Latest / The Growth Class with Phil Masiello / The Five Stages of Yes: Moving Leaders from Hesitation to Ownership with Kashaun Cooper

Transcript

The Five Stages of Yes: Moving Leaders from Hesitation to Ownership with Kashaun Cooper · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Growth Class Podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Phil Massiello, your host.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're talking about something every leader says they want until it's time to actually do it.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's ownership, because leadership isn't really tested when things are smooth, it's tested when outcomes aren't guaranteed.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the pressure's real and you still have to decide who you are and what you stand for.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today is Kishon Cooper, a leadership strategist, author, framework builder, who helps leaders move from hesitation to ownership and from intention to resolve.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Kishon has a rare talent.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: He can name what leaders already sense, but can't quite articulate, and then he turns it into practical frameworks that create clarity, consistency, and decisiveness, especially when pressure hits and trust is on the line.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's also the host of Think Like a Riser podcast, where he explores the internal shifts that allow people to rise through uncertainty, responsibility, and resistance.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because growth isn't about hype.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's about how you choose to see yourself when the result isn't promised.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So today we're going to dig into his five stages of yes framework, the internal negotiations that quietly stall progress and weaken accountability and how real leaders settle decisions before the moment of pressure arrives.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if you ever find yourself stuck between, I don't know what I should do, and I'm actually doing it, this episode is for you.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into it with Kishon.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Kishon, thanks for coming on and taking the time.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: We appreciate it.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, why don't you take us through your background, take us through what you what you do, how you do it, why you do it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Phil, thank you so much for having me on.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am excited.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't wait for this conversation.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um the first conversation we had prior to this um got me thinking, got me fired up.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um when I knew this was on the calendar, I was uh thoroughly excited.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, thank you so much for having me as a guest.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I appreciate it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey ladies and gentlemen, as Phil said, I'm Kayshawn Cooper.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all the fancy little titles, that stuff is cool.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, basically, um I am I am, you know, when when people ask me, hey, what do you build or what have you built?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I I tell them, hey, I'm the guy who uh who study leadership under pressure, growth expos how growth exposes um system design and how how design flow determines that scale.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess the question is, how did you get here?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So my background is um in uh management, leadership, started.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I I won't date myself.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: You see, I don't have any hair, Phil.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have a lot of hair.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a lot of hair compared to me.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, started over uh two def two decades ago uh working for BJ's wholesale club.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I got my first shot at management, which was uh fun.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was a 20-year-old whippersnapper, just knew.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew that I knew everything.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what 20-year-old manager doesn't know that he knows everything?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was that guy.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I knew everything about management.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I knew everything about leadership.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I knew how to lead.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I knew everything about influence.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and boy, oh boy, at the age of 42, going on 43, in two weeks, I realized how little I know.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I started um back then in a big box store and matriculated my way uh through different um retail stores, um, uh also grocery stores, um, small box uh stores such as Rite Aid and CVS, still in leadership.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then I made my way to the restaurant industry.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Still to this day, I don't know how I found my way to the restaurant industry.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love to eat, but not so much like to cook.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I found my way into the restaurant industry, Phil, and listeners and viewers.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it was in the restaurant industry that I really, really started to notice how pressure, um, how pressure saturated events um really affect leaders.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it as, I knew it when I was in other industries because I knew how it affected me.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I saw how it affected my team.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I saw how it affected my team of leaders.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: But now as you grow older, you you grow wiser, you grow with experience, you begin to grow.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hope.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: As my grandmother used to say, when you know better, you should do better.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, you hope there is a level, uh ounce of wisdom that that's there with you.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now you are beginning to articulate what's going on.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said, you hope you should be able to do that.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I think those things happen.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I think when you when you're able to articulate something, is when you have gotten knocked on your head and you don't do it anymore.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing, Phil.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: When you get knocked on your head and you still keep going around the same mulberry bush, mulberry bush, same circle, um, there's a lesson that life is still trying to teach you.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I got tired of getting knocked on my head.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I got tired of the same outcomes, the same results.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it all had nothing to do with my skill.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It had nothing to do with my altitude.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It had nothing to do with my knowledge of the business.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It had nothing to do with even my passion.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: It had everything to do with how my structure, how my internal operating system has been crafted and wired.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I noticed that not I don't just have one.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: We all have one.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what we tend to do, we tend to bring our operating system into our workplace.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that operating system determines how we lead, but also how we handle pressure.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I um I grew up in the restaurant business.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Usually what I've seen, the path, is the opposite of what you did.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Usually it's, you know, you start out in the restaurant business, you make your way into retail.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, everything every industry to a certain extent, every business has these ebbs and flows of time, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Restaurant business, you get the the breakfast lunch rush, you get the lunch rush, you get the dinner rush, depending on the type of uh business you are.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in retail you have the lunch hour, which is busy, and then you have the evening hour, which is busy, and then the weekends are packed all day long, uh especially in the grocery business, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then I noticed in e-commerce we would have these these periods of time where your volume goes up and then it sort of trickles off, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: It some of it's dependent on what you're doing as far as ad processing and things.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: But if you have if if you're just running a business on a day-to-day basis and everything is fairly consistent in e-commerce, you still have these ebbs and flows.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're committed to things like, you know, fast shipping, shipping within same-day shipping, things like that, you know, it it's it's sort of the same pressure.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have the systems in place and you have to have the discipline to execute those systems, and you have to train your people to be ready for those uh periods of time because they come every day.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you're in the restaurant business, it happens every day.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not in your news, right?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the grocery business, happens every day between five o'clock and seven o'clock.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: The store is going to be busy with people that get off work, they're gonna go shopping.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Saturdays, Sundays, it happens every day.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sunday has become the busiest shopping day of the week uh across all retail.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um and even restaurants.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's, you know, planning for it for these, as you put it, the pressure moments, uh it's uh it's all about having systems and the discipline to execute those systems.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and y you know, Phil, you talked about a good point, and I don't want to get ahead of my uh get ahead of this conversation.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: But uh when you said planning, that reminds me of when I'm what I mean, I worked for this particular, I told you off air what company I worked for, um, the restaurant, and that particular company had SOPs on top of SOPs on top of SOPs.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was, you know, just a thick manual, and you could go into the internet and click, click, click.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You could sit there and be in a rabbit hole of SOPs for a century.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what I observed, and it happened to me too, uh, and this is what really made me, you know, take a closer step at closer look at it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: When when pressure hits, when you're in that pressure-saturated moment, when it's Super Bowl Sunday, or if it's a fight night, or if it's you know, sports college football Saturday, you know it's coming.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: You knew you knew it was coming when you woke up that day.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it was talked about that in that Monday manager's meeting how we should move forward.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when pressure hits, all of that goes out the window.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's because pressure does not create behavior, it doesn't create systems, it just reveals it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't create the cracks, it reveals the cracks that was already there.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, I would agree with that.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I coach founders and and CEOs when they're trying to scale, whether they're trying to get from you know five million to ten million, ten million to a hundred million, whatever.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what I always sort of preach to them is in the early days when you first start a business in the early days, you sort of um you're you're doing everything you possibly can to stay alive.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like survival first year, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Till you get to a certain amount, then you can start hiring people and bringing them in.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't start immediately putting systems into scale, like I hear it a lot of times from companies that are doing 2 million, 3 million, 4 million.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're too small to have systems, we have to be nimble.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's true, you have to be nimble in your ability to flex and change and move, but you have to have systems, because if you don't have systems, you can't scale.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what what happens is, and it's the same behavior, honestly, as what you're talking about with pressure, because as you start to scale, you're gonna feel a different kind of pressure.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have systems in place, you're not gonna be able to grow, and people aren't gonna know what to do.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh as much as I hate to admit this, but and I've talked about it numerous times on this show and other places, is that my first business was a complete and utter disaster.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a complete and utter disaster because it was a retail store and I did not put systems in place.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was not a good process manager and I was not a good leader.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, the business suffered.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not the not the part that the customers saw, but the operations of the business were total chaos every single day.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just brutal.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um so what I hear what you're saying, and I have um what I'm trying to say is there's applications for it across all platforms, not just restaurants or supermarkets or retail, I mean everywhere.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I I was that founder as well, so I don't just talk from a um uh a leader who's been in the system.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've also built a a restaurant called Fancy Funnel Cake.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where my understanding.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I talked about the restaurant industry and me working in the uh working in the restaurant industry, uh, as far as working for a corporation.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: But my true rubber meet the road understanding of pressure is when I uh had to build something from the, from nothing, from from the brain, and then you take it from the brain and you put it in your hand so other people can partake in it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where my understanding of pressure came from.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't academic, it wasn't theory, it wasn't something I read in the book.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was, you know, it was personal.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh with uh business that my wife and I co-owned, uh fancy funnel cake.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everything looked promising, uh Phil.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we over-the-top funnel cakes, people loved it, driving near and where you, Phil?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: You in Jersey?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're in Maryland.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes, you're in Maryland.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: You in Maryland.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you would appreciate the over-the-top.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we had something called the Marylinder with eight ounces of jumbo lunk crab meat on it, butter.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it when I say Fox Five did a story on it, so many people came and did a story on it.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: We were on a hit television show on Bravo, and then what looked promising came to a screeching halt.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: COVID shut everything down, um, and we didn't have, you know, we didn't have deep enough pockets.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we decided to uh pivot.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's after the the loss and the grief of a business.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when you lose a business, you don't want to talk about it.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like losing a loved one.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it really, it really is.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's like losing uh a loved one that you just don't want to talk about anymore.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the market said, we want it, we want you to come back.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided, hey, let's let's pivot from that offering and let's change how we do it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we started talking to investors, man, they love the idea, promising this, promising that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: We had one investor, Phil, he said, out of his mouth, I am going to write you a$100,000 check.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: This man, so you know, my eyes went from this to really?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna do it?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then I had another investor, man.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we got this, we're about to figure this out, about to cash this in.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we got a we got a piece of land.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so I'm over here like adding it up.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling my wife, bam, man, this is looking good.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, as a husband, she's looking at me like, oh man, I'm selling her, she's drinking the Kool-Aid, right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, each investor, you know, their promises fell through.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: They all, all, every single investor reneged for one reason or another.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to go back and tell my wife, um, who was excited.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I don't know if you're married, but one thing husbands do not like to do is disappoint their wives.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not one of the top five things you want to do, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: For your wife.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I disappointed her.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, oh boy, oh boy, I think I just stopped paying the price for that.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when when it hit me.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it the the hardest thing wasn't the slowdown.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was what pressure exposed in me, Phil, and listeners and and viewers.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I it it exposed my impatience.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I am ambitious, but now I'm I regulate my ambition.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, over controlling.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean, I I wanted to control everything.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably how I lost my hair.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't control the receding hairline anymore.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I shaved it off.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's my way of controlling it.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then emotional.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was very, very emotional.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I discovered that, hey, I wasn't just like that when Fancy Funnel cake closed.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was like that in my marriage.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was like that when I worked at this place.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was like that when I.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, hold on.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not the it's not the environments per se.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the it's pressure.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's just who I have been.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's who I conditioned my, that's why I've been conditioned to respond with impatience.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So pressure does not create those behaviors.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't create those behaviors.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as a founder, I realized that it revealed them.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when I realized that growth and survival both intensifies, um, it's it's it's it's it's in it's in both systems.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So uh basically what I'm saying, Phil, that's the foundation of my work.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I you know, raising money.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Raising money for a business is a very difficult thing.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, a lot of young entrepreneurs go out too fast to try and raise money.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they wear it as a badge of honor when they do raise it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but there's a whole strategy to raising capital.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of guys out there uh in the world of uh in the world of of of investing that'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna put money in and then never come through.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, you have to be very, very strategic when you raise capital.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you have to know who you're going after, where you're going after them, why you're going after them.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I have an entire series on how to raise capital effectively because there's a million stories out there like yours where, you know, you think you've got the money and then the next thing you know, somebody ghosts you and you know, you never hear from them again, even though they said, Yeah, we're gonna put money in.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I can understand that pain a little bit.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and but but the loss of a business, um you know I had a mentor early on and uh he said when you start a business, always prepare it from the day you start, I don't care what your ultimate goal is, always build it and prepare it to be sold.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Because even if you plan on running it for 30 years and giving it to your kids and all that, just make sure it's always in order and always prepared to be sold.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And don't get emotionally tied to it because you never know what's going to happen.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: You never know who's gonna walk in that door.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for example, early on uh we built uh uh a beauty brand uh and we had that brand out there for about twelve years before it got acquired.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we never planned on having it acquired, but it happened, and they we couldn't uh we couldn't avoid it.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was a great offer, and we had other investors and we had a board, and you know, so we had to make those decisions.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there we went on, but that we had for, you know, a long time, 12 years or so, and uh noting not counting the planning stages.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So and then uh from there I went into the shaving business.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we launched that business.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: We struggled for about a year and a half, and then we got traction through some things that I did.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and about two we were in business for about two and a half years.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason, at that time, suddenly everybody wanted to be in the shaving business.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were pl there were there were brands popping up every day wanting to be in the online shaving business.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we started getting offers everybody because we had something that nobody else had, which was an American-made razor, and nobody else was gonna get it, because there were only two American-made razor companies, and one of them was never gonna private label, and the other one we had an exclusive with.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we sold that and I thought it was premature.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we were in business for less than three years, but again, we had a board, we had other people involved, and you know, we wound up selling.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I sort of went into a little bit of a depression because A, there were things I wanted to do with that business.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about the business in the future.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about five years down, ten years down the road of the things I wanted to do that I never got to do.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I sort of resented the fact that we we sold so quick.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I understand sort of the depression part of it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and but yeah, I mean, I think that getting emotionally tied, and it's really difficult to do, uh getting you have to sort of keep your emotions out of the business.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: You have to separate it from your life.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be you're the business, because if you're the business, then it's really, really difficult to scale.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you look at some of these guys that have built billion-dollar businesses and then exited from them, and they're, you know, they were able to just walk away and and move on to something else.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you're right, and that's exactly what that situation revealed to me, Phil, is how emotionally charged I was.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um so now I recognize um when those situations arise, I'm able to read the room, but not the not the room.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the inner room.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm able to better navigate the situation.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to go back to something that you mentioned.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking about planning um a few moments ago.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And in my book, uh my book that I wrote, uh, The Five Stages of Yes for Leaders, um, moving from hesitation to ownership.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's a chapter all the way in the back of the book.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you, if you if you're if if if you uh make it all the way through, um it's Titled Deciding Before the Moment Arrives.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is probably my favorite chapter in the book.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: After I walk you through the five stages of yes, yes, I, yes, I uh should, yes, I could, yes, I can, yes, I must, yes, I will.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then there's about two more chapters between that.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then you arrive to this chapter, deciding before the moment arrived.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the reason this is my favorite chapter, uh, Phil, because what you're talking about planning, I talk about it as well, but in a different way.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I coin it as um scenario mapping.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and scenario mapping is basically the practice of deciding in advance how your leadership will behave when reality does not cooperate with your intentions, right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, it's it's it's it's uh it's one-y sends you question.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that question is, what will I do when pressure challenges who I said I would be?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's scenario mapping.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can understand that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's uh it's tough in application, but it's you know, it's it's correct.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um But again, you know, you you look at somebody like Vern Harnish, who wrote The Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up and his training programs, and they all he always talks about setting up your business from the beginning to be able to be sold and to be able to separate from it.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and what he really means is making sure that you keep everything in order as you go, because when if an opportunity does come around and you do want to take advantage of it, you want to be able to not have to run around under pressure to get all the documents together, to get all the due diligence together.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: You you basically are building it as you're going.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And could be 10 years from now, 15 years, you know, you make sure that your business is in order from a back-end standpoint so that if somebody does come, you know, I get I uh it's honestly baffles my mind, but I get emails every day, every day from these groups that want to buy businesses and they want to buy like, you know, agencies and they want to buy and um and it boggles my mind.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think you don't know anything about me and you're making me an offer to buy my business, you know.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And now I know half of them are a scam, but still, Jesus.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just it's it's a bit ridiculous.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I have no intention of of selling this right now, so it you know, going back to what you what you said um about the author um that you mentioned about you know make sure things are in place and you're not running around like a chicken without a without a head.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, pressure is unavoidable.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, pressure is predictable.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: We already talked about that earlier in this conversation when we said the restaurant industry is certain day parts.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you are iHop, if you are a Denny's or a breakfast spot, you already know you're going to get slammed between 7.30 and probably 10:30.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna fall off and you're gonna close around two.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you're open at lunch and you close at dinner, you already know 11.30, the lunch rush is gonna start around 5.30, uh happy hour, and then it's gonna transition into your your dinner rush.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's predictable.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, um, when I talk to other leaders, when I talk to other operators, um, you know, there are three things every founder should audit under pressure.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if your listeners are listening right now, this is this is a great time to pause this and get a pin.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh the first thing that you should audit is watch where decisions go when pressurized.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do they funnel back to you?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do they funnel outside of the organization?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do they stay where they should be?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the things that you want to keep an eye out on.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, secondly, notice which conversations get avoided when things get tense.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some some leaders just can't have hard conversations.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: No matter that's true, no matter what.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: The the the doggone company is on the line and they are still avoiding the hard conversation.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's usually where the real bottleneck is.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the third question, the third audit um every founder should take a close look at is um check if responsibility drifts upward during revenue spikes.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if everything comes back to the top, growth slows.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the three things every founder should audit under pressure.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to share that.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that's uh that's a perfect place to end because we're we're running out of time.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So any last minute thoughts on that you want to share?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, just um, you know, uh pressure does not create cracks.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't create behavior, it reveals them.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the thing is, if you want to know what your pressure reveals, um, if someone is listening to this uh uh episode and they want to test themselves, I've built a quick uh pressure check.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's simple.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's 12 questions, true or false.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: You could walk from your house to your car and do it on your phone.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's how fast it is.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It helps founders um see how they respond when growth uh uh intensifies.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it also helps give them um awareness of how pressure shapes their decisions.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And awareness is where design starts.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you enjoyed, I I I appreciate that, Kishan.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I appreciate your uh your thoughts.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you taking the time to come on.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you, Phil.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this conversation, then do two quick things.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Subscribe to to the podcast so you don't mix the next one.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, share this episode with a leader who's carrying a lot right now because odds are they don't need more motivation.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: They need a little bit more clarity.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and if you want to keep learning, uh, you can buy the five stages of yeses on Amazon, right?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just type in five stages of yes and it pops right out.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh remember, growth isn't about what you intend to do, it's about what you settle before the pressure arrives.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we will see you in the next episode.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Phil.