Ep 28 - Kickboxers Beware
Kickboxers rarely make it big in MMA. Many struggle to adapt their skillset beyond striking. In order for them to be champion level in MMA, it requires them to become proficient in wrestling and jiu jitsu, which requires they start at "the bottom" again. Very difficult to go back to being a novice when you've been accustomed to living as a champion. But apparently that's what it takes.
And of course there's an obvious parallel with owning or leading companies- as the company grows, it requires new skills. In some cases, radically different skills than were required to get you to your current size/scope.
There's a quote that's been attributed to Clate Mask, the founder and CEO of Keap (formerly Infusionsoft), one of the leading marketing automation software platforms:
"A good leader can take a company through a single successful growth cycle. A great leader can take the team through two growth cycles. And a unicorn can lead a company through 3 or more periods of significant growth."
The implication of course, is that as our companies grow, we have to be prepared to completely retrain ourselves on the new skills required for the next season of growth. What got us here, is not what will get us where we're going next.
Thanks for listening! If you enjoy the podcast please be sure to leave a review, follow the show (don’t forget to turn on your notifications!) and share with a friend. Your continued support is what makes this mission possible.
Thank you sponsors!
Xcelerate Restoration Software
Xcelerate is an innovative restoration job management solution that brings many of the tools you need to succeed into a single, more intuitive platform.
Xcelerate is designed specifically for the restoration contractor industry
- Increase your operational efficiency
- Improve your profitability
- Elevate both your job and team management
www.xlrestorationsoftware.com/mrm
Actionable Insights (Xactimate and restoration technology training)
Actionable Insights is an educational non-profit that’s helping contractors and carriers settle claims with Xactimate and Matterport.
Are you looking for the best ways to invoice in Xactimate? Check out their 3700+ page database of Xactimate invoicing templates known as the Insight Sheet Database.
Not finding the right line items? It’s probably in their Commonly Overlooked Line Item Database - you can’t use a line item if you don’t know about it!
Are you using Matterport right now? Do you want to make sure you’re not left behind as the industry goes digital? Actionable Insights has the training and resources you need to find success today and going forward
Floodlight Consulting Group
Equipping restoration business owners to establish processes, develop their teams, increase revenues and grow their profits.
Floodlight Leadership Circles
The Floodlight Leadership Circles are designed to empower restoration business owners and key leaders through education, training, coaching and community engagement.
- Monthly Sessions
- Open Office Hours
- Expanding Partnerships Of Industry Professionals
- Customer Segment Leaders
- Continually-Updated Content Library
- Rich Non-Market Competing Community
https://www.floodlightgrp.com/leadershipcircles
Individualized Operations Consulting and Training
The Floodlight team provides customized consulting and training support for restoration companies looking to grow and scale their business.
- 100% Tailored to each client
- Formal consulting sessions for owners and key leaders
- Full one-on-one access to the Floodlight team and their network of industry experts
0:07 Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. I don't know. What'd you think? I don't know. It's kind of serious. Should we laugh? Chris, hello. Dude, we've had... How long has it been? What? Since we've recorded a podcast. I mean, we had a whole backlog. Well, we did. And then we took December off. And that's, I think, what's got us feeling like we're out of sorts. Like we really... Oh, that's so funny. We're talking like this is sometime in the future, like January, February or something. Christopher, it is.
0:49 You don't have to give away all traits and secrets. I want special effects in a movie to fool me. That's the point of going to the movie. Listen, we've been traveling a fair amount. Our traveling is really spooled up and it's thrown off our disciplines a little bit. Some of our battle rhythms. And we are taking December off. So by the time you hear this... you will be hearing us say we took December off. So, all right, man, let's... This was actually a fun topic that you brought up when we were doing our normal coffee walk and you came up with a really cool topic that I'm excited to dive into. So where are we going? Well, we talked about this. I love listening to podcasts.
1:29 A lot of my primary learning now is coming from podcasts, probably as much as books these days. I was listening to a podcast episode with Steve Rinella and Joe Rogan. And I don't know if I've made passing reference to this, but I don't think we've really dived into the subject. Well, you covered all the bases, so I think we're okay. There was an interesting little subtopic in that conversation where... either Joe or Steve said, kickboxers. This is really, I'm just diving right in. You know, Joe Rogan's obviously an MMA commentator, huge fight fan, and it turns out Steve Reilly is. So they start talking about MMA. And one of them made an observation, gosh, what is it with kickboxers?
2:10 Kickboxers rarely become champions in MMA. It's like a thing, apparently. And Joe started to break that down because he's kind of an expert in all things fighting. And he said, the reason for that, or one of the reasons for that is these kickboxers come from Japan, right? Where they are exalted. They are superheroes. They are superstars. They're funded. They make real money. Maybe not MMA money, but they're like at the top of their game. They're making a really good living. Yeah. And then they decide to take it to the next level and come into the MMA. And in order for them to become superstars in the MMA, like the Conor McGregors and so forth...
2:50 They have to develop new skills. And most kickboxers will not learn the wrestling and jujitsu required. They just want to be expert strikers. And it's not enough in MMA. It's not enough. They'll go to the ground and they get beat and they get beat and they get beat and they never rise to the level of what they experienced in kickboxing. And so most don't. Most start to fail and they just leave the industry. And I thought about that. What does that story mean? What does that mean for me? What does that mean for all of us? I think one of the things that provokes in me is just this idea of, I've always been an ambitious person, always looking to what's the next thing?
3:33 How do we grow this bigger? How do we create more impact? Yeah. money, all the things. And yet I think sometimes I feel myself hitting up against this wall where I have to literally start at the bottom again. and relearn a new skill. And actually, I have an MMA story. So about three years ago, about three years ago, I started taking my son to jiu-jitsu. I did karate for about a minute back when I was like 12. A whole minute, yeah. I found it really boring. The katas, doing that whole dance thing where I told, gosh, I hate it. I just want to fight. I just want to punch things, right? A 12-year-old. I found it so incredibly boring. And so I quit it.
4:14 But so we went to go do BJJ. I ultimately got out of it. I broke my hand. I'm like, look, I am too busy. I have too many other things going on to injure myself. And so I left and I kind of regret it. But anyhow, one of the things I recall about that experience is how utterly humbling it was from the jump. Yeah. Now, I'm a person. I'm not a professional athlete. I don't have an Instagram body. But I've always worked out. It's been a thing for me since college. I love lifting weights. I love the satisfaction of it. I stay in pretty good shape. And so I rolled into this first BJJ session at this academy here where I live. And within the first 15 minutes of the class, I'm humbled.
4:58 Even the warm-up, the moves, the tumbling and stuff they do to warm up to roll were more difficult for me than I felt they should be. Like, I'm a guy who works out again, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just found myself so utterly overwhelmed. humbled. Now, follow on for the next two or three months. I'm rolling with 20-year-old females. I'm 40 years old with 200 pounds on me. And I'm having 115-pound girls that are putting the pain on me. I have... And that's not a gender thing. I have a young female who's like 80 pounds less than me, may not have ever lifted weights in the gym.
5:42 And she is choking me and putting me in pain. It's humbling. And to have wiry 140 pounds, 30-somethings, and or the guy who eventually broke my hand... I really broke my hand because I did something stupid. But to have a 70-year-old double black belt who I'm easily 50 pounds heavier than, probably in the gym, probably can bench press more than him, probably can do all the things more than him. And to have him throw me around like a rag doll and choke me and pinch me and bind me up to where I can't move, incredibly humbling.
6:22 It would have been fun to watch. I'm not going to lie to you. I would have loved to have been to a fly on the wall. It would have been hilarious. So I know what that feels like. And so the story about how kickboxers don't want to start at the bottom again, it's very real to me. I think even as you and I've transitioned from being operators, like in the field, in the trench, doing the work of building a restoration company, moving from that to consulting and teaching and guiding and doing that whole bit, It is a different craft. Yeah. It's a different craft. And it's been very humbling learning those skills, figuring those things out. There's been moments of embarrassment. I should have known that, should have thought that, whatever.
7:03 Yeah. There's been really incredibly humbling parts to it. And to be honest, there has been times where it's like, wow, I want to move back to a place as quick as possible. where I'm more of a top dog, more of an apex predator. I know what I'm doing. I know how to do it. That was an easier place to be in some respects. But I forgot it took me 20 years to get there. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it's super applicable to just us and how we manage our businesses. And War, really, I mean, it's more simple than that. If you think about the application of this, of just folks moving up the chain of command, right? I mean, we talk about this all the time.
7:43 The default is to take someone who has developed a tradecraft. Let's say they're very good at the technical aspects of drying structures and running commercial losses. And we think, okay, this person is going to be a perfect mitigation department manager, right? And so we make that move, we make that promotion. And ultimately what we struggle with that is that we've asked this person to now live in a space that's on the outer edges of their true capacity, right? Because knowing how to dry something, it's not the same tools that they'll be using to lead people, right? To now get the same result, but instead of through themselves, the whole mindset, the whole shift, right?
8:25 Is that now I'm leading people to get these results, right? Dude, here's the phrase that comes to me when you say that. Because for me, one of my big leadership transitions was going from an individual producer selling Creating new relationships, opening up new markets. Love that stuff. Super fun, challenging, engaging, all that stuff. Being a personal producer, the better part of my career. And then transitioning into sales, marketing, leadership. Having a sales team, having marketers that are working with me. It's this transition of, hey, look at me. Hmm. To, hey, look at you, right? Yeah. To eventually, right, the next sort of leadership level is, hey, look at them.
9:07 Like, I didn't make this. Look at what they built. Yeah. Look at how cool. Look how they function. You know what I mean? Like, it's that transition of, look at me. And I don't mean that narcissistically, but as a salesperson, it's all about the persona, the value you're creating, how you deliver service to your customers and build that relationship and stuff. It's all about you. It's like, hey, what can I do for you? And it's all... Right? To then pouring into and equipping, supporting, spotlighting the others. Yeah. Yeah. to eventually getting to a place where I'm not even really part of the value chain anymore.
9:48 It's what all of my people are doing, right as an owner. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I'm not influencing the overall operations of the business. I'm simply pouring into a small few and they're creating... I'm not creating anymore at some point. I think it's where we all want to get. Because if you're creating, you can't be in Costa Rica. If you're creating, you oftentimes can't beat your kid's soccer game on Saturday morning. So it's going through those levels and just how awkward and hard. I feel the embarrassment right now as I think about that transition. And at times, I feel like I still am. I'll have a moment where I'm like, okay, I find myself having to shift gears because I'll get back in that me mode.
10:32 Right. Versus the equipping, etc. Well, and really what we're talking about in this is just this constant state of you end up being potentially in this constant state of realizing what you don't know. Right. Like, oh, oh, right. Like, oh, there's this yet another skill set or yet another tool or resource I need to become adapt at. Adept. And I think that that's the challenge. It's like you're talking about these kickboxers. There's a realization that what they knew is not the same thing that's required any longer to be successful. Or it's only a small piece, right? It's one of the pieces. It's not the thing. It's a third of the toolkit. Right, exactly. And I think that that's the realities of all of us.
11:15 Again, as we move up that chain of command, as we develop our businesses, or we hit certain thresholds in our company's development... we anticipate or we get put into situations where we're very aware that we're missing the toolkit to take it to the next level. And it can become really overwhelming. I mean, we talk to business leaders all the time. Here's an example of a transition that this may look like. And this is a really interesting one because I think there's so much internal value associated with it. We had a conversation not long ago, with a business owner. And we were just talking about the fact that they are moving into a position where they're not necessarily required to run day-to-day operations, which I know some of you are listening to that and going, Oh gosh, that's beautiful.
12:05 That's where we're all headed. Please. But what was interesting in it, and I think it's really pointed to this conversation is, is that I think as business owners, we all want that. We're all thinking about the fact that we want depth. We want this company that can run without us. But then for those few who have made it far enough that they begin to experience it, then all of a sudden there's this new feeling of, Where's my value? Right? Like, what am I... Well, if I'm not needed in this area, what am I bringing to the table? And so what, again, preemptively thinking about it, it's all gumdrops and roses. Like, we're really excited. And then the time comes that you experience it.
12:46 Inevitably, you feel this fish out of wateredness. Like, well, what am I doing now? What are the skills I need to be bringing? What is the position that I need to fill in? And I think that that's part of that same challenge that you get. Like, you know, again, talking about these kickboxers, it's like, I know my craft. I know my trade. I know what's required to be successful. I have this vision of being an MMA fighter. I want to bring the whole enchilada. I'm going to go kick some butt. They get into that position finally, and then they realize, crap, now what? Right. So, you know, for me, I'm that, I think often the piece of the brain that needs, okay, but what do I do now? Okay, I'm aware of it, but what?
13:27 So I think part of me is thinking about that right now with this conversation of how do I do that better? How do I walk into that space, whether I did it totally intentionally right out of the gate or if I'm inevitably just am now in this position as I've naturally grown my company where I'm feeling like, Man, every time I turn the corner, either I'm frustrated that I didn't have the answer, the right response, I didn't feel like I had the skill set, or someone in a peer group or a consultant or a coach or a friend... Gives me some perspective that reminds me like, oh gosh, man. Yeah. Somehow I think all of us need to have somebody hold up a mirror.
14:08 Yeah. We need a Joe Rogan saying, dude, you're going to suck if you don't figure out this wrestling and BJJ thing. Yeah. You think you're going to win with kicks and punches? Not going to work. Yeah. Like somebody has to have the brass sometimes to say that to us, to hold up that mirror and say, hey, great striker, awesome, but you're never going to kill it in the MMA if you don't figure this other stuff out. If you continue to do only what you're doing now. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to add these additional tools to your tool set. I think about a client that I had a while back. It's funny. Part of the awkwardness of our podcast is just obviously we want to honor privacy and all that stuff. And so you'll hear us kind of mealy-mouthed sometimes, like trying to set up a story.
14:52 That's because obviously we want to protect our clients. But there's just so much we pick up from... the work we do. I think of, frankly, there's a whole category. of restoration businesses in our industry. I think this is just universal. It's very common. So they're in that 1 million to 2... I've even seen some that are in that 3, 4, 5 million range where they've really won. They've been very successful because of their character, the quality that they committed to delivering to their customers, and just their charisma. It's like people want to follow them. They're good. People like saying yes to them. They follow through. They're good people. They're good business. They're good salespeople, etc.
15:32 And they just struggle to get past that barrier, over that hump. They struggle to get out of the field, out of the trucks, out of that supervision, those field roles. They just struggle. They want to. They have the resources to make the transition. They're good. But it's the behaviors. The behavior change, the different role that you have to take on to get out of the fieldwork. It's just a whole new way of spending yourself. It's all different behaviors. And it's scary because there's also this moment of like that where you're on the precipice where you start to delegate fully and there is risk and things are going to break.
16:21 And I think when you've got an operator that I'm just totally throwing out round numbers, but it's like you have somebody that's in that million, 2 million range, and they're taking home however much healthy six figure income as an owner There just comes a point where it's like, you know, I'm winning. Am I willing to go back to a place where I feel like I'm not winning? Am I willing to feel like a loser for a little while in order to really build the thing I truly want? Because I think you and I met a lot of owners. We have a lot of friends who are entrepreneurs and all that kind of stuff where it's like, yeah, you get to where you're winning. Well, then what? What? I mean, is it just about playing on the weekend on your motorcycle and having that boat docked at the slip?
17:04 Right? Is it... Because I think real entrepreneurs, that's not enough. And so I've been this guy and we've met clients and we've met people in the industry where it's just so hard to get over that hump. It's the paradox of success, right? In order to find more success, it's almost like you have to humble yourself back to being unsuccessful in order to grow to the next thing. Yeah, I think for sure. I like where you went there. I feel like there was a couple categories you tagged into, but I think that first thing that you laid out was the mirror. Like, okay, so if we can, I guess, buy into this idea that inevitably, in order for you to...
17:45 push through the existing ceiling that maybe you or your business is in currently, or if what you're doing right now doesn't... It's not paying off the way that you anticipated. That can look like a lot of different things. Everything from financial, the time spent, whatever. Your value system, right? Right. You don't feel like you're getting out of the thing what you were anticipating. I think what will be required, the first piece for you to make any kind of healthy transition out of that is a mirror. Someone that you trust. that's in your sphere of influence, that has your best interest in mind, that you have given permission to, say, here's where I'm at, here's my business. You have this relationship, trusted relationship, where that person can say, hey, this is something I'm seeing that I think could be holding you back.
18:33 Or maybe a lack of strength in this particular skill set is probably hindering your progress. And again, friends, great peer group, a mentor, right? Maybe someone that's a few yards in front of you in the race, coaches, right? Or a consultant. I mean, right. Didn't plan on this pitch, but or consultants, right? In some ways, we do a lot of tactical work with clients. We show them the things to do. We give them best practices, all this kind of stuff. But I feel like in a lot of ways, the most important and impactful thing, what our clients really pay us for is to be the mirror. Yeah. No, I agree. So wherever you find that, yeah. You got to have it. But you got to have it and it's got to be clear.
19:15 Can't be a foggy mirror. It can't be this vanilla milk toast kind of feedback. It's like you need somebody to help you see clearly. Yeah. Right? Yeah. This is a critical piece. And then, okay, great. We get that mirror. We have someone in our sphere of influence that's telling us... where there could be some weaknesses, where there could be a blind spot, whatever the case may be, that's slowing our progress or preventing this transition, then what else is required? And I think this mindset, and this sounds so, like you say it out loud, it's like, well, duh. But it's important, like had every kickboxer that comes into the MMA already know before they make that commitment, someone in their sphere says, look, we've seen this before.
20:01 This is going to be a very difficult transition for you because right now you need to mentally commit to the fact that you're going to be weak in these categories and it will require your commitment. to grow in those areas. And so it's like, okay, great. We have the mirror. We now see the things that we need to work on. We've got to have this mindset. And it needs to be a positive mindset that we go, okay, look, I'm going to, in real life ways, I'm going to be hitting reset. I'm going to be at the bottom of the runs, the bottom of the ladder again. Am I willing to put myself in that position? And then if I am, am I going to have the grit or the intestinal fortitude, if you will, to commit to making changes and gaining those skill sets that then will be required by this new change, by this new industry, whatever the case may be?
20:55 So I think that those two... have to go hand in hand like you talked about. And I think here's a couple of things that stand out to me in this. I think in order for that mindset to be positive, I think this is important. One is we need to stop assigning our personal value to what we know. Because that's what makes it hard to give it up, right? Like our ego and everything is saying, well, yeah, but right now I'm the top. I'm comfortable. I know who I am. People know that I know these things, right? All And so our value is attached to this. I'm important to the company because I am the leading technician. I'm the one with the most field experience, whatever. So part of having this right behavior and mindset is we have to disconnect.
21:40 from placing our value in that, right? And almost building a new value statement for ourselves is, you know why I'm valuable? Is that I have the ability to gain new skills and to stretch myself into categories I've never done before. Yeah, I have the ability to change my thinking. I can change my thinking. Like that's the value we should be assigning. Like that's the goal, not the fact that you know something, right, or that you're skilled in this area. That's not the true play. All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our MitResto Mastery sponsor, Accelerate Restoration Software. And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, restoration software, that that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there, right?
22:25 Because we probably all fall into one of two camps when it comes to software. We've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work Or we're in the camp where we've adopted one of these existing restoration platforms, you know, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all. But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it. Yeah, and that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's simple, right? It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission-critical information, i.e., guys, your team will actually use it.
23:08 Let's talk about sales, right? After years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral partners and clients. And the essential piece there is there's got to be a mobile app experience. And in our experience... the solutions that were previously out there were just too cumbersome and tricky to use. Yeah. Imagine guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system. Do yourself a favor, go check these guys out at xlrestorationsoftware.com forward slash MRM and check out the special offers they're providing to MRM listeners.
23:51 All right, let's talk about actionable insights. Owners, GMs, you can't be your business's expert on all things estimating. You might've been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industry's always changing and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to Xactimate Matterport, how does that scale? You're the bottleneck. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is where Actual Insights comes in. They're a technical partner that can equip your team with the latest bleeding edge information and best practices and then update them with webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes again. For this reason, we recommend actual insights to all of our clients.
24:32 Yeah, three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to AI and their team. First off is this consistently updated training. I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are the experts. They're out front all the time. They're constantly learning new trade secrets. and ensuring that your team's got access to those things. A 3,700 plus page database of Xactimate templates. I don't know what else to say here other than don't reinvent the wheel. It's already available. Download it, copy it, use it, bam. Database of commonly missed items. I think this is huge. So many of us can change the numbers by just moving the needle a couple points and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world.
25:15 So go check them out at value.getinsights.org backslash FCG. Another one too is just remembering that this is a positive thing. Like you having recognition that you don't have that skill set yet, it's so easy for us to slide into a position of that being a negative. And it is hard. But I think if you can approach things from, oh, I know I don't know that. So now I can go seek all the information, the training, and all the things that are available for us. to then gain that skillset. It's okay. It's not that big of a deal, right? And then I think the last part of that is really shifting in this direction.
25:59 It can be fun. Like there's something really fun about being not afraid by detaching your value, being connected to the things you already know and having a grip ton of fun with the fact that, hey, I have the opportunity to go explore something new, try something new, gain a new skillset. I think those things are honestly required for people to continue to move up. Right. You know what this makes me think about is one. I really love what you, what you said of just this reattaching our value to this, this humble learning posture. I have the ability to change my mind, to change my thinking, to move in a new direction, to adapt and overcome.
26:42 Right. I mean, that's, We have this new client we're working with, and both of us are pretty enamored with them. Very, very successful entrepreneur. And it's so fun. I think what's been so fun about the engagement is there's a level of maturity there in their success where they are completely and totally comfortable as they even write the word. It's just normal. For them to say, I have no idea what I'm doing in this thing. That's why I'm talking to you. Now, this is a person that has been very successful in a number of different arenas. Actually, literally. Without going any further when you say arenas.
27:23 No, literally. I mean, it's just, it's fascinating to me and yet not surprising in other ways. But there's just a level of humility there. that both of us have kind of admired as we've started onboarding this client, getting to know the person, but that's just been a recurring theme. In nearly every conversation, there's something where this person is like, yeah, I don't have a clue. What do you guys think about that? Yeah. Which is great. I mean, it's just, it's exactly what we're talking about. And I would have to guess that that's been their MO for quite some time. It's what's created the success. It's what's allowed them to pivot into a number of different types of businesses and be successful.
28:04 Right. You know, it's like, I think it's, is it a Warren Buffett principle? I mean, I think Warren Buffett talks about, hey, go like invest in what you know. Is that a perfect principle? Probably. And then there's these other examples of like this business owner we've talked to where they've gotten into a number of different businesses. Yeah. And been successful. And I think it's been because of their humility and their curiosity, their willingness to bring people in to cover areas that they don't have a clue. Well, and think about it. Like every single... I mean, let's just go back to that mindset that you've got to have and compare it up against this person that literally has been a serial success story. Their value is not wrapped up in the things that they... Yeah.
28:47 They are totally free of assigning their personal value to those things. Therefore, making that transition for them is, it's fine. You're not shattering what I know about myself. It's just a thing. It's a skill set. It's a tool. Who cares? And then I think the other thing is that it's a positive experience for them. Like he's totally positive, like to the point where it's, It appears at the surface like they almost don't take it that seriously. We know from experience he takes it very seriously. He's having fun with it though. Yeah. Right? And I think so much of this, honestly, if we are being fully transparent, the reason that he can have fun with it, the reason that he can be positive about it is because he's not coming up against his personal value every time he thinks about it.
29:31 Yeah. That really probably is- What does it say about me? Exactly. Exactly. And I, that's a narrative. It's a narrative I deal with is okay. Yeah. The fact that I don't know this or that I'm not as skilled at this, what does this say about me? Right. That's the refrain of my ego. Yeah. That makes me want to pretend or posture, fake it till we make it, all of that stuff. Yep. I think this has been a really- We're ready for a summer. No, I don't know if we are. We got one more thing. I want to see if you want to go into this or not. But okay. So again, I'm going to do a little bit of a recap as we go, just to kind of keep some traction here. Okay. Okay. So I think in order for us to overcome this scenario is, again, the mirror piece. You got to have that person, those people in our sphere that tell us what we need to hear.
30:15 I think it's this mindset shift of I'm going to detach my value being based on the things I know. And I'm going to have fun when I realize that I have new things to learn. And I'm going to aggressively pursue those things and have fun with it, have a positive attitude about it. Now it's this execution. Okay. I'm that average business owner right now that has... Whether they went into it intentionally or not to find out what they need to know, they are now in a position where they see things that are broken. They see weaknesses in their own skill set. They're on the verge of feeling overwhelmed, but maybe they're holding on, right? It's like, okay, well, what do I do with that? One of the first things that comes to my mind, and I'm really thinking about this from the perspective of how we...
30:58 It kind of feels pitchy, but how we help companies make transitions is... many of them have all the things on the whiteboard that they need to fix. And they are paralyzed because they don't even know where to start. Or little bits of effort keeps getting tossed on all the different things. And because it doesn't get enough momentum, it's futile. It's like they know it's a problem. They've looked at it for a minute. They threw a couple of Band-Aids on it. It immediately regressed back to its original state. Therefore, they've made no progress. And they feel that to the point where it's like they can't go anywhere. They're paralyzed. They're paralyzed.
31:38 So I think for me, where I've tried to have some success in this, and I have people like you that help remind me, Find a thing. Just find a thing and start there. Focus. It's like anybody that's done Ramsey or anything like paying off debt. No one ever tells you pay off all the cards at the same time. It's one card at a time and then you roll that energy or in this case, the money into the next payment plan. I think we have to think about that if we're going to make any kind of transition or gain a new skill set that's required by this new level of leadership that our company is demanding from us. is that we have to find a thing and we need to focus on that thing until we feel like we've got competency in it.
32:22 Because then it's a win, right? It shows us we can do it, right? And it's like, okay, that thing, okay, I've got a grip on that. Now I'm going to take that same amount of energy and I'm going to put it towards another skill set that I need to get. And enter into it again with an acceptance, right? that this is not going to feel good. Yeah. There may be some boring elements to this, some repetition that's needed. Likely, likely, likely, it's going to be a grind in some ways. But going into it, find this one thing that you know is high value, that maybe your mirror communicated to you, hey, look, you're going to get from here to there.
33:02 You're going to have to deal with this. Pick that one thing, knowing that it's going to be painful, it's going to be embarrassing. It may be awkward. It may be boring. I'm saying all these things that I'm encountering, right? As I make some transition in my own self, right? No, I think you're right on. And then again, it's like, let's going back to that mirror piece. The feedback's got to be consistent. Like, am I making gains, right, in this area? And I think that that's, you know, we talk about this a lot when it comes to like company culture and stuff is making sure that our employees know where they stand. Mm-hmm. Right? We too, as owners, key leaders, we need to know where we stand. And if you've placed yourself in a position where, again, you've got someone in your sphere that's telling you what you need to work on, reminding you of areas of weakness, you've committed that I'm going to do this.
33:52 then if we start putting that effort in, it's just as important for us as it would be for a downline employee for us to know where we stand. Are we making progress? And you know what? Honestly, sometimes the accountability in that can actually be your downline personnel. I can think back of multiple times and experiences where I told the leadership team, depending on where I was and what was going on, like, hey, I am... I want to make progress in this area. I need you to tell me that I am. And I also need you to remind me when I'm not. Yeah. Right? And so, of course, you got to deploy that appropriately. But that, I think we miss that.
34:32 Yeah. It's like, okay, well, we're great. We listened to a podcast. We've read a book. We've got a friend that told us that we needed to work on something. But then we try to make the progress in isolation. Instead of having a partner in crime, a battle buddy, reminding us if we're being successful or where we need to continue to put the effort in. So, yeah, I just think I think we really need to look at this as a as a whole package, because just recognizing that we have weaknesses, that doesn't necessarily help a lot. I mean, it's part of the pie, but you got to have all the others. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? I think it's good. Yeah. All right, guys. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. All right, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart & Boots.
35:15 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.