Latest / Business Roundtable / Is Your Business Strategy Actually Hurting Your Profits?
Transcript
- 0:31Speaker 1: All right, everybody, welcome to the Business Roundtable podcast. Glad
- 0:36Speaker 1: to be back with you again. I'm David Carr, your host,
- 0:39Speaker 1: owner of Stewart your business, and I'm super excited to
- 0:42Speaker 1: have a fellow coach with me from Wake Up, where
- 0:47Speaker 1: we've been training and working for years together. Aaron Klisk,
- 0:50Speaker 1: Glad to have you here. Aaron, he is the founder
- 0:53Speaker 1: of Unstuck. I'll give you a little background because Aaron's
- 0:56Speaker 1: got a lot of impressive credentials. He has worked with
- 1:01Speaker 1: as an executive with over three billion dollar company, He's
- 1:07Speaker 1: seen the numbers, a former Fortune fifty executive, and just
- 1:12Speaker 1: has a wealth of knowledge and background. And so I
- 1:14Speaker 1: always want to say aerin thank you for coming on
- 1:17Speaker 1: the Business Roundtable podcast.
- 1:20Speaker 2: Thanks David, I'm glad to be here and excited just
- 1:23Speaker 2: to share with you today.
- 1:24Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I'm super excited.
- 1:26Speaker 1: So Aaron and I were talking and one of the
- 1:28Speaker 1: things that he brought up I think is super valuable
- 1:32Speaker 1: as a business owner, whether you're the owner or you're
- 1:34Speaker 1: a leader in the organization and entrepreneur as Aaron was
- 1:39Speaker 1: working helping grow these organizations, is the question was how
- 1:44Speaker 1: do we know you know we're winning? How do we
- 1:47Speaker 1: know we're looking at the right things and actually winning
- 1:52Speaker 1: in the business and maybe more in life. We had
- 1:55Speaker 1: a fellow colleague on past episode, Matt Wilson, who talked
- 1:58Speaker 1: a little bit about this too, and I think Aaron's
- 2:00Speaker 1: got a unique perspective having worked for such large organizations
- 2:05Speaker 1: and seeing them grow across the world, and Aaron, I'm
- 2:10Speaker 1: just excited to dig into this question today, like, how
- 2:12Speaker 1: do we know we're winning as a business owner or
- 2:14Speaker 1: a leader in the business.
- 2:16Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 2:16Speaker 2: I think it's a great point, David. The concept of
- 2:21Speaker 2: winning can start with just the P and L, right,
- 2:23Speaker 2: And I think most of us would say, hey, are
- 2:26Speaker 2: we selling our service? Are we selling enough product? Or
- 2:28Speaker 2: are we making any profit?
- 2:30Speaker 3: Right?
- 2:31Speaker 2: And I think that's, of course, that's where it begins.
- 2:34Speaker 2: Right in a publicly traded company, that's really the critical piece.
- 2:38Speaker 2: And mostly in publicly traded companies are looking at how
- 2:41Speaker 2: much did you grow a year over year? Right, And
- 2:43Speaker 2: so that becomes a real big emphasis. But part of
- 2:47Speaker 2: that also is what's the underlying data underneath it? Meaning
- 2:52Speaker 2: you know, yeah, you're looking at the output, which is
- 2:54Speaker 2: the P and L, but what's really healthy underneath? Where
- 2:56Speaker 2: are you spending your time. Are you on the track
- 2:59Speaker 2: for winning consistently or is this a one time trick? Right,
- 3:04Speaker 2: because you can you can always pull back your marketing spend.
- 3:06Speaker 2: So that's a conversation that happens all the time in
- 3:08Speaker 2: big companies, Like you get to the end of the year,
- 3:10Speaker 2: you pull back your marketing spend. You boost your profits
- 3:13Speaker 2: for a short period of time, but then there's nothing
- 3:16Speaker 2: in the pipeline or the funnel going forward, you know,
- 3:19Speaker 2: And so getting really clear on some key metrics or
- 3:24Speaker 2: you know, buzzword KPIs underneath that are really important, especially
- 3:28Speaker 2: when you think about where you're spending your time.
- 3:32Speaker 3: And it's hard.
- 3:33Speaker 2: It's hard for small business owners to move off of
- 3:38Speaker 2: an idea because they've had an idea. They think it's
- 3:41Speaker 2: going to be great, but then when you start looking
- 3:43Speaker 2: at the numbers, you're like, maybe it's not great. Right
- 3:48Speaker 2: when you start looking at you know, one of the
- 3:49Speaker 2: things that you and I've been spending time with is
- 3:52Speaker 2: you know, some time on social media. Yeah, and you
- 3:55Speaker 2: need to look at the engagement index, like how many
- 3:58Speaker 2: impressions are you hitting? Is your material making sense? Are
- 4:02Speaker 2: people resonating with it? And what are those numbers? And
- 4:06Speaker 2: you know, there are popular tools like Instagram, like you
- 4:10Speaker 2: know with Facebook and LinkedIn, but depending on what your
- 4:13Speaker 2: market is like, one of those tools may respond incredibly different.
- 4:17Speaker 2: And for us, for example, LinkedIn is way more impactful.
- 4:22Speaker 2: You know, I am getting twenty times the impact on LinkedIn,
- 4:25Speaker 2: but yet I'm spending emotionally more time on Instagram because
- 4:29Speaker 2: my number is low, right, right, my number is low
- 4:32Speaker 2: and I only have you know, certain number of followers,
- 4:34Speaker 2: and you want it. And I think this is what
- 4:36Speaker 2: a lot of entrepreneurs get into. It's like you want
- 4:37Speaker 2: it to be big, but then when you look at
- 4:40Speaker 2: the actual numbers underneath and say, well, wow, this is
- 4:43Speaker 2: way more fertile soil over here, and it's winning.
- 4:46Speaker 3: M H.
- 4:47Speaker 2: Important to have that conversation with yourself to say, wait
- 4:50Speaker 2: a minute, where am I Where should I really be
- 4:52Speaker 2: spending my time that's going to drive ultimately the outcome
- 4:55Speaker 2: I want, which is the profits, the sales, et cetera.
- 4:58Speaker 2: But it's a hard it's hard to step away from
- 5:00Speaker 2: because you get emotionally tied to it. But yeah, I'd say,
- 5:04Speaker 2: numbers don't lie well.
- 5:05Speaker 1: And this is something that we talked about in our
- 5:07Speaker 1: previous episode with Matt Aaron was like, sometimes we were like, well,
- 5:10Speaker 1: how do we know we're winning, Well, we get we
- 5:12Speaker 1: get money or the money is the answer that's going
- 5:14Speaker 1: to solve our problems, right, And we dug deep into
- 5:17Speaker 1: that that kind of fallacy can but it doesn't.
- 5:19Speaker 3: It doesn't always solve the problem.
- 5:21Speaker 1: And so like you're looking at the right numbers, sometimes
- 5:22Speaker 1: people say, well, I should just if I generate more revenue,
- 5:26Speaker 1: that's gonna that's going to solve We're winning, right, and
- 5:28Speaker 1: they're actually at the end of the day actually making
- 5:30Speaker 1: less money even though they're in revenue is gone up right.
- 5:33Speaker 2: Right, They've bought it, right, you can buy sales right,
- 5:37Speaker 2: Like this whole conversation of like spending money to get
- 5:39Speaker 2: more sales like it. But you know, and I'm sure
- 5:42Speaker 2: Matt said this, but if your return on investment isn't there,
- 5:45Speaker 2: you're returning on advertising spend isn't there, Like you could
- 5:48Speaker 2: actually get to the point where were actually having less profit,
- 5:51Speaker 2: you know, which affects all of us, you know, in
- 5:53Speaker 2: terms of the take on. So I think you know,
- 5:56Speaker 2: one of the principles that I've tried to put together
- 5:59Speaker 2: in place is is I've looked at the business. Now,
- 6:01Speaker 2: I've transitioned from kind of the corporate life for twenty
- 6:05Speaker 2: shoot twenty six years I was in corporate America into
- 6:08Speaker 2: the entrepreneurial life. Is this concept of applying all of
- 6:12Speaker 2: those corporate principles into my personal life and into the business.
- 6:16Speaker 2: And part of that looks at this conversation of adjustments,
- 6:20Speaker 2: like what is your rhythm on checking your numbers? And
- 6:23Speaker 2: so Quarterly business reviews are a pretty big topic in
- 6:27Speaker 2: corporate America, Like we all have qbrs. It's a thing.
- 6:30Speaker 2: So we've got to go review a bunch of different metrics.
- 6:33Speaker 2: It's just sales, and it's not just profit. It's how
- 6:38Speaker 2: is our marketing doing, how is our operations doing? What
- 6:40Speaker 2: are our efficiencies looking like? You know, what does our
- 6:43Speaker 2: safety trend look like? What's our customer service look like?
- 6:46Speaker 2: What does our inventory dollars look like in the balance sheet?
- 6:49Speaker 2: So we're looking at all these metrics, and the whole
- 6:52Speaker 2: point is like we should be making adjustments. Yeah right,
- 6:56Speaker 2: so if you're not looking at the numbers, and we
- 6:59Speaker 2: just talked about it example together earlier, this conversation of
- 7:03Speaker 2: I'm getting some good email traffic working in my business
- 7:06Speaker 2: right now, yep. But I'm not getting conversion on the
- 7:09Speaker 2: back end. So I've got a good problem, which is
- 7:11Speaker 2: I'm driving some traffic. But if I ignored the conversion numbers,
- 7:16Speaker 2: I wouldn't make the adjustments. Yep, right, And so the
- 7:19Speaker 2: whole point of seeing some of the numbers is what
- 7:21Speaker 2: are you What are the things that you need to
- 7:23Speaker 2: adjust to get yourself back on track? And the frankly,
- 7:27Speaker 2: we need you know, we need to do this in
- 7:28Speaker 2: every area of our life.
- 7:30Speaker 3: Right.
- 7:30Speaker 2: We need to do it in our physical physical health,
- 7:32Speaker 2: We need to do it in our relationships. We need
- 7:34Speaker 2: to do it in our spiritual and mental health. Like
- 7:38Speaker 2: is something working or not? You can check the box
- 7:41Speaker 2: for so long, yep, but if you're not getting the fruit,
- 7:45Speaker 2: it's kind of a waste of time. You need to
- 7:47Speaker 2: make the adjustment. And so this constant looking at the numbers,
- 7:51Speaker 2: and this what I call it is you have a plan,
- 7:56Speaker 2: you see, you set out a plan, you execute the plan,
- 7:59Speaker 2: and then you check to see if the plane was
- 8:01Speaker 2: working right?
- 8:03Speaker 3: Right?
- 8:03Speaker 2: Is the plan working or not? Am I getting the
- 8:05Speaker 2: expected outcome?
- 8:06Speaker 3: Is it getting the.
- 8:08Speaker 2: Impact that I want to have? Am I getting the results?
- 8:10Speaker 2: Whatever that may be, whether it be efficiency gains that
- 8:14Speaker 2: you expected to get in your operation, whether it be
- 8:17Speaker 2: sales or increased impressions or engagement from from people or
- 8:22Speaker 2: sales or whatever. Is it getting you what you thought
- 8:24Speaker 2: it would. If it is great, don't make any adjustments.
- 8:28Speaker 2: You just continue to accelerate it. If it's doing what
- 8:32Speaker 2: you thought you would do, but something else is not working,
- 8:34Speaker 2: then go adjust that. But also if it's not working,
- 8:37Speaker 2: you make the adjustment. Right, you either decide to problem
- 8:40Speaker 2: solve it and say why isn't working, or you scratch
- 8:42Speaker 2: it and you go implement another plan. And I think
- 8:45Speaker 2: we're too slow to make those changes, right, I think
- 8:49Speaker 2: oftentimes that's what happens.
- 8:51Speaker 1: Yeah, you've worked for large organizations and maybe they haven't
- 8:54Speaker 1: made that. So yeah, talk to me a bit, Aaron,
- 8:57Speaker 1: because I love you, know, seeing your journey, having been
- 9:00Speaker 1: alongside with you getting trained, and you made this, you
- 9:04Speaker 1: made this pivot, you made this adjustment of Hey, look
- 9:07Speaker 1: I was in the corporate world.
- 9:08Speaker 3: I was doing these things and the.
- 9:10Speaker 1: Numbers at the end of the day in a way
- 9:11Speaker 1: didn't add up for you, like how I'm going to
- 9:13Speaker 1: live my life. And we just talked before we started recording, like, hey,
- 9:16Speaker 1: what are my numbers? What is my life going to
- 9:18Speaker 1: look like going forward? Here, So somebody that's had a
- 9:21Speaker 1: very very successful career in corporate America and deciding to
- 9:29Speaker 1: make that move, I make that pivot, you will into unstuck.
- 9:33Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about that journey.
- 9:35Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's been it's you know, when I
- 9:39Speaker 2: made the move into the last role, you know, I
- 9:41Speaker 2: was the chief supply chain officer, as David mentioned, at
- 9:44Speaker 2: a little a company over a little over three billion dollars,
- 9:47Speaker 2: reporting CEO, part of the c suite, presenting to the board.
- 9:52Speaker 2: I loved I loved what I was doing in terms
- 9:54Speaker 2: of the work. But you know, a couple of years
- 9:57Speaker 2: into the role, I realized that I, you know, I
- 10:00Speaker 2: could be successful there. I was being successful, but I
- 10:02Speaker 2: was a little bit empty. Right There was this piece
- 10:05Speaker 2: of me that knew that there was something more. And
- 10:08Speaker 2: as I started exploring what that looked like, and I
- 10:13Speaker 2: took a step back and thought, what brings me the
- 10:14Speaker 2: most joy in life, like, truly, truly besides spending time
- 10:17Speaker 2: with my family, which of course is there, it's really
- 10:21Speaker 2: helping other people get to that next level. Right Like
- 10:25Speaker 2: when I look at people that I've coached through the
- 10:27Speaker 2: years and the operations or at work, when they present
- 10:29Speaker 2: in front of a you know, a VIP tour, they
- 10:32Speaker 2: present in front of somebody else like that, that level
- 10:35Speaker 2: of pride of helping them along their journey like that,
- 10:39Speaker 2: that really fuels me. And so I think all of
- 10:41Speaker 2: us get to a point where there's this piece of
- 10:43Speaker 2: purpose that we're seeking because you've kind of got all
- 10:46Speaker 2: of the things right, you know, I had all of
- 10:49Speaker 2: the things, like in terms of the rise up the ladder,
- 10:51Speaker 2: I had all of the things, but there still was
- 10:54Speaker 2: this piece of purpose that was missing. And so that
- 10:58Speaker 2: started a couple of years ago and then culminated as
- 11:00Speaker 2: I started taking more classes. I started a small group
- 11:03Speaker 2: class you know, workshop, and saw what was happening with
- 11:06Speaker 2: the people that I was working with and realized here
- 11:10Speaker 2: about two or three months ago, like this is what
- 11:11Speaker 2: I want to do for the rest of my life, right,
- 11:13Speaker 2: I want to help people who are stuck. Like That's
- 11:16Speaker 2: why the word it's called unstuck is because oftentimes we
- 11:20Speaker 2: get stuck and we sometimes we.
- 11:22Speaker 3: Don't even know why m h.
- 11:24Speaker 2: And we're just in that place where we just need
- 11:28Speaker 2: to figure out we need somebody else to kind of
- 11:29Speaker 2: give us that push, yeah, or exposed to us, like
- 11:33Speaker 2: wake us up to what we were missing, and that
- 11:37Speaker 2: those classes went incredibly well. And so yeah, I made
- 11:39Speaker 2: the leap in September mid September to say, you know what,
- 11:42Speaker 2: I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.
- 11:44Speaker 2: And so we're going down the entrepreneurial journey, which is different, right,
- 11:47Speaker 2: it's absolutely different.
- 11:49Speaker 1: Yeah, you've gone all in and I mean, Aaron, I
- 11:52Speaker 1: think there's people that I really like.
- 11:54Speaker 3: The name getting you know, unstuck.
- 11:58Speaker 1: And the fact that again people challenging what is winning,
- 12:04Speaker 1: you know, and you you brought up like maybe asking
- 12:06Speaker 1: themselves some questions as to, you know, evaluate what is winning.
- 12:10Speaker 1: And I know we were talking before we recorded. There's
- 12:13Speaker 1: some key principles that you've incorporated into Unstuck. Maybe walk
- 12:17Speaker 1: us through some of these about some things that as
- 12:19Speaker 1: a business owner, as a leader, if you're feeling stuck
- 12:22Speaker 1: in your business, you're like, I think I should be
- 12:24Speaker 1: winning here, but I really don't feel like I'm winning,
- 12:25Speaker 1: Like you said, I'm really kind of like left a
- 12:27Speaker 1: bit empty here, and this is all these numbers say
- 12:30Speaker 1: I should be winning, but at the end of the day,
- 12:32Speaker 1: I don't. I don't feel like I'm really winning. I
- 12:34Speaker 1: don't feel like I'm making having an influenced the impact
- 12:36Speaker 1: that I really believe I can. And you talk kind
- 12:39Speaker 1: of walk us through that.
- 12:41Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, the first realization that I've
- 12:43Speaker 2: had through the twenty you know, twenty five plus years
- 12:48Speaker 2: playing this game of life is that that our lives
- 12:52Speaker 2: are really not just about one thing, like winning, you know,
- 12:58Speaker 2: it defines about you can find winning winning at work.
- 13:00Speaker 2: You can define winning at home, you can define winning physically.
- 13:04Speaker 2: You can difine winning with purpose or connection or mental clarity.
- 13:09Speaker 2: Once I realized that those aspects of like, hey, what
- 13:12Speaker 2: winning looks like is having all of those things in harmony,
- 13:16Speaker 2: right and part of this work, I mean, everybody talks
- 13:18Speaker 2: about work life balance as a topic, right, like, and
- 13:22Speaker 2: I just it's impossible today to have work life balance
- 13:26Speaker 2: because the lines are so blurred, right.
- 13:30Speaker 3: You know.
- 13:30Speaker 2: It's like, you know, we're here on a podcast, and
- 13:32Speaker 2: you know the door is right over here, and you
- 13:35Speaker 2: never know, my wife may come in, you know, like
- 13:37Speaker 2: the dog might start barking, or you know, something happens,
- 13:40Speaker 2: and so it's impossible for us to you know, really
- 13:44Speaker 2: separate that, and especially with technology, right, Like I mean,
- 13:47Speaker 2: you have a tech a phone in your pocket or
- 13:49Speaker 2: whatever it is. Like, so work life harmony is probably
- 13:53Speaker 2: a better word.
- 13:54Speaker 3: And so as you start.
- 13:55Speaker 2: Thinking through that, like what winning for me looks like
- 13:57Speaker 2: is this kind of principle of the law of the
- 13:59Speaker 2: weakest link. I went to a conference when I was
- 14:03Speaker 2: twenty oh twenty six years old and this guy up there,
- 14:10Speaker 2: he you know, probably seventy five years old. He got
- 14:12Speaker 2: up on the board and he said, hey, we're gonna
- 14:14Speaker 2: it was a class called Design in your Future. And
- 14:17Speaker 2: he said we're gonna We're gonna do a little assessment.
- 14:20Speaker 2: And I said okay, and we all said okay. And
- 14:22Speaker 2: he says, draw, you know, across in the middle, put zero,
- 14:27Speaker 2: and then each one of the four points at the
- 14:28Speaker 2: end put ten. So you're gonna have a zero to
- 14:30Speaker 2: ten access on all these things, right, So zero ten,
- 14:33Speaker 2: zero ten. They said, the top one is going to
- 14:35Speaker 2: be your spiritual and he said, he said, the top one,
- 14:39Speaker 2: I want you to put your physical health zero ten
- 14:41Speaker 2: where you at David, you know, And I was like, okay,
- 14:44Speaker 2: eight twenty six years old, pretty good shape.
- 14:46Speaker 3: Eight.
- 14:47Speaker 2: The next one, he says, where you at with your career.
- 14:49Speaker 2: I'm like, ooh, that's pretty good. You know, that's a nine.
- 14:53Speaker 2: Next one, he says, we're you at with your family
- 14:55Speaker 2: and I'm like, hmm, that's probably a five. I had,
- 15:00Speaker 2: you know, I was, you know, twenty six, twenty seven.
- 15:02Speaker 2: I'd lost a brother who was fourteen when I was
- 15:04Speaker 2: twenty five. He was killed in a car wreck and
- 15:06Speaker 2: our family. That was tough, right, Like that was a
- 15:10Speaker 2: thing that it doesn't go away. It's twenty four years
- 15:13Speaker 2: and you know, I still miss him. But that was rough,
- 15:17Speaker 2: like processing that at that time. So Mike, Okay, that's
- 15:20Speaker 2: a five. You know, we all love each other, but
- 15:22Speaker 2: this isn't where I'd like it to be. And then
- 15:24Speaker 2: for me, then he said where you at spiritually on
- 15:26Speaker 2: the scale of one to ten? I was I was
- 15:29Speaker 2: like two, you know. And so then he says, okay,
- 15:32Speaker 2: connect the dots the two to the eight to the
- 15:35Speaker 2: nine to the five, and he goes, imagine that's a
- 15:39Speaker 2: wheel and you're trying to roll down the road of
- 15:43Speaker 2: life with that wheel. Yes, And he said, you were
- 15:47Speaker 2: constrained by that lowest number. These things must be in harmony,
- 15:51Speaker 2: and so it's not that we need to take the
- 15:52Speaker 2: eight back down to a two. But if that two
- 15:55Speaker 2: in those fives, you need to work on those if
- 15:56Speaker 2: you want your life to have a greater impact in
- 15:58Speaker 2: this world. And so from me, for the last twenty
- 16:01Speaker 2: five years, I've defined winning as keeping that wheel intact
- 16:08Speaker 2: and continuing to try to expand it out to move
- 16:10Speaker 2: get everything up to an eight, and then move it
- 16:13Speaker 2: to a nine, and then move it to a ten,
- 16:15Speaker 2: and then and then back to this principle earlier looking
- 16:17Speaker 2: at this metric on a consistent basis where I'm like, yeah, hey,
- 16:21Speaker 2: i was at one point an eight on body, I'm
- 16:24Speaker 2: no longer an eight on body, I'm a six.
- 16:27Speaker 3: And so recognizing that.
- 16:28Speaker 2: And then moving it back to an eight right against
- 16:31Speaker 2: this piece of like the numbers, like checking plan do
- 16:34Speaker 2: you check acts like you can't just get I was
- 16:36Speaker 2: an eight, so I'm always eight.
- 16:37Speaker 3: That's not true.
- 16:39Speaker 2: Your body takes time to take care of, you know,
- 16:41Speaker 2: we get into habits and patterns and seasons. Your relationships
- 16:45Speaker 2: take time. They take you know, they go through stress
- 16:48Speaker 2: and yeah, toil, right, and you need sometimes you need
- 16:51Speaker 2: to make those changes. And so for me, that principle
- 16:55Speaker 2: of the law of the weakest links like that's really
- 16:56Speaker 2: kind of like the seekest link in the chain, whichever
- 16:58Speaker 2: one it is, Like whatever that you put stress on
- 17:01Speaker 2: that load, it's going to break in one of those areas. Right,
- 17:04Speaker 2: So that's really important for I think your listeners understand,
- 17:07Speaker 2: like this concept of winning has to be defined, is
- 17:11Speaker 2: more than just one element.
- 17:13Speaker 3: Yeah, and I know we incorporate that in a warrior training.
- 17:16Speaker 1: We actually had a conversation using another one called literally
- 17:19Speaker 1: called the wheel of life. There's a different there's different
- 17:21Speaker 1: ways of evaluating this. But how often we don't even
- 17:24Speaker 1: ask or we're not even clear on that, Like have
- 17:25Speaker 1: we even assessed like this gentleman took you look how
- 17:28Speaker 1: implumential this had this when you're you know, twenty six there,
- 17:32Speaker 1: But we haven't even taking the time to assess, right.
- 17:35Speaker 3: Right, we're not looking at it.
- 17:37Speaker 2: But half the time we're not looking at it, and
- 17:39Speaker 2: we're trying to solve a problem with the same level
- 17:42Speaker 2: of thinking that got us there, Right. I think that's
- 17:44Speaker 2: one of the Einstein most like you're never going to
- 17:47Speaker 2: solve the problem with the same thinking, right That to me,
- 17:51Speaker 2: and I still have the journal that's over here actually
- 17:53Speaker 2: in my drawer from when that happened when I went
- 17:55Speaker 2: to that. It was such an impact for me that
- 18:00Speaker 2: you know that. That's why it's a founding principle of Unstuck,
- 18:02Speaker 2: and that's why one of my biggest things is I
- 18:05Speaker 2: have an assessment that people can take at unstuck masterplan dot
- 18:08Speaker 2: Com that I just want you to take the assessment.
- 18:10Speaker 2: It's free, like, because it literally changed my life because
- 18:15Speaker 2: I was a too on spirituality. I went down that
- 18:17Speaker 2: path for several years because I knew nothing about it
- 18:21Speaker 2: right and I was educated in the church. But yet
- 18:24Speaker 2: I kind of had walked away because I felt really
- 18:26Speaker 2: guilty all the time and I just didn't I just
- 18:28Speaker 2: it was not a good taste in my mouth. I
- 18:30Speaker 2: didn't understand grace, I didn't understand I was created for
- 18:33Speaker 2: a purpose. All these things were like far from my mind.
- 18:37Speaker 2: It was really about did I mess up? And if
- 18:39Speaker 2: I died tomorrow'm my going to Hell or heaven? That
- 18:41Speaker 2: was pretty much it. Yeah, But once I started once
- 18:44Speaker 2: I was aware that that might be a constraint on
- 18:46Speaker 2: my life again, because I was not aware of it
- 18:49Speaker 2: prior to looking at that assessment. Mm hmm, I was like, well,
- 18:53Speaker 2: I need to be curious about this, Well, what if
- 18:55Speaker 2: that actually could open up another level of performance for me?
- 18:58Speaker 2: Because guys running this game, whether it be entrepreneurial game,
- 19:02Speaker 2: the corporate game, like stress comes, yeah, and so what
- 19:08Speaker 2: do you rely on when the stress comes? Is it
- 19:11Speaker 2: just yourself?
- 19:13Speaker 3: Right?
- 19:13Speaker 2: If you think about it, if it's just you and I, David,
- 19:15Speaker 2: and we're just relying on ourselves, like we're in trouble,
- 19:21Speaker 2: you know, And so it's like, oh, that I probably
- 19:24Speaker 2: need to do that. And along the journey you learn
- 19:26Speaker 2: different tools. Right, So I think this principle of the
- 19:29Speaker 2: weakest link is really important when we define winning. And
- 19:33Speaker 2: back to that other principle of like the plan do
- 19:35Speaker 2: you check act where we have a rhythm, like what
- 19:37Speaker 2: is the quarterly business review you're doing on your life?
- 19:41Speaker 2: So I take that assessment myself every quarter because I drift,
- 19:46Speaker 2: you know, we talk ourselves. Mean, it's like I remember
- 19:48Speaker 2: lifting weights in college. Like I don't know if you've
- 19:51Speaker 2: ever put on a bunch of weightlifting, but like you
- 19:54Speaker 2: start getting stronger, you convince yourself that you're not getting fatter.
- 20:00Speaker 4: Right, you get heavier, you get heavier, You're get bigger,
- 20:02Speaker 4: you getting stronger, Like I'm ripped well, you take a
- 20:06Speaker 4: body fat test, it doesn't lie right, It'll tell you
- 20:10Speaker 4: not arbitrary.
- 20:11Speaker 2: I mean, it gives you quantitatively what your number is.
- 20:13Speaker 2: And so that way you can't convince yourself because you
- 20:16Speaker 2: will convince yourself without something to measure it against.
- 20:18Speaker 3: Right, And that's the point of the metrics.
- 20:20Speaker 2: Like coming back to that, why do you why do
- 20:22Speaker 2: you have to have something to measure and define winning?
- 20:25Speaker 2: It has to be measured by something. It's just emotion.
- 20:28Speaker 2: Emotions are fleeting emotions. One week can be you'd be
- 20:32Speaker 2: super high, the next week you can be super low.
- 20:34Speaker 2: And we need to be objective and take a step
- 20:38Speaker 2: back and say, that's the metric, that's the bar that
- 20:41Speaker 2: I'm setting for myself. I'm either meeting it or not.
- 20:45Speaker 2: And if I'm not, instead of beating ourselves up, which
- 20:47Speaker 2: we often do, make the adjustice, make the adjustment to
- 20:51Speaker 2: the plan. What do you need to do different in
- 20:53Speaker 2: your business?
- 20:54Speaker 3: Right? If you're not if you're not.
- 20:56Speaker 2: Driving enough traffic? Like okay, what what are the changes
- 20:59Speaker 2: that you need to make? How can you brainstorm it?
- 21:01Speaker 2: And in today's world of AI and other things like,
- 21:03Speaker 2: there's so many like I feel like there's cheat codes everywhere, right,
- 21:08Speaker 2: I mean, I mean I'm an early Nintendo guy, like
- 21:13Speaker 2: first Gen right.
- 21:14Speaker 3: Me too.
- 21:15Speaker 2: And there was a video game I don't if you
- 21:17Speaker 2: remember it called Contra. Oh yeah yeah, And there was
- 21:20Speaker 2: a cheat code on that Contra game.
- 21:22Speaker 3: Do you remember it? I don't know. I don't remember that,
- 21:24Speaker 3: but I remember cheat codes. What do like get it?
- 21:26Speaker 1: So you would like have all the unlimited lives or
- 21:29Speaker 1: something or whatever.
- 21:30Speaker 2: Yeah, that cheat code, I'll never forget. It was up down, up, down, left, right,
- 21:33Speaker 2: left right, b A B A select start. You did
- 21:36Speaker 2: that cheat code, and all of a sudden you had
- 21:38Speaker 2: unlimited lives, and I think you started with the best
- 21:41Speaker 2: gun too, you know, like it was a little game
- 21:44Speaker 2: on this game on but I mean chat GPT, claude.
- 21:48Speaker 2: You know, all of these different things are available to
- 21:51Speaker 2: us today, but you're only going to use them to
- 21:54Speaker 2: solve You should be using them to solve problems, you know,
- 21:58Speaker 2: And you only solve problem is when you're looking at
- 22:01Speaker 2: the numbers to.
- 22:03Speaker 1: Say are you are you asking the right you know question?
- 22:06Speaker 1: I mean this is where you come in or I
- 22:08Speaker 1: come in, you know, helping as a coach, right, you're
- 22:11Speaker 1: reflecting back? Are they asking the right questions are they
- 22:13Speaker 1: getting are they answering the right problem? Because he's trying
- 22:18Speaker 1: to solve You can use these tools, right, they said,
- 22:20Speaker 1: but it's not getting you the desired outcome. You're like, well,
- 22:25Speaker 1: that didn't really help us. Lots of problems, but not
- 22:28Speaker 1: really getting us this, which.
- 22:30Speaker 2: Leads you to the you know, one of those other
- 22:32Speaker 2: principles we talked about, which is you're not alone.
- 22:36Speaker 3: I think there is this.
- 22:38Speaker 2: I think it's part of you know, America's history and
- 22:42Speaker 2: part of our you know, national pride, which is the
- 22:46Speaker 2: words I'm a self made man or a self made woman.
- 22:49Speaker 3: Yep.
- 22:50Speaker 2: I get the end of the day, when you think
- 22:52Speaker 2: about your legacy, nobody really cares how you got there.
- 22:56Speaker 2: If you do it right, if you did it wrong,
- 22:58Speaker 2: they do care right, meaning you do it with the
- 23:00Speaker 2: right principal's values. You know, burn people along the way,
- 23:03Speaker 2: certainly that's not good. But what I mean is, why
- 23:06Speaker 2: would you not want to share your success with somebody else? Right, Like,
- 23:11Speaker 2: at the end of the day, you want people clapping
- 23:13Speaker 2: that you made the climb, right, and people clap who
- 23:16Speaker 2: made the climb, who felt like they were part of
- 23:18Speaker 2: the journey, right, And so I would much rather make
- 23:22Speaker 2: the climb to the top and be able to thank
- 23:24Speaker 2: David Carr, to be able to thank Matt Wilson, to
- 23:26Speaker 2: be able to thank some of my brothers in this
- 23:28Speaker 2: game because they helped me see something different. And you're
- 23:31Speaker 2: all cheering me on when I get to the top,
- 23:32Speaker 2: rather than I get to the top and I look
- 23:34Speaker 2: around there's nobody there. M right, Like, it's so like
- 23:37Speaker 2: this concept of self made, I don't know that it
- 23:41Speaker 2: really you know, it's really something we should be thinking
- 23:45Speaker 2: about in the today's world.
- 23:46Speaker 3: Right Like, yeah, no, I agree, I agree.
- 23:48Speaker 1: I mean, this is where this is my passion, as
- 23:50Speaker 1: you know, Aaron, like bringing teams together, getting all everybody
- 23:54Speaker 1: in alignment, you know. Yeah, yes, we have all these tools.
- 23:58Speaker 1: At the end of the day, we're human beings. We
- 24:00Speaker 1: need relationship. We're not meant to go alone. Like you said,
- 24:04Speaker 1: it's not designed that I mean, And that's why I
- 24:07Speaker 1: wanted to have on the on the on the podcast
- 24:10Speaker 1: here those are listening, and Aaron gave you a great
- 24:13Speaker 1: research to the assessment, which you can take. We'll put
- 24:15Speaker 1: put in the show notes. But to be connected, whether
- 24:18Speaker 1: it's to Aaron myself, man who's been on the podcast others.
- 24:21Speaker 1: The reason why you have this whole podcast is to
- 24:23Speaker 1: know you're not alone. You have other people that are there,
- 24:26Speaker 1: advocates for you that want to see you succeed, that
- 24:28Speaker 1: really truly want to see you win, asking the right
- 24:31Speaker 1: questions right and not going down the world road and
- 24:36Speaker 1: pursuing things that ultimately leave you wanting.
- 24:39Speaker 3: You're like, well, I thought that was what I right,
- 24:44Speaker 3: I wanted.
- 24:44Speaker 1: Well, that may have been what somebody else wanted for you,
- 24:46Speaker 1: but it isn't really what you wanted exactly.
- 24:50Speaker 2: And to your point, like the collective thought and the
- 24:56Speaker 2: collective experiences can get you there so much faster, right,
- 25:01Speaker 2: you know, I think through you know, I you know,
- 25:05Speaker 2: I'm a big Stephen Covey fan from the back in
- 25:07Speaker 2: the day. It was one of the first real books
- 25:09Speaker 2: that I think had a significant impact into my paradigm,
- 25:13Speaker 2: right because that was the first time I was introduced
- 25:14Speaker 2: to the word paradigm. In the Paradigm Shift, there was
- 25:17Speaker 2: a picture of an older woman and a young woman
- 25:19Speaker 2: in the same picture, and you looked at it two
- 25:21Speaker 2: different ways. You're like, oh, my goodness, that's a different paradigm.
- 25:25Speaker 2: But he talks about sharpening the saw, right, and I
- 25:28Speaker 2: remember I live on fourteen acres now and I was
- 25:31Speaker 2: out running the chainsaw and I wasn't super experienced with
- 25:34Speaker 2: the chainsaw, and I'm running through the chainsaw and I'm like, man,
- 25:39Speaker 2: this is hard work. And then I changed the chain
- 25:44Speaker 2: out and it was like cutting through butter, you know.
- 25:49Speaker 2: And then somebody showed me how to tension in it appropriately,
- 25:52Speaker 2: and it was like, oh my goodness, Like it changed
- 25:54Speaker 2: the game. And I could have been doing that forever,
- 25:59Speaker 2: you know, and that would have known any different and
- 26:01Speaker 2: somebody showed me something different. It just allowed me to,
- 26:03Speaker 2: you know, do the game so much faster. And I
- 26:06Speaker 2: think that's the benefit of a coach in this space
- 26:09Speaker 2: right where I'm like, hey, like, we're not emotionally attached
- 26:14Speaker 2: to the specifics of your business. We're emotionally attached to
- 26:18Speaker 2: your success. And that also means that I'm going to
- 26:21Speaker 2: ask you the questions that you probably don't want to answer,
- 26:27Speaker 2: you know, because one of the biggest things I think
- 26:28Speaker 2: that most people need to think about is, you know,
- 26:31Speaker 2: with a business, like where are you going?
- 26:34Speaker 3: Right?
- 26:34Speaker 2: This concept of what do you really want? And sometimes
- 26:40Speaker 2: we don't know that. And I ask a lot of
- 26:42Speaker 2: business owners that, and they're like, well, I just you know,
- 26:44Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm like, well, if you don't know
- 26:48Speaker 2: where you're going, and you don't know where you are,
- 26:50Speaker 2: it's this whole conversation of Cinderella and right, you're not
- 26:54Speaker 2: Cinderella but Alice in Wonderland. Mike, Well, if you don't
- 26:57Speaker 2: know where you are, you don't know where you want
- 26:58Speaker 2: to go, and he wrote a get you there, you know.
- 27:00Speaker 2: So this piece of like asking questions and then the
- 27:05Speaker 2: tough question oftentimes and to your point on the teams
- 27:08Speaker 2: is who why are you going there?
- 27:10Speaker 3: First? You need to know why. You know.
- 27:12Speaker 2: I work with a guy that does prosthetic limbs, and
- 27:16Speaker 2: there's a lot of commoditization of this business.
- 27:18Speaker 3: Right.
- 27:20Speaker 2: We see this happen in dentistry, right where the PPOs
- 27:22Speaker 2: take over, you know, and it just becomes like a machine, right,
- 27:26Speaker 2: a customer service, the personal touch, you know, it's just
- 27:30Speaker 2: not there. And in a case of like you think
- 27:33Speaker 2: about prosthetic limbs, like that's an important high touch cultural thing.
- 27:39Speaker 2: And when a little boy or little girl gets you know,
- 27:42Speaker 2: new new legs, you know, and can walk out of
- 27:45Speaker 2: there like that's an amazing experience. And so He's like,
- 27:48Speaker 2: this is important stuff and this is why I want
- 27:50Speaker 2: to go there, and I want to kind of go
- 27:51Speaker 2: after this space and make sure that we don't lose
- 27:55Speaker 2: that here. Okay, good, you got a clear why. Now
- 27:59Speaker 2: who is going with you on that journey? And can
- 28:02Speaker 2: they even make the journey? And that's a tough question oftentimes, right, Yeah, definitely,
- 28:07Speaker 2: because one, if you're not looking at the data, or
- 28:09Speaker 2: you've got a pet project and you're not looking to
- 28:11Speaker 2: see if it's actually working or not. That's one thing,
- 28:13Speaker 2: right because when confronted with the data, you can look
- 28:16Speaker 2: at the data and it's kind of really hard. It
- 28:18Speaker 2: becomes really hard say Aaron, we need to keep doing this.
- 28:22Speaker 2: So I'm like, hmm, it's not working, you know, but
- 28:26Speaker 2: it's the numbers, and I'm like it becomes pretty obvious. Yeah,
- 28:30Speaker 2: And you can make that even though you're emotionally tied
- 28:32Speaker 2: to the project or whatever it is that you're you know,
- 28:34Speaker 2: the thing that you've implemented. But man, when I start
- 28:37Speaker 2: to say can Sally make the ride, You're but like,
- 28:41Speaker 2: Sally's been with me for ten years, and I'm like
- 28:46Speaker 2: I understand. But if we ask Sally if she if
- 28:51Speaker 2: ten years from now. You told her that the reason
- 28:53Speaker 2: why you never made it there was because you didn't
- 28:55Speaker 2: let her go. I'm pretty sure that Sally would understand yep, right,
- 29:00Speaker 2: because she does care for you. But at some point,
- 29:03Speaker 2: like you're gonna have to make some tough decisions when
- 29:05Speaker 2: it comes to who's going along with you. Do you
- 29:07Speaker 2: have the right people and are they in the right seats?
- 29:10Speaker 2: Mm hmm right, it's like right people on the bus
- 29:13Speaker 2: and are they in the right seats on the bus?
- 29:15Speaker 3: Right?
- 29:16Speaker 1: That's tough one, Yeah, it is tough, and I agree
- 29:19Speaker 1: with you, Erin. That's one of my passions is to
- 29:22Speaker 1: get you know, get that work with those teams to
- 29:24Speaker 1: make sure they understand, embrace their roles or like you said,
- 29:27Speaker 1: get off the but hopefully get off the bus themselves.
- 29:29Speaker 1: You don't have to kick them off the bus, but
- 29:30Speaker 1: sometimes you have to.
- 29:31Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, right, yeah, for sure.
- 29:34Speaker 2: I mean you want every I mean we all want
- 29:35Speaker 2: everybody to go with us, right, yeah. I mean this
- 29:37Speaker 2: is why this concept of self made just blows my mind,
- 29:40Speaker 2: right because I'm thinking, mm hm, most people want people
- 29:43Speaker 2: to go along with you. The problem is that, you know,
- 29:48Speaker 2: that's why there's this whole piece of the oxygen mass first, right,
- 29:53Speaker 2: And oftentimes we've got to make sure we put on
- 29:55Speaker 2: the oxygen mask first, that we can take care everybody else.
- 29:58Speaker 2: And I find that most entrepre are in the opposite mode.
- 30:01Speaker 2: They're taking care of everybody else and they're not taking
- 30:04Speaker 2: care of themselves, right. And so that's why this, you know,
- 30:07Speaker 2: we've got to be constantly thinking about those things and
- 30:10Speaker 2: being exposed to somebody who will kind of put it
- 30:13Speaker 2: in front of our face and say, are you sure
- 30:16Speaker 2: this is what what we're doing?
- 30:18Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 30:19Speaker 1: I think with your experience, Aaron, because you've been work
- 30:22Speaker 1: with so many large companies, you've gone through and seen
- 30:25Speaker 1: the business cycles, you you can where this maybe you know,
- 30:30Speaker 1: if you're listening to this and haven't been through that
- 30:32Speaker 1: yourself or just business hasn't been long enough, this is
- 30:34Speaker 1: where somebody like Aaron can really come help you to
- 30:38Speaker 1: you know, look, he's been there, he knows the business cycles,
- 30:40Speaker 1: he knows how these things work. He knows to be
- 30:42Speaker 1: looking for and to help you as that, you know,
- 30:46Speaker 1: CEO anticipate some of those things, right, I mean that's
- 30:52Speaker 1: really important. And again asking the good questions, why do
- 30:55Speaker 1: you want why do you want to grow. Do you
- 30:56Speaker 1: want to just grow for growth sake? Well, why what
- 30:59Speaker 1: does that look like? What's gonna what's gonna cost you? Right, Aaron,
- 31:02Speaker 1: Like if you emotionally, spiritually, physically.
- 31:07Speaker 3: You know, your your your your marriage relationships, Like have
- 31:10Speaker 3: you thought about those things? Yeah?
- 31:12Speaker 2: I think we fall in love with, you know, whether
- 31:14Speaker 2: it be the next level in our career, or we
- 31:17Speaker 2: fall in love with the idea of growth or having
- 31:21Speaker 2: a ten million dollar business, a five million dollar business,
- 31:23Speaker 2: a two million dollar business, because it's it. I mean again,
- 31:26Speaker 2: it's like it is cool. But to your point, counting
- 31:30Speaker 2: the cost, I mean, there's a real sacrifice to being
- 31:35Speaker 2: on the road as a C suite exect, right, I
- 31:37Speaker 2: mean I was on the road three out of four
- 31:39Speaker 2: weeks every week.
- 31:41Speaker 3: Yeah, Monday, Monday to Thursday.
- 31:43Speaker 2: I mean I was able to work it, so it
- 31:45Speaker 2: was like Monday to Thursday most weeks. So I'd leave
- 31:47Speaker 2: on Monday sometime during the day Thursday night I'd be home,
- 31:50Speaker 2: so you know, yeah, three nights, three nights away. But
- 31:55Speaker 2: that's still a you know, that's still an investment or
- 31:58Speaker 2: sacrifice into the business. Like that's a reality and I
- 32:01Speaker 2: could do it at the latter part of my career
- 32:05Speaker 2: because my boys were older, right, they were self managed.
- 32:09Speaker 2: There wasn't you know, the load on my wife at
- 32:12Speaker 2: the time wasn't there. But you know, you getta be
- 32:15Speaker 2: careful what you ask for, yes, sometimes right, and understanding
- 32:20Speaker 2: what that looks like that you know, and I think
- 32:22Speaker 2: sometimes we're just not transparent enough as corporate leaders to say, well,
- 32:26Speaker 2: what does that life really look like?
- 32:27Speaker 3: Mmm? You know.
- 32:29Speaker 2: And that's one of my passions is just helping people
- 32:31Speaker 2: see behind the curtain, which is like, okay, yeah, you
- 32:34Speaker 2: can make it work, yep, but here's what it's going
- 32:38Speaker 2: to look like. It looks like you will FaceTime your
- 32:41Speaker 2: wife every night or your husband every night. Why because
- 32:46Speaker 2: they need to see you, right, And it's like, well, no,
- 32:49Speaker 2: we talked now, they need to see you right. It's
- 32:52Speaker 2: just it's a piece of like connection that's different.
- 32:54Speaker 3: You know.
- 32:55Speaker 2: Thankful we have those tools today, you know, or text
- 32:57Speaker 2: your text your wife and kids every morning, you know,
- 33:00Speaker 2: when you're on the road, so that they know that
- 33:02Speaker 2: they're the most important things to you, no matter what
- 33:04Speaker 2: is happening during the day, no matter where you're at
- 33:06Speaker 2: in the world. I mean, if I was in Singapore,
- 33:08Speaker 2: if I was in India. If I was in France
- 33:10Speaker 2: and Germany or Mexico or Panama, wherever I was, my
- 33:14Speaker 2: family would get a text message, right they're like, okay,
- 33:17Speaker 2: you know, ninety eight percent of the time the boys
- 33:22Speaker 2: would never respond.
- 33:23Speaker 3: But but they.
- 33:25Speaker 2: Knew, right, they knew what was going on, and so like,
- 33:29Speaker 2: those are things that you have to do to kind
- 33:32Speaker 2: of survive that.
- 33:33Speaker 3: You have to take.
- 33:34Speaker 2: Care of yourself physically to survive that grind mm hm.
- 33:38Speaker 2: And you know, there's some things that can get in
- 33:40Speaker 2: the way, like alcohol can be a significant problem. Again,
- 33:44Speaker 2: I love a good beer and I love a good bourbon,
- 33:46Speaker 2: there's no doubt to that.
- 33:48Speaker 3: But you better have some rules, yeah, right, what are
- 33:53Speaker 3: the rules you want to live by? Yeah?
- 33:55Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you better have some rules with that,
- 33:56Speaker 2: like to say, hey, no, two's good, you know, like
- 33:59Speaker 2: because I don't want it to affect everything else. I mean,
- 34:02Speaker 2: we're not like this isolated ecosystem, right, Like everything affects everything.
- 34:09Speaker 2: You have too many drinks the night before you get
- 34:11Speaker 2: up the next day and you're trying to be sharp
- 34:13Speaker 2: and be completely mentally prepared.
- 34:15Speaker 3: Mm hmm, it's going to have an effect.
- 34:18Speaker 2: Might have been worth it, but just don't enter that
- 34:21Speaker 2: knowing that it doesn't have an effect, because it does.
- 34:24Speaker 2: If truly all these things affect if your families, and
- 34:28Speaker 2: you know, this is one of the things we talk
- 34:30Speaker 2: about often, David, with cliences like you, you need to address.
- 34:37Speaker 2: You need to do the preventative maintenance on your life
- 34:41Speaker 2: before you have breakdown maintenance. And the cost of breakdown
- 34:45Speaker 2: maintenance and operations is ten times more than a preventative
- 34:48Speaker 2: maintenance task.
- 34:49Speaker 3: Right, So in.
- 34:50Speaker 2: Operations, if I'm you know, constantly doing my lubrication activities,
- 34:55Speaker 2: making sure the gearbox is full, or I'm changing out
- 34:57Speaker 2: apart before it fails, because I know it fails every
- 34:59Speaker 2: three years, and a belt fails every three years, I'm
- 35:01Speaker 2: changing it out every two and a half years before
- 35:03Speaker 2: it breaks.
- 35:04Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
- 35:05Speaker 2: It keeps the machine moving. You got to be doing
- 35:08Speaker 2: that in your personal life too, so true physical life too.
- 35:13Speaker 2: You know everything that your spiritual life too. You know,
- 35:16Speaker 2: if you're not kind of comes back to how we
- 35:18Speaker 2: started this conversation. If you're not looking at the numbers,
- 35:23Speaker 2: you won't know to do the preventive right because you drift.
- 35:28Speaker 3: Yeah, we all do. You just measure off of anything.
- 35:32Speaker 1: If we're not tracking it or looking at it, we
- 35:34Speaker 1: don't have any sense of it.
- 35:36Speaker 3: I mean, that's the beauty.
- 35:38Speaker 1: If you do track and you do this, and if
- 35:40Speaker 1: you get off course, we can you know, Aaron can
- 35:44Speaker 1: help you get back on course. It's like, Okay, well
- 35:48Speaker 1: that's my north star. That's where I've got to go,
- 35:50Speaker 1: and I but I don't know exactly how to get there, right,
- 35:53Speaker 1: Aaron said, You're like, okay, let me let me be
- 35:56Speaker 1: may the taste.
- 35:57Speaker 3: Right.
- 35:57Speaker 2: There are tools and systems and processes we can put
- 36:00Speaker 2: it in place that can get you time back. I mean,
- 36:02Speaker 2: that's part of the biggest one of my biggest passions
- 36:04Speaker 2: is helping people with their time. It's probably one of
- 36:08Speaker 2: the biggest complaints that I hear is like I don't
- 36:09Speaker 2: have enough time. And there's a reality to that. And
- 36:14Speaker 2: then there's fiction in our head, right, because I think
- 36:17Speaker 2: one of the other principles is like our stories determine
- 36:21Speaker 2: our future, and so whatever story is in your head
- 36:25Speaker 2: is your reality. That's your reality. If you think you
- 36:28Speaker 2: don't have time, you do not have time. I don't
- 36:31Speaker 2: really care like I can, like, you know, like it
- 36:33Speaker 2: doesn't matter what I say. If you think that that's true,
- 36:37Speaker 2: Then it's true.
- 36:39Speaker 1: I think that's like Henry Ford said something like that,
- 36:41Speaker 1: whether you're right or you're wrong or whatever, you say,
- 36:44Speaker 1: get that you can.
- 36:45Speaker 2: If you think you can't, you can't, they're both right. Yeah, right,
- 36:49Speaker 2: It's like that is a thing. So oftentimes what I'll
- 36:52Speaker 2: do is I'll have somebody do a quick time study
- 36:55Speaker 2: on themselves, like where are you really spending your time?
- 37:00Speaker 2: You know, like daily, you know, every hour kind of journal,
- 37:03Speaker 2: just where you're.
- 37:03Speaker 3: Spending your time? Yeah, what were you doing?
- 37:07Speaker 2: And I think we often find that we're spending way
- 37:10Speaker 2: more time drifting than we think, yeah, or googling something else,
- 37:16Speaker 2: or chat chip and teen something else, or scrolling you
- 37:19Speaker 2: know whatever. Yeah, I mean I have to imagine that
- 37:22Speaker 2: average bathroom times have changed for men over the last decade.
- 37:27Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, true, I mean it's true. Well we're
- 37:30Speaker 3: going to get in and out not so much anymore,
- 37:32Speaker 3: not so.
- 37:33Speaker 2: Much, you know, not so much, you know, like there's
- 37:36Speaker 2: more to do in there, people. I think that's but
- 37:39Speaker 2: I think just again, that's where I can help with
- 37:41Speaker 2: folks to be like, again, let's help get the mirror
- 37:45Speaker 2: in front of you to say, Okay, well, what's really
- 37:46Speaker 2: going on, let's look at the actual and again, because
- 37:51Speaker 2: I'm not tied to it, I can help you see
- 37:53Speaker 2: it right, right, and then we can put some strategies
- 37:56Speaker 2: in place where I'm like, here's the deal, you know, right,
- 38:00Speaker 2: stop going to do that. Like I put a simple
- 38:03Speaker 2: scorecard in place for my team this week that has
- 38:07Speaker 2: all of my social media impressions like LinkedIn, followers, engagement reach,
- 38:15Speaker 2: all of my sales conversion you know, like the conversion
- 38:18Speaker 2: on my email traffic, all that in there, and I
- 38:21Speaker 2: am now forcing myself not to look until Monday when
- 38:27Speaker 2: the team populates that data. Right, because that time that
- 38:33Speaker 2: I am doing is not only important that it's like
- 38:35Speaker 2: the quantitative time, so I say, I spent an hour
- 38:38Speaker 2: on it, but the fact that it took me off
- 38:42Speaker 2: task of something else is even more impactful.
- 38:45Speaker 3: Amen. Yeah, that's really important.
- 38:48Speaker 2: Yeah, we lose a lot of this of flow in
- 38:51Speaker 2: terms of getting the important stuff done that you only
- 38:53Speaker 2: and only you can do because we're distracted. We just
- 38:56Speaker 2: check something else. Like you just literally lost your groove
- 39:01Speaker 2: because you allowed your brain to go, oh, I wonder
- 39:04Speaker 2: about that, and you do it because everything's access to us.
- 39:07Speaker 2: Yeah right, you know, it's like so easy to get
- 39:12Speaker 2: answers today.
- 39:13Speaker 3: I mean.
- 39:14Speaker 2: My parents and I don't know about you, but my
- 39:17Speaker 2: parents were never wrong, right, I mean they were never wrong.
- 39:22Speaker 2: They were never wrong. Yeah, and like I could argue
- 39:25Speaker 2: until the cows came home. But like I'm from Iowa,
- 39:27Speaker 2: so that's a good analogy. But you know, like like
- 39:31Speaker 2: they were, they could never be wrong. Well, now all
- 39:35Speaker 2: I have to you know, if I'm wrong my son,
- 39:38Speaker 2: you know, the boy boys will be like, let's just
- 39:39Speaker 2: check that out. It's so easy to get the data
- 39:44Speaker 2: and information and we're overloaded and bombarded. The algorithms just
- 39:48Speaker 2: suck us in.
- 39:50Speaker 3: Yep.
- 39:50Speaker 2: You know, Like the worst thing that happened to me
- 39:53Speaker 2: recently was that Google Chrome started populating your algorithm instead
- 39:57Speaker 2: of just having a blank page that says.
- 39:59Speaker 3: Search, Oh yeah, yep, yep.
- 40:02Speaker 2: You know, it's got all that stuff underneath it now,
- 40:04Speaker 2: you know, or it's like pulling you in, pulling you in.
- 40:08Speaker 2: You know, it's like that's just that's part of the game.
- 40:11Speaker 2: And so I think, you know, back to the point
- 40:13Speaker 2: of like with people understanding time is you know, time
- 40:16Speaker 2: is something that we have to continuely manage. It's the
- 40:18Speaker 2: only thing that we don't get back right. So really
- 40:22Speaker 2: thinking through where we're spending our time, how we're spending
- 40:25Speaker 2: our time, who's doing the work. Are you uniquely the
- 40:31Speaker 2: only one that can do it? I mean, that's another
- 40:32Speaker 2: one I hear from entrepreneurs like, well, nobody can do
- 40:34Speaker 2: it as good as I can.
- 40:37Speaker 3: That's probably true.
- 40:39Speaker 2: But if they can do it is eighty percent as
- 40:41Speaker 2: good as you can, then you need to delegate it. Yeah,
- 40:45Speaker 2: you need to let them take it because that allows
- 40:48Speaker 2: you to go do something that they can only do
- 40:50Speaker 2: thirty percent or forty percent as good as you like.
- 40:52Speaker 2: The impact of your team, your organization, your business depends
- 40:57Speaker 2: on you working on things that are uniquely you're uniquely
- 41:00Speaker 2: capable of, and that changes over time as you grow.
- 41:04Speaker 3: Mm hmm yeah, absolutely absolutely, Aaron. There's so much you're
- 41:11Speaker 3: giving us here.
- 41:12Speaker 1: I know we're gonna have to have you come back
- 41:13Speaker 1: because I know there's some more topics we didn't get
- 41:16Speaker 1: to today we're looking at, you know, but I hope
- 41:20Speaker 1: people are listening to this and you've you've you've planning
- 41:24Speaker 1: some seeds here at ask and consider am I am
- 41:27Speaker 1: I winning? Am I asking the right questions? Am I
- 41:29Speaker 1: tracking the right metrics? And If you're not sure, I
- 41:34Speaker 1: encourage you to reach out to Aaron here and uh,
- 41:38Speaker 1: you know, whether you know on LinkedIn or you know,
- 41:41Speaker 1: go go to his website. We'll put all that information
- 41:44Speaker 1: in the show notes, so you guys can make sure
- 41:45Speaker 1: you can connect there. But you know, Aaron, I just
- 41:48Speaker 1: want to say I appreciate your leadership and the way
- 41:51Speaker 1: that you're committed as am I to help help liberating
- 41:55Speaker 1: people really living in true freedom, right, so they're not
- 41:58Speaker 1: a slave to the things of the world. Really are
- 42:00Speaker 1: they clear on what that's them for you, what really
- 42:02Speaker 1: brings them joy? And I know that was one of
- 42:05Speaker 1: the other principles that we talked about, like this idea
- 42:08Speaker 1: of you know, you can be happy and you deserve
- 42:11Speaker 1: you know, you can actually have that find that joy
- 42:13Speaker 1: and maybe as we're wrapping up this this episode, this
- 42:16Speaker 1: version of it just lasting thoughts. Parting thoughts is you
- 42:19Speaker 1: know if people hear what you've shared today that you
- 42:22Speaker 1: would want them to really you know, hold on to.
- 42:26Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
- 42:29Speaker 2: This is David mentioned this piece of you deserve to
- 42:32Speaker 2: be happy as a foundational piece, right, and where there's discomfort,
- 42:37Speaker 2: we need to go after it and be intentional about
- 42:41Speaker 2: getting it out of the uncomfort zone. Right, So if
- 42:43Speaker 2: you're unhappy with something, you don't have to stay unhappy.
- 42:48Speaker 2: And so this piece of being stuck oftentimes is like
- 42:51Speaker 2: we take the blue pill because we think that that's
- 42:55Speaker 2: the way it needs to be, and the reality is
- 42:59Speaker 2: is it doesn't. And so sometimes you need other people
- 43:01Speaker 2: to help you see that, like David or myself to
- 43:05Speaker 2: speak truth unto you. And David and I were both
- 43:07Speaker 2: part of an event I think back in twenty twenty,
- 43:12Speaker 2: and in this event in twenty twenty, I wrote down
- 43:15Speaker 2: those words you deserve.
- 43:16Speaker 3: To be happy.
- 43:17Speaker 2: And I had heard it, not because I mean partly
- 43:20Speaker 2: I heard it from God, but probably I heard it
- 43:22Speaker 2: from other men in the group. Yeah right, They're like, Arin,
- 43:25Speaker 2: you're trying to solve an unsolvable problem. I was trying
- 43:29Speaker 2: to solve a problem of a micromanaging boss at a
- 43:33Speaker 2: senior vice president level. You know, I was responsible for
- 43:38Speaker 2: three billion dollars of business in that space and I'm
- 43:41Speaker 2: getting fifty emails a day. I couldn't solve the problem,
- 43:47Speaker 2: Like the problem was a problem that she was creating.
- 43:50Speaker 2: And so what people helped me see was is that
- 43:52Speaker 2: I deserve to be happy. Which then allowed me to
- 43:54Speaker 2: get out of the boat and go do something different.
- 43:58Speaker 2: And it allowed me to put my faith into action,
- 44:01Speaker 2: which allowed me to do some things that I didn't
- 44:03Speaker 2: even think were possible. Right, And I think that's an
- 44:06Speaker 2: important thing, is like, if you're not living in faith
- 44:09Speaker 2: in terms of taking some steps, like, you have the
- 44:12Speaker 2: opportunity when you're unhappy, right to take a step out
- 44:17Speaker 2: of that and take that leap of faith. And I did,
- 44:20Speaker 2: and it changed the course of my life, right, It
- 44:23Speaker 2: changed the course of my family's life. It changed the
- 44:24Speaker 2: course of my life and then hopefully the countless others
- 44:27Speaker 2: that we continue to affect with unstuck. So please hear
- 44:31Speaker 2: that you deserve to be happy. And if something resonates
- 44:33Speaker 2: with you as you're listening, you know, go take the
- 44:36Speaker 2: assessment and see if that's where the weakest link is.
- 44:40Speaker 2: That'll help you put a plan in place to go
- 44:43Speaker 2: after it. And you know, I'd love to sit down
- 44:44Speaker 2: with you and have a call, quick call if that
- 44:46Speaker 2: was the case, right, just to kind of help give
- 44:48Speaker 2: you some ideas of how we can go through that
- 44:51Speaker 2: free of charge, just to kind of have that conversation,
- 44:53Speaker 2: because that's what I'm passionate about helping people do is
- 44:55Speaker 2: get unstuck.
- 44:56Speaker 3: Awesome. Thank you so much Aaron for being a part
- 44:59Speaker 3: of the podcast.
- 45:00Speaker 1: We'll have you back, maybe we'll get we'll get mad
- 45:02Speaker 1: on here. We always like to have other voices back
- 45:04Speaker 1: and in group, so it's it's, it's it's wonderful.
- 45:07Speaker 3: Having you here.
- 45:07Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing your knowledge, your experience with all the
- 45:10Speaker 1: listeners and we'll look forward to having you back another time.
- 45:13Speaker 1: So thanks everybody for listening to the Business round Table podcast.
- 45:16Speaker 1: Until next time, take care everyone.
- 45:19Speaker 3: Thanks David