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What High-Performing CEOs Do Differently with Jim Schleckser · Better Together

• Shawn Sundsvold: Welcome back to Better Together. am Sean Sunsville joined by my wife and co-host Kelly. Today's guest is Jim Schleckser, CEO of the CEO Project, author of Great CEOs Are Lazy, and host of the CEO Project podcast. Jim brings decades of leadership experience, having run multi-billion dollar businesses and coached hundreds of CEOs across industries. Today, he leads a peer group of high performing executives and helps them scale smarter by focusing on what truly moves the needle. His philosophy is simple. The best leaders aren't the busiest. They are the most effective. In this episode, we talk about what separates good CEOs from great ones, how to lead with clarity instead of chaos, and why slowing down might just be the secret to accelerating your business. We'll also spend some time talking about how your mindset needs to change as you scale, and some tips on how to do that. If you're a founder, leader, or someone learning to get out of the weeds, this one's packed with a lot of insight. Jim, thanks so much for being here. Welcome to the show. Jim: Kelly and Sean, thanks for having me. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, we're very, glad to have you. It's such a unique ⁓ opportunity to have someone of your experience on our show. So I'm super excited about this conversation. ⁓ let's... Hey, wisdom takes a lot of forms, right? let's do this. Let's start at the beginning, right? What led you to starting the CEO project? Was there a particular moment or experience that pushed you in that direction? Jim: Yeah, think you just called me old, let's go with it. Well, I got fired. No, ⁓ I. Right. So I I ran companies for people for years, really, from like 29 years old on. And story short, politics happened and I ended up getting ejected from the company. It happens at that level. It's just the way it goes. And it was fine. And I debated, you know, my kids were young. I debated, did I want to? Shawn Sundsvold: Okay. Kelly Sundsvold: That's a good start. I love it. Jim: go back on the corporate track where I was traveling my brains out, I didn't have control over my schedule, or start my own business. And I had benefited from CEO peer groups through a variety of my jobs in terms of really difficult decisions. And I said, you know, I love the business, I love the impact. So I just started to decide to go into that business. So that was really it. I was a client. I loved the product. I loved what it did for me. I wanted to do it for other people. Shawn Sundsvold: That's awesome. That's awesome. ⁓ Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, that's really great. I was diving into your profile yesterday and checking out your book and kind of reading around. Yeah, so for people who are not familiar with the CEO project in kind of more practical terms, what does working with you and your team actually look like? Jim: So it's a combination of an executive advisor, which is one of my partners. We're all former CEOs. We've all run companies at scale. So you get somebody who's done what you're doing and maybe even much bigger. So it's not the typical therapy model that you see with coaching, which is, me ask questions and hope you figure it out, which a lot of organizations subscribe to. We do not. Our model is we're going to ask questions to understand. and then give you advice based on our background experience, insight and so forth of you and what we've done before. We combine that with going back to Napoleon Hilley talked about building a mastermind group around this and thinking grow rich. Talking about building a mastermind group around you of really smart people that have your interests at heart and no agenda. Well, that's exactly what we do with other high performing CEOs. And the deal is it's a quid pro quo. I'll participate in helping you work to your most difficult issues. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jim: if you help me work through my most difficult issues. So, you you could argue it's therapy and group therapy, but really designed to improve your business. It's ⁓ 90, 80, 90 percent business oriented and less the social personal side for our particular model. There are other organizations that are much more social. We're not. That's not our model. amazing high end advisor combined with a really high performing mastermind group. That's basically the business. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, you mentioned it there like just, I want to touch on a little bit more about the type of people you work with, right? You work with a very specific kind of CEO, those that are high performing, high growth companies. What challenges are they typically facing when they decide they want to come be a part of this group? Jim: Well, all them at one point or another, You know, as ⁓ let's give a couple of classic ones that you might run into. ⁓ When you're you tend to throw talent at problems. And ⁓ over that doesn't scale. And you find that systems, which we were chatting about before we came on air, become important and you now begin to talent for systems and why. Shawn Sundsvold: You Jim: Because in the beginning, I've got to hire these hyper talented people who can just cover any hole that shows up in the business and they're motivated and smart and blah, But over time, you can't hire all people like that. Like if your talent strategy is to hire supermen and superwomen, you're not going to have much of a business. And so you've got to build systems that allow normal human beings to perform at pretty high level. And that is one transition we see all the time of when do I move from a talent driven strategy to more of a process driven strategy. Now, what's interesting is most entrepreneurs are a little allergic to process. It's not sexy. And it feels like bureaucracy to us. And we're like, the process, the bureaucracy, I hate it. That's why I opened my own business. But if you really want to grow a significantly sized business, you kind of have to do this. So we're very big on the right amount of process and not more than you need. Like don't drop SAP operating system in your business when you're $10 million. Do something light, light touch. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jim: So that's a very classic one. I'll give you one other quick one. You hired somebody who you knew and trusted and trusted you, and now you're at a certain size that they're no longer performing. And you've got a very tough personal decision. Like, I love Sean, we went to school together, he trusted me when there was nothing here but an idea, and now that we're four or five or $10 million, he's no longer able to perform at the right level. He can't drive us to 20, I can see that already. What do I do? And that is a ⁓ Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: gut wrenching decision for an entrepreneur. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah. ⁓ my gosh. Like I just, feel that. Cause that, I've watched that happen before, you know, and it's just, it's hard. And you know, I kind looping back to that peer to peer group that were talking about and like that approach. So what's your approach when someone joins that peer group? Like how do you help them to kind of shift from ⁓ doing to leading? Jim: Yeah. Yeah. And this goes over to my book, Great CEOs Are Lazy. theoretical model that it's based on is called the theory of constraints. This was developed by guy named Eli Goldratt, who is an Israeli physicist. But the idea is in any system you can name, there's a point of constraint that controls the performance of the whole system. A simple example is a garden hose. There's a kink in the garden hose. I'm trying to get water out the end. There's only one thing, well, two things. that I need to do. One is find the kink and open it up. I could do work anywhere else on that hose. It won't do a darn thing to open up the water flow. Well, the same thing is true in your business. Somewhere in your business, there's a point of constraint that controls the performance of your business, be it growth, be it profit, be it depends on what we're after, right? The job of the CEO is to find the kink and open it up. And that's it. And all the other junk we do is lower value. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: then finding the kink and opening it up. And so you talk about on the business versus in the business. In the business is working on the hose at everywhere else besides the kink. On the business is find the kink and open it up. And that's really where we spend time trying to change the mindset of CEOs of what is your job and where should you be spending your time? Let me just comment that even really, really good CEOs are really good at this. They only spend 30, 40 % of their time at the point of constraint. The rest they are doing all that other. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: stuff we have to do, know, care, maintenance, so forth. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. One of the points in your book that you kind of touched on it there, but it was, I'm to make sure I want to get this right. A good CEO is going to solve the problem that no one else can solve. Right. And so in doing that, you know, what is it that, Jim: You have. ⁓ Shawn Sundsvold: How do you help them identify and find those constraints as part of that group? Not only in the book that you've given, you give them some ideas, right, and the different roles they might have to play, but let's bring in the of the CEO project alongside that, and how do you help them find those kinks so that they can solve those problems? Jim: So in the book, I talk about the five hats of a CEO. It's architect, engineer, coach, analyst, and player. And it turns out two of those hats are find the kink hats. ⁓ This not in the book. This is all bonus material you're getting right now. ⁓ I didn't realize this when I wrote it. So ⁓ version will have this. And player ⁓ and analyst find the kink hats. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: Analyst looking at reports looking at where quality defects are occurring, know looking at outside research So forth that's all analysis you're gonna do it all from your office and Many CEOs that's really their expertise. They're hyper analytic They can figure these things out and they can find where that point of constraint is the other is player and this is where you go in and you actually do the process for a while and then that enlightens use of what's going on and the example I use if you had a call center you were running and you went and worked in the call center for four hours as a CEO. Let me assure you, you would have a list of things that needed to change in that call center. Going back in history, Jack Welch used to go on sales calls when he was running GE. Yeah, he wanted the sale, but that's not why he went on the sales call. He went on the sales call because he goes, do we have the right offer for this client? Is it priced right? Do I have the right team on this account? Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jim: Is there a way we can accelerate the process to get the sales to happen faster or bigger? Or is there something we should offer that we don't offer? Like all those questions have nothing to do with the sale, but they were all informed by him going through the sales process. those are the two hats you use to find the point of constraint. And we coach CEOs on go dig in and go do, or preferably probably some of both. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. So from your coaching and from your book, we have a lot of CEOs, a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show across all of our platforms. What's one shift that you'd recommend a CEO could make today to start moving from that busy to being effective? Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jim: The one ⁓ we need to make is delegation is actually talent development. And our job as leaders is talent development. Because we had a city we work with, said companies don't grow, people do. So the faster your people grow in their capability, the faster your company will grow. So when you are master problem solver, everything comes to your desk, ⁓ you're in every decision, you're weakening your company's ability to solve its own problem. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: like if you have kids ⁓ some point when they get older you go I think you can figure this one out like and hope the heck they can write it They really really really can't sure you're gonna help them But you want them to learn how to solve their own problems ⁓ exact thing is true as a CEO when somebody comes to your desk or emails you go Hey, what about this and you're like, okay They should be able to figure this out on their own you push it right back to them and over time they'll learn that you're not gonna solve all their problems for them, which means Shawn Sundsvold: Mm. Jim: they will get better at solving their own problems and only come when they're like, look, we've tried it, we've had the team on it, we cannot crack this nut, we really need help on this one. Okay, time for me to get involved. Now here's the problem. CEOs are usually really good problem solvers and we get this ego gratification from like, man, bang, nailed another one, solved a problem, I had a big day. And it's completely, you're debilitating your company every time you get that little ego juice because you're not developing your talent. And so that's the one shift, the delegation. is development and that's our job. Not a scary thing, the thing you should be doing. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, that talent development is such a key piece too, because as a CEO, you've got to pass down that knowledge, right? Or your business doesn't go anywhere. You don't train your people up. So kind switching gears just a little bit, but sort of staying on that, like are there common, you know, as a company grows, ⁓ what does mindset shift need to be for a founder to make, you know, they, what do they have to do in their mindset to get to that point of being successful? Jim: Well, that you've got to find another way to juice your ego or get your little endorphin hit, which you get from solving problems right now. You've got to go find another way to get it because this one, ⁓ you do it right, is less available to you than it used to be. So you have to find another way, which is go figure out another hard problem or go find the point of constraint or ⁓ some great people. Or you got to find another way to deploy your talent into the business that gets you both the business a benefit and you a benefit. because it's not going to be problem solving the way it used to be. And that is super scary. Particularly when you're small, you're involved in everything. You know everybody. You know everything about the company. And I can remember when I started running my first really big company, like 1,000 people working for me, people come up to me going, hey, Jim, I went to Delaware undergrad. They go, hey, I saw Delaware won this weekend. I'm like, oh, thanks. I have no idea who you are. I literally didn't know everybody who worked for me because 1,000 people, can't. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. Jim: It's really, you can't really know a thousand people. You can know 200, a thousand you can't know. And so it scared the heck out of me. I'm like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know all the people. don't, and that's what starts to happen as you cross certain thresholds. Super scary for a CEO. And so that's the issue. Find your juice somewhere else and you've got to be okay with being uncomfortable. They talk about growth occurring where you're uncomfortable. Welcome to the club. You're going to have to be uncomfortable if you want to grow your company. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. It's, ⁓ you know, one of the things that when you're a CEO, you know, and you've done this in your career, you're a leader leading leaders, right? So how does that differ when you're in that kind of a situation and at a bigger size and a leader or CEO entrepreneur of a smaller company who's leading a lot of employees and maybe a couple of managers? How did, how does your management style have to differ? Kelly Sundsvold: Wise. Jim: Yeah, so you have to elevate. I talk about amplifying and dampening ⁓ at middle management layers and the job of middle management is to dampen. So ⁓ and about information flowing from the contact in the business up to the CEO. As it goes through the layers, each layer has a choice. I can either full pass, send it through with no filter. That's not useful. Like, why do I have you there if you're just going to Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: Pass it all up to me, let me figure it out. There are amplifiers and these people are toxic. They are people that take information and they make it a problem when it's not really a problem. Like, and you know the little chicken little running around with their heads cut off in a business and probably people listening go, hey, I got one of those and everybody has one. And then there's dampeners. And this is the job of middle management and leadership. They take in information, they process it, they figure out what's important to push up. And that's what goes to the leadership above them. At every level that happens. And so at some level as a CEO, as you get layers, your information is pre-chewed, if you will. Like somebody's already been over it before you see it. And the problem is the politics can show up there. So you have to have ways of jumping down and collecting your own a little bit. But that's one element of be OK that your information is a little processed, not as raw as it used to be. That's going to happen. But also, Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Jim: Back to you've got to model the behavior that you want your leaders to model. So if I'm modeling, don't bring me decisions that you can solve, they should be modeling the same behavior down into the, thus pushing the decision down to the lowest possible layer in the organization. So those would be a couple of thoughts that change. But leadership is more about, maybe another way to think about it. As you go to the highest level, your job changes to vision, direction, culture, talent. You're no longer in the optimization model. Manager's job is to optimize so there's take what you have and figure out how to do it better faster cheaper quicker That's not your job as a CEO anymore. Your job is to figure out where are we going? Where's the best place for us to skate to where the opportunities in the market? Where who's the talent that we need not to go? Optimize and a lot of CEOs can't help themselves because they're a little micro to go in and You know touch all the buttons, you know, and I'm an engineer. We're as guilty as anybody of that, know, so Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point that, you know, we were just talking about this yesterday in our team meeting about like, you know, we're getting at the point where, you know, we don't know everything that's happening. We do know everything's happening, but we know we don't know all the minutiae and it's, it's scary. We're having to get uncomfortable. Like what you just said, are there common phases and points that accompany growth and CEOs just get stuck? Like you mentioned, like this CEO might not be the person that takes you from 10 million Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: to 20 million but are there other phases where they get stuck and ⁓ can move on? Jim: Yeah, and it's a big decision to leave your own company. mean, and there are some CEOs that go, look, I'm really good zero to one. I mean, get it up, get the idea going, put some people in place. And then I get bored. I want all that action. I don't want to elevate the way we're discussing. And the smart ones go either I leave, I put a CEO in place and I exit or I sell it and I exit. So that's an OK. And then I go do another one. There's nothing wrong with that as a career path to have four serial entrepreneurs, three, four or five things you do in your life, maybe all very different. Others that want to scale, I think of it in terms of span of control. So the normal recommended span of control, and there's a lot of nuance in here that I'm going to get into, is seven-ish, plus or minus two. So you go, right, I've got me plus seven. That's eight people. I can put my hands on all of that, right? Well, now I add another layer. Seven times seven is 49, plus seven is 56, plus me, 57. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: I probably can get my hands around that. Now I add another layer and I am whamboozled at that point. I've now got 350 people, I can't put my hands on everything. So I almost think about it as you start, because you need to keep a span of control, because you can't have 30 people working for you, you start to grow layers in your organization and then you lose contact with things. And that's what's very scary. So some people stop at one layer, because I want to put my hands on everything. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jim: or two layers, I can pretty much keep my hands on everything and at three they tap out. But people that want to go to the next level have to figure out how to be able to do that and manage in that environment. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, that's really an interesting way of looking at it, the different layers and the contact points. Because having managed in multiple places myself, usually the number was always somewhere between 12 to 15 direct reports. And at that point in time, it almost becomes unmanageable. Jim: Yeah, you can't touch people enough to have a real impact at 15. You can't. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah. So curious, I want to touch a little bit on your career background because you've had the opportunity to sit, you know, on as a board member for multiple different companies. And, you know, that's a whole nother high level aspect of looking at things. So what's one leadership mistake you see that people often make that they don't realize is happening. Jim: Well, ignore the point of constraint is the big one for me. And it exists in three areas generally. The business model, what do for whom, the margin we have, so forth, the level of demand. That's all, and that's very much a CEO's job. Like there's really nobody else is going to have the vision and the experience to really deeply understand that. Like you can't delegate strategy. So this one's the CEO's job fully in and some don't like it. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: And then therefore nobody's spending time on it. And the business model runs out of gas or stops making the money it used to make or whatever. Second is talent. Being realistic in your assessment of talent is a very big mistake that I see. They go, sometimes I'll talk to a CEO and I go, hey, rate your team, your direct reports. They go, ⁓ they're all A's. And I don't know if you remember, there was a show on national public radio called Lake Wobegon. Remember that? Lake Wobegon in the beginning, they talk about where the children are all above average. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: I'm like, guess we're in Lake Wobbegum because everybody's above average. And it's just not true. It's just not true. You've got some B's and C's in your organization in a couple of days. That's just the way it is. So they're not assessing talent correctly. And then the third is this question of process that you must start to play process as you scale. And some CEOs are just allergic to it. They just hate it. They won't do it. Quality starts declining. Customers get disappointed. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: Right. Jim: that is a bit of a death spiral in your business. So those would be three areas, big areas I see. Lack of time on business model, not being realistic, assessing talent, and not deploying process in an appropriate time frame. Those would be three big ones. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, that's a really good, that's a really good assessment. We've ⁓ had a couple of people who have been on boards in our podcast previously. ⁓ good to hear those from that perspective. ⁓ there ⁓ a story or a moment from the boardroom that's like really stuck out to you? Something that maybe shaped the way that you think about leadership, maybe even today? ⁓ Jim: Mmm, from the boardroom. Well, I'll do it on a positive note. This question of talent development, I was on the board of a company in Indiana and of the members of the executive team, funny enough, the CFO was ⁓ an amazing of talent. Over a 10 period, maybe I knew them longer, but 10 years I was on the board. Almost every single significant leadership position was taken by somebody who worked for him. ⁓ Shawn Sundsvold: Wow. Jim: Like this guy was a machine at developing talent and nobody was even close to Bart is his name. Nobody was close to Bart. mean, like COO used to work for Bart. This one used to work for Bart. This one used to cheat market used to work for Bart. Every single one of them. like, dang, I never could quite figure out why he was so darn good at it. But he was amazing. And, you know, there's a positive thing that I learned like Kelly Sundsvold: Wow, that's interesting. Yeah. Shawn Sundsvold: Wow. Jim: one person who's a really, really excellent talent developer can shape the performance of an entire organization. Whether that's a CEO or in this case a CFO and he made it beyond him doing the job and doing a pretty good job at it. That was his legacy. And those people have gone on to become CEOs of other companies and it's pretty, pretty cool actually. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's people do that. just seen how they could just generate that kind of following from somebody and teaching and training. It really is a unique skill that not only a few people have, you know, and it can be developed, but I still think it's, there's a, there's something unique in a personality with that. Jim: Yeah. Well, and- I think maybe the most unique thing is he was willing to give them up for the benefit of the company. Because some people like put their arms around them, like, don't touch my people, because they know how good they are. And they they basically limit their career opportunities because of that. And which means the person is going to have to leave, by the way. He was like, no, we'll figure it out. Go be COO. Go run this. Go take care of that. He was amazing. That ⁓ have is maybe the most unique thing he had. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Right. Yeah. And let, I want to dive into that just a little more. What does that do for both the person who's in that position and gets that opportunity and the company? Like, what does that do for the whole, for the whole across the board company? Jim: Well, when people see internal promotion happening, they go, hey, this is a great place to hang out and build my career. If you're cons, I think of it as a health metric. ⁓ As you grow and opportunities are created through growth, because growth rate equals opportunity rate for an individual. And those opportunities are we're always hiring out to fill those opportunities. That's an unhealthy company. We're not developing our people to take those opportunities. On the other hand, where it's only internal. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Jim: That's also a little bit unhealthy because you don't get fresh thinking and new ideas. Because people show up and they go, why do you do it like that? Because my old place, we did it this other way and it was way more effective. And you go, I don't know, darn good idea, right? So you lose that a little bit when you're only internal. So there's this balance of internal promotion and development and a little bit of a little sprinkling of outside people. But it shows this amazing, you know, great place to hang out, great place to grow a career. And many people did that. I think the other thing for the individual beyond like I don't have to leave to grow my career and make more money and whatnot development. a bunch of ways you can develop people, but one of them is you put them in a stretch assignment, meaning bigger scope or more response and you're throwing people into some deep water here. again, uncomfortable equals growth. They're super uncomfortable. They're probably not sleeping so well, but they're growing like heck as an individual in that timeframe. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Jim: So it's good for the company and good for the individual, I think. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. want to touch on just very quickly, you we talked about in the beginning, you are the host of the CEO podcast, you've had a lot of conversations with CEOs. ⁓ And ⁓ I'm to kind of put you on the spot a little bit here of what's been one of your favorite conversations or moments on the show. Jim: Mm-hmm. gosh. Kelly Sundsvold: like picking a favorite child, right? Jim: ⁓ my gosh, yeah. I I had Keith Verrazzi on a couple months ago. Phenomenal guy, Uber networker, just really understands relationship, strength, and power, and what it can deliver. Something I was not good at through my career. Probably still not incredibly great at it. I had Dr. Tony Alessandra, who was one of my heroes growing. Yeah, right? If you've ever listened to the cassette tapes or DVDs, motivational stuff, he was one of the guys. Spectacular, brilliant guy. And maybe the most Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jim: fun one recently was I had the coach of the Savannah bananas. Kelly Sundsvold: Who won? Shawn Sundsvold: ⁓ you're kidding. Jim: And I'm like, great, there's going to be some dumb jock baseball player. No, this guy got it. He was smart. He was high energy. He understood the business. He very clearly enunciated what they were trying to do and expand. And oh my gosh, he was so much fun. I mean, just a blast. So not quite a CEO, but one of the fun ones we've done in recent past. So those are a couple that are kind of sticking in my head. Shawn Sundsvold: Awesome, awesome. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, I've heard he's a pretty fun guy. So, right. Yeah, ⁓ Yeah. So, how has like, podcasting shaped or impacted the way that you coach and connect with other leaders? Jim: is not the guy with the yellow hat. It's the coach of the team. Different guy, but he's awesome. Shawn Sundsvold: Okay. Jim: Well, you know, when I started business, one the guys that was in my peer group and I said, Hey, I'm thinking about going into this business. said, well, Jim, we get why you're relevant in these conversations because you're running a big business, which I was at that time. But are you recently ran because I said I got fired. goes, How you going to maintain relevance doing this? I'm scary, ⁓ difficult question. Turns he completely didn't understand. Kelly Sundsvold: Right. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm. Jim: I get more looks at the most difficult problems of dozens and dozens and dozens of CEOs than I ever would have had having just one job. This is the value of a consultant, a good consultant, right? They see so many looks and you go, my problem is so unique. It never exists in the whole world. You're like, exactly. this industry, they deal with this all the time. Or in this other place, they solve some almost exactly to that. So the coaching CEOs made me really, really Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Jim: good at it. mean, years, I'd hope you'd get good at it, right. But also, the podcast has amplified it, right. So I get to talk to all these interesting people hearing kind of their best stuff. And I incorporate that into my thinking and my writing and the things I do. So it's made me it. love to learn. So it's just massive learning. And I hope when people listen, ⁓ we're very conversational, like you guys are. I hope when they listen, they're like, because I'm curious. Shawn Sundsvold: Right. Jim: that they enjoy that sort of curious journey that I go through with people, right? ⁓ As I try to understand them and I'm just trying to learn and I hope other people learn. So it's just a massive learning opportunity for me and hopefully for my listeners. Shawn Sundsvold: That's awesome. That's awesome. as we wrap up here, we have a question that we ask most of our guests when they're on here ⁓ we titled our podcast better together because we figured out that we could build a business better together than we could working two separate corporate jobs. Right. So, ⁓ know, in understanding that, what does that mean to you in the context of leadership and business growth? Jim: Yeah. Well, I have partners who do the coaching using the model I described to you. So I've taught them the model and they've incorporated it. Many of them are former clients who when they came out of their corporate or the company they ran, they sold it, they joined us to advise CEOs because they thought that much of the model. So one is that the quality of the people I have around the business is exceptionally high. Like I said, all former CEOs. And that is just a blessing that they're even willing to work with me, honestly. I've convinced them to do so. And then the other is ⁓ the quality of the members. We're very selective about who we work with. There's some other models where they'll kind of take all comers. We don't do that. It's very much ⁓ an application ⁓ interview to decide if we want to work with somebody. And ⁓ some them red flags, arrogance, think have the answers. They don't listen. They want to do the work. working 80 hours a week and don't have schedule control. ⁓ could help them, but they'll never be able to find the time to engage, right? I joke with them. I go, you're telling me you don't have time to go to the time management seminar? Is that what I'm hearing from you? And kind of true. They're out of control, and they can't get better until they change their dynamic. So the quality of the people that are my partners and the quality of our members has made this ⁓ just amazing and fun business to run. And we're really careful about. no jerks, you know, and if we figure out somebody's a jerk, don't even have to fire them. Basically, the group rejects them. ⁓ Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I that peer-to-peer learning. I'm a learner also like you, and I both of us are in different ways. And there's just so value in that and going through with people what they've experienced and they've had different experiences that they're able to share. Shawn Sundsvold: Wow, okay. Kelly Sundsvold: I appreciate your time here. What are ways that people can connect with you and also find your book learn more about the CEO project? Jim: Sure. So you can go to the CEO project dot com. We're there. I'm on LinkedIn. There is only one Jim Schlexer on LinkedIn. I can assure you of that. So if you can type the name right you'll find me. And then the book Lazy Great CEOs are Lazy. I also wrote a book about ⁓ entertaining around ⁓ wine and spirits because I'm a sommelier and have a new one coming out on the 20th which is about negotiating. So all available all available on Amazon. So you pick them up there. Shawn Sundsvold: ⁓ fantastic. Awesome. Well, Jim, this has been a fantastic conversation. really appreciate you taking time with us today and, you know, look forward to, you know, listening to more of your CEO project podcast. And, you know, hopefully we can have you on again at some point. Jim: Thank you, was great being here. Thanks for having me. Shawn Sundsvold: Thank you.