Ep 191 - "Rabbit Trails: The Last 60 Days"

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. What's happening? Yo. Oh, you beat me to it. I know. There you go. I gotta get more aggressive. I've been too passive starting these shows, damn it. Bro, I gotta say like... We're getting ready to travel to Florida next week, you know, Sunday, not next week.

0:41 Yeah. Sunday morning. Are you going on the 5 a.m. flight too? Yeah. With me? Yeah. Yeah. We're all in the same Airbus. Yeah. Jeez. Yeah. That'll be a big week. We're going to knock out our, kind of the refining of our annual planning. I'm giving ourselves a bunch of grace by saying refining. We're going to basically dig in and start our annual flight. We're going to write a rough draft together. We're going to do a V1. We should have started this three months ago, but that's what happens sometimes when you So funny, like on the sales budget and stuff, I'm like, delivery date on that. I'm like, well, we have our planning meeting Monday, Tuesday, so theoretically that budget should be prepared by Monday, Tuesday. But is that real? Am I actually going to have it ready by Monday, Tuesday? Could you do that yesterday? That would be preferable. Oh, geez. Yeah. It's been a busy year, man.

1:22 It's been a busy year. And as many of you know, starting in October, it just picked up some significant pace. You know what, though, man? I had kind of a moment today where I felt like for 60 days, it's really been stressful. I felt like you and I were having kind of a prior conversation. There was some momentum in the face of our businesses that... that wasn't going in the right direction. And I felt like we just spent 60 days trying to stop whatever negative forward momentum there was in any pocket of the business. And we've finally have gotten to a place where I think the negative trends that were presenting themselves have slowed and maybe stopped.

2:03 But we're not quite at that space where we're building a ton of positive momentum just yet. And that does, that'll wear you out. Not that anybody listening has any idea what we're talking about. I know. Because 2025 has been so awesome for everybody. I'm sure everybody else has just gotten richer and richer. That's right. It was only us that had some headwinds. Yeah, well, you know, like you and I were just talking, I don't know, yesterday, the day before. We also haven't stopped to pause and... and like really enjoy the winds. Like we had a, you and I, we had this thing and I don't know if I've typically said it or you do, but we have these really stressful moments. We're dealing with a problem and this goes back all the way to where we first started Floodlight together where I think I would quip and be like, you know, someday we're going to sit in a hot tub together and we'll be laughing about this.

2:50 And that's kind of like every several months or whatever, we encounter some kind of difficulty. And it's like, you know, dude, we'll get through this. This is... Someday we'll be sitting in a hot tub laughing about this. And then we rented this fancy house on the Northern Oregon coast, this incredible hot tub that's literally like 40 feet from the ocean. You're like getting ocean spray. And you and I never had that hot tub moment to just like reflect and enjoy the moment of, you know, five years ago, none of this was anything. Yeah. None of it. Yeah. You know, it's such a good point. And part of our conversation we had with our team this morning on the floodlight side is, it was fun. We brought in some outside talent to do some training with us.

3:32 And he's just an absolute hammer. I mean, he's just an unbelievably talented man, great leader, just absolutely impressive to get in front of a team of people to help them understand or learn some new concepts. Colin, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, nice. I mean, the first 10 minutes, I literally texted him. I was bummed I missed it, dude. I was getting my blood sucked out of my arm. Bro, and you know what? It actually, you should definitely go back to the recording. Because the first 10 minutes is a masterclass from Colin. Like, how you stage set, how you hold people accountable to where you're about to go. But do it in such a way that, like, there was a little sarcasm in there. There was a little just, you'll see. You almost, you got to see it. But, like, there was these two moments... In the first few minutes of the exchange where he had done the whole, like, how is everybody?

4:15 Let's get to know each other really quick. He did a really cool little icebreaker, which I thought was great. He asked us where we grew up and favorite movie, right? So anyways, it was just really fun. But then right after that, like he locks us back in. Like he basically draws the line like, I need you here. He tells this little story that kind of rallies around the idea when you're not present. And then he's kind of having fun. And then boom, he hits it. So I want you here. Anyways, he was great. McCollin is great. And he gave us a bunch of ton of really great content for self-sourcing, for lead generation. And obviously, as consultants, we got to build our book of business. So it's super relevant for us, but it was relative to everybody. But I think what was really fun, again, it was a good reminder to have all the consultants on the call, to have Colin doing some really great teaching.

4:59 He's from outside of the organization, fresh voice, fresh perspective. And it was just fun for a moment, all of a sudden to go, wow, this is neat. Like I've got six, seven people in this call that are doing some training and it just made me go back to like where you were talking about. And look, there's a reality check, I think sometimes, that can be very difficult in business ownership. At least this is true for me. Where these two things can be true at the same time. I mean, you and I have been talking about this so much. But one of them being like, our company's not where it needs to be. We made some investments this year that didn't net the result we were anticipating. And yet, I am absolutely bullish and confident and excited about next.

5:39 And those two things literally live in tension simultaneously. And they are both 100% true at the same time. Well, and it's also just interesting too, the longer you're in business, the more you start to identify the trends in your business. And yet again, we had our Q4, we onboarded more new clients than any other time this year. And I think that was true last year as well. It's like for some reason, I think people just generally have business coaching, consulting, whatever on their brain as they start to plan for the upcoming year. They got big ideas and not sure necessarily the how to do it. But yeah, man, it's been an intense year. What would you say? I can't even believe, bro, it's, what is it?

6:21 The 4th of December. I know. Like, I feel like you and I were in this room recording a here comes 2025 episode. And now we're in this room and I'm going, it's the 4th of December. What the hell happened? Well, a lot of things happened this year. I mean, one, you and I started dividing and conquering. So we started traveling individually. I mean, you and I, I think we only had three or four combined trips this year. Yeah, I think so. You know? Yeah. Super rare. Shoot, last 60 days. I think in the last 60 days, I had 15 days of travel. Yeah. Maybe 20. Yeah. And that's been the pace for you all year. Dude, we've, we've traveled more this year. Collectively, we've traveled more this year than any previous year in my whole life for sure.

7:03 But yeah, it's been, we're not turning this into a year in review, are we? No, I don't. We're going to save everybody from that. Is there anything that you've been, I mean, with this added intensity and expenditure, are there any personal rhythms or tools or things that you've been trying to leverage to gain some control or to restabilize in these last couple months? Yeah, I'm really hating you for asking me that question right now because you know we're committed to honesty. Well, I'm in it too. So I got to tell you the truth, not what I want people to hear. Listen, dude, I am absolutely getting my ass kicked right now. Yeah. So here's what happened. And this might be relatable to some people.

7:44 So our restoration team, many people know, is based in Florida. Yeah. You and I are right here in the smack dab, the middle of Oregon. Floodlight HQ. Yeah. Downtown Corvallis, Oregon. You couldn't get farther away, time zone, weather, all the things. And so what's been happening is, you know, our team over at FP, they just grind. They work their butts off. And so I'm trying to be super guarded about not doing a ton of communication with the online team members after 5 or 6 p.m. their time. Yeah, of course. Which is three us over here. Now, granted, between you and Steve and Wayne, like we... end up going all night long. But I'm trying to be cognizant of that. So I had this really bright idea because I'm an early riser. If I'm not up by 4 a.m., it is very weird and rare and abnormal, and it's not even an alarm clock most of the time.

8:28 But my point is, I'm thinking, oh, I'm an early riser. This will be great. Why don't I lock in on this six to three rhythm where I'm available, all in, all the things. And then what I'll do is I'll take a break, I'll go work out, and then I'll have, a couple more hours in the evening, I'm going to putz and take care of some things and then dig in and have dinner and spend time with my wife. Well, the problem is between both teams, there's so much going on that everyone is trying to aggressively make movement on that literally... it starts at 4 a.m. and it's not stopping. Like I'm not getting out of here at 3 to go work out. Like it's just nonstop. And so literally now, dude, I worked out with you more when we traveled last time than I have since I've been home.

9:12 I'm struggling to get back into the gym. And when I was wrestling with my calendar, I'm like, dude, do I go back to the AM and just figure it out? And I think I'm going to have to, which means I may end up having to get into the gym at like 4.30 AM because I'm not stopping at three for a break. Like it's not happening. I've been messing with the same thing. And I've just accepted, dude, that I don't think I'm going to be able to pick one and stick to it. Yeah. Like I have some days. There's some evidence. Like I know you have that. So like Monday morning, I had a 5 AM call with the sales team because... Well, I don't want to have a call with them in the middle of the sales day. Like we preach, protect the golden hours. I don't want to hold a call at seven o'clock. My time. And they're still in the office at 10.

9:54 Yeah. That sucks. So, you know, 5 a.m. You start things out. There's no room for the gym prior to that. I need an hour. Oh, I need. Yeah. Well, no matter what I do, I've got at least a half hour of driving each way. If I come from here, it's 50 minutes. Dude, you got to build out that home gym, bro. I know, but you know what? I had it and mine is pretty solid, but the problem is motivation sucks. I'm so low. I get into the gym with those young studs, dude, and I'm like, no, you're not. It's all the motivation. Yeah. So I got some work to do there. I've just landed on some mornings. Flow with it. It's 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. And some mornings it's, or some days it's 4 to 5 in the afternoon or it's 5 to 6 and dinner and whatever. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely been extremely challenging.

10:37 I think that like most leaders... So I was starting to get a grip on floodlight in terms of time spend, where, how to leverage that, get consistent. And I knew there would be... We didn't sit around in a dark room somewhere and act as if partnering with our team and FP was going to be breezy. But and... you always get a little bit more of an awakening than you anticipate in your planning. And I think what I definitely am a little overwhelmed by now is just the reorganization of priorities and targeting. Because there's so much, so much vision, we could do this, we want to move faster here, and then, oh, and Floodlight has all these things that we want to accomplish, and I just, now more than ever, and again, you know this, you talk about it before you do it, but now more than ever, I'm having to reorient a little bit back around targeting and priorities, And I was on, I had a really great chat with Mark Davis this week, earlier this week.

11:30 I love that dude, first off. But talk about a guy that's had to figure out how to prioritize. He runs this massive commercially-based disaster restoration firm, Signal. He owns and runs the Pure O'Clean franchise, which just hit 500 plus locations. I mean, crazy. Bonkers. And it was just fun to talk to him and just hear him talk about how clear he ended up having to get about what he's going to be good at and what he's going to own. And all the things that he just determined that in order for him and his teams to be successful, that he needs to hire and delegate. Mm-hmm. And you know what's challenging, I think, for a lot of entrepreneurs is, and depending on where you're at in the development of your companies, something like what Mark Davis does isn't available to me.

12:16 Yeah. Right? Not the full version, right? Whatever it looks like for him. Specializing out all these roles. Yeah, exactly. Like we don't, I don't have the funding to fill in every air gap. Takes a lot of scale. Right. Yeah, a lot of scale. And most of the people that listen to our show, they don't have all the resource. They can literally just buy every position they need to. But it's just a good reminder, though, to see and hear what it looks like at scale so that you understand every step, every gain you can make is just you getting a little bit closer to that version of what you end up having to do. If you're going to be successful at scale across more than one major platform, you And in my mind, I know I can do it, but I'm seeing what it looks like to land.

12:56 And I'm assessing that against my current spot. You're seeing the Delta and you're just like, oh shit. And I'm like, hmm, yeah, we got some work to do. Just like everybody that listens. We have our own personal work to do and we're going to continue to lean in. But you know what, man? I told my wife this last night. I'm more tired than I've ever fucking been in my life. And yet, I'm borderline happier than I've ever been in my life. And it's, you know, Claire, her episode's going to come out pretty soon. She talked about how her personality, it's like she's like that- Border Collie. Yeah, that Border Collie that will get themselves in trouble. They'll eat the furniture if they don't have something to do, if they're not working, right? They've got a mission and something in front of them. And I am like that. I'm like that more sometimes than even I think my subconscious wants me to think.

13:39 And so I'm in that space where, dude, there ain't no furniture chewing right now. I barely have time to top and use the bathroom and I'm happy. Like I like it, you know, it's weird. Yeah, I relate to that. I think maybe I have a little more golden retriever in me. because I totally get what you're saying. I really, the newness, the adventure, the challenge is really good. It's good. It's just fundamentally, I relate to what you're saying for sure. And I realized one of my best friends, I haven't hung out with him in like six weeks. Yeah. And I used to see him a couple times a week. Yeah. One to two times a week. It's just so happened, his business, the company he works with, he's a pharma guy.

14:22 Just went public about six weeks ago as well. So there. So his. Oh, yeah. You know, he's trying to max out his options and do all the things. For sure. And so his career and his businesses like have just, you know, gone crazy as well. But I feel the weight of that. You know, it's like we've we've talked a lot about this. Like I just like my friendships. Well, it's like it's like Claire said, actually, in this episode we just finished. There is something important about that balance. Yeah. I think a lot of us are really oriented towards achieving, creating, building. And we can kind of, there's always a plethora of excuses of why right now I don't have time. Yeah. So like, I don't have space for all the quality time with my family or with my friends that I need to.

15:05 And that's just the way it is. Totally get that. And I think most owners feel the tension of that. I feel it. Yeah. I miss my friends a little bit. Yeah, so this is where your and I's differences really show up, right? Again, it's not good, bad, right, wrong. It's just this is where it shows up where, and you know this, like I spent most of this year invited to your cuss and discuss on Wednesdays. You've still never come. I've literally never gone. And here's the sad part. I've now met almost every single individual that's part of it. Yeah. And I like all of them. Yeah. Yeah. But I found a million excuses why I couldn't do it. And now I'm in a position where legitimately, like I know you guys are having trouble making the cuss and discuss. You missed the window, bro. I missed the window and I'm like, okay, but this is where we're different a little bit.

15:47 Those aren't the parts I'm missing. The parts I'm missing is the moments right now where I don't feel the pressure of if you're not accomplishing something very specific in this minute, you're probably getting farther behind. That's the part that's a little overwhelming for me. And so I miss when it was just floodlight, having way more bandwidth for that free space, I'm going to call it, right? Dude, I did that. That's the harder part for me. I did that on Saturday. Oh, yeah. And it was really hard for me too. Yeah. So Saturday, and I've also, I kind of started to get hit with this sickness over the weekend. I'm on the mend. I'm better. Which is so much better now. Yesterday, I was absolutely a joke. But like, you know, as a business owner, like you don't get to fucking call in sick.

16:29 Yeah. You know, it's just not like, I think every owner listening to this and probably even most senior leaders like call in sick. I mean, I might work from home. Yeah. But it's like taking a day off because you're sick is just not something that most people do, you know? But on Saturday, my wife was out of town for something. Both of my boys were in Mexico on a church thing building houses. My 20-year-old is doing whatever she's doing. And I literally had nothing planned. And I started out my day, basically, I made breakfast for myself by myself, listening to a podcast in my headphones, moving around the kitchen, making breakfast. and then I turned on the sauna, and I gave it an hour to heat up, and then I went out there.

17:12 At first, I built a fire on the deck, which is right outside of my sauna. I built a fire, then I went in the sauna, and I got out of the sauna after 30 minutes. I sat in front of the fire, and I kept sitting in front of the fire. This does sound pretty nice. And then I took a shower, and I rinsed off the sauna sweat, and then I went for a walk with the dog, but I took the long route. That had to hit Reset. Well, you know, it did. It was a yes and like halfway through the day, I was still feeling this nagging pressure. You should be doing something. Oh, yeah. You should be doing something. And then my buddy Ali called me. This is the pharma guy. Works for an incredible company, by the way, called Billion to One. They just went public and it's an incredible business. And so he's been all over. He's in Nashville today. He's in DC tomorrow tomorrow.

17:54 He was in Hawaii for a conference like a week and a half ago. He's just all over the place. But I called him on Saturday and he was still in Hawaii. And I'm like, dude, do you ever have a hard time just like relaxing, like doing nothing? He said, oh my God. Yeah, I feel so guilty. I'm like, ah, I feel guilt too. And he said, but why the hell do we do any of this if we can't sometimes just be? Like, what is the freaking point? Yeah. And I thought, yeah, dude, that is... There's a lot of truth to that. That is so right. It is so easy for me to just be perpetually in kind of building mode, even with regard to my family. It's like scheduling out all our time, like doing stuff.

18:35 Yeah. It's like I realized in that moment how much of our family activity together this year has been around doing stuff versus just being. And last year, we had a lot more of this. We had a lot more of sitting on the back deck together, staring at the fire. Just... With the Bluetooth boombox sitting on the ground next to us, listening to some tunes, bringing some snacks out, waking up in the morning on Saturday and just having coffee together for the first couple hours. And I realized, boy, that has not been as frequent. Yeah, yeah. You and Kara's ability to do that shrink. And I think too, if I'm really honest, even with all the extra demands on us right now, I think in some ways it's just laziness that I haven't created space for that.

19:24 You know, it's just like I get to four or five o'clock on a lot of days or six o'clock or whatever the day looks like. And I'm just so mentally kind of spent from all the context shifting. You know what I mean? Like between the two businesses, but also just the areas of the businesses that we're working on and all the things like me switching between sales and team management. Yeah. You know, whatever. Yeah. A lot of times I just sort of check out. Yeah. Yeah. It's like by the time I go home, I just check out, but check out not in the best way. I'm like, I mean, through my phone. Yeah. I kind of go, you know, longer breaks on the toilet. It's like, I heard, uh, John, um, there's this guy, Dr. I think his name is John Delaney. Yeah. For Ramsey. Do you ever fall and watch his stuff? He's a marriage and family therapist guy.

20:06 I don't think so. Anyway, he's really good, but he talks about this. He posted a meme and he was like, he was like, men, you're not fooling anybody You know, it doesn't take anybody 40 minutes to take a leak or go poop. Like, let's be serious. If it takes you that long to go poop, you probably need to eat more fiber. You know, like, we all know what you're doing. You need a doctor on call. Yeah, we know you're all doom scrolling, you know? And I'm like, ah. Are you a business that's under 5 million in sales and you're just now getting ready to try and scale your company up and hit some of those targets you've always wanted to hit but now you've got to build a sales team or maybe you just hired your first sales rep but you don't really know how to manage them. Like how do you manage, lead, train, develop a sales rep?

20:47 Floodlight has a solution for you now. So we can actually assign your sales rep a turnkey VP of sales that will help them create a sales blueprint, their own personal sales plan for your market. They'll have weekly one-on-ones with that sales rep to coach, mentor them, hold them accountable to the plan. And they'll also have a monthly owners meeting where they'll meet with you or your general manager and review the progress of that sales rep, their plan to actual results, what kind of performance improvement they're working on with them. Also let them know, hey, you might, they're doing really well. Maybe we should think of hiring a second sales rep. They're gonna have that one-to-one advice for you as an owner or senior leader on the team as well. How great would that be to have a bolt-on sales manager for your one sales rep and it's only 2,500 bucks a month?

21:31 If you're interested in talking more about that, reach out. Let's grab some time and let's talk shop. Our floodlight clients this last year in 2024 generated over $250 million in revenue. Supported by, advised by, an industry expert who's owned and operated a business just like you. So take action. Don't kick the can down the road. Start with our business health and value assessment. And let's unlock the next chapter of your success story. You know one thing I've noticed along those same lines? There's two things I'm wrestling with a little bit right now. These are completely unrelated. So one is I find myself, when I'm starting to get into that space where I'm outpacing my ability to refuel, I do find that the free moments are not free moments, the type where you recover well.

22:18 Yeah, I'm not using them well. No, I end up doing kind of like what you're talking about, the doom scrolling. It's the distraction. You know what I mean? It's like, it's the Jana put on, you know, Landman, because I don't want to try to have another conversation right now. Like, I just, I can't. I'm just so spent that it's, it's not a healthy break. It's not a healthy break. I don't know how to say it. No, no, no. Well, okay. Do you ever do this? So I found myself, God, when was this? Maybe this was Sunday. Maybe it was even Monday evening and I forget. I came home and I just needed to rest. What I really needed to do was I usually do dinner. My wife and I probably split it 50-50. So what I should have done was make dinner, you know, put it in the oven so it's warm.

22:58 And I probably should have just literally set my phone on the charger and laid down on our couch and just laid there. Yeah. And probably stared at the ceiling, taken a nap, listened to an album, you know, put a Black Keys album on, whatever. Yeah. But I didn't. And you know what's funny is my head went to, I should be doing something. And so what did I start doing? I started doing scrolling through podcasts, looking for a podcast so I should learn something. Oh, yes. You know, and I'm like, I'm going through all the usual suspects, MFCEO and like Diary of a CEO. And I'm like, ah, but none of it. It's just so true. But none of it is like, because I just need to rest. Yes. But I'm fighting against my need to rest. Like I should be doing something productive. And then after that doesn't work for a while, then maybe I just need to entertain myself.

23:39 And so then I'm going to my YouTube channels and I'm going into Paramount. Like, is there another episode of Landman? You know, and I'm just, it's hard for me to get out of that frenetic brain. Yeah. Yeah. you know what I want to do? So this is interesting. So this context shifting, okay? So you mentioned that, and I actually want to hang in this pocket for a minute because I think that is what's crushing me right now. I realize, and it's making me really want to slow down and audit the business. I'm predominantly talking about FP right now just because it's the most chaotic because it's restoration and it's significantly larger. It's big and it's like, yeah, people all over the place. Yeah. And if you just, and I think the reason I want to kind of hang in this pocket is because I think it's super applicable to almost all leaders.

24:22 And when, as a consulting firm, for instance, we're working with all these different kinds of clients, different size, scope of businesses, and then, of course, our own operation, sometimes we are blown away by how we can't make progress. Hmm. Even though we're talking about very smart people, people that care a lot, they're putting in obscene hours. So there's not very many owners or leaders in restoration or single trade environments where people aren't working 10, 12 plus hour days. I don't witness it. Maybe somebody does. So effort's being put in. I know you and I, like I know what I'm fucking working right now and it ain't no goddamn 10 hours. It's a lot more. It's just always. Yeah. Excuse the French that I got a little emotional. So, but this context shifting, what I'm realizing is how draining it is.

25:06 And now I'm going, okay, wait a minute. How many of my people in their own level, you know, not comparing to me or somebody else, in their space, their role, inside our companies, how worn out are they getting from the context shifting versus the work? And I'm, dude, I'm struggling right now because I don't have a clear answer yet. And I, again, because of all the different whining that we've just done so far is, I'm also having a tough time slowing down to create enough space to just sit in that thought and analyze and just think, what is the problem? So I don't know about other companies, but I'm just going to walk through some examples of what's causing the contact shift. So we have Slack channels inside our company.

25:48 We have five locations and we have lots of different service lines. And so you've got everything from MIT teams in a specific market talking on Slack. You've got an office. ops channel talking to OMS on the Slack. You've got sales conversations that are happening. And again, in this zone, you also have five of these things happening in five different locations and markets. That's one space. And in order for me to really stay up to speed and be present, it's nearly impossible. And in my particular seat right now, I really, that's not where I should be anyways. I don't belong in Slack channels all day. That's not my role. But it's a company I care about deeply.

26:28 And obviously, there's things happening in those channels that relate to giving me insight and ideas of red flags and concerns, blah, blah, blah. So anyways, I'm thinking to myself, I would like to be more in Slack. So there's that. Then we've got these email chains that cover the gambit from insurance to HR to operations in two different companies. And then on top of that, that's all happening with five different locations and five different leads, right? All these things. And then I'm realizing when I look at my calendar in a single week, we're doing things like recording shows, which means we then walk in. We're now this emcee. We're interviewing a guest. We need to understand that guest.

27:09 We need to be present and aware during that recording time. Thank you, Hunter. Right? Thank you, Hunter. She makes all that physically possible. Then I might get into an email about consulting. And then I get into an email that's sales-oriented for Floodlight. And then I get into a conversation that's sales-oriented for FP. And what makes that hard is not the concepts. It's not the work ethic or workload. It's not even focused sometimes. We're starting to get pretty damn good at understanding how do we keep the right thing in front of us. It's the constant context shift of consultant, owner, entrepreneur, sales-oriented, data management. CEO, counselor. CEO, counselor. It's like, it is so crazy.

27:51 And so part of me is going, okay, now I have a new level of motivation to try to zoom out to 30,000 feet and look at how our businesses are governed and say, is there any way that we can reduce the context shifting for our personnel? Because if it's this exhausting for me, there's no doubt it's having a negative impact on my people, or at least it's doing something to create less than optimal results, right? So there's that. So I'm trying to create context. Okay, so that's happening. And so now I'm like, I've got this new fervor of, one, we've got to adopt more AI into our organizations because that's one way you start to get rid of context shift is let the robots do the dumb shit and stop making your people shift from talking to a client to now they're doing data entry to now they're over here sending this email.

28:37 So we're lunging into that priority. But then there's this, and then of course I want to audit it and I want to see, is there a way for systems and process for us to reduce that context shifting? So all that's going on. But then over here, I've got all three of my closest friends now, business partners, fellow operators. I love and respect you guys so much that I don't want to be the guy that's not on. And so when you've got guys like Steve and you've got guys like Wayne and guys like you that are in the trenches helping do and build and grow. And it's like when there's a conversation at 8am or 8pm, I almost don't care what it's about. It's like, well, these are my friends. These are my battle buddies. These are my operation partners. What is it about? What are they doing?

29:17 I got to contribute. So it's just this weird dichotomy almost where I want to, as a good leader, create better spacing, create a more realistic, marathon-oriented operating system inside our businesses. And I'm torn because I know I need that for myself. But then, man, I love yakking it up. I love problem solving. I love thinking about yesterday we had this problem and by 8 p.m. the next day through conversation and skill set and movement, that problem's going away. And you know what I mean? I love that so much that it's hard for me to slow down long enough to address the thing I know is healthier for me.

29:57 It is. I feel that. It's a bit of a tangent going from down low into superficial. But there's two things I've been doing that I feel like have been helping me a little bit focus because I feel like attention is constantly being redirected or pulled. Yeah. Just constantly. It's kind of like part of what we're describing. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like there is always something going on in one of the businesses or with a client or just like all over the place or at home or whatever that is pulling my attention away. And it's particularly, I would self-identify as somebody who, since we're in the age of identifying the attributes that make us who we are, I'm an ADD guy. Like I've always been one of those ADD dudes.

30:38 I think all of us have ADD. I think that's like a product of, I don't know, all the hormones in our food or chemical. I don't know what it is. But I think we all have the problem. But something I've been experimenting with is fasting. I told you about this. Yeah, you did. Yeah. And so you can't fast every day, obviously. But I've been fasting 24 hours once a week. And this week I got sick. And so I didn't. But I found that to be really, really helpful. So this was, I've done it for three weeks now. Mm-hmm. The other thing that some people listening to this podcast will be like, well, yeah, dude, seriously, you're just figuring this out? I started experimenting with nicotine. I noticed. And I've got these little Nick. This show is not sponsored by Knickknack Naturals.

31:19 Yeah. So here's my thing. Nor are we sponsoring nicotine. No, we're not. We're not a pro-tobacco podcast. It's not tobacco, obviously. Listener warning. You know, it's funny. I never, ever was exposed to really any substances or chemicals when I was growing up. And so I never got into nicotine. In fact, my very few experiences with nicotine usually ended up with me lying on the floor, either next to a pile of puke or feeling like I was going to create one, whether it was cigarettes or a powder. There was probably, yeah, it was probably like, yes. Oh yeah. You had one of those. I have several stories. Yeah. Company party at the lake. Yeah. And I'm puking my guts out in an inner tube, paddling away from the rest of the... And if I recall right, you lost like a really expensive pair of sunglasses.

32:03 Yes, I did. Yes, I did. In fact, at the bottom of that lake, I loved those glasses. So anyway, I've had a mixed relationship with nicotine. But so we were at our... First of all, I borrowed my sister's Nick Vape on a family vacation. I was like, oh my gosh, this is what everybody raves about. I get it. You're starting to pick it up. Yeah, because I found it was very focusing. Really? In a particular kind of way, yes. The problem with nicotine in my experience, my limited experience now, is it's very short acting. Oh. So after that experience with my sister's vape, which was the best, vaping nicotine is the best. I love it. I see why everybody has one in their hand now. But of course, I think we're all becoming aware of it's not the greatest thing for your health, for your lungs.

32:47 Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so I got these, I started with some gum. And then the first time I took gum, it was a three milligram piece of gum. And I found myself on the floor again in a public restroom laying like regretting my life. Oh, wow. Regretting. Yeah, it was terrible. Full body sweat, sweating through my clothes. Terrible. Terrible. And so finally, anyway, I've been... Dude, okay, one question for you. Why do you keep trying so hard? Well, because I keep hearing from professionals like Alex Hormozzi, who doses nicotine every single day when he starts his work session. Yeah. And basically every other entrepreneur I respect uses Nick vapes or most of them are moving away from vapes to pouches or lozenges.

33:28 But it's like, I think everybody listening, like most thought leaders and business leaders are on nicotine. Most of them. Oh, really? I don't know these things. I'm in the nicotine dart. I mean, Tucker Carlson has his own nicotine pouches. You're kidding me. Yeah, dude. So anyway, I'm not advocating for any of this. And obviously, every one of us, I think, knows how highly addictive nicotine is, but it's a really powerful nootropic. And I found that. And so like today, I break these little three milligram tabs in half. And it's just about, right, what do we have? Is that a calendar reminder? Yeah, that's my calendar reminder just popped up that I'm supposed to be in the gym right now. Meanwhile, I've already made this whole episode about nicotine, like 40% of the conversation. Anyway, but I just want to say that because I used to be very anti-nicotine and also had a negative experience every time I tried it.

34:14 But I have been finding this to be very useful when I need to hunker down and do linear work. Really? I don't ever have, and maybe some other people relate to this. Like just get you laser focused? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if I have meetings, that's a great day for me every time. If I have like a day full of meetings, I might be tired at the end of the day. But in terms of focus, it's like, that's not hard for me. If I need to talk or be a part of a conversation, generally speaking, I can get in the pocket more or less. Especially if I'm directly engaged in that meeting, I have a role in it. It's the data entry, analysis, email reading, clearing out my inbox, that kind of stuff that I tend to struggle with the most. And nicotine, I find, is very, very helpful in me settling down and doing single task work.

35:00 Yeah, yeah. I just saw a post, I think, from Hormozy where he's silenced. He puts in... Puts his cans on. Yeah, noise blocker headphones. Yep. Sits in a dark room. Yep. And it's a tiny room. I think he literally has like a closet in his house. There's nothing else in it. There's nothing else in it. And he throws in a pouch and goes to work. I'm a fan. I'm also a kind of a health nut. Everybody knows that. So like I'm very cautious about how I use it. And I'm also, I'm limiting myself to one... I will not buy myself a Nick babe, but I have started using it socially. Like I find I even like when I'm with a friend and they happen to have one, I'm like, hey, can I have some? And I'll, you know, once or twice a week, perhaps, maybe on vacation, like the Canadians, all Canadians smoke, by the way.

35:42 They smoke on vacation. Did you know that? Did all of you know that? Non-Canadians? Yeah, just ask Mike. Good people, bad people, every Canadian smokes on vacation. Yeah. Good people and bad people. It's not just the ruffians. It's not the roughness. It's like everybody. But anyway, so, but I have some rules, right? Like I won't buy vapes. I won't buy cigarettes. I don't borrow vapes. I don't borrow cigarettes. Sorry to give those back. But I will take these little nicotine tablets at work and I find it helps. That's crazy. I did notice that when we first started recording today, I sat down and noticed you had that. It was like, oh, look at, I've had two halves today. Look at guy, guy over here. Yeah, that's not a, I haven't jumped in on that. I'm just trying to keep the intake, the food intake, the right kind. I don't feel like you're being holier than that. No, it's okay.

36:23 Yeah, no, I don't feel that kind of judgment. Yeah, I hope you don't feel the judgment that I'm feeling. I mean, I, sorry. You definitely haven't been a joiner. I've socially tried to pass you the vape. I'm like, dude, it feels good. It's nice. No, I can't do it. You know why? Because I'm afraid of getting, so here's the thing, dude. I chewed for eight years. Oh, it's a military thing. That was the absolute worst thing ever in my life to try to stop. It was absolutely miserable. I'm trying to avoid that. And so I just am like, I'm on eggshells when it comes to that kind of stuff. But I'm using it as a tool. That's right. It's a tool, a tool only. Yeah. What was the direction of the vape? Well, I just think we've been reflecting on whatever. The last 60 days, we've bought a business. We have continued to grow our other business.

37:04 We've done all the things. It's like, how are we coping? I have been going in the sauna a lot more too. Oh, you have? Yeah. No, it's been a challenging two months. I don't see the challenge reducing in the next two to three months. And I think we're going to have a pretty heavy lift in front of us next year in general. But I am really confident that in the next six months, we will begin to see some healthier patterns that I'm less concerned will prevent us from finding a little bit more balance. I think you should... Certainly overwhelming. I think you should make a renewed commitment to coming and hanging out with my friends and I and prioritize some outside friendships in your life. Yes. Yeah, because you've done such a good job with it recently. Son of a bitch.

37:49 No, you know what, where I am finding a little bit, I think healthy engagement actually is my wife and I, like, so now she has some dual roles as well now. And so her workload increased substantially as well. And man, I'll tell you what, one of the things that I've seen really healthy happening between my wife and I that I just think has been great is because we know how insane things are right now, there's a lot of proactivity happening on both sides of, hey, What do you think Wednesday, Thursday, we do this thing? What are you thinking about dinner? And it's not the kind of like, when are you going to be home? Or can you do this? It's more of this partnering. Hey, things are insane right now. So let's just be proactive and talk about the latter end of this week.

38:32 And let's just identify up front. What can we do to maybe create a little space? Or it's going to be a rough week. But hey, do you think Thursday night we can block out two hours? And just giving each other some grace right now. That has actually been super helpful in this particular phase. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cute, dude. We still haven't been out to the woods, though. No, we, no, we had not even kind of. You and I were pretty motivated to go have some time in the woods together, but it still hasn't happened. So good for you. I couldn't even join my friend to help him pick out his new bow, which totally broke my heart because that's always fun. That's too bad, too. But. No, it's a busy season for certain. I don't think that's untrue for most of the people that listen to our show.

39:12 But I'm excited about it, dude. I like this grind. I don't want to grind the exact same way forever. But man, I like being productive. It just feels good under my skin. And so I'm kind of addicted to it. I don't know if I'll ever slow down too far. All right. Maybe when I'm dead. All right. Yeah. Well, this golden retriever is ready to go hang out in the woods when you're ready. When the border collie's done enough work, he'll find some time to go out in the woods. Oh, dude, random thought. Okay, random thought, actually. Maybe we can shut down the rabbit trail. I was going to talk about guns, too. Well, this one might get you fired up. Now, I'm going out on a limb here. So, Cameron Herold. Do you remember that name? Of course. Right? Yeah. So Wayne is part of his COO network, right?

39:56 Cool, cool group. And between Floodlight and FP, we decided that would be a good thing for Wayne to participate. And so we supported him in that. And I think it's awesome. Well, long and short of it, after you've been in that program for a while, they'll grab the associated CEOs and Cameron meets with everybody. And he's just kind of like, hey, let's, let's kind of talk about you for a minute. Like you're the other part of this relationship. And anyways, as part of that, Cameron was just, you know, he'd ask us a series of questions, blah, blah. And then as he's commenting on some of the things that we're saying or experiencing, he had talked very intentionally about, he's a huge supporter of, is it not ketamine? Is it ketamine? It's a, I don't know, psilocybin or ketamine therapy?

40:38 Yeah, ketamine therapy. Okay, yeah, yeah. I think is what he was referencing. Sure, I have friends who've done that. Yeah, and so he was talking about, I want to say, and I'm sorry, Cameron, if I'm speaking out of turn, but I want to say he is a believer in some of the experiences that he's had. Yeah. But he was referencing all these hitters. I'm talking names of the names that have found that to be unbelievably powerful. Well, one of the people in the call, the CEOs in the call, is a company that that's what they do. They help support people. We have a clinic here in Corvallis. Yeah, they help people in this stuff. And I was just blown away by, I mean, I guess I'm kind of panicking Yeah, you're hearing the testimonials.

41:19 Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah, it's of people that are way out in front of where I'm. You know what I mean? So it's just, it tends to open up your mind a little bit. Oh, yeah. When you're watching people participate in something that may have kind of stigma. Yeah, you respect their output. Yeah, and you just, I mean, these people are hammers. Yeah. And they're using this, and it's part of how they're keeping balance with the emotional demand of entrepreneurship and multi-company ownership, startup phases going public. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it helps them remain their creativity, some of their agility. It sounded like from my minimal limited perspective, there's almost like a dumping of emotional baggage that tends to load up over time. And it's like these people have a ritual.

42:00 Some of them are doing it a couple times a year as this really healthy way to hit reset and then go back at it. And I, dude, I'm going to tell you, I'm starting to think very seriously about what would it look like to experiencing something like that where there's a lot more science now surrounding it. There's a lot more health and clinical engagement and the environment is right. Like if there is a way for us as high-producing leaders, high-action-oriented people, to get in an emotional, mental reset where the tank actually goes all the way back down to E, that is powerful because I think part of my stress with what we're doing. And part of what I was referring to in terms of the context shifting, it feels like the stress tank, it just, it rallies really quickly.

42:49 And then the little thing I do on a single Saturday morning or one Thursday night with my wife, it never is enough. Isn't enough to get it back to... No, no. You don't start Friday morning with E. You start Friday morning with a hair of tank left. Yeah. And you blast that thing in the first 20 minutes of your day. And so the whole day, you're just kind of overspilling with kind of the stress and the pressure mentally and emotionally. It's a psychedelic. That might. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Yep. It's interesting. Yeah, because I have a friend who is, he did like 12 weeks at a clinic where you go in once a week. Wow. And then have a, We are going to get some folks on the show this year, by the way. We need to do a whole episode on this psychedelic medicine thing. Yeah. I mean, it's not new. You know, it's been 10 years of, and it's very fascinating.

43:31 So we got to do a whole show about it. Yeah, I don't want to shy away from talking about subjects like that. For some of our listeners, like there'll be many where they're like, yeah, duh, dude. It's come up more and more in our work with clients, people asking about it, hearing about it. I hear more and more owner CEOs talking about psilocybin mushrooms, ketamine. There's couples, I've met more couples too, that have received MDMA therapy with their spouses and their marriages. It's pretty, we're living in interesting times. Yeah, man. That is something now coming after that show or that meeting with those guys. I'm like, we got to get some folks on the show this next year. Yeah, it'd be really cool. I know you've wanted to do that too.

44:12 It's fascinating. It really is. Okay, everybody. Well, you want more fascinating stuff? We'll see you at the next show. That's right. Later. Bye. 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.