Ep 70 - "YOU INC."

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. Man, I love this industry. Hey, good morning, sir. Hey, dude. How are you? I'm doing all right. You jumped in there. Don't even act like you didn't. Did it on purpose. I saw you do that. I saw you. I felt it. I saw it. I have kind of an interesting topic today. Book club's coming up. I think we're going to record an episode in the next couple weeks. It all depends on when we actually release you, so it's hard to know. But we've got that coming up. We've been reading a book, The Road Less Stupid, Keith Cunningham. Yep.

0:47 I got totally hyper-focused on a very small segment of that book in the last 24, 48 hours. I wanted to roll through that. And so my idea here is... And this is his terminology. We're going to call this episode You, Inc. As in you as a business, right? Definitely leadership heavy today, this particular topic. But before we get into that... Yeah, and almost going to be some personal development kind of angle to it. Yeah, I'd say big time. Yeah, not even kinda. I think very much so. One of the things, we won't get too far into the topic just yet, but one of the things that you and I have always, I think, taken very seriously is that there's a reality of, as you move your way up in an organization or become a business owner or take on some of these increasingly complex titles, there's a responsibility on you as an individual to continue to develop in order for you to be prepared and or the best fit for that new level of responsibility.

1:46 And we talk very intentionally about it's not that you need to have it all figured out before you take the responsibility. That's almost the same fight as the whole perfection piece is if you never start moving, the chances of you actually learning are pretty slim. Yeah. And so we always talk about kind of if you're doing your job well, you're probably always going to kind of feel like you're on the outer edges of your current capacity level. And that's okay. So anyways, I want to hang in that topic a little bit. Keith is really rad about his whole thinking time, which we may do an entire episode about that someday. Reminds me too of a conversation with Rachel Stewart. I'll bring that up here in a minute. Let's go. Well, let's thank our podcast guests for CNR Magazine. Yes, sir. CNR Magazine.

2:26 We've become good friends with Michelle Blevins. And she's putting together a great team there. I mean, they've been growing. And it's pretty remarkable. I mean, ever since Michelle bought the company, and she has just absolutely taken it to the moon. The amount of... articles and content and video and the people that she's managed to pull in and engage within our industry is just unbelievable. Absolutely. I mean, basically, if anything important is going on in our industry, you're probably going to hear about it first on CNR Magazine. And so, if you're not a subscriber yet, I mean, that's number one, the first thing to do. Then follow them on LinkedIn because that'll probably be your first notification when they push stuff out.

3:08 And if you're somebody who advertises to our industry... Boy, what a great platform. We're advertisers on the CNR Magazine and we've seen great lift in terms of our strategic objectives, driving people to our podcast, our website, etc. It's been very productive and efficient for us. So check it out. CNR Magazine. Go to candrmagazineandspelledout.com. Again, find them on LinkedIn and follow them there. But they've been a great advertising partner for us. And the resources are multiplying. Podcasts, digital, print. audio. I mean, you name it. Yeah, you want to stay up on M&A, right? Follow them. I mean, Michelle's worked out a cool media partnership with Go Cool, Patmonobon, and Restoration Bookers of America, where he's putting out some really cool content on CNR for that as well.

3:54 Yeah. She is really making sure that people hear what's happening in the industry. That's awesome. Liftify. So our friend Zach Garrett, founder at Liftify.com. Liftify is an automated Google review process or tool or resource. It really is a fire and forget. Once that's set up and in motion, your team, they go out, they do a great job. They earn the client's trust in their favor. And Liftify goes to work to ensure that that voice is heard. saying that you've done a great job and really being able to leverage that for more opportunities. And then of course, him having a background in SEO and digital marketing, he's got a really solid perspective on why their tool is important and the value that it brings to our businesses.

4:36 And the reality of it is that there's no probably more cost-effective way to get SEO lift, organic SEO lift. besides working with Liftify, simply to get Google reviews. And we won't unpack all of it. But the reality of it is that Google weighs itself and all its variables very highly when it comes to search criteria. And they want to know that the business that they are going to populate on that search is a business that is actively getting... new five-star reviews. Regularly. Regularly. Recency, frequency is another factor. If you've got Lyftify doing the background on every single job, you're more likely to have these three, four, five, 10 reviews every week.

5:19 And you're going to beat out a competitor that maybe even has more... five-star reviews, but they haven't gotten any new ones for six weeks. They cycle like the rest of us do. Like the rest of us. They focus on it for 90 days, they get a bunch, and then a year later, they haven't gotten any. And Liftify can certainly... Week in, week out. Fix that. Yeah. Right on. Right on. So this topic, so we're calling it Uink today, I think is where we're going to start this episode. So Keith Cunningham, the interesting thing about that guy is he, in his book at least, this Road Let's Stupid, which I just love the title in and of itself, very pragmatic, high-level business executive. This guy is a leader of leaders. He's had an extremely successful career, led, bought, purchased, held executive seats.

5:59 I mean, you name it, but he's just an outstanding businessman. But one of the things he weighs very heavily on is this idea of good thinking, deep thinking, proactive thinking about the business. And really, one of the themes in their book, or his book, is this idea that when leaders are effective at having thinking time... about the problems that they're solving in their businesses, about the initiatives that they're trying to start and leverage in their businesses, that the outcome, of course, is substantial. So anyways, it's one of those practices. He was doing a section on evaluating yourself as a leader and as a contributor to the business. Now, the interesting thing about this is he didn't necessarily approach it only as the owner or executive leader.

6:44 I mean, he's basically saying that this applies to all of us, no matter our job title and no matter where we fall in the ranks. There's a reality that we are responsible for you, Inc. Us as a company, right? Almost is what he's saying. And he starts this section out, which I just think is very interesting by getting us as the reader to ask this question. Yeah. If we were you, Inc., and we were a publicly traded company, is our stock rising, falling, or treading water? And this is interesting because right now, more than ever, I think we've got this, and I think everything falls into this right now, but we've got this dichotomy, or maybe it's not even that.

7:29 It's almost like this division of you versus them. There's always been this wrestling match, employee-employer, and... And so many of us use the excuse that it's someone else's fault. It's some environmental condition. It's my job. It's my job title. It's my manager doesn't know me. It's my boss. It's my, my, my, my, my, these things that are against me. And then as leaders, we can essentially fall into this category. If we expect, we expect, we expect. But we don't necessarily hold ourselves accountable to continue to grow and adapt. And so this idea with You, Inc., is that are we as individuals, I don't care if you're in a titled leadership role or not, but are we as individuals really asking ourselves some hard questions about us?

8:15 And are we really bringing to bear all of our skill set, all of our passion, all of our resources, all of our skills to produce an outstanding end product for no one else other than the fact for us as Ewing. Like, are we doing what we need to do to represent our brand to the highest of our capacity? Or are we often doing things based on what the environment or another person is telling us we're valued at, or that's good or bad, or that's whatever. Well, you know, I actually had it... It's funny because we did chat about this a little bit before the episode, and I heard it from a different angle, slightly. Oh. Yeah. So like we're in... And this is the comment about Rachel Stewart.

8:58 So where this reminded me as you read or we listened to that section... Remember, I think it was when we were working on that workshop, the Imagineering. Oh, yeah. What was that called? Visioneering. Visioneering. Yeah, the Visioneering workshop. It's been a minute. Yeah, we did with Rachel. She used her dad's material. Yeah, it was a great thing. But one of the comments she made... was about another CEO that was in her orbit there in Arizona. The former CEO of Infusionsoft, which they just recently did a rebranding, but a very, very popular marketing planning software platform. Anyways. Yeah, Infusionsoft's a really great product and company. But the CEO, and I forget his name, was giving a talk about startups.

9:41 And he said, there's an evolution to a business that... where the business requires a different leader at these different stages, that most CEOs can really only lead a company for one, maybe two growth cycles. And then the skill and the experience and personality, the profile that is required of a leader... Yeah, the toolkit. To get the next couple of growth cycles is significantly different. And so he talks about this is why a lot of times you see CEOs change seats, right? They get a big, huge influx of growth. All of a sudden, next thing in the headlines you're hearing, oh, so-and-so stepped down or so-and-so left or got fired.

10:25 And now there's a new CEO in town. He said, it's not necessarily politics, which of course sometimes it is. Yeah. But it's because the business needs a different kind of leader. Yeah. And in the context of that conversation with Rachel, it was more about growth as a leader, how we need to be looking out ahead and saying, what is the business going to require of me? Yeah. And I think Cunningham even goes into that in an earlier chapter where he's like, what are the skills... and knowledge that I'm going to need for this next lift. And so when we listened to that Ewing thing and you were bringing that up, I was like, I thought about it from those terms. I think both are probably... He's probably communicating both.

11:05 Yeah. But that was what I thought is just as a leader, maybe part of that thinking time is, what needs to happen in me? for me to be ready to take this team where they need to go. That's right. And we hit on this. We touched on it. All this stuff runs together, right? But we touched on this in a podcast last week that we recorded where we just said, You know, as a leader, I think I made some pretty inflammatory comments. I'm wondering if I'm going to get some messages for it. But, you know, I was talking about our own. Yeah. What are we modeling for our people? And I think this touches on that as well. You know, as leaders, like our people watch everything. Oh, yeah. We do and don't do. Yeah.

11:46 More so than we like to admit or acknowledge or think about that we're being watched. You're right. You're 100% right. And I feel like... I don't want to steer this off in a different direction. No, no, no, no. You're on point. I think the big thing that I always wrestle with when we have a lot of these discussions is the reality of it is that folks that listen to this show are from all walks of the industry. I mean, we've got office staff, we have GMs, we have owners, we have technicians, project managers, estimators. They're on all sides of the business, working with multiple different types of people and personalities. And often I think it's easy to listen to the content of the show and really feel like it's hyper focused on the owner or highest level leader.

12:28 Yeah. And to some extent, there is some facts in that because you and I prioritize speaking to leaders because we know the level of influence and impact that they're having on their communities is the highest. And we really want folks to be continuing to adapt their skill set and their understanding of people and process and systems so that their businesses are better. And therefore, they're influencing more and more of their community for the positive. But that being said... The reality of it is, and the reason I'm kind of excited about this show, The You Ink Piece, is this is about the individual taking individual responsibility for where they're headed. And if this is you as a GM or a company owner, then maybe the weight's even heavier.

13:08 But if you're a technician listening to this on the way to your next water loss, This is for you, very specifically, just like it's for me as an individual. And it's a new year, right? So a lot of us are doing self-assessments right now. A lot of us are saying, what are we going to hyper-focus on? Where do I want to be with my business, my company, my employer come Q2, whatever the case might be. This one's exciting for me because it's about us as individuals remembering that we have a growth trajectory to stay on. Mm-hmm. And if we're not growing, we're probably dying. There's something to be said and recognize that. Okay, so I think what I want to do I want to frame the majority of the conversation around four or five questions, I think.

13:52 You know, we're just going to work our way through them. I love his questions, man. Right, I love him too. We're going to work our way through them and I think we can get through all of them and land the plane in a relatively decent amount of time. Okay, so again, set the stage. This is you, Inc. This is the perspective of what kinds of questions am I asking myself to ensure that I'm on a growth trajectory as an individual and that I'm not dying or going backwards. So this first one is, Where is the job mentality? And I want to unpack this a little bit, crept in. And he uses some terms to kind of help define that for us. Comfort zone, right? Do you feel yourself sitting in a comfort zone One of the things that to me, okay, this may piss some people off, but when I listen to the way someone responds to a question or a thought, I can often identify if they or myself has slipped into the comfort zone.

14:47 And it's, I respond with such black and white assurance. Hmm. Hmm. That I've got it all figured out. No, tell me more. What do you mean? So if I'm looking at a business, when we say things like, that's how we do it. That's just how we've always done it. Right? Yeah. So then I think of me as an individual and somebody says, have you ever thought about X, Y, Z and my response immediately, almost without thinking is, no, because of da-da-da-da. I do it this way. It works for me. Yeah. Right? I hear this a lot with leaders and their personnel. Okay? A company owner owned a business for a profound amount of time. They've worked their faces off. They've made lots of sacrifices.

15:29 And when it comes to making modifications to the way that they view the current character of employees, and it's this, why can't they be like... Back in the day, the employees did this. It used to be people wanted to work for a living. A lot of those comments, there are some truths in there. Sure. Like, let's not, we can't ignore that there is some differences. Culture has changed. Culture is changing. But how much of that just is out of alignment purely with your aging perspective than it is that actually nobody wants to work anymore? Yeah. I think for us, if we think about our job, comfort zone for me is when I begin to get a routine and then I'm very hesitant to explore anything outside of that routine because that routine is just something I don't have to think about anymore.

16:22 It's pretty effective. It kind of is working. We see this a lot in our businesses where we've reached a certain level of success and then they just kind of hang there forever. Sometimes that's very intentional, but most of the time it's just a byproduct not doing anything about it, really. So that comfort zone. Another one, and you and I talk about this all the time, is are you consistently taking the path of least resistance? We hear this a lot, you and I in our business, we've... I'm always hesitant to talk about our businesses sometimes just because it can be so different than our restorers. But let's think about it from this perspective. You and I have identified a process that gives us the opportunity to meet enough people that those people then in turn, we're in a position where we get to have a conversation of, is there anything that we could be helping you in your business with?

17:14 And what would that look like? Yeah. Well, we've had a system that has kind of gotten this here. We could continue to repeat a lot of those processes indefinitely. But ultimately, the only reason we would do it is because it's the path of least resistance. It's worked. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it ain't broke, right? And I think a lot of businesses are in this position too, where it's kind of worked and And then folks like you and I come along and start talking about depth of culture and the value of it long term and how connection and accountability are valuable. And it's not like we're rocket scientists or anything, but in a lot of ways, the things that we talk about make leadership harder than it is the way you're currently doing it.

17:55 Sure. We would only promote that stuff because we believe it's more effective too. But there's just this reality, right? Of things have kind of worked. So I leave it alone. This happens a lot of us when we become, in quotes, an expert in a certain part of our role or our business. So if I'm a lead technician, if I'm a project manager, it's easy for me to slide into a state of I'm consistently taking the path of least resistance because I'm doing fine. I'm doing okay. Yeah. But am I still growing towards excellence? What else is in front of me? Or as many times I've heard you ask yourself, is this the end of what I'm capable of?

18:36 What am I truly capable of? Well, if we're constantly sitting in the path of least resistance, you'll never know. Yeah. You'll never know. Yeah. And then this last one is, am I doing the least that's expected of me? Like how many of us, and we talk about this in interviewing. Yeah. are asking the question, or are we listening for that question that basically says, what's the minimum I need to do? Yeah. Right? Not the maximum. Like, what can I do? What's going to be expected of me? Yeah. So I can make sure I'm willing to... Yeah. I just want to cross the finish line. Yeah. Whatever that looks like, right? The bare minimum. So that was this first question of where has the job mentality crept in? And I think that's important because we want to...

19:16 I think we first hear that we default to employee-employer. No. No. J-O-B. If you're just doing a job, a utilitarian tasking, you've slipped into this zone. It doesn't matter if you own the business or if you're an employee. You're still responsible for you, Inc. And you, Inc. says if you're in the comfort zone consistently, if you're taking the path of luster resistance and you often are asking yourself what the bare minimums are that you need to hit, you probably have a stock in Uink that's beginning to fall. At best, it's treading water. Yeah. Right. I don't know. Where does that hit you when you first hear that? Well, to put a bit of a woo-woo word on it, it's mindfulness.

19:57 It's considering, how am I thinking about my role? Mm-hmm. Am I still even thinking about my role or am I just sleepwalking through my business? We introduced that word, I think, a couple of podcasts back. So this idea of sleepwalking. And I think it resonated with people in the sense that sleepwalking is not being lazy. It's not necessarily not showing up to your business, being absent or anything like that. It's being in this mode where I'm just doing what I did yesterday and not thinking about it. Yeah. So to me, there's a mindfulness quality to it of sitting back and considering the way I'm thinking about my work, what my priorities are, the way that I'm thinking about my people, the way that I'm even thinking about the success.

20:40 We've talked about this in terms of after-action reviews that don't get so hung up on just doing an after-action review on bad projects or stuff that goes sideways, but occasionally take a look at a project that went really well and try to understand why. Because I think a lot of times we don't even know why we're being successful because we don't think about it. That's right. You know? Yeah. We're just kind of repeating some steps. Yeah, we're repeating some steps. But when we give ourselves some time and we mentor our teams to also reflect on the way that they're thinking about the business and reflect on the successes and the failures and to really try to understand, well, that's when we start to see opportunities.

21:20 Yeah. we start to see the machine. He talks about building machines to accomplish certain objectives. Then we start to see what machine needs to be built in order to get to the next level. 100%. Yeah, I love that. I love that. All right, let's keep trudging here because this is good. You know, I think the inertia that we have to overcome is that it is, when we talk about growing our stock, the reality is that anything worthwhile, the first part is really painful and awkward. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. So I understand, I know you do too, I understand why our stock can go flat and why we're not leaning into that. personal growth, especially when the business is successful.

22:03 It's like the paradox of success, right? The thing that made us successful... Oftentimes, it's not going to be the thing that gets us to the next level. But that success, it eats away at our motivation. Yeah. Because we know the pain we had to endure to get that first round of success. That's right. And there's at least a part of us that doesn't want to go through that same grind again. A hundred percent. And so we think, well, how can I hang in this pocket? And I think we fool ourselves into thinking that if we just hang there The growth will just continue to happen because it did the first, you know what I mean? Right. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, let's just hang in this pocket. Rinse and repeat. Yeah, rinse and repeat. Yep. But the reality is, is that every step like Rachel Stewart was talking about, this other CEO, it's like, there are new demands.

22:45 Yeah. There are new requirements. Yeah. And it's freaking hard. It's actually a great segue because here's the second question. Where are the growth opportunities that I've been putting off? Right? And then here's those little added pieces of color. Require effort. They're outside of my comfort zone. Right? What are the things... that I could be experiencing and I'm not because I'm actually afraid of the amount of effort it's going to require. I'm actually afraid of being uncomfortable in my level of knowledge about the landscape in front of me.

23:26 Yeah. This is really common with folks that value knowledge as their value to the business. Okay. So we talk a lot about this term force multiplier. Mm-hmm. And the idea is it's an individual on our team, whether they be an influencer or a titled leader, that they just have a skill set that says, I'm good at XYZ and my default or they've been trained or oriented towards how do I share that to get others to be good at it as well. Right? In the mix of all of that, part of that is hard because a lot of people either lack the confidence that they're not being reassured that what they know is right and that they should be teaching other people. But another thing that you see is like, we used to call them in the service.

24:09 You would do these tests, right? Like physical tests on putting a weapon back together, taking apart, putting it together. During these tests, you would have... In the army. In the army. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And while doing that, yeah, not at our restoration companies, the judges, the folks that would oversee us and rank us in, say, pass or fail, we called them badge protectors. And so it's this idea of their knowledge... They knew that that's what brought them, made them valuable to the organization. Instead of sharing and teaching and training in a way that allowed others to then hold and be successful with that knowledge, they saw that as danger to them and the value that they held with the company. And we see a lot of leaders not make this transition.

24:52 They come out of being technically competent. We put them in a leadership position. Our new requirement is for them to be a force multiplier, but yet they're afraid to delegate and share that information. Instead, they're the knowledge protector. You got to come to me with the answers. I'm the choke point. Because I'm valuable to the business because I hold this knowledge. So I think that this is one of those questions that if we're asking ourselves... that we can begin to identify the value we can bring to the company besides what we've already done or besides what we already have proven we know so that we get excited about exploring about what potentially is next. But this, where is the growth?

25:32 What am I not consciously saying and seeing and going, hey, that would be cool. To gain that knowledge or to be in that position or take on that love or responsibility, there's some neat things that would happen there. well, what am I willing to do to then, you know, and you're right, so much of this comes back to this awareness, engagement, in my proactively thinking about the situation. But I think for me, like, what are growth opportunities for me that I am still putting off And I would say that one of the... It's kind of a two-part. The first part was I put it off for some time. But fortunately, you're a nice business relationship.

26:15 Clearly, we did finally step over that gap. But I was slow to step out in this kind of coaching, training, consulting space because I had grown pretty dang decent at being an operational leader. And there was cadence and battle rhythms and things that I just... And it's familiar. I would just keep deploying them to a certain extent. Sure. I mean, that's why I teach them because they're effective. And so stepping out into this side of the fence, everything about it is unknown. How do we generate business? How are we going to pay our bills? How are we going to get people to even give us the time of day? Should they give us the time of day? All these things, right, that required... us to step out of comfort zone, to step out of what we knew at the time and begin to look and assess the opportunities for us to grow so that we could then be successful in these new challenges in front of us.

27:06 Every day now, even in this, it's like if we do something with our business for 90 days, we get to the end of that. And at least that one minor whatever thing within our business, we're like, okay, I'm comfortable enough with that, that it's not as scary anymore. But then you have to do it again and again, tomorrow, the next day, the next week, the month after that, in order for us to grow our business. Every time that we feel like We kind of have a grip on something. We're going to have to force ourselves out of that zone. Otherwise, our business will be stagnant. And the same thing applies to us in individual employee roles, job titles, and job function is this push towards that question. So where are growth opportunities that I've been putting off because of the required effort that they push me outside of?

27:55 my comfort zone. And then I have another chicken scratch note here that I have no idea what it means. All right. Hey friends, hey listeners. We're doing something a little bit different with our ads. So you've been accustomed to hearing some ads with our favorite partners and companies in the industry. Now we actually have a product page, our partners page on our website. So floodlightgrp.com forward slash partners. I want to give you a quick rundown though of the people that we're partnering with and we believe in as really go-to resources in the industry. The first one is restorationerp.com, right? ERPs are an important part of our sales process, our customer development process. And why reinvent the wheel? The Restoration ERP platform is awesome. It can be customized to your business branding and all that kind of stuff.

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29:22 awesome resource. And they're always coming out with new great stuff. Yeah, super influential in the industry. Super Tech University, soft skills development training for your technicians, for your frontline personnel. Let's face it, frontline personnel are the heartbeat of our company. They are the ones that connect with our clients and create the customer experience. There's no better investment than investing in the ability for those individuals to represent themselves, our clients, and our brands well. So Supertech University, Surety, they essentially are cutting down this life cycle between delivering service and then getting paid, stepping in, removing the middleman in terms of mortgage companies, refining that pipeline, making sure that there's as least friction as possible.

30:05 So we can go out and do a great job. And then our businesses don't suffer while we're waiting to get paid. The money's coming and it's coming quickly. And then the last one, guys, is Liftify. It's kind of a newer entry to the industry. They're driving Google reviews. So they're a turnkey partner that we can literally go out, provide a great customer experience, hand that name off to our trusted partner in Liftify, and have them go chase. that Google review. 25% conversion rate, which is industry-wide. People tend to average 5% of the people you ask for review actually convert. Lift to 5 bumps that to 25. We were such a big believer. We were a customer and they've been generating all of our floodlight reviews and in a matter of a week and a half we're up to, I don't know, close to 15 reviews in just a short period of time.

30:48 So... And I think people just underestimate what happens organically with your SEO search activity when you're getting these new and active five-star reviews from our clients. And we just can't let the pedal up on that because of the effect on our business. It's a big deal. So check it out. Check out our partners page. Do business with them. You won't regret it. We're confident in that. Floodlightgrp.com forward slash partners. Thanks, guys. Third question. What are the business skills that I need to develop? And this is interesting. Again, it feels like I'm harping on this, but guys, if I'm a technician, this is an amazing question to ask myself.

31:29 Because how many of us look at our current role and get frustrated because we feel like we're stuck or that somebody's not giving us the appropriate opportunity or... I'm not happy about being a technician for whatever reason, pay scale, whatever, because there's limiting factors. You're not a GM. You're not going to get paid like one. There's a lot of roles that require more of people for that pay scale. Anyways, my point is in this is, if you're not happy being a technician is quitting and going to another company to take on some new mid-tier or entry-level position going to move you any closer to your goal, Probably not.

32:11 We talk about this a lot. If you look at the skill sets required by an individual to do the roles or tasks as you look up the chain of command in an organization and you make that a pyramid, so listening, just visualize this, a pyramid, and you do these cross sections, so horizontal lines up this pyramid in incremental amounts. At the very top, you have a tiny ass little triangle and at the bottom, you have this big wide band And people will intentionally continue to place themselves at the bottom of that triangle, at the widest band where the most people are qualified to do what I do. Instead of working their way diligently up the organization into smaller and smaller places in terms of what skill set is required.

33:00 to be successful and hold that role. And if you think that rebooting companies and starting over at the bottom of their pyramid over and over and over again is ever going to get you closer to your goals and aspirations, you're wrong. You have to say, what are the business skills? Call it life skills. Put whatever word in there you want. But what are the skills I need to develop to be able to move my way up this triangle and get out of the entry level space? Is it someone else's job to make that happen for you? Or is there something you should be doing in order for you to be able to exemplify and show that you're ready for that next rung on the ladder?

33:41 Yeah, it's so true. We often leave, and some people even do this with businesses. Sure. Businesses, they reach it, get it to a point where it's kind of working, but then they find another business that seems it's the next shiny object. And it's just this concept of... when we're not focused on taking full control of ourselves and our trajectory, when we're kind of like, we're sleepwalking through life, we're at the influence of our circumstances and everything else, the grass always seems greener on the other side. And I think what this is about is Your grass gets greener when you weed it and you fertilize it. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's true. Yeah.

34:21 And yet somehow we think by, yeah, me just relocating to a different space is automatically going to level up my world and my situation, right? It really happens with what we commit to doing ourselves. That's right. You know what's funny? This may bring really true. So either before or at some point, we're about in very close proximity to this episode. We'll be releasing an episode where you have some real fun with the sales conversation in terms of just expectation, perspective, things like that. Fun is probably a loose use of the word. A little tongue-in-cheek there. But one of the things that I just think is very interesting, it seems very applicable here. You and I talk a lot when we talk about leadership stuff and things like that.

35:04 It does seem to fall more in this operational capacity, it seems like. But here's something interesting about salespeople that could really benefit from this kind of conversation. To include myself, you... is when we analyze how successful we're being in sales, how many of us as salespeople are really leveraging what the company is or is not doing as the reason that's guiding our success or our lack of? So an interesting thing about this. So we talk about... Sometimes we have uncomfortable conversations with clients when you begin working with their sales team because we identify all they have is route activity. They really don't have a bonafide sales team.

35:44 And that's uncomfortable. A lot of times we hear some knee-jerk reactions from owners and business leaders that they may not be able to make that transition from route person to professional B2B sales executive or sales leader. And they may not be wrong, but I think the reason often that owners or key leaders feel that way is because their individual salespeople have plateaued and they have fallen into these categories where they're no longer eager to learn and develop their skill set to be bigger, better, and faster. And so for sales folks, if what you're experiencing in terms of success is moderate at best...

36:26 then what do you need to level up to start succeeding? Is it go to another industry where sales are easier? Maybe, if that's your choice. That's still more action than no action. Yeah. But is there just a level of understanding about, we harp so hard on becoming a student of your target market. Yeah. We're serious. Yeah. Like... No, I mean learn, do research on multifamily and actually understand what lives look like as part of their chain of command. Not what life looks like doing restoration business with a multifamily organization. That's not what we're talking about. Well, this is that space. What are the skills that I need to develop in order for me to be successful?

37:09 Well, if you're selling right now, and you want to be more successful, what do you need to develop? Is there more understanding about your client target? Is there better research productivity that you need to practice? What is it? Do you need to be more intentional about your leading activities? Are you doing enough? Is the question, right? That we're trying to ask ourselves. Okay. And then I think this is interesting. So there's technically three big questions, right? And then these last two are almost, they're just add-ons to this question number three. So I'm gonna just go through them again. Where is the job mentality crept in? And we say with this, I'm asking myself the question, where am I at in my comfort zone? How much of my day-to-day just sits in my comfort zone?

37:51 What kind of path of least resistance have I settled into? And do I often ask myself, or am I noting that I'm just doing the least amount of work that's required? Okay. Question two, where are the growth opportunities that I've been putting off because they require effort, because I'd have to move outside of my comfort zone? And then the third question, what are the business skills that I need to develop? And then this is the last part here. Who can I learn them from? How important is it? And how fast do I need to learn it? Right? I just... I love that, man. So imagine, I'm an employee. Been on the ground for a while.

38:32 And the company that I work for is okay. I can't honestly tell anybody I hate it. It's fine. I like it. They don't blow my hair back. I'm not necessarily jumping on top of the mountain and telling people to come work for the company I'm at. It's okay. Okay. All right, cool. That's a realistic perspective of most of us in most of the jobs that we hold. If I tomorrow started thinking about me as a Ewing and said the stock, the valuation that I would get as an employee, if it was based on me and I asked myself these questions and I get to the last one and I say, okay, self, what are the skills that you need to develop and I'm going to be able to do that?

39:16 Who can you learn them from? How important and how fast do you need to learn those things? Here's another way to ask that question. And this works for owners or whatever, all the way through the chain, is if my peers could get inside the cab of my truck and inside my head and see all things about how I perform, how I do my job, how I approach my job, how I think about it, what value would they place on my stock? Man, that's good. I love that. And that also too, I just, man, there's something about, there's something within this conversation too for owners that I just think we can't emphasize enough, which is everybody is watching everything you do and don't do.

40:03 If you're not keeping track of your personal stock of, are you growing along with the business? Are you getting out in front of the business? What are your people imitating? And what does that do to their stock level? When the most senior leader that's signing off on their checks is stagnant, is stuck in the way we always do things, has old, consistent... negative behavior patterns, right? How is that trickling down across your whole company, even within your really good people? That's right. I mean, dude, mine, here's one. I'm gonna dime myself up.

40:44 And there's gonna be people listening to this that go, yeah, he's right. And that is an old pattern of mine that is default to me is explode, apologize, move on. I've never had a problem apologizing. In fact, I've used it as a crutch. Dude, I'll be the first one to tell you I was wrong. It doesn't mean you've not shit the bed already. right? Yeah. So we talk about like, this was a default for me that became like, it was okay. I was okay with it that I would lose my temper. I would explode. I would apologize and I'm moving on. I'm done. I'm ready to rock and roll. That's not how the rest of the world viewed that experience.

41:26 Hmm. And if I wasn't willing to do hard work to begin to try to develop out of that, I would have carried that on until the end of my days. Because it was just, it had been moderately effective. Yeah. Like when I get serious and I need people to do exactly as I need them to do, and I pulled out that card, it often worked. Yep. For a while. Yeah. Till I wasn't there. Till my back was turned. And a lot of times we leave behind this toxic residue. Toxic. We've talked about, yeah. And it worked until they left. Yeah. And I'd be stuck starting over with somebody new, right? All the things. So again, it's just a matter of evaluating our own behavior. See, the reason I really like what you just said, though, this is huge, is how many of us are doing the minimum because, and this is important, right?

42:13 Because we are, in quotes, not getting recognized for the real value we bring to the team. If you've begun making decisions to do the minimum, to do just enough because you want more and you're not getting it, if you think there's any chance in fucking hell that you are going to somehow get more than what you've gotten already, you are kidding yourself. Yeah. And I do this to myself. All of us do that. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. I've had very high-level employment situations where there were times, if I'm honest and I evaluate that from a learning mentality, I can identify places where I was giving my minimum and expecting something different.

42:54 Absolutely. We all can fall into this position. It's just not at work either. It can be in marriage and parenting and all the things. Parenting, friendship, business partners. I mean, dude, there's times where I can slide into that with what we do right now. And it's a newer business. I mean, we are all in. And I can still slide into this place. There you go. It's ego. I deserve more. I should be treated better. All the things. That's right. Why can't people just see that we're doing X, Y, Z? All these things. Yeah. And I think that's why I love this Uink topic so much is that it's really a case for us identifying and asking ourselves the types of questions where we can actually take ownership for ourselves, our outcomes, our behaviors.

43:34 Because there's a reality that you may ask yourself these questions and as you develop the skill and as you can show with a track record of action that you ask these questions and you do something about it and you're still not seeing the progress with the team that you're on, okay, be decisive. Make a change. Go to a different company. But if you're waiting around doing the minimum, thinking that at some point it will change, your Uink stock is falling. And there's nothing that's going to change that. If you go to another organization and you immediately fall back into hanging out in the comfort zone, taking the path of least resistance, doing the least amount that's required of you, once the grass is not greener anymore, you will identify, I am still at the bottom of the triangle.

44:20 And I've not gotten any closer to the outcome than I was before I started. Well, something we're kind of touching on here that I think is a good part of this wrap-up is Jocko Willink in his book Extreme Ownership. Yeah. He talks about how, look, if there is something, I can't remember if it's his battalion or he ran a group. What's the? Yeah. It's almost like bigger than a battalion. There's like a squad battalion and then there's. Well, squad company battalion. Company, whatever. So the way he talked about leadership is when he was the company commander, I think is what his role was. Anything that happened inside that company that was good, bad, or indifferent was ultimately what he took responsibility for.

45:06 Right. Like, I'm the commander of this company. Anything that goes good goes wrong. Like, it's because I created it or I allowed it. Like, that's the level of accountability that he advocates for taking. And I think, you know, we often find ourselves as leaders... frustrated with key employees or employees that we had a lot of hope in. And then when they get on the ground, they're not performing the way we want them to. And it can be really easy to get in this mindset of, they're failing me. They're disappointing me. And I think part of this you in conversation has to be with those areas of the business I'm frustrated in. What's my role? Yeah. where have I potentially not equipped my people well?

45:48 Or where have I not held them accountable? And I've allowed them to slip into doing the minimum because I've not been providing them a responsible level of accountability. I'm not inspecting what I expect. I'm instead... A lot of times when we hire a really capable person, one of the things we're excited about is that we aren't going to have to manage them. Hands off. We aren't going to have to manage them. Yeah. How often do we do that as leaders? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, this person's so awesome. They're turnkey. Yeah. They've done this before. And we don't give them the proper attention that they need. And then we're really pissed off when they're not producing the results or the standards that we thought they were going to. And then we turn on them. You know? Yeah. And we turn on them. We get disappointed. And a lot of times, I'm probably self-sharing, we don't want to have the awkward conversation of addressing their bad behavior because we put so much stock in them at the front that now it's like this weird, awkward conversation.

46:39 Like you brought them in as a superhero. You didn't manage them. You didn't equip them. You didn't mentor them. You just kind of threw them off to do their thing. But again, it's this regular process of reflection of... Where am I at? What's my role in the different areas of the business? How much responsibility am I taking? You know? Yeah. As an owner, as a GM, as a mitigation manager, as a technician. Yeah. To get the thing you want. Yes. To build what it is that you want. To create in the environment that you want to be a part of. And I think that's a great way to just wrap this up, man, is that this whole idea of Uink is... we really are very powerful individuals.

47:20 I mean, people in general are capable of so much. And the reality of it is, is that where your growth trajectory starts and stops is 100% on you. Not a single other individual or person or life event can really honestly... make or break that thing. Can things happen outside of our control that create obstacles and real life heart-wrenching challenges? A thousand percent, it's going to happen. There's many that I'll never understand because I haven't experienced it. But at the end of the day, regardless, we still are completely 100% responsible for what we experience as you, Inc. And I think as employees...

48:02 Right now, bigger than ever, we have an opportunity where companies are beginning to get filled with leaders that have a changing perspective on what's important. And you as individuals, whether you're top of the top or the bottom of the bottom, if we approach our role and our place in any organization... As a you ink, and we really begin to identify what we're doing to find success, to grow, to challenge ourselves, you will inevitably get to the right place that can fully identify and use that thing, that juice that you bring to the team. But you sitting around being miserable and blaming everybody else is never going to fix it. So you ink, right? And we all need it.

48:42 Just ask yourselves the questions. And I think this is what the seed that maybe I just kind of plant and leave with you guys is. How hard would it be for this to be a monthly practice where you just take a Saturday morning and you just sit down with yourself, a good cup of coffee, whatever your thing is, and just start thinking and chewing on these questions. Where has the job mentality slipped in? Job mentality, meaning I'm constantly in my comfort zone alone. I'm always taking the path of least resistance. And really, at the end of the day, I'm kind of doing the least that's required of me. Where are the growth opportunities that I've been putting off because of those same things?

49:25 Because it will require much of me. And then what are the skills that I'm going to need to develop Who can I learn them from? Where can I learn them from? How important are they? And how fast do I need to learn them? Once a month, once a quarter, sit down, take stock. And I think the reality of it is if we did that all this next year, right? Consistency, you probably heard that episode if you're listeners. If we did that all year, I have a strong feeling that when you start planning your next year, that bar might be significantly higher than you thought it would have been. Yeah. Yeah. because you've taken U-Ink seriously and your stock's back on the rise. Yeah. Right? Okay, gang.

50:05 Thanks for hanging out with us. Until next time. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart & Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow. Only know to 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.