Ep 150 - "Hippy Stuff That Works"

0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Hey, y'all. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Hey, if you're not already following, please do so. And ultimately, share. The coolest currency that we have in terms of supporting this is share it with a friend. Share it with somebody, a colleague, a peer, one of your downline team members.

0:43 Let them be able to take advantage of the information you're already leveraging in your favor. And finally, guys, if you hear a show that really moves you, that really moves the needle, will you please leave us a review? Those five-star reviews help Right on. And listen, if you're trying to grow your business, you might consider checking out Floodlight's Business Opportunity Audit. It's free. We provide it at no charge. It's actually what we use to assess new clients as they come in. It's a 110-point assessment for your business. And we've now decided to give access to the general public for it. So go and take our business opportunity audit at floodlightgrp.com. It's going to help you identify the biggest gaps and opportunities in your business right now.

1:25 And at the end, it'll assign you a health score to let you know exactly where your business stands right now. So go check it out, floodlightgrp.com forward slash audit and take the BOA. It's a great way to get a pulse on your business. Dude, it's Q4. I actually had a conversation with somebody yesterday and I was talking about how Q4 is coming up. And then I realized, no, it's not coming up. We're in the freaking middle of Q4. It's almost over. Christmas is almost here. So listen, for those of you that are new to the podcast, what is this about? What are you doing here? And what are we about? So Brandon and I own a consulting company in the restoration industry called Floodlight Consulting Group.

2:06 Our clients, we have a book of clients across the entire country, a team of consultants working with them. That book this year, now of course, this is not accounting for all of the hurricane recovery underway, but our clients collectively are gonna do over a quarter billion dollars in revenue. We have clients as small as two or three million bucks a year to some that are doing 50, 60 plus million a year. If you're looking for consulting, floodlightgrp.com, That's us. Here we are. We do this weekly podcast. We get into industry stuff. It's head, heart, and boots because we're trying to talk to the whole restorer. We're trying to talk to you. Yeah. And you're not just somebody who, you know, drops dehus and air movers.

2:47 You're not only a P&L. You know, writes estimates for construction and reinstalls trim and all that stuff. Like you're a person. Some of you might be a dad, brother, grandpa, sister, mother. Yeah. wife, whatever. We're trying to speak to the whole thing. So what are we going to talk about today? I think it was my topic, isn't it? It was. Yeah. You were on something. I like where you were going. I want to talk about something that is potentially going to put me in the woo-woo, hippie, bullshit category for some of you. That might be your temptation. Okay. I get it. I've gotten this a lot over the years from Brandon. Touchy-feely. That's right. Early days. And then Brandon kind of became a, you know, a convert. More so over time.

3:28 A bit of a convert over time. Yeah, that's right. But it's just the role of, you know, I think ultimately what I'm talking about is an aspect of company culture, you know, which has become this really... vogue thing to talk about, even in the restoration industry. What kind of company culture are you building, et cetera? And I think we all have kind of our own definition of that. An aspect of that that I think I want to talk about is mindfulness. I think I just heard radios turning off. Yeah, I heard people like click over to Rogan or some other podcast. Yeah. Well, here's what triggered this.

4:08 So a couple of weeks ago, one of our clients, more on the West Coast of the United States, posted a, what looked like a Nest Cam or whatever these, you know, Wi-Fi cameras and stuff. A lot of us have them in our shops and security cams. Posted a clip from a security cam in their shop of some of their technicians and leadership staff essentially having a group hug. Yeah. And everybody's like, what the hell? I know. I know. Right inside their shop next to the shelves of air movers and dehus and all the things, right? You know, I clicked in on that post.

4:49 It was on LinkedIn. And yeah, lo and behold, there was a conflict between a couple technicians who's kind of turning into a drama. And so the department leadership, the mitigation manager got involved. Like, hey, guys, we got to work this out. You know, this is bullshit. We need to deal with this. We're not going out in the field until we deal with this kind of thing. And, you know, these two technicians were still going at it, accusing each other of different things and pissed off at each other for this and that. And ultimately, and one of the owners and general manager kind of sees what's going on, approaches the mitigation manager and these two or three technicians, two of them that are kind of primarily going out and then one that's sort of advocating for the other.

5:31 I mean, you guys know how this goes. It's like typical drama amongst our teams, right? And basically, the mitigation manager and the owner were like, look, we're just, we're not leaving. Nobody's going anywhere until we deal with this. And so they ultimately, they just facilitate this physical motion of, listen, come over here. We're going to, we're going to do a group hug. And I ended up talking with the general manager after I saw this, I called him up and I'm like, God, that was so great. He's like, yeah, it was, it worked awesome. And he said, there was something interesting that happens when we kind of, again, I'm sure there's some HR considerations here. All right. So full disclosure, right?

6:12 We don't want to just go willy-nilly hugging people, like physically hugging people. Please don't do that. But I don't think there's a problem with us asking for consent. Hey guys, can we do a group hug? So it should be in the words of, hey, can we have a group hug? May I please hug you? I think it's the right thing to do at this moment, right? We get full consent in this day and age. No, but he said what was magical is that when we close the distance... Like it's really easy to be pissed off at one another at a distance. Sure. Yeah. It's really easy for us to throw barbs out, accusations. Yep. But when we get into people's space.

6:54 Yeah. When we really can look people in the eye, right? There's something that happens. And I don't even think it's conscious. I think it's just like we can often have this realization of, oh shit, they're just like me. you know, you know, geez, I was getting carried away. Like when we get face to face, eye to eye, and even more so when we, when we hug it out, literally there is something that breaks down and diffuses like our, our anger, our frustration, our irritation, our judgments, they start to diffuse. They diffuse just enough that I can kind of regain my composure. And it was funny is just like literally a few days before this, I did this with my 16 year old son and I've been doing it.

7:37 I've been deploying it regularly. I know I'm talking about a lot about my boy lately, but it's just been a cool development for me with him. Again, it's that accountability versus relationship thing is that I can utilize the relationship to soften the accountability moments. So I'll have a very direct conversation with my boy and I'll be like, look, I don't like that I'm seeing this behavior. I don't like it at all. It's giving me some hard feelings. I'm starting to feel a little bit angry about it, which is why I'm bringing it up to you. I don't want to be angry at you. But I need this to change in some fashion. What do you suggest, right? And he'll be defensive and kind of peacock. Be like, it's not that big of a deal and all this stuff. And I'm like, all right, dude.

8:18 Well, all I'm saying is it has to change. So what are you going to do about it? And then at the end, he'll be grudgingly kind of like, all right. And I'm like, hey, dude, come on. Come in here. Let's hug this out. Bring it in. Let's hug this. And he gets this smile across his face, this smirk. Yeah. And then we hug it out. It's great. Yeah. Like it's beautiful. Yeah. It restores that warmness. Yeah. Yeah. Right? And everybody knows what I mean. It's like that warmth. right? I'm not going away pissed off and agitated by his sort of half-hearted agreement, you know, to change his behavior and do the thing. And he's not irritated and pissed off about dad, just speaking rules and making me do all this shit. No, we like hug it out and, and, and we neutralized.

9:00 The bad juju. Yeah. Right? Okay. So, so anyways. Is there an equivalent to this that's not the physical hug that we could be deploying? Well, you're going with this? Yeah. Are you teaching group hugs? Follow me. Just please follow me. All right. Just wonder. I am saying that I do think appropriately executed with consent. That is something that I think a lot of teams, they want that kind of connection across their team. You know, if you can get to a point as a team of group hugs every now and then, you I think that's beautiful. And I think it creates a, potentially creates a really great workplace culture. But anyway, so on this story, so there's more to this story. Yeah. So the group hug did the trick. And kind of resolved things. And they went out and they had a great day. It really did resolve.

9:41 Yeah, literally. It really did resolve the conflict between them. And it wasn't just a Mickey Mouse group hug. It was in concert with them talking about their grievance. Yeah. Right. So they came. The group hug helped lower everybody's battle defenses. Right. Enough. that they could get their core grievances out and process through them. And then they're fine. Ultimately determined it wasn't life all time. Jeez, I had a little bit of a wrong impression. You had a little bit of a wrong impression. We're filling in the blanks with our story in our head. Sure, yeah. But anyway, so the next morning, I thought this was also great and really instructive for all of us. That GM, Nate, you know who you are.

10:23 Awesome job, dude. Roe actively said, okay, let's make sure we remove the possibility there's some artifact from that interaction yesterday that pops back up and rears its head. Let's try to solidify what happened yesterday. Okay. with another group interaction. And so he invited those three techs, the two that were really agitated and the one kind of supporter, you know, agitator, up to the training room the next morning for a separate little ad hoc meeting, brought those guys up and he's like, hey, This is unbelievable. This is so cool. All right. I have to give a little backstory to this thing. Okay. So let me unpack this really quick. So I share my playlist on Apple Music. And there's like this function in Apple Music, those either iPhone folks and Apple folks, where you can, your friends can follow you so they can see what music you play.

11:12 Yeah. Yeah. Now, be careful with this, depending on what sort of gangster rap you might be into or whatever. But I universally listen to great music, and so I have no problem with it. So anyways, Nate was following me. And one of the albums that I've been listening to, and I think I maybe even talked about this, is by Larry Janeski. Larry Janeski is an entrepreneur in the home services industry. He owns a construction company, a home remodeling company. And I want to say he owns like a garage door overhead, you know, garage door kind of thing too. He owns multiple businesses, very successful guy. And he's kind of got this circuit being a speaker influencer dude to blue collar folks. he recorded these two albums.

11:52 I think two. One of them is called Blueprint. And we'll put, I'll see if we can put it in the show notes. But it's basically a spoken word album that he recorded. Okay. Over some sort of half cheesy 90s music, you know, beats and music background. But it's all these kind of motivational, inspirational things and geared towards business owners and leaders. Yeah. And the first time I listened to it was with a buddy on a men's retreat. We did a forest walk together. And on the way to Black Butte in Central Oregon, we all listened to this track that he calls Masterpiece.

12:35 And it's just this really cool track. And all of these dudes, all of us in the van, we're listening to it almost kind of like in a meditation while we're in route to our forest walk on this mountain. Yeah. And ever since then, I've just been listening to it. I listened to it during my sauna sessions in the morning when I'm by myself. And I feel like it puts my head in the right place, helps me think correctly, get right thinking about stuff. Anyway, so Nate listened to this one track on the Masterpiece album called New Day. And he listened to it and he's like, oh, this is so good. And so he had the idea. He's like, I'm going to bring those guys in And this is what he did.

13:16 So he goes into the shop the next morning. These guys are getting their trucks loaded out and they're doing their things. He's like, hey guys, let's have a quick powwow. Let's have a quick check-in. So he brings them up to the training room upstairs in their office area. And he checks in with them about, hey, how you guys doing? Where are we at as a team? Is there anything we need to clear the table again? Anything that's come up? No, no, okay. Hey, I have an idea, guys. Are you game to do something a little weird? Something a little bit different? Yeah. Have any of you guys ever like done a meditation or a mindfulness exercise before? And I don't know. I don't remember what the guy said. Are you guys down for it? And what he did was, they went in the training room. He queued up this track, this Larry Janeski track.

13:56 And it's like seven minutes long. It's kind of a longer thing. And he turns off the... They all lay down on the floor of the training room. They turn off the lights and... And they all collectively, the GM, and I think maybe the mitigation manager was in there as well, and then these three technicians, and they all lay there quietly listening to this mindful, this like meditation for leaders. And he said it was the most amazing thing. And then so they all listened to it. And then they all got up and they turned the lights on. And then they all talked about kind of their takeaways from listening to that track. And it was just this incredible moment.

14:37 And I was thinking, and he didn't give me all the takeaways of like, oh yeah, they said this and did that and revolutionized it. No, it wasn't necessarily that. It wasn't a one and done. No, it wasn't a one and done of, oh my God, it completely transformed our business and our company culture. But I thought so many really cool things happened there in that moment. Yeah, for sure. If you think about it in the broader context, right? There's this conflict that's happening on the team. Yeah. And I think a lot of us, maybe earlier in our careers, or even some of us right now, are still kind of struggling to find our leadership. And we're still kind of stuck in more of this command and control kind of leadership style where we see employees having drama and stuff.

15:18 And right now, maybe our approach might be, or in the past, it would have been, you know, hey, get your shit together. This is, you know, we don't do this here. You better knock it off. You know, this kind of stuff. And instead, what this leader did was... Talking through it. Yeah. Right. Helping these technicians develop the skill of how do we work through. Equip them. These conflicts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And then also a willingness to step into awkward interaction. In this case, it was a group hug. It could have been any number of approaches. Hey, you know, like talking through their feelings, right, is a really useful process to take people through. Hey, what's going on for you? Hey, what is it that exactly that you're feeling inside that's causing you to be pissed off, right?

16:03 Helping people process through their feelings and their internal experience, right? But then he took it a step further. And instead of assuming, oh, that problem is solved, he circled back around. Yeah, he memorialized it. He memorialized it and said, hey guys, we had this thing yesterday. Yeah. Right? Where are we at with that? Yeah. Because just because it seemed like it was responsible, resolved does not mean it was, does not mean it was. And so as a leader, right? Just checking back in, you know? And so, so there was that great leadership behavior and then to take it a step further and to kind of lean into whatever growth may have happened between that group and to, and to just like, he could tell, he must've been able to tell there was an openness, right?

16:46 Like there was kind of some new, yeah, there was some new thinking maybe that was stirring with that And then to just carry it forward with this mindfulness meditation. That's great. And I think the other thing that happened there for them, I'm assuming a lot of things, right? This is like armchair quarterbacking, right? But I think... Oh, by the way, too, like just in case people don't know, this is a bigger statured person. Like this is a good-sized man. Yeah. Does all the outdoor sports you can consider. I mean, everything from dirt bikes to... Very manly. Oh, yeah. Snowmobiling. You know, there's pictures of this dude getting ridiculous hair. Was born into the business, has been doing this their whole life.

17:27 I mean, this is... I mean, seriously... Nate is the prototypical successful restorer. Young guy coming up in the business, all the things. Not your woo-woo ponytail. No, yeah. You know, city boy, city, whatever, right? So anyways, I'm just so proud of him because it just, it shows a level of leadership at a relatively young age that I'm just, I'm inspired by and it really excites me. But so there was a lot of things that happened there. But I think what it also affirmed Is there culture that we're willing to do things to be our best that other companies aren't willing to do? We're willing to do stuff that feels weird, is awkward, that feels unfamiliar. Yeah.

18:09 If we think it might make us better. Right. Like there's so much that was communicated there that I just think is so cool. Here's another example just on this topic. And then I really want you to weigh in on maybe what your experience is. Okay, so for those of you that missed this, Brandon had to go take a leak. And I was like, dude, this is an opportunity. There wasn't like a real... There's an opportunity for you to create a story. I mean, how powerful is it to be like, dude, he literally pissed his pants because he didn't want to leave the podcast. I couldn't stop the podcast. That's right. Yeah. Anyways, another example is kind of fun. So this was actually... It's funny. This was pre-Floodlight. This was when I was doing some executive coaching with some restorers. And I was working with this general manager. And I was like, of a restorer on the East Coast.

18:50 He was in charge of a new location, launching the location. It was stressful, like just figuring things out as he went and whatever. And on this one particular coaching call, he's like, man, dude, he's like, I just do not... I am really struggling to get out of my head here. I had this happen today. I had this conversation with an adjuster. I had an employee quit. And I said, hey, have you ever done a body inventory? He's like, a what? I'm No. I said, well, go close your office door. Go close your office door and turn off the lights with me. Just roll with me here. You know, he's like, okay. All right. And I said, here's what I walked him through a body inventory.

19:30 Let me tell you what a body inventory is. So it's very, very simple. This is a mindfulness practice. I don't even know. I might've even heard this from freaking Joe Rogan. I guess I know years ago. I mean, you can like literally do this in the cab of your truck. You can do it. You can do it anywhere you want. I could do it right. I mean, I could literally just stop talking and I could do this while Brandon just keeps yakking. But so you can do it anywhere. But a body inventory is just simply this, right? You sit quietly with your eyes closed. preferably in like a quiet space where you don't have all the other distractions happening. And you literally just start thinking from the top of your head, just focusing on feeling your body.

20:10 which I know sounds weird to the uninitiated if you've never done it before. But if you close your eyes, you stop talking, you turn off what you're listening to, everything else, and you just sit in your chair and you notice how your body feels in your chair and you just start putting your attention on the top of your head. You're like, I don't feel the top of my head. Yes, you will. You'll actually feel the top of your head. And you move down from the top of your head to your nose, to your ears, to your neck. You feel the weight of your head on your shoulders. And you just kind of slowly move through your body, just noticing. And again, I know how weird and woo-woo this sounds because I, at one point, thought this is woo-woo. This is totally dumb.

20:51 This isn't relaxing me. This is doing nothing for me. I've felt and thought all those things. But I promise you, the second time I did it, I was like, oh shit, there's something to this. There's something very relaxing and calming about this process. Yeah, for sure. And all the way down to the bottoms of your feet and just noticing just the weight of your feet on your floor and just noticing again, all your body parts. And this whole process can take as little as a couple minutes to quiet yourself and refocus yourself. And it has a profound impact. And so I felt that experience before. So I just brought it up to him and I was like, hey, close your office door, sit at your desk. And he did it.

21:32 And I closed my eyes and did the exact same thing with him on the Zoom call. And I closed it. I was like, okay, we're all done. And he was like, holy shit, man. That was helpful. I was like, yeah, I know. Like ding, ding. And I'm like, dude, you can do this in your truck. You realize that? He's like, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So anyway, fast forward to my next coaching session with him a week later or whatever. I was like, hey, so how's your week been? He said, dude, I did that whole body thing you told me about. He's like, I actually went home that night. My wife and I have kind of been like, we've kind of just been at it.

22:15 Just frustrated with each other and just life stressed out. He's like, you know, when I got home, I told her about it. And she's like, oh, well, let's just, why don't we do that now? He's like, we sat on the couch next to each other And we did it for like, they didn't do it. You probably wish it. That was super therapeutic. That was very, yeah, boy, could I make a million dollars still teaching? I'm going to become a marriage therapist. That was great. Yeah. Oh, goodness gracious. No, they literally sat and they did this body inventory. Boy, it still seems lascivious, but they did the body inventory exercise next to each other together. And he's like, man, it completely changed the trajectory of our evening together versus how our evenings had been going.

23:00 Yeah. Arguments and frustration and all that kind of stuff. He was like, it was amazing. He said, and then the next day or a couple of days later, one of my techs came in and was just pissed off, irritated about this new tech we'd hired and they're training them. And then they had an interaction with an adjuster on a loss and that was frustrating. And he's like, I just, I kind of, you know, stopped him. And I said, Hey, I can tell you're really stressed out. Do you want to try something with me that I learned from my coach? Yeah. And he led his technician. I love it. Taught the technician about, they did it together. So imagine the GM sitting behind his desk in his office, technician sits down at the desk in front of him.

23:44 And then this GM leads him through this body inventory, mindfulness meditation. And the technician was like, oh my God, wow, that was good. That was helpful. Yeah. And so, you know, I share this because I think in our industry, right? I've tended to be one of those woo-woo guys. You know, I didn't grow up in construction. I didn't grow up with a hammer in my hand. I'm not, I'm just not one of those guys. I'm one of those people who came from outside the industry. And I think that there's more of a place for these kinds of things in our businesses than maybe we might've thought.

24:25 You know what I mean? It's like we hear about the yoga stuff and we hear about the meditation and things like that. And we just think, well, that doesn't fit maybe in our industry. We're just too full of bravado. I don't know. I don't know why there's such a... We just think that doesn't fit in our industry space. Yeah. But those are just a couple examples of where I've seen that kind of practice have a tremendous effect on people. Like, face it, we're in a really stressful, chaotic business. Yeah. And I think in many ways, our business is more suited to us prioritizing those things and developing those practices and ways of self-management within our teams.

25:13 In many ways, we should be more diligent about teaching our teams these methods and ways of managing our anxiety and our stress and our anger. Yeah. Yeah. liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. You've heard Brandon and I talk a bunch of times about the importance of Google reviews. Maybe you even heard our episode with Zach Garrett, the CEO and founder. Recency, consistency, two of the most important things when it comes to maximizing the benefit from your Google reviews. Why not use an outside partner? Liftify is targeting 20 to 25% conversion, right? So if you do a thousand jobs a year, you ought to be adding right now, 200 to 250 reviews a year, every single year.

25:57 If you're not doing that, you owe it to yourself to get a free demo from liftify.com. See their system, see how it works, see how affordable it is. I promise you, you'll thank us. Liftify.com forward slash bloodlight. You know, we spend a lot of money and a lot of attention trying to get that first call. And one of the things that we do once it happens is sometimes we leave it to chance, right? Who picks up the phone? How do they respond? How do they walk that client into a relationship with us? Well, one of the benefits of partnering with a team like AnswerForce.com is we can systemize that. We can make it more consistent. We can also have backup for when our teams need that help, right? Somebody goes on vacation. Somebody's out sick.

26:37 We get a storm surge. We get cat event. All sorts of things can have an impact on how we receive that client. But the most important thing is they need to know that they've chosen the right team. And so AnswerForce.com can support you, be a bolt-on partner to help you consistently produce an awesome onboarding experience with that first call with your client. So AnswerForce.com forward slash answerforce.com. blood light. Sounds great. CNR Magazine, we're friends with all the folks at CNR. Michelle and her team, they do a great job of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting all the important information from our industry. Right? You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully.

27:18 Right? She's got that. Great articles about all the four quadrants of our business. Right? CNR is constantly pushing out great material and leveraging great writers and subject matter experts in our industry. It is the water cooler of our industry. So if you're not subscribed, go to cnrmagazine.com. Follow them on LinkedIn. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Trust us. If you're trying to stay on top of everything happening in the industry, your best destination is cnrmagazine.com. You guys, many of you have already heard about actionable insights and the training and the technical expertise that they bring to the industry. But how many of you are already leveraging the actionable insights profile for Xactimate?

28:00 That's the game changer. It's essentially an AI tool that's walking alongside of you as you write your estimate, bringing things to your attention that should be added, that could be considered. All of them items that increase our profitability, increase the effectiveness and the consistency of that scope. And it can do anything from helping a new team member assimilate some estimating best practices. And it also helps the grizzled bets add back that few percent that we've just forgot over time. So actionable insights, get insights.org forward slash floodlight and take a look at what the actionable insights exactimate profile could be doing for you and your team.

28:41 I know that you're drawing on the last eight plus years of operating in the space. But I think too, just in general, that's professionally supporting people in our work environments. It pays dividends. Yeah. It just pays dividends. I think it reduces drama. I think it has all these healthy benefits. It's funny because I'm not naturally inclined to a lot of that stuff. But I mean, people know if they've listened to the show for a while, if they've ever done business with me, like there's a strong chance some kind of tear will be shed on my apartment because I'm absolutely an emotional guy. But I don't tend to give myself the space normally for those kinds of things. And you know, the reality of it is, is that...

29:24 they do work. And if you can get out of your own way for half a minute and you actually just do some of these things, you're going to realize very quickly, hey, regardless of how I feel in quotes about it, this stuff actually works. You know, and I think you and I were talking about this quite a bit, a handful of weeks ago, because we just got through with hunting season. I was bow hunting and stuff. And it was like the same concept. It's just this idea that when you're present, it's difficult to be stressed out because you're not worrying about the past and you're not worrying about tomorrow. You're just right here right now. And there's something really interesting that happens when we're not stuck on either end of those spectrums and we're just right here present right now.

30:07 It really is fundamentally healing. It's very odd. And I think where my mind started to go more recently, again, because I'm not inclined to lead into this naturally, I look at it and I say, okay, why would I try it? Well, I try it because my existing mechanisms aren't yielding the result I want. So therefore, I have to be willing to try new stuff. Otherwise, I can't have a realistic expectation that shit's going to change. It's the whole definition of insanity. Do the same shit and hope that the outcomes are different. And so I think what I've tried to lean into just to give myself the motivation to try more of this stuff is... Okay, well, the old gut through it, compartmentalize, shove down, and grit your teeth and move forward.

30:52 Yeah, it does work. It's gotten me a lot of places. And it also breaks down. And when it's breaking down, I got to deploy a new tool. Yeah. So that I can have the hopeful expectation I'll experience something different. So when I lean into that, and I go ahead and give it a try, I'm normally surprised and or awarded by the fact that, you know what? That was actually super helpful. It's true. And I think we all want our people to work well and perform well under pressure. Yeah. We all want people to not be angry and volatile and reactive. And at the same point, how are we modeling that for our people?

31:33 Sure. And I think this is just one of those ways that I've found that we really can hit reset. Yeah. Calm the nerves. There's another analogy when I'm talking to people about this body inventory thing. Another analogy that somebody shared with me at one point was what it does is it restores your ability to manage your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. manage what's coming at you. And here's the example that I've, that I just think works so well is it's like, it's like when you go to the public library and maybe some of you've done with this with your kids recently to go check out books or something. But it's like, what do we do when we go to a public library a lot of times? Unless we're looking for a specific book, maybe we're looking at a section of books or a certain author we like.

32:14 And what do we do? We, we pick that book off the shelf and maybe we read the back cover and, And we're like, nah, that's not what I'm looking for right now. And we can put the book back on the shelf. Yeah. And that's such a great analogy for our own thoughts is that our thoughts are often random, incessant, not helpful in the moment. Sure. The thoughts that are cycling in our head, especially when we're stressed out or we're feeling something negative or dealing with a negative situation. Yeah. And what meditation does, just the best analogy that I've heard from somebody is, when we pause and get focused in our body, like doing that body inventory is with our eyes closed, is that it starts to give us a little bit more control over our thoughts. Yeah.

32:54 And if we have a negative or stressful thought that we're just like, is stressing us out even more, it's almost as though we can choose intentionally to put that book back on the shelf. Yeah. Like, you know what? It doesn't make sense for me to keep... you know, circling on this because I'm either one, not in a position to do anything about it or two, I have no control over that thing. Right? There's like, there's a lot of reasons why we shouldn't be stressed out about certain things. But when you're just kind of going through the motions and humping from one thing to the next, it's like you're kind of out of control. Yeah. And so these mindfulness things... like we've been talking about, can often kind of reset our control center.

33:37 Yeah. I'd be like, all right, I'm going to put that thought down because it's not useful, you know? Yeah, that tool's not meant for this occasion. Yeah, it's just incredibly powerful. I really like that analogy. That I can really connect with. Like that's deployable for me is this idea of, just gives you the presence of mind to be able to choose whether or not what you're doing, how you're responding is appropriate. Is it the way that you want to be acting or responding or not? You've used the, I think the terminology, emotional bandwidth, I think is what you've used in the past where it's just kind of this similar principle where if there's something that you can do in the moment to just give you a second to analyze whether or not you're about to react in a way that you want to, and then you all of a sudden have options instead of being a victim of your own kind of default behavior or action.

34:25 It's just really powerful. I think the other thing that it really does is I think it really does blanket you as a leader in more of this wisdom state. And what I mean by that is When I look out over the years, and I think I've probably even said something similar to this in a show, is when I look out over the years, the people that I admire, not just give them professional respect, but admire. Like really kind of say, wow, that's somebody that's wise. There's wisdom. In most cases, those are people that rarely, if ever, admire. have acted in such a way where it was explosive and extremely emotionally driven.

35:07 Yeah. And that in itself defines wisdom, I think. Yeah. And I think it gives you a sense of trust, balance. It's just very interesting impact when people are… Self-controlled. Self-controlled. Yeah. Self-controlled. Yeah. Right? Like, if they use certain words, it's because they intended to. Yeah. if they have a certain cadence or tone in their voice, it's because they intended to. It's on purpose. It's on purpose. They're not a bystander to emotional outburst. It's controlled and intentional. And they have times where they need to be a little bit more aggressive in their approach, but you're never going to see somebody like that coming off unhinged. Yeah, Jim Dethmer talks about It's the difference between somebody living at the effect of other things and other people versus moving in such a way that we are affecting the things around us with our leadership.

36:02 Yeah, it's... Well, it's essentially victim versus creator. That's right. Right? Yeah. It's the difference in mindset. And there's different ways to skin a cat. But I think with the way that a lot of... And I'm just going to say collectively, this isn't an accusation to anybody in the industry. I think as an industry, we tend... to move towards substances, to handle that anxiety, chaos, frustration, those difficult, stressful feelings. Yeah. You know, whether that's incorporating alcohol into our day and our lunches, or it's, you know, hitting the nicotine or the THC vape or the whatever it is to just moderate all that stress and anxiety. That's right. And I think what we're talking about is there are these other tools that don't kind of obligate you to those type of habits that we've all seen.

36:48 Yeah, right. Right. It allows you to just work with, like, these tools are already on board to be able to manage stress and anxiety. Well, and I think what, you know, it's so interesting because both of your examples, all two, three examples, look how far reaching the impact was too. Yeah. So the stage was set in a professional environment. Yeah. Which is very interesting. Yeah. And then from there, it spilled out into other relationships, other arenas to really tack on or multiply the reward of the, of the behavior. Yeah. And I think that's what's really interesting. I think it's last week or maybe a couple weeks ago, we were talking about just the honor of what would we call it?

37:33 But it was this idea of balancing and the honor that we have as leaders. And I think this is a similar opportunity where what an amazing opportunity to equip somebody with something that not only had a positive impact in the way that they interacted with peers and coworkers... But then to know that it leveled up their relationships that they had outside of the workplace. It's like, wow, what? How cool is that? If I was telling my partner at home, hey, I want to try something. The leader, the manager, the owner, my department manager taught me this thing at work. That in and of itself is crazy. And then to have this partner experience this more wisdom version of you...

38:15 that he or she is hearing came from a leader at your workplace and they equipped you. It's like, think about what that does for the relationship to work. So it's like you're making your people better, which in effect have a positive impact on on their ability to work with co-workers and team members, obviously influencing the culture. But then this robust trust and support you're bringing from their partners because the partners are getting to experience this benefit of some of these things that you're coaching your team members on how to use. It's like, can you imagine what that does to the stickiness of your people? No, they don't want to leave you for a dollar an hour because...

38:58 their partner doesn't want them to leave your organization because you're a better human being employed by Nate's company, as an example. Like, that's rad, dude. It's super rad. And I think it carries its own reward. On top of the positive impacts to your business and the people, it's like... How rad of an environment is that? And to be able to have that as part of your legacy. For sure. Yeah. You know, it's like, does it benefit your business? Totally. But it's like, it's something that all of us can be proud of having that kind of impact. Yeah. And I think too, this also touches on something that is just such a massive prevailing problem in our industry amongst leaders.

39:40 Is it because of the high stress nature, the anxiety that just the rhythm of this industry tends to create, the anger, the reactivity, the outbursts, the chaos? Like, I think it's probably one of the biggest glass ceilings for leaders in our industry is their lack of self-control when it comes to anger and outbursts. Yeah. Yeah. And I think probably all of us listening to one degree or another have given into that. Sure. Right? But the only way to deal with that is to find some way to self-regulate.

40:25 And I think some people, again, they go to the substances and that works for a while. Yeah. That can work. That can work to a point. Yeah. But most people find that's not sustainable. So there's only one way and that's through. It's like, I have to learn how to moderate and regulate my emotions. And even more so in this business. Yeah. Even more so. It's like, if you're a CPA or accountant, you deal with that, but it's for three months out of the year. Yeah. You got to find a way through those three months and then you go take a big vacation to the Bahamas. It's like, but with us as restorers, it's all the time and we never know when. Yeah. We never know when we're going to get thrown into the fire. Yeah. And so our ability as leaders to self-regulate and manage our emotions and our output in that environment.

41:13 Yeah. that we can develop as leaders in this industry, period. I think you're spot on. Learning how to run great meetings is, Who gives a shit if you can't control your emotions? Yeah. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Who cares how tight your org chart is and your ability to recruit talent? If you can't manage your emotions, eventually it's going to sabotage what you're building. It's true. Yeah. You're going to lose good people. You're going to lose good people. You're going to lose respect. And the problem is too, is you may not even recognize the opportunity cost of your behavior. Correct. to keep getting people through the door. But it's like, what is the potential that you're sacrificing?

41:54 Right. You know? It's the, you know, it kind of goes back to the consistency compounds. When we're turning people because of our emotional outbursts, you're never getting the momentum or the compounding effect of people with time and grade. Yes, yes. And it may be, really, I mean, I don't know if you agree with me, but I think it may be one of the single greatest challenges or problems in our industry. Right. I think it's a huge challenge for companies. Yeah. I think that owners, entrepreneurs can live a very stressful life. It is this, it's never ending. It's constant pressure and it can demand a lot. And often in that demand, our responses are not what they could be.

42:34 Especially when you really care. I mean, yeah. I mean, angry outbursts and saying terrible things in the moment does not necessarily mean somebody's an asshole, a tyrant, like... It's kind of that both and deal. It's almost sometimes the opposite. It almost is. Because they are so convicted and so dedicated that that fire comes from the conviction. It's not that they're void of care. Yeah, this isn't a judgment of, you know, we're an industry full of assholes. No, no. Definitely not. I'm the asshole. Like, I am guilty of these. I've done this. I've lost control. I've my frustration. My stress has overtaken me in this industry as well at times. And I've burned bridges. And I've caused some wounds.

43:14 You know, I think the other thing that you're pointing to, Chris, and maybe, you know, I'm not trying to close this per se, but I just think it's something is... All of this points towards a person that's proactively engaging themselves in their environment. It's the proactiveness that changes everything. We've talked about this with project manager roles. We've talked about this and the nuts and bolts is putting yourself in a role where you're proactively leading your organization, your behavior, your interactions with your team members, your people at home. It changes everything. It just changes absolutely everything. It really does. Changes everything. So go do everything we talked about, right? That's right. Go have a little meditation with your key employees tomorrow.

43:58 Larry Janeski. It's a good place to start. Seriously though, actually, Larry Janeski is great. Next time you're in your own sauna or hot tub in the evening, unwinding, it's really positive. So listen, shameless plug, thinking about proactive, okay? And... I don't know if anyone else has experienced this. This is totally me being tongue-in-cheek. This was a fucking crazy year. Can you think of a different way to say it? Sorry, Chris is working on my... F-bomb allotments. This has been a wild year. It's been a stressful year. I think for a lot of restorers and business owners in general, we're not clean of this. It has just been a crazy year. I think the first of the year was rough for a lot of restorers.

44:41 The claim volumes were down. We didn't see the opportunities that we were anticipating. I think a lot of folks now then are closing the year just in a mad dash to support some of the cat events and the storm work that's been coming in. And then we've spent, what, the last... three months listening to the back and forth and the battle going on in our presidential election, I know I'm not the only entrepreneur that is pretty damn tired of 2024. And I'm thinking about all the work our team's been putting in to create the infrastructure on board the software system that we've adopted this year. Like our team's been grinding gears in preparation, not only for ourselves to take advantage of 2025, but more importantly, and this is not, I am not trying to understate this.

45:28 Yeah. we are prepared to help companies in a crazy way next year. And I don't know if you're feeling like I'm feeling, but I am ready to be done with 2024. I want to have a great holiday season with my friends and family. And then I want to get the F out of 2024. And I want to hit the ground running. And I want our team motivated and excited about what the opportunities are ahead of us, regardless of what happens in the election. I think all of us are just done being done. And so if that's you, if you guys are thinking that way, you're ready to just get into next year and hit the ground running with a sense of purpose. And you want to proactively engage people. your business and think about what kind of behavior systems process changes you can implement to change the outcomes you've experienced previously.

46:17 Guys, I can say this with 100% conviction. Our team's been working hard behind the scenes to lay a path to partner with you and your organization to do that. And so if you're starting to get into the end of the year woes and you're ready to get a fresh start next year, I would seriously consider jump over to floodlightgrp.com. Check out what we've got going on. And if it piques your interest at all, just reach out. Talk to Chris. Talk to me. Talk to one of our team members. Let's kick the tires. Let's just take a look and see what we could potentially do to help you. And let's, as a team, move into 2025 with a sense of proactive purpose.

46:57 And let's change some shit and let's experience some different outcomes. Cool? It's awesome. Okay, man. All right, guys. We'll see you later. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.