Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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 Otis, thank you so much for joining me on today's episode.
Can you give us a top level view of what it is that you do right now and your journey so
far and then we can dive into all that.
Sure, sure.
Thanks for having me too.
Always a pleasure to hang out and chat.
So what we do at Tribe and Purpose is we're creating a legacy of great leaders.
And I'll just go ahead and round that out for you in our belief.
it's because it is our purpose.
It's why we have the company and why we do what we do.
Because we believe that great leaders create great organizations.
And when we have great organizations in our communities, we're going to have better
communities.
And when we have better communities around the world, we're going to have a better world.
And that's what we do.
I mean, we do it.
I can give you how we do it.
But that is the bottom line of what we do.
Everything that we focus on falls under that umbrella.
And it's the fuel that gets me up in the morning.
old creaky bones and bad back and all that sort of stuff.
That's why I get up this morning.
I told you earlier, you know, we had whiskey and cigars at the house last night.
And this morning when it was time to get up and work out, I was like, I really don't want
to, but I knew I needed to so that I could continue to fulfill my purpose of creating a
legacy of great leaders.
Yeah, no, I love that.
And I love the vision there, right?
And it's something else talking to someone else on a podcast about where...
don't underestimate the impact you can have with your business.
In my realm of things within the marketing, if we can empower a business that can sign
more clients and create a bigger impact, they then go on to impact more businesses, more
employees, more companies.
the impact is always very, very big when it comes to your business.
it's thinking in that way can really serve you as a person and your mission and everything
like that.
So, mean, take me back to the start.
So how did you get into the world of business?
Because everyone's got their story there.
So what's your story getting into business?
Yeah, well, I spent 25 years in the army.
I started off driving a tank that was five years older than me.
And I always remember the first time, because military equipment has data plates, right?
You know, riveted onto the side.
And I always remember the first time I looked over there, I saw that, and I was like,
This thing is old.
And when I finished my career in the army, I retired after those 25 years as a green
beret, a special ops lieutenant colonel or, I think on your side of the pond, say left in
it, Colonel.
And, you know, I went off into the business world, did business development, did program
management at all kinds of different.
industries or types of businesses from services to products to construction to I.T.
And it wasn't none of them were fulfilling me.
It's one of the great things about the military is it gives you a purpose.
All right.
You have a purpose.
And I did not know what my purpose was once I took the uniform off.
And that's why I spent seven years
wandering the job desert is how I like to refer to it because I just wandered and jumped
from job to job and then I'd be like, well, this job sucks.
And I wouldn't know why.
And I go get another job and I go, well, this job sucks.
And it wasn't until one afternoon sitting here in my home office feeling sorry for myself
because I was in yet another job that was unfulfilling.
And I started to reflect on my life.
since leaving the army.
And I realized that the only two things that had been consistent in my life were my family
and boys high school rugby.
You can see the rugby ball right there from the world cup a couple of years, but not the
last one, but the previous one.
whatever the math was 19, I think, where I'd just finished coaching seven year, my seventh
year of.
a nationally competitive boys high school club.
And it was that realization that I was spending that much time coaching a sport that I had
never played.
Basically 40 hours a week during the season, volunteering my time in that sport.
And that's when I realized that's what I should be doing.
is coaching, mentoring, and guiding folks.
I'm giving a pause right there, because I'm going to close that blind, because wow, that
sun's coming in this morning.
was not expecting
There we go.
That's a little bit better.
Sorry about that.
Now go with your question.
Yeah, no, I was gonna say that's a that's such a interesting journey, right in the
military.
mean, how did the military shape you?
Because I know my dad, he was in the military and everything.
And some of the principles he learned, he's brought into business and starting his own
business becoming a consultant, all these different things.
So for you, how did that shape your reality and your actions within the business space
itself?
well, it made it shaped all of it.
It was my formative years.
know, everybody talks about, you know, when you're growing up in the formative years and
your, you know, your early teens and late teens.
Yeah, those are formative, but you really don't become a man until you step out into the
world, whether it's whether you go to university or, or, or you go into the military or
you go into work.
That's where you really shape who and how you're going to face the rest of your life.
yeah, everything from how to lead people, how to build a team, how to build a high
performing team, how to identify, define, and solve problems, how to put together a plan.
And I've taken all those things in my years in the business world, and that's what
That's how we created our tribe and purpose leadership development system.
That's what it's based on.
And the beauty of it is it's so fundamental and foundational that it is the best way to
perform.
Because in the military, it's tested, life and death tested, right?
And what I've done is I've taken all those processes and systems that I learned and
translated them into business.
And that's what I teach.
That's how we teach it.
know, one thing I always skip over, because it was only for a year and it was a part-time
job.
I used to teach a master's level class for a university, Fairleigh Dickinson University
out of New Jersey.
The class that I taught was planning and program development.
And the entire curriculum was based on what's called the military decision-making process
that I just translated into civilian process and civilian words.
But the fundamentals of the process remain the same.
I just changed it, changed the names so it made more sense to people that, you know.
We're not in the Army.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, definitely.
I mean, I mean, let's zoom in a little bit more with that with that process.
So, I mean, what's the fundamentals or the foundations of that military driven process, I
guess, in layman's terms for all of us civilians as well.
But it very interesting.
Yeah, well, problem definition, identification and definition.
In the military, we call it mission analysis.
And really what you're doing is say, okay, what do I got to do?
What's the problem set?
So we define the problem, understand what it is we got to do.
And the way we do that is we take all the information that we have about the problem and
the environment around the problem, and we put it into buckets.
so that we can understand it and put our hands around it.
And the first bucket is facts.
What's true?
What do we know is true?
That's one of the more important things.
That's why we always do that first.
It's also one of the easiest things.
It helps your mind get into it.
Okay, what are the facts?
ding, ding, ding, ding.
The next one is, are the...
Damn, I just drew a blank on the word.
It's the task.
What are the tasks that we have to do?
the, the, the, it's not important.
It's not essential.
This is why people freeze up on game shows.
You know, it's like, I know that you're we're sitting here at home watching them.
I know that answer.
I mean, frees up.
but it is, implied.
There we go.
There's a, implied and dang, I still can't come up with that other word.
so we have tasks that you know, exists, right?
We got to do step one, step two, step three, step four.
And then there's implied task and implied task are those gray areas or those things that,
know what, we got to run payroll at the end of the month or we have to drive to the job
site or things that aren't like high level essential tasks, but those still have to
happen.
So now we've got, we've started to understand all the steps to solving the problem.
And then the next one is constraints.
And constraints is the things that you must do and can't do.
So you must stay on the pavement, no leaving the pavement.
You must follow the speed limit.
can't walk, you have to drive.
Little things like that that come into play.
You know, you can't drive at all.
You have to take public transportation, whatever those things are.
That's the constraints of the problem that hold it in.
Time is always a constraint.
Money is always a constraint.
So where do those fall in?
And then finally, assumptions.
And what are the gaps?
What are the things that need to happen in order for us to be successful?
We assume that
this is going to happen.
We assume that, and these are a little far-fetched, but we assume that there'll be fuel to
refill the equipment.
We assume that the weather, although assuming the weather is cooperative is never a good
one because you can't control it.
So you want to make assumptions in those sort of things.
The weather can become a risk if we're talking about a construction project, right?
And how do I plan for that?
Because that's where also where when we get into the planning, we take this information
and we develop the plan from it.
The assumptions are our risks.
So we're assuming something to be true that is valid towards solving the problem.
We cover that and we prepare for that.
We what if that in our risk table.
and we identify those risks and we prepare for those risks.
So what if, what if there's not fuel at the job site?
Well, then we've got, you know, I've got a guy that's on standby at this petroleum company
that can bring the truck out and refuel the vehicles or, whatever that is.
We have those sort of, could even call it contingency plans.
And that's a next step into it once you develop the plan.
So that's, that's really the basics of it.
It is.
It is those fundamentals of the mission analysis, the problem analysis and identification.
Because another thing I used to do was I used to teach program management.
And as I got into it more and more, I realized all program management is is a military
decision making process translated into the program management language, if you will.
Yeah, no, no, I love that.
there's such a, I don't want to say easy, but a very, I guess, simple way to think through
your next steps, right?
What's your next mission within the business or whichever, even in life, I guess, as well.
So just to recap for everyone, it's, you know, state the facts, know, what are the facts
that we know to be true, then what are the tasks that we need to do within that, the
implied tasks as well.
So all the things that are just essential that we have to do anyway, the constraints.
constraints or rules, what's holding us in, time, money, all these different things.
And then the assumptions, what assumptions are we gonna make that we need to take into
consideration as well?
So that's such a simple framework for people to think through, I think, going into the
world of business and the next steps they're gonna take as leaders and everything.
So no, that's awesome.
And then when it comes to the businesses that you work with now, what does that look like?
What type of industries do you work with?
What types of companies, CEOs, et cetera?
Yeah, we love working with small businesses because we see we have a greater impact.
You know, I found as nice as it is to work with large business, sometimes I feel like when
they bring us in, they're just checking the box.
And, you know, I end up, you know, I throw my all into it just like I would for a small
business.
But going back to what's our purpose, creating a legacy.
of great leaders to create great organizations.
Well, when you don't have an impact on the organization, when you're telling them, you're
teaching and growing them, helping them become great leaders, and they don't change
because they're so ingrained into who they are.
That's why we like working with small businesses.
The five to 25 mil in revenue is our sweet spot.
We see the most impact in that space.
You know, industry really, we've worked with all kinds.
We tend to focus on government services contractors that are providing a service to the US
federal government.
That's our sweet spot.
Because I mean, when I retired from the military, that's where a lot of guys that I worked
with go.
And that's where I worked for, you know.
several years after I retired from the army.
So it's a known entity.
We've worked outside of that with petroleum company.
What else?
Construction, pharmaceutical, even going back to that.
all of them, know, the beauty of creating a legacy of great leaders is that leadership is
agnostic.
It's everywhere.
You know, everybody has to lead.
You lead in yourself, whether you know it or not.
You are a leader, whether you have a team or not, you are a leader.
And that's the beauty of it.
You know, the principle, just like I was talking about the principles of problem solving
and definition that I've used translated from the military way of doing it into the
business world, it's the same thing with leadership.
Leadership is leadership.
You you got to know, you got to lead yourself before you can lead others.
And whether you're in charge, you know, designated in some line and block chart that you
are in charge of people, you're still in charge.
You're still leading yourself.
You're leading your people at the grocery store.
You're leading people in the parking lot.
You're leading people out in traffic.
How you act in traffic.
You're still setting an example for people.
And you start to think about that and realize that we're all leaders if we choose to be.
Yeah, yeah, no, I love that.
It's a choice, right?
You need to make that conscious decision that I am gonna be a leader.
And as you said, no matter if you have a team or if it's just yourself, you can still have
impacts on the micro or macro, right?
Either way, you're still gonna have that impact.
I guess working with small businesses as well, what are some of the challenges you face
with that?
Because obviously, if they're very new into business, they might be a little bit, you
know, not have the experience, I guess, to hang some of the advice onto.
I know that's something that we've experienced sometimes with some of the smaller
businesses is where we can tell them a load of things to start doing, but they haven't
quite got some of that experience to hang some of this knowledge on.
So I feel like sometimes that's quite important.
So, I mean, what challenges have you faced with working with that type of persona?
Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is that people have this belief that I got it.
Look, we've made it this far.
I know how to And you know what?
My team's figuring it out.
They know how to lead.
I had this conversation with a guy, a friend of mine yesterday, because we talk about the
leadership in his company.
And he mentioned that he had talked to his CEO about
you know, bringing in tribe and purpose to, you know, make him a better leader and make
the team better and all this.
And he's like, dude, I spent 30 years in the Air Force.
I commanded at all these levels.
I don't need any of that leadership stuff.
I know how to do it.
The irony of it is the more you understand about leadership, the more you know, you need
to work at being a better leader.
It's a skill.
That's a skill that requires continuous.
work and effort and improvement.
It's no different than any other skill you have in your life.
If you don't focus on it and work on it, it dwindles.
Now, just because your placard over your door says CEO or your signature block on your
business card says vice president and you have people that report to you doesn't mean that
you're a great leader.
A great leader knows that they have to work.
to become a great leader.
And they're also the first ones to tell you, go, nah, you know, I'm not, yeah, I'm in
charge, but I'm not really that good of a leader.
I'm constantly working at improving myself.
And improving myself means I'm seeking out ways to improve by reading, listening to
podcasts, attending leadership seminars, going through leadership programs, all those sort
of things is how you become a great leader.
You don't become a great leader just by having people work for you and well, then nobody's
quit.
So I must be doing a good job.
That's not how it works.
You're just you're going through the motions.
All right.
mean, great leaders want to improve.
I mean, I I do it every day.
I read things.
I read devotionals.
I read stoicism.
I've got books, these books on my shelf.
There's a handful of them I'll pull off and.
start flipping through again.
I mean, I've got John Maxwell's book sitting here on my desk that is next on my reading
list.
I'm always looking for ways to improve myself because I know that, yeah, maybe, you know,
people tell me, oh man, Otis, you're great, you know, it's an honor.
I've learned you set such a great example.
Let me go back and read John Maxwell's book again because I don't think I'm that good at
it.
I don't think I'm there.
I think the key takeaway here is, you what got you this place right now isn't going to get
you to that next place.
There's always more things to learn.
There's always something else to improve on, especially in the leadership realm.
And I think it's very, I think it's easy to slip into that as like an entrepreneur, right?
You see a bit of success within the business and you're like, like I'm, I'm the guy now.
I've got it.
Like this is, this is working.
We're going to go straight to whatever that end goal is going to be.
but you reach all those brick walls, right?
And you need to learn something else to be able to climb over it.
And so shutting yourself off from that, you're just going to be limiting the growth
overall of yourself and your business.
And so you need to unlock that in yourself to move to the next level.
Yeah, I'll throw another book at you by a great business coach, Marshall Goldsmith.
And I love the title.
What got you here won't get you there.
I love that title.
mean, he's a great business coach too.
Man, he was doing it before.
It was cool.
Back when people were like, how do you coach a business?
Aren't coaches for sports?
That's when Marshall started it.
for sure.
mean, zooming in a little bit into that, what type of strategies do you use when you go
into a business?
Because obviously in the business, there's so many moving parts, so many things you can
do.
How do you boil it down to the actions they need to take next to start unlocking that
growth in the business?
Yeah, well, you know, it always starts with the leader.
And to be a great leader, you got to know who you are.
So self-awareness and mindfulness is always first.
I always start with that when I'm doing one-on-one.
even when I'm teaching our leadership development system to a group, it always starts with
that.
Because you got to know where you're at on the map in order to go where you want to go.
Think about.
Think about your GPS and your phone, right?
Your GPS and your phone, it won't pick up.
You're in the middle of downtown, all those high rise buildings, and it doesn't pick up
the satellites.
It doesn't know where you are.
It won't plot the course for how to get home or how to get to your next meeting, right?
That is why we have to know who we are.
So it starts with that.
And it grows into the, well, how do I build a team?
And then at the same time we're talking about that is well, what's your purpose?
Why are you here?
Why are you why do you have a business?
What is that business doing?
How does that business tie into who you are?
Because you know what this this BS about work-life balance.
It's just that it's BS.
It's all life man.
And until you learn to manage your life, know what's important in your life, categorize
your life, if you will, is a great technique that I teach.
And how do I manage my time and allocate our most precious asset that none of us get a
single second more of or less of?
Where am I spending my time?
Am I spending my time where I say it's important?
I always love this one, guys that talk about
how important it is, know, like, especially guys getting out of the military, right?
They're like, man, I want to spend more time with my family.
Okay, what's that mean?
Does that mean you're going to take your wife to lunch once a month?
Does that mean you'll be home for dinner once a month?
Because that'd be more than what you're doing now, isn't it?
So how do you measure those things?
Quit saying I want more and how about measuring it so that you can see that you're getting
more.
So that you could see you're doing what you're actually improving.
Back to that whole thing of improving.
How do I know I'm improving if I'm not measuring my improvements?
So those are just some of the things.
I'll share with you one other one that I think is the best tool to help people get focused
on where they want to go.
Because everybody talks about you got to have this vision, right?
And vision is arbitrary.
It's you see, I'm moving my hand because it's vision is big hand, little map, right?
We're going to do business over here.
We're going to grow the business.
That's what people say.
That's my vision is to do this over here.
Really big hand, little map.
The ideal day is the best tool because we're going to make it real.
You're going to tell me what it would be like.
on, we're recording this on the 6th of December, 2024.
And your ideal day, and I challenge you with this, challenge this to you, Akhil, plan your
ideal day for 6th December, 2029.
Put a mark on the calendar and set that day up.
And let me tell you, the ideal day is the day, it's not perfect, because perfection can
never happen, but ideal can happen.
And the ideal day feels like everything flows.
Think about driving down the road.
Y'all do it on the wrong side, I know.
But driving down the wrong side of the road and you're coming up to a light and right as
that light changes or right as you approach and you're taking your foot off the gas to put
it on the brake, the light changes.
And then the next light does that right at the same time, right as you're starting to take
your foot off the gas.
And you go through the street, this long boulevard with lots of lights that you know, you
always dread driving down because it has all those lights.
And you know, takes you, you know, it takes you 20 minutes to go a mile because of all the
lights, but they all turn green, right?
As you approach them.
That's what the ideal day feels like.
It's not every day because you know, that can happen, right?
That can happen.
But it's a day that things fall into place.
And if you plan that out, you really take the time and plan that out in detail.
And when I say in detail, if you're driving, like you're driving to the office, what are
you driving?
What are you doing while you're driving?
When you get to the office or the shop, what do you do?
What's that look like?
It doesn't have to be what it is today.
Or how about this?
Because
The rules of planning the ideal day are realistically unrestricted.
So maybe you like fly fishing.
What if the ideal day for you involved on my way to the shop, I pull over, put on my
waders, pull out my fly rod, and I get a couple of casts on?
Maybe I catch a fish, maybe I not, but maybe I just get out there on the water and...
throw a couple of casts, then I jump back in the truck and drive the rest of the way to
the shop.
How about that?
So if that's part of your ideal day, where do you have to live?
It all comes back to the who you are, who you want to be.
And that's what the ideal day can really help you because it also shapes your business.
Right?
So maybe, maybe I'm spending too much time in the business or, or maybe I need a bigger
team or maybe I'm part of, chairman of the board and I'm no longer the CEO or whatever,
whatever those things may be.
imagination and we create it and it becomes real because we're creating an image of what
we want, what right looks like for us in our mind and when we have that you know what our
mind does?
It finds it for us.
completely agree with that, completely agree.
I mean, it's that visual, visualisation, right?
We need to know where are we going to be getting to?
And I know when I first first started looking into some this visualisation and all these
different things, I think, I think I watched The Secret or read The Secret years ago, that
book about visualization and everything.
And I was thinking to myself, this, this can't be real.
Like, this is all just a load of whatever.
But it's so true, because when you do, as you said, you know, what is your ideal day down
to
excruciating detail, right?
When it comes down to, you know, what you're doing as soon as you wake up, you know, where
you're going, all these different things.
It's amazing how much that can actually manifest and become reality.
But you need to first do the exercise of what does that day look like?
And it's something in the beginning of business and everything.
I didn't do any of those different things.
But especially this year, beginning of the year, was like, okay, this is what I want.
You by the end of this year, this is my ideal day.
And I'm looking at it recently as we wrapping up the end of this year.
And I was like, I've been, I've been hitting this like a lot in the last few, few weeks
for sure.
And so it's interesting how it can start to manifest, but you do need to go through that
process before, as we said, and I just circling back to what you said at the beginning of
that, when it comes down to work life balance and what people say.
I was having a conversation with someone yesterday and this person, she's a, she's a
mentor for like a few billionaires as well.
And I was asking her, what's the difference?
do you think between, you know, people at the very start of the journey versus people, you
know, at that, that big level when it comes down to having a billion dollar company.
And she said they don't look at work life balance like a balance.
They look at work life integration.
How do you make all these systems and things you have to do responsibilities integrate
into one?
Because as you said, there is no work life balance.
It's just how well do you integrate everything together?
And so you want to take a look at that.
And again, that comes into your ideal day.
How are you gonna manage the relationships you have to do whilst also managing the
business, whilst also managing your health, all these things integrate together, but you
need to obviously understand at the very top level, what is it that you're be doing in 10
years time, five years time, whatever.
Map that out and then become hyper focused on the actions, the daily actions you need to
do to achieve that goal.
yeah, yeah, you have to.
And then, you know, you have to put it into action.
You can't just sit back and, you know, manifest your future and just sit in the chair and
go, okay, I'm visualizing.
No, get up off your ass and do it.
That's what you got to do.
You put a plan together.
That's the next step after the ideal day is we put a plan together.
Because the ideal day,
We extrapolate that up into our vision.
And when we have a vision for what we want to accomplish, then we can do goals.
And after our goals, we can break our goals down into objectives.
And from our objectives, we break those down into tasks.
And we break those down into action steps.
And we break that down into, what are you doing this afternoon that's going to move you
one step closer to achieving your ideal day?
That's the beauty of it.
Yeah, yeah, completely agree.
And what I also love about you doing the exercise where you have that, that ideal day and
that vision of your future is you do want to obviously revisit that pretty much every
single day.
You want to remind yourself of what that vision is going to be.
And it's so interesting because, you know, before when I was reading up on these things,
you know, so many inputs that our brain has on a day to day basis that it filters out a
ton of different things, right?
But when you start understanding where you're going to be getting to and what you want to
get to,
is your brain will start letting in some of those things that you might have missed
before.
So it could be different opportunities, you different people you might have met, you might
not spoken to before, but you've spoken to him this time because that aligns with that
wider, that wider mission of what you have for yourself.
And so yeah, I think it's such a such an important thing for all entrepreneurs and even
just leaders, no matter what you're doing, is you put that down into writing, revisit that
every day.
But at the same time, it's not just about reading it.
It's also about
what are the daily tasks, what are the weekly tasks that we need to be doing to live up to
that future version of ourselves.
Yeah, yeah, your mind, when you have that image in your mind, your subconscious looks for
the indicators.
I'll share with you, I call this the red truck syndrome.
And what the red truck syndrome is, is today I decided I wanted to buy a red F-150.
And when I got up this morning and I went out and I went to the store as I pulled up to
the first
stop sign on the way to the store.
There's a red truck.
I get to the stoplight on the main street.
There's another red truck.
I get to the parking lot of the grocery store.
There's three in the parking lot.
I go across the street to the hardware store.
There's four more in the hardware store.
And I'm thinking to myself, gosh, did I miss the sale on red pickup trucks last night?
No, I didn't.
But you know what?
Now that I've
put that image of what I want, my mind changes the filters of what my eye sees to get and
fulfill what I want.
That's the beauty of the ideal day.
When you create the ideal day in detail, you're creating that image.
And that image is implanted in your mind and your subconscious wants to fulfill what your
conscious mind seeks and says it wants.
That's what's happening.
That's what I say when I say your mind finds those indicators.
That's what's happening.
You know, the little piece of the tail light or a flash of red or whatever.
And it's like, there's another one.
there's another one.
That's what's going on.
That's our mind.
That's our survival instincts in our subconscious that helps work in our favor to fulfill
what we say we want.
That's the power of it.
Yeah, yeah, I love that example because I think everyone can relate to that when you're
looking to buy a new car you start seeing that car over and you're like, what's going on?
And so I think that's a great example for people to understand the power of that of
essentially programming your subconscious to start looking for the things you need to be
looking for.
So I love that.
And then take me back a little bit as well.
So something that we like to sometimes discuss and revisit is your 18 year old self.
So when you're 18, if you could speak to that person right now.
What would three things or three lessons you would you would tell that person, whether
it's your mindset, philosophy, even business, you know, what would those three things and
those three lessons be and why would it be those things?
Number one would be it's the self-awareness because I didn't truly gain self-awareness
until I was much older and that's why I love working with folks that are at that younger
age to help them gain that self-awareness because that is essential tool.
accept who you are and understand who you are because when you accept who you are and
understand who you are, you accept others and you can lead better that way.
The next one is
Take a risk.
Just take a risk.
Don't be afraid of screwing something up and let that fear prevent you from stepping off
into something.
And then the third one is seek great mentors.
Just because somebody is older,
than you or is on a path that you think you want to go on doesn't mean they're the right
answer.
And I'll give an example because this one has resurfaced for me just recently in some
conversations I've had with folks.
When I was a Green Beret captain, my boss, my battalion commander told me, don't go to
school
Because the army would send me to get a graduate degree.
He told me not to pursue that because I just need to get back to the unit as quick as I
can go and do what the army says I have to do and then get right back.
Don't go to a school.
And that's that was really dumb advice.
That was not good advice.
I should have sought that further education.
I went and got it eventually.
but I should have sought that education at that point when I had that opportunity.
So it goes back to that, that was a, he was a mentor, but that was not good mentoring
advice.
And I should have realized that.
So looking back on it.
So yeah, those are the three things.
Know yourself.
Yeah.
love that, that bit about the mentoring because I think mentors are incredibly important
for for our growth.
And, know, myself, I've had a few early mentors, which some of them didn't pan out how I
wanted them to.
And, you know, there's some some differences involved.
But I think the main thing is that no matter who you get as a mentor, whether it's good or
bad, or whatever the outcome is going to be, is there's always a lesson in it.
which you've demonstrated there, right?
Because now you've learned that lesson from that mentor you had before.
And so, I say this to people all the time that, know, like, I don't really want to invest
in mentoring or invest in coaching or whatever.
Well, so either way, you're going to learn something.
That's the way you need to look at it.
Whether it's good or bad, there's going to be something there to learn.
So it's never going to be a wasted effort.
But I think, mentors are very, very important.
I think the way I'm looking at mentors myself right now is because I've had some mentors
that were, you
miles and miles ahead of where I am right now, which is great for that, you know,
visualization piece, you know, what's actually possible.
But when it comes to the day to day, what I found success in is finding mentors, you know,
two, maybe three steps ahead.
So you've just gone through that brick wall I'm trying to break through and they can give
me the actionable advice and steps for, for today and what's going to work today.
And I think that's a really helped me this year a lot versus having just the mental, which
is miles and miles ahead.
So I think
Being selective of who you choose for, you know, as a mentor, definitely very, very
important, but mentoring in general, you're always gonna learn something.
So you should always take that step.
yeah, yeah, you know, as a rule of thumb that you don't want to have a mentor that is more
than five years ahead of you also.
Yes.
Yeah.
yeah, I'm not saying that, you if you got grandpa in your life that you shouldn't listen
to grandpa.
But the way grandpa became successful in business and the way that you're going to become
successful in this business is very, very different.
Some of the fundamental lessons back to leadership, right?
The fundamental lessons are still there.
But the action steps, generally speaking, are much different.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
And then, you the final question I always love to ask on this podcast is, looking to the
future, how do you foresee leadership development and things like that changing over time?
Because now there's so much technology out there, AI, right?
It's everywhere.
How do think those are going to impact leaders and the future leaders of these companies?
Micro learning is a huge one.
think it is already started because we all carry our phones around with us, right?
And being able to take in, digest leadership lessons in a short little, all right, I've
got five minutes.
Do I want to surf social media?
Or do I want to be a better person?
Well, this time I'm choosing to be a better person.
Let me look at a micro learning app tool that I can use.
I'll give a plug in for a friend of mine's business called Fuel Inc.
who is already doing that micro learning.
It got some great, lessons in there.
think that is what is...
the future because that's why people are taking things in.
think less and less people are sitting down and reading John Maxwell's, what is this,
nearly 300 page book.
They'll listen to it.
People put the plugs in their ears and ignore everybody around them and listen to it
because that's what you do on the train, isn't it?
You put your headphones on and you don't talk to anybody, don't you?
Yeah.
I know you look like that guy.
But I think that's that's what's going to happen.
That's that's where it's going.
The leadership will not change.
The the way that people become great leaders will change.
Leadership is is the same.
It always has been the fundamentals of it.
And leading people, leading yourself, this not going to change.
It's the how, how you communicate and how you become a great leader is what's going to
change.
Okay, amazing.
Well, thank you so much for joining me on today's episode.
I've loved this conversation and we'll have you on again very soon, I'm sure.
Thanks.
Thanks for letting me have, giving me this platform to share today.
Thank