Ep 160 - "Trimming The Vine"

0:00 Keep your mouth out of my face, please. What an opener. I'll protect myself. And welcome to the show. Keep your mouth out of my face. I'm going on a field trip tomorrow with my kids. That's right. To the mountains, right? Yeah. Okay. We're going to talk to you about the mountain later, by the way. Welcome. Hey, everybody. Yeah. Thanks for joining us. Yeah. What are you joining us for? That's the question. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So if you're new, right, welcome to the Head, Heart & Boots show with Brandon and Chris. We're the guys. And this is a bit of a passion project for the owners of Floodlight Consulting Group. So this is a founder's podcast for Floodlight Consulting Group. We partner with restorers who want to scale and grow their business and create a ton of enterprise value along the way.

0:45 So that's what we do. Our team of consultants partners with restorers to help them grow and scale their companies. And to do it in the most professional and productive way possible, right? Because I think what we've learned watching, and many of you know this to be true, watching as the industry has really kind of come of age in the last 10 years, private equity companies and banks have been buying out restoration companies. And we've seen these amazing rags to riches stories and all this kind of stuff. What many of us have learned watching that experience over the last several years is that there's a whole lot more that goes into building a healthy, exit-ready business than just growing your sales and just being profitable.

1:26 In fact, there's a heck of a lot more. Brokers will tell you this. Investment bankers will tell you this. And yet, many of us just have not yet put the things into place. And it's not even so much putting things in place. It's applying the right... thinking and strategy to how we're building our business, what we're prioritizing and investing our people and our capital in. And so that's what we do at Floodlight. You want a partner that's going to help you roadmap that and execute? Well, that's why you'd hire us. So go check out floodlightgrp.com and read our Google reviews. You can Google us and see what other people are saying about us. But that's what we do. Love it. Yeah. Dude, so I'm actually kind of excited for this show.

2:09 We're not too far into the new year. And some of us took a little bit of a Christmas vacation, or at least attempted to. And it just got me thinking. I ended up getting just ridiculously ill. And so I was literally bedridden for almost seven days. I rotated between a couple chairs and the bed. And it was fairly demoralizing, but it also was forced rest. And there was something that happened in that forced rest that was kind of interesting. And it really began to get me thinking about some previous experiences, things that I've heard, experienced firsthand, and then just the way that I think I'm shifting in some of the ways that I think about my development as a leader. And so I wanted to jump in on that with you.

2:51 So here's kind of the basis, I think, of where this thought started. You know, when you and I are nature guys, we like to go hiking and go hunting and doing these things. The whole point is there's something special that happens when you go out, connect with the dirt and just kind of slow down long enough to watch around you. What systems, what processes are already in place, right? That we can look to for guidance and examples of the way that life can be sustainable and and leverage these synergies, right? To provide resources and provide support and to support each other, right? Like these whole ecosystems. I'm hanging with us guys here. So anyways, I was processing that and I was really thinking about vineyards, right?

3:36 Okay. And it's this idea. The reason I love vineyards because I wouldn't necessarily want to own one and take care of one, but there's something beautiful about the rose, the tidiness, the commitment to what it looks like. And I've always kind of said, well, it would be fun to have a house surrounded by a vineyard that I didn't have to take care of. Because I would just love to wake up and look out and see all these well-maintained tidy rows designed to do a certain thing in a certain way, right? So anyways, I'm thinking about vineyards and I'm just thinking about the fact that normally in the spring and summertime, one of the most beautiful things in our area is when you drive by these vineyards because they're just gorgeous. But then this time of year, there are just rows of dead shit. Yeah. Right? It has a very ugly kind of non-beautiful look feel to it.

4:21 It's almost the actually very opposite. It's like a boneyard. It is. It's a boneyard. And so, and then I was just thinking again from there, just what happens in spring and my excitement about spring when the world around us begins to come to life, especially here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. And I started to kind of get absorbed with this idea that nature has really shown us a clear path of developmental cycles. You know, nature has this cadence of dormancy, of rest, of revitalization, of... You know, if we think about like why in farming scenarios, for example... There will be several seasons where a crop is not planted in a specific field location.

5:02 And because the soil needs time to reintroduce the minerals and the resources to make that crop effective, right? To make that soil effective. And so I was just kind of pondering all these different reference points, how nature shows us there's this very consistent and natural cycle of we go quiet for a while, we rebuild the nutrients, we re-supplement the soil, right? Right. And then spring hits, and then there's this resurgence of growth where all those resources, the quiet, the things that we were able to develop in that dormancy state are then used and leveraged to create this growth.

5:43 And then towards the end of that growth cycle, there's this massive production of fruit. Mm-hmm. from our experience and from our effort. And I was thinking recently how as a people, especially as professionals, especially as entrepreneurs or people running companies, we have an expectation that you're going to run hard into the paint 24-7, 365. days a year and that somehow we've conned ourselves into believing that's a sustainable pattern. And I think what's interesting, and again, I'm going to be very careful here. This is me learning out loud. I am in no way saying this is a standard, a thing. It's just where my head's been going recently.

6:24 where I feel like nature very accurately and very intentionally points to the fact that in order for us to do this sustainably over a long period of time, decades, hundreds of years, there's this intentional cycle where you are doing certain things and investing in certain ways in order for that bumper crop, that fruit production to come on an annual basis. And it's got me thinking. If that's true for mother nature, and you can, I mean, what's the historical record? It's pretty flawless. Like if that's true in nature, what could we take from that? How can we look at our own personal and professional development as leaders and the fruit that our efforts produce from this perspective of a annual cycle that's very consistent and is more consistent?

7:19 complicated or multifaceted than just go hard into the paint forever. Ah, there's so much nature gives us so many incredibly vivid analogies. I think we can learn from, yeah. Like one of my buddies, he's a forester. Oh yeah. Yeah. And he works for a forest land management group that is one of the wealthiest and biggest in the country. In fact, probably most of the people on this call will know about the 1031 exchange. Oh, sure. So this forestry company, the founder, the patriarch of it, he actually... He was the guy who developed the 1031 exchange, the law, like got it written in the law because they were these huge landowners and they needed this mechanism for this tax mechanism.

8:09 And so he pitched it to Congress and it became like now one of the most preeminent investment mechanisms of all time. But anyway, so this guy works for this big land management company and he was just talking to me. It was very interesting. Yeah. Just how they think about managing the land and the natural cycles of the land. That's right. And the thinning of their forests and how important and intentional and scientific it is for them to maintain, to not over-harvest plants. But how important it is to routinely harvest and prune out the less healthy trees. And so there's all these different rhythms of life that I think nature shows us in its strength.

8:52 Like really healthy elements of nature have these moments of rest. moments of dying and allowing certain aspects of them to die off. Yeah. So that then the surviving elements feed off of the nutrients of the dying. And there's just this really beautiful cycle. But you know what comes to my mind? I was just in a conversation literally like an hour ago with this executive at a very big Restore in our country. in our country, because I also spoke to somebody in Canada earlier, so I had to qualify that. Yeah, hey. In the United States of America. And anyway, I was really surprised to learn that internally, their target is 10% growth. And I thought, that's not very aggressive.

9:33 Yeah, sure. Right? I mean, we're living in a world where a lot of restoration companies are like 30%. Yeah. 50%. We doubled last year. You know, this is the kind of thing. And he said, he said, you know, here's the thing. He said, if we build a culture and a system and accountability within our company to consistently grow 10% every year, we're going to win. He said, but here's the other thing that we found is we're going to have years where we grow 30% because the systems in place that we have to grow 10% consistently every year, we're going to have large loss experience. Sure. We're going to have hurricanes that happen. Yeah. That give us kind of the way you and I talk about angel losses. Yeah. Right. It's like we don't build our business around angel losses, but they come.

10:16 When you build your business for the day-to-day, month-over-month performance, the angel losses come and they make everybody happy. Right. Yeah. And it was just interesting to hear him say that out loud. And it kind of ties in probably a lot of people who have read Good to Great. Mm-hmm. by Jim Collins. And Collins talks about this in their research to companies. It's not the ones that grow 4,000% in a year that win over time. Yeah. You know, these crazy success stories like the Ubers. Uber was like this, you know, it's like from zero to gazillion. Yeah. And then there was all kinds of chaos. And then it dropped way back down. There was almost bankruptcy at one point. They almost got bought and there's this craziness.

10:58 But the really, truly great companies, maybe Uber will eventually prove everybody wrong long-term. But over this 20-year study that Collins and his peers did... It was the folks that were doing the five yard, 20 mile march. That's right. I think I just confused two different analogies, but it was like, it wasn't the companies focused on touchdowns. It was the companies that were focused on a first down every play. Yeah. Yeah. marching down the field. And I think it speaks to what you're talking about, which is as entrepreneurs, there's something inside of us that desperately wants the touchdown today. Yeah, yeah. And we're willing to set ourselves on fire to get that touchdown today But I think over time, and I think what this gentleman that I was speaking to, what they've found in their company is, we can get more out of ourselves and out of our people by building around this cadence of disciplined, steady, forward progress.

11:58 And we're going to have some outsized wins along the way. For sure. But there's something Something's super important about not spending too much of ourselves. Yeah. Too fast. That's right. Like, how do we, it's like, how do we build a business? I mean, you and I wrestle with this. Oh, yeah. It's like, how hard do we want to go? Yeah. And how many fronts do we want to tack on at once? Yeah. How, what are we willing to sacrifice? Really? Yeah. How much of our health are we willing to sacrifice? Yeah. how much of the connection and depth do we want to sacrifice in our personal relationships in order to yield fruit today? Because it's like, there is no free ride. There isn't.

12:38 It's like the system really is designed for consistency. Yeah. You can't game the system. Yeah. But we try. But we try. And I think the problem is, is that the way most of us view success, and I'm guilty of this too, is in dollars. In dollars and possessions. Dollars, possessions, and beauty. I'm sorry. You know, it's like we judge other people by the outward appearance of their achievements. That's right. Not knowing the quality of relationships, friendships that they've been able to retain. And they're just, you and I've seen it. We get behind the curtain of a lot of entrepreneurs' lives and businesses and we see there are trade-offs and you cannot dodge them.

13:18 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think that we see that play out, not to kind of like overly lean on this whole nature thing, but I think we see it play out in nature when humans, for example, begin to attempt to skirt the cycle and over pull, to over farm animals. over produce, we begin to create long-term damage to the infrastructure, to the systems that made it sustainable as a resource in the first place. And we don't need to split hairs about global warming and whatever people's perspectives are. But if you just look at a field, ask any farmer, if they were to continue to try to produce a bumper crop from the same field, year after year after year after year and not give that rest, not put back, not to reinvest or develop resources from that location, long-term damage happens to the earth.

14:15 Yeah. Right? And so I think that in our businesses, it's a similar cycle when we're not following a natural cadence, right? of getting quiet and reinvesting, developing, right? Maybe this is... So just for the sake of clarity, I am not saying that you're going to go dormant for a quarter in the year. Don't go off the course here. What we're saying is, or what I guess what I'm trying to wrestle with is this idea of what does this cycle look like in real life as a business owner, as a leader, where... What is that resting or that reinvesting, the pouring back into in order to have those resources available for that next growth curve or push?

14:59 What does that look like, feel like? And here's some of the places this has been showing up that I think are far more relevant and impactful than I've given credit to. And as a consultant, I've potentially undervalued and then not led my client relationship very well in it. And so here's an example. I was thinking about what are these little pauses? What is this reinvestment, the hibernation look like in our business cycles? And I thought, okay, well, one, what about end of year planning? What about development of the strategic plan for the following cycle? It causes us, if we do it right, it causes us to get away, to unplug from the day-to-day operations, to turn off distractions, and begin critically thinking at a high level about our organization.

15:49 That's a pause, right? Like in business lifecycle, I think that's something that we could point to as a relevant pause, a reinvestment, a putting the resources back into the field so that we can expect fruit in the following spring or summer production, right? And so I'm thinking, okay, well, what about our strategic planning phases, right? And then I started wrestling with that. What about quarterly reviews where we stop again and we unplug from the tyranny of the urgent and we do a look back over the previous 90 days and we ask ourselves, did we do what we said? Is the soil ready? Are we making forward progress?

16:31 Are we creating the fruit that we anticipated by our actions? And I think that is also an opportunity for us just to push pause, to separate ourselves from the tyranny of the urgent and look, right? So it's not going to be you take the winner off, but it's this principle of stopping the actions, the hurried, frantic action, evaluate. Where are the resources? How's the soil? Is it ready for another push? Did we do the things that we needed to do? And I think your trimming, your letting die analogy is amazing, man. Because like, again, let's just kind of hang in the pocket. Like, where would this show up? I think in our strategic planning, in our quarterly reviews, where we're asking ourselves, the whole keep, what is it?

17:16 Stop, keep, and add. Yeah. Right? That's part of that equation. It's this idea of, okay, we did these things last quarter. Right? What have them really helped propel the business forward? And then us being honest and saying, we're going to cut that crap off because we want our energy and our resources to go to the stuff that works, right? That creates fruit. So like if you think about the vineyard, if grapes were left to their own demise, they would just be a bush, right? Yeah. And they'd be tiny grapes. And they'd be tiny grapes. And there'd just be limbs and pods of fruit kind of all over and they would be misshaped and not healthy. But you look what they do. They trim everything except for these two primary runs.

17:57 And then the fruit only comes off of those two primary runs per bush. And because of that, all the energy and the nutrients goes right to just these very specific and proactive intended fruit producers, right? And I think that's what we're talking about with our business. It could even be things like how we build rest into our weekly cadence of behavior. 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.

18:41 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. 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.

19:26 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. 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. blood light. That's 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.

20:08 Right. You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully. 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.

20:51 But how many of you are already leveraging the actionable insights profile for Xactimate? 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.

21:38 one of the things I've been wrestling with a little bit and I've been pretty open about it is I'm just, I'm trying to redevelop my own spiritual practices. Like what does that look like for me in my life and my, my family and my sphere of influence? And you know, one of the things I've been wrestling with a little bit is this idea of really understanding and taking a Sabbath. And if you're not, you know, it's not Christian or whatever your background, it's not the point. The whole principle behind the Sabbath is to stop for a moment to have a part of a day or a period of time every week where you're doing that, almost going into a hibernation. Rebuild. Allow the tyranny of the urgent to be pushed off for a moment of time so that you can be internal, rest, reflective, and, It's the same idea.

22:25 If I was very good as a leader, building that moment, that idea of Sabbath into my weekly ritual, how much more productive, powerful, positively contributing am I to my entity, to my teams, to my organization? Because I've come back that week with a fuller cup. I have more to give, right? And it's like these things, I'm trying to understand how we build these breathing patterns right? into the way that we lead and carry ourselves so that we have the highest opportunity of every time we're engaging, it's producing the most fruit it possibly can, right? Yeah. Makes me, just this idea of Sabbath, it reminds me of some show I watched on Netflix about Hasidic Jews.

23:08 Oh, yeah. Like really observant, like super religious ones. That concept of Sabbath is so fundamental to the rhythm of their community. Yeah. Yeah. And it's what we would see is very extreme to where that for that 24 hour period, I think it's sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. And then they have a feast, I think, on Saturday nights, I think is how it works. But they do no work. Yeah. To the extent that they aren't even allowed to turn on a light switch. Wow. Like it's like, it's very extreme. Like actual Hasidic Jews, their observation of that rest is no work. You don't take the trash out. You don't cook. You don't like, it's just very, very restrictive, I think in our Western view, but.

23:51 Sure. But I think it speaks to how important it actually is and how frenzied. Most of us actually are. When you put yourself up against that standard, like, do I have even a four-hour period in my week where I'm actually resting? Like, do I? Certainly not against that standard. Yeah. And how... healthy and worthwhile would it be for me to have that kind of full rest? And what would that mean for the relationships in my life if that were a discipline or a commitment that my family and I observed and prioritized?

24:32 That's right. What would that mean? Like even if it was 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, we did nothing except communicate and be together or read or something, right? Like, what would that feel like? Yeah. Because I think for most of us, maybe some people listen is like, really, only three hours? I do that every Saturday or Sunday. Yeah. I know I haven't. And it was never part of the rhythm of my family. Even what we thought of as kind of taking a light day or a rest day or our day at church, like Sundays growing up. Yeah. It was frenzied. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Ah, because like we go to church, my dad was playing the piano, my mom was singing in the choir. I was youth group. They'd go early, they'd stay late. Yeah, and then our church had evening service as well.

25:13 So we'd go out to lunch and then we'd go home and we had our friends like hurry and clean up the house and do laundry. And then we're back to church in the evening. It's like, oh my goodness, what happened to this day of rest? Was this a day of rest? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think part of what you're referencing is the intentionality, right? This is not necessarily replacing our hurriedness with a ton of forced entertainment or the movies or whatever. The idea is this intention of rest building on, adding value, giving you the resources that you will draw on later when the work begins again. to fuel, to produce. And I think that's what I have made mistakes with is that it's kind of like I run the risk personally of feeling like when I'm not actively doing, I'm not creating value.

26:04 And it's such a mindset screw because it's not true. It would be like me buying into the mentality that when my gas tank is empty, I just need to drive faster and that that's going to fix my problem. Like there's nothing in my brain that says, oh, that makes sense. Yeah. But that's how we treat our systems and ourselves, our bodies in reflection of or in context with work. Yeah. With building, with developing. And so I just think there's just this awesome reminder for us to try to identify, okay, well, if I can't go faster, harder, farther on an empty tank of fuel. Yeah. Yeah. How is that relevant to my business and my energy as a leader?

26:47 And what can I begin to do to develop a much more intentional cycle where I'm getting the opportunity to put back in so that I can draw out in a productive, proactive, consistent way with my team and the teams that I'm responsible for? I'm kind of on a, this sounds silly, but I'm kind of on this whole strategic planning kick. And I don't mean for the first time ever, I'm finding value in it. It's more like I'm becoming more and more bullish on the idea of regardless of where a client thinks they are or says or communicates they are. I think there's this fundamental responsibility that I have, for instance, as a consultant, to really sit in the pocket with my client and ask hard questions, maybe is a decent phrase, but just kind of point towards, let's unpack the vision that you do have for the business.

27:42 Let's review your core values again. Let's dig in and begin understanding the difference between an exercise that somebody's been taught to do and... versus how we leverage that time and that commitment to that planning process so that it fundamentally shapes and changes the way we make decisions and the way that we lead our organization. And so again, kind of staying in this rhythm idea, this cadence of development idea, I think it's so fundamental for businesses that if they haven't created a real clear vision for their organization. They haven't really clearly identified and described the culture that they're going to build in their organization.

28:29 Or they haven't legitimately unpacked and wrestled with the culture their core values to the point where their definition and how they shape the organization is so clear that we don't have multiple interpretations, right? So it's this idea of doing the work of a strategic planning session where But it's moving beyond that and ensuring that those things actually become the backdrop for when we weigh a decision we have to make or we equip our downline leaders to become more independent because they understand the core value that's driving their decision, their hiring decision, their disciplinary decisions.

29:10 And I think to me, that corresponds directly to this cadence of sometimes we have to slow down and or even come close to a stop, right? In order for us to propel growth and produce fruit. You know, the other thing that's coming up for me, man, is I think it's really important that like white space in our lives... Thinking time, right? Is it really important? Yeah, thinking time and just margin and room to kind of move in. Like when I think about all the various clients that we have worked with and are working with right now, When you and I've gone out to do a site visit, there's a tangible feeling and difference between the companies that are really healthy and the ones that are really frenetic and chaotic and really struggling to find traction or profitability.

30:06 Because a lot of the companies we end up seeing, they're growing like crazy. Mm-hmm. but their profit and or turnover is really problematic. And it's interesting when we go on site to these healthy companies, there's a real relaxed element to it where the owners that we're meeting with and the key leaders, nobody's running. Nobody's, whoops, I got to leave the meeting to go take this call. It's really important. There's less of it. Rare. Yeah. Rare. Yeah. It is relatively rare. When we go out to dinner with them, you know, which is kind of a common practice for us, they're engaged. They're not constantly checking their phone, leaving the table, coming back, leaving the table, coming back.

30:48 All of these things are much more common in these companies that we encounter that are struggling in some of those key ways we were talking about. Maybe growing. Yeah. Yeah. May have big fleets. Yeah. May just all the things, a lot of the great markers of success have them, but internally there's a lot of chaos, a lot of turnover and things like that. And there's just, there's something about the calm, collected, diligent, calm, kind of nature of these businesses that there's room in the day. It's not bouncing from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, all day, every day that I think is important. I actually forgot about something that Kara and I've been doing. We have a retreat and it occurred to me, this is like one of the only times in my life where I've forced myself to really rest from a lot of my normal cadences and communicate, in particular, my phone and laptop.

31:40 Yeah. Yeah. is this last year we attended a retreat and it's a three-day retreat, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And it happens about every two or three months. And we went on this retreat and it occurred to me, it's out in the, it's out in the coastal range of the Oregon mountains. And it's just far enough out of town that there's almost no cell reception. Yeah. And there's also kind of a, it's not quite a mandate, but basically everybody turns their phones off. Yeah. Yeah. And for like 36 hours, I didn't look at my phone. That's a long time. It's a really long time. And it's just popped in my head. I'm like, wait, yeah, we do this. We went to this retreat and it was so restorative for her and I.

32:21 They were talking about when the next retreat was going to be. And we're like, we're doing this every time they offer it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is, it's a Friday, it's a Friday evening through a Sunday afternoon. Yeah. And it's like, we're just going to do this. And thankfully our kids are at an age now where we can do that without a huge amount of hardship and babysitting coordination and all that kind of stuff. And this ain't every week anyways. No, it's about, it's about every two to three months. Okay. Yeah. Once a quarter. Yeah. Once a quarter for three days. Super realistic. And I realized, and I'm just like, I realized too, like in between our sessions and different things, activities that it's this place, this particular place is on 140 acres. And Kara and I, I didn't even think to grab my phone. And we just, we would just go walk on this road through the woods.

33:05 Yeah. And we'd talk and we'd think. And it's like, wow. Wow. And we wouldn't think of how long we had. It was just like, it was just, there's something about white space that is like open space that is so powerful. Yeah. And again, back to the companies that we work with. I'm right now, one of our, some friends of you and I that we used to operate with They recommended, they sold their company to a new owner and they told that owner, you need to work with floodlight. You should work with them. They'll help you scale up and do the things you want to do. A lot of industry experience, blah, blah, blah. So he called, this guy calls me up. He's like, hey, I was told I should talk to you about consulting.

33:47 Well, if this person is listening, they'll know exactly who I'm talking about. It's okay. I've been chasing them. We have a process for onboarding clients because we're interviewing the potential clients as much as they're interviewing us. 100. Right? In order for us to be effective, right? It's a two-way street. Yeah. And every single time I've reached out to this guy to schedule the next step, oh, you know, I was just really busy. I got this company and this new one I just acquired and da-da-da-da-da. And, you know, and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I do know. Yeah. And it's very difficult to think strategically and to build any kind of consistent pattern of growth and execute on strategy.

34:28 When we are so frenetic and so always on the run, it's very difficult for our people to follow us. And it's very difficult for us to execute in any kind of consistent manner. And honestly, it's really given me pauses. I'm not sure that this is going to be a great client for us. Yeah. And that will be a great consultant for them because they're going to come in with all the expectations of what a consultant is or does. What am I paying for? ROI, you know, how fast. And if this is the dynamic of, hey, we had a meeting and oh, you had something come up Not good. Not good. And not good for him. And so it's hard to see that because with all the experience you and I've had, it's like, yeah, that doesn't usually end well.

35:09 It doesn't produce the results people want. And again, I think what's so deceptive is the reason why a lot of owners act that way. They always have their hair on fire. They're known for it. It's because it can produce results. Grinding. Oh, yeah. It's real. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the whole early Vaynerchuk, not today Vaynerchuk, but early Vaynerchuk, you know, and some of these other Cardone guys and whatever. It's like, can you produce results? Yes. But it is interesting to look at those type of figures. And their message has changed in the last 10 years. Right, it's true. From grind your face off to... Maybe there's more to it. Yeah, maybe there's more to this thing, right? Yeah. And of course there is. Because I think what all of those guys and gals have ultimately figured out is that while they were left with a big pile of money, they also had a lot of unintended consequences that they experienced as a byproduct of organizing themselves that way.

36:05 Yeah. And I certainly have. Yeah. Those periods of my life where it was just grind, grind, grind, whatever, whatever, fast as possible, there was fallout. Yeah. I wasn't always willing to see it or acknowledge it. Yeah. But I can clearly look back now and see where I made some trade-offs. And I think the older you get, the more you realize those trade-offs are rarely worth it. Yeah. It kind of reminds me a little bit of this, the difference between constantly in a state of failing forward, right? and intentionally moving forward. And don't get me wrong, there's a healthy amount of any success story of failing forward. Of course. Right? But I think we can also over-index to the point that failing forward, we believe, is the only path forward.

36:52 And I think the reality check for all of us is if we can get into a consistent pattern, a cycle where we're re-energizing, refueling, getting the rest, reinvesting in to the soil, that then the growth intentionality that comes, that proceeds that, I mean, that posts that, unbelievably fruitful. Yeah. Right? And that it creates an experience or an outcome where we're more proud of what ourselves and our teams just did. It's more filled with wisdom and intentionality. There's not as much negative fallout.

37:33 There's not the sticky and as much sticky residue when you're intentionally saying, let's rest and reflect in order to take advantage of tomorrow. Right? And just building that in to the way that we manage ourselves and our business. Powerful. Yeah, it's like the wine, the vineyard example you gave, right? It's like we take the time, we exercise the patience to prune away. Mm-hmm. a lot of the vine. Yeah. So that all of the energy from the sun and the water, the nutrients can flow where it needs to flow. That's right. And I just think it's such a perfect analogy because I think it is really possible and some of the most successful leaders that you and I really have grown to respect where we've been able to see kind of behind the curtain, so to speak, and know what really went into it.

38:22 Yeah. They all get there. Yeah. Yeah. they all are maturing into recognizing, okay, this is a both and. Yeah. This is a rest and press. Yeah. Rest and then press. You can't fight nature without the consequences. That's right. Going with nature, that's like an old Buddha saying, right? That's right. It's like flow like water. Yeah. Go with kind of the way nature has created us to go, which involves rest. It involves relationship, energy exchange. Love it, dude. It's something we don't really learn until we learn it. Yeah. And I'm convinced some people that are listening to this, they're ready to hear that. Yeah. Just like you and I at different intervals where we kind of needed to hear it.

39:04 And then it's like, oh, okay. This is the direction to go. That makes more sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is. Okay. Cool. Well, that was a good chat. Yeah. Thanks for hanging out with us, guys. See you on the show. please. Yeah. If you want a partner, you appreciate maybe where we're at in our own evolution is as entrepreneurs and leaders. And you're like, man, I want to connect with a partner that's thinking this way. I could use more of this. Well, that's part of what you'll get. Working with a floodlight consultant. Floodlightgrp.com. Check it out. Reach out. Love it. Okay. See you on the next one, guys. Thanks. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots.

39:44 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.