?
So it's figuring out like that long-term system of your business.
and, but then like,
What are those two or three things that if I just go all in on that and give myself space
to self-regulate, give myself space to continue to develop as a person, because we have to
keep growing too.
If you're just doing, you're not growing.
I see this in business a lot too.
It's hard because a lot of people got successful with say a smaller business where they
were a founder by doing all the things and they were just involved with all the things.
They continue to be that way.
But the problem is like, as you move up in an organization from a leadership sense, right?
You go from strategic, or excuse me, you go from tactical to operational to strategic, the
higher up you go in an organization, the less doing you need to do and the more thinking
you need to do.
Because your thinking, your strategy, your planning, you looking out for the big potholes
and the...
the things that can mess up the progress and the threats and doing all of that constantly
and setting the right direction is what allows your salespeople and your marketers and
everybody else to just focus on doing their job and keep their head down.
And if you fail at your job and you start hitting speed bump after speed bump after speed
bump and you didn't see it coming, then they pull up from the work they're doing and start
being like, what, do I need to look up?
Do I need to look at the market?
Do I need to maybe go somewhere else?
Do I need to do something else?
because you're not providing them that coverage because you're not doing your job, is
thinking, strategizing, assessing.
So the higher up you go in the bigger an organization, the more time you need to set aside
for, for thinking and strategizing and being your best, like all that needs to happen at
developing others.
But that's hard because that may not be what got you to 5 million a year to 10 million a
year.
Right.
There's an executive coach named Marshall Goldsmith, he's really famous in this space.
has a whole book, right?
We got you here, we'll get you there.
And he's not the first one to say that, but it's this idea of, all right, where I'm at
now, who do I need to be?
Like what's my best self for the roles I'm playing in my life now?
Because the roles that you're playing in your life right now, like I said, when you have
kids or you have a son, like those change.
Okay, let's reassess.
Who's my best self now?
What's that look like?
where I start a new company or I hit this new number, what's my best self now?
And so, but you never come up for air and think and give yourself space to do that.
You will just blunder through busy and burnout and frustrated and miss out on the
opportunities that are there for you.
Yeah.
And what you said earlier about, you know, focusing on like speaking gigs rather than
maybe those, those quick wins, those quick, quick clients is, is also understanding the
higher leverage, the thing that you're doing, the longer the time lag is going to be
before you get the results from it.
like that's just the way, the way the world works when it comes down to that point of
leverage.
and I think that's very difficult, especially if I guess you're a new entrepreneur or a
new leader is, you you want to execute as quick as you can to get, you know, get those
quick wins, whatever.
But I think for those longterm.
periods of growth that you want to go through is all about, okay, the highest leverage
tasks you can do, but understanding the time lag to get that feedback, you know, it takes
a while, right?
It's been like from the marketing point of view, if I wanted to scale a marketing company
really quickly, well, cool, we can just dump some money to pay it as we'll get some loads
of clients on board.
Great, we can hit whatever that number is going to be.
But if I wanted to make it big, right, and I'm thinking on like a 20 year time horizon,
well, if I started doing marketing for like,
Merge and acquisition firms or whatever, where their deal cycles are five years, six
years, but I get a percentage of that deal.
well, the revenue from that will be massive compared to what I could do at this level.
But the time is on a different level as well, because it's so much more higher leverage.
So I think that's also an important concept to understand is, you know, if you are going
to go to these high leverage tasks and processes, the time lag is there and you need to be
okay with that time lag as well.
But yes.
I love the fact that you said that leverage point because I always think it's important to
be intentional, but like, what do you want?
Right.
Because there's people who, know, I want to, I want to create a company, you know, I want
to create a, HVAC or a plumbing company, right.
And I want to just like, I want to build it up and I want to make, you know, I get to a
point where my family's comfortable and I'm making, I don't know, quarter million dollars
a year and I'm working when I want to work and not when I don't.
And,
and I've got maybe something I can pass on or maybe I, you eventually I sell it and, and
like, that's what I want.
And that's to your point.
Awesome.
Right.
And that's very doable.
and that looks different than being very clear.
Like, you know, I want to grow this, you know, I want to grow a multifaceted real estate
development firm that can do all these things that is worth hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Like those, those are like knowing where you want to go with that and knowing how to
leverage appropriately.
And I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, for me, there's also this sense of like,
I don't know, like getting to a certain point with those small ones, like small wins so
that now you can be comfortable going, going big, right?
Like, and you know, maybe you're comfortable like living, you know, sharing a studio
apartment with three people and eating ramen every day and just going big from nothing,
but like,
One, it's probably going be harder because you're not getting iteration and traction, but
like if you can be strategic, you know, I don't work with a lot of small businesses
anymore, but like I used to work with a lot of startups and things like that.
It's like, get the traction and get, and get some revenue cycle.
And then it's like, okay, you know, for me, it's like, I got my, my coaching revenue,
let's say, right.
To a certain level where it's like, cool, we're taking care of everything's good.
Now I could just like, keep that.
and we can go on high leverage activities, right?
But to your point, but if you're like, you know, my, my kids may not eat next week.
If I don't sign a client, like you may have to go sign a client.
It's like setting things up and getting yourself like to a line that you're comfortable
with.
And then note, like, I guess maybe that's a timing thing, right?
Like clarity of vision of where you want to go.
And then like, when are you in a position?
You know, like Alex, we talked about Alex Hermosy earlier, like, you know, he sold his
company for, you he was $30 million.
then decided, then started his, you know, acquisition company.
And that's when he decided, okay, now I'm going to build a brand.
But it wasn't until he got that sort of foundational level first.
Yeah, you need to graduate through different levels, right?
And then when he gets that next level, then you can, I think then the pathway also opens
up as well, right?
Is, um, cause I think a lot of entrepreneurs that when they start, they start, but they
think small, right?
I know for me, when I started the business, I was like, do you know what?
If I can make a couple of grand a month, I'm going to be happy from this rock and control
of my time, whatever, a couple of grand, I can live on that because I was young.
Um, but then as I kind of got further in the business world and meeting more people and
getting exposure, it's like,
Oh, this guy I he's doing 50 grand a month.
And then this guy I met, he's doing 400 grand a month.
Like, I didn't know these were things were possible.
And you start thinking on bigger levels.
And then it's also, you know, on the micro, let's say you're, selling a service, right?
Initially you jump on a sales call and you're trying to close on for a couple hundred
bucks, right?
You're nervous, you're sweating, whatever.
But then over time, right, you start upping your price, right?
And you get comfortable with that, but you need to go through those micro levels first
before you can graduate to the next level as well.
And I think that's why as well, when entrepreneurs get older and older, naturally they'll
fall into higher and higher leverage activities and tasks because they've graduated each
of the levels they have to go through first before getting to that end point.
Yeah, definitely.
So one of the final questions we always ask guests on this show is if you can go back to
your 18 year old self and only take three lessons with you, whether it's some mindset
piece, philosophical piece, technical knowledge, whatever, what would that lesson be or
what would those three lessons be?
and why would be those things?
Oof, good question.
Let take a couple notes here real quick, I think about that.
Okay, so I think.
First thing I would tell my 18 year old self is consistency over everything.
Just consistency, compound interest, compound effort, whatever.
I didn't fully appreciate that when I was younger.
People tell you, you put $100 away a month and then by the time you're, they tell you all
that stuff and you're like, it's like you can't even think about that.
But it is 100 % true.
And the same goes with the effort you put into anything.
Just be consistent.
think the second thing would be to enjoy the ride and be present.
I've during most of my life was always future focus, always the next task, next thing.
Like I got here and never stopped to enjoy it or, you know, even like at the relationship
level as a leader, like I don't think I got to know like stop and really get to know.
some people I had like a good enough relationship with them to like do what we needed to
do.
And I liked them as a person, but like I didn't stop to actually enjoy the moment of life
that I was in.
and, and be okay with that.
And then the last thing, and this one is, you know, something I'm still working on is just
you're enough.
Just you, like your worth as a human being is not predicated.
on your accomplishments.
It's you have inherent value just being you.
That doesn't mean that you should settle for mediocrity and not being your best self and
not making an impact, but you don't have to earn or love or value from others.
You should just be, you're worthy of that just who you are.
Amazing.
There's some great lessons there.
I really enjoyed this episode and this conversation.
Thank you so much for coming on.
Yeah, it's been awesome, man.
Thanks for the opportunity.
It's been great being on.