Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - What Happens When CEOs Stop Chasing Revenue ($100M Founder) | Melissa Urban - CEO of Whole30

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Lessons - What Happens When CEOs Stop Chasing Revenue ($100M Founder) | Melissa Urban - CEO of Whole30 · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lesson's episode, discover how small habits create lasting change and why genuine
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  connection matters more than productivity hacks. Learn how avoiding comparison,
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  strengthens leadership and culture, understand how self-awareness builds trust within teams,
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  and explore how prioritizing community over profit creates brands that endure.
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  I ask you because I know that, you know, outside of like Whole 30, you're just like a very
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  self-aware person. So I feel like you've like you mentioned you looked into all this stuff before
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  you probably try anything that you hear on a podcast or a show or some some some executives
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  figured out some way to sort of improve their life by 1% like you figured out or you've tried
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  it doesn't so I'm curious what are the what are the ones what are the things that you do in your
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  life that are sort of like not just fads they actually seem to actually impact your life.
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  Yeah so one of the things that I did when I first moved to Utah from New Hampshire so I grew up in
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  the East Coast and like we're not rude on the East Coast we just don't need to talk to you right
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  our cut if you are my cashier or my barista or my waiter or waitress like it is purely transactional
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  so when I'm and that that's just how the culture is when I moved to Utah we showed up at the grocery
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  store the very first day in the cashier was like hey how are you guys what are you doing this weekend
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  and I was like why like why do you want to know that we don't know each other I'm never going to
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  see you again so I did this talking to strangers experiment where for 30 days I talked to everyone
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  if it was appropriate right if there was like a huge line behind me I wouldn't but if it was a
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  waitress or a barista or there was someone next to me in line who appeared to you know be amenable
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  to chatting or my cashier I would just talk to that my uber driver I would just talk to them
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  you know hey how's your day going you know are you in the middle of your shift or the end of your
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  shift what are you doing anything fun this weekend have you tried this brand of whatever that I'm
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  buying and I found that it was the highlight of my day the highlight of my day was spending two
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  minutes like making someone feel good eliciting this like genuine human connection even if we talked
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  about nothing even if I never saw them again and occasionally I would have these experiences where
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  I would like end up hearing someone's story usually in an uber or you know on a slow day at a
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  restaurant and I was like every single person is interesting everyone has a story and it's kind
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  of like I think Bryne Brown says that like you wouldn't have this interpersonal conflict if you
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  just like talk to each other if you got to know each other right the diff our differences would
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  come together and that was such an awesome and fun getting out of my shawl experiment and I
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  still do it to this day I'm not like fanatical about it um but that was a really really fun one
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  one of the things I will say though is that I think it's important going back to self awareness
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  to know that just because someone else finds it a productivity hack doesn't mean it's for you
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  so you hear about people like batching their day where they only check email twice a day I check it
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  8 a.m. and I check at 3 p.m. awesome if that works great for you awesome I'm never gonna do that
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  because that's not how I use email it's not how I want to use email and that's not how I want to
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  schedule my day so I think it's equally important to know what is not for you and maybe you need
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  to try some self experiments that don't work for you to start to get a feel with that but I think
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  you can also trust your intuition if you hear someone talking about oh I use this app and I do
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  everything in it and I'm like oh that just sounds really restrictive to me that's not for you maybe
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  I wanted to I wanted to ask a couple uh like leadership questions just to pull some experience
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  out from you building whole 30 in the company um so now we sort of covered we've covered some
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  health and wellness we've covered some uh like some some mindset or whatnot uh but before I go into
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  like leadership lessons last thoughts on just like healthy entrepreneurship what are some main
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  things that you'd impart on somebody who wants to build their own thing what is the what is the
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  main healthy entrepreneuring mindset that you have to have if you want to build something and
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  and stick with it for the long term my biggest lesson or one of my biggest lessons while I was
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  building was don't worry about what other people are doing don't worry about it I would get
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  distracted by looking at my competition other people who were doing similar things in the space
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  and looking at the direction they were going a resource they rolled out and thinking to myself oh
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  I have to do that too now I have to be in that space no no no no no I had my vision I knew exactly
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  what I wanted whole 30 to be where I wanted to go how I wanted to connect with my community
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  and the minute I stopped worrying about what other people were doing and focused all of that energy
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  on where I wanted to go was it not only felt so much better for me it was much less stressful it was
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  less confusing and anxiety producing but now I got to put all of my energy into what I wanted to
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  build not like what other people were doing so for me that was a huge lesson really early on and
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  I still abide by that to this day amazing now as you as you've built whole 30 how how do you
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  make sure that you're a great CEO to your team to your company to your customers I hope I'm a
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  great CEO I think it goes a lot of it goes back to self awareness recognizing that everything comes
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  from the top down your company's culture boundaries communication style leadership if I am not
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  embodying and living and demonstrating the values that I want my company to have and I want my
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  team to have then like it is entirely my fault it's 100% coming down from me so I have to be
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  really self aware when I think of something at six o'clock at night I have to remind myself don't
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  send this email right now you can schedule it and send it tomorrow morning because I don't want to
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  our culture is such that like when we're off we're off we're with family and unless it's an
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  emergency I don't need anything from you and I don't want to have action that goes against what
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  I'm saying our values are I have to employ pauses really often my management style is very direct
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  I work very fast and I often don't take the time to say hi you know I'm kind of like hey we're
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  working on this let's just like get it done so I have to pause very often and remind myself
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  that it's in all of our best interests to speak to people the way they want to be spoken to I have
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  some employees who really like you know talking about their weekend first or talking about what
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  everyone else is doing and even if I'm in transactional mode it's super helpful for me to recognize
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  like oh this would be so much better served if I took like a two minute break and we just like
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  chat it a little bit right I can we can do that so I have to sometimes put my own tendencies aside
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  for that I also think it's important for me to recognize and acknowledge what I'm not good at or
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  what I am not adding value to and I've had to do that quite a bit lately because I feel like I'm in
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  a place right now where in order for the business to continue to grow the way I want it to I have
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  to step back in some areas and let someone else step in and take us to that next level and that's been
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  a two-year process that was somewhat challenging but not as challenging as I expected I don't
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  have as much attachment to the title as I thought I did or attachment to the the power that I
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  thought I did and it is in the company's best interest which means it's in my team's best interest
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  in my community's best interest for me to step back on some things and bring someone else in
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  and let them run it so that I can do what I do best so I mean we keep talking about self-awareness
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  but I think that's a really huge part of being a good leader yeah it is yeah and how do you
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  find those people so how do you find those people that are going to lead the other parts of the
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  business what's your what's your hiring what's your strategy for finding that incredible talent
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  that you trust to sort of scale your baby yeah I had a ton of experience in hiring before I joined
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  towards the whole 30 my old job and insurance I managed a group of about 20 team members and three
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  different offices across the country and I had to do a lot of hiring so I got really practiced at
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  interviewing I learned to hire for talent and not skill so I can teach someone Microsoft I can
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  teach someone WordPress or I can teach someone the vernacular the language that we use around
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  whole 30 right we don't call it a diet we call it a program what I can't teach is like that
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  talent that entrepreneurial talent or the quick grasp of like the vision and you know being
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  able to implement it or taking past experiences that may not be like a one-to-one but figuring out
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  how to employ the learning lessons here those are things you can't teach so we also tend to hire
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  from within our community like always from within our community so you already believe in the whole
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  30 you already are familiar with the community in some ways you're like on board with the mission
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  before you even start working for us and that makes you know your kind of indoctrination into the team
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  so much easier you're you're already part of this like mission that you were part of as the community
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  member and now you're kind of on the inside and then for me I think my number one my team knows
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  this my number one kind of metric is loyalty I want to see that you are loyal to the program
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  and loyal to the company and that doesn't mean abandoning yourself I want you to show up with
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  integrity and I want you to push back if things don't feel right to you or if we're asking you know
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  something of you that that is too much but I want you to demonstrate that like you're really here
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  for the growth of the community and for the good of the brand and the mission and I've done a really
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  really good job I have incredible people in place right now who are like determined to you know
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  steer the rocket ship with me and last question on this one because I thought the last thing that
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  I've seen you that I've seen you do really really well is create community and that's an incredibly
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  hard thing for any CEO business to do but when you can do it right it's an exceptional tool for
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  product feedback it's an exceptional tool to find well you're you're using it to hire people
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  to evangelize your product whatever it is but how do you how do you actually build community what
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  was your strategy uh did it was it was it something that you know you you focused on building
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  community or was it just you had a great product and you decided to like sort of double down on
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  that and allow people to sort of chat amongst themselves um and and you built a community almost
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  accidentally what was the what was the strategy behind the community yeah I won't say I went into
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  it with like a very specific strategy I did have a great product first of all so you can build the
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  best community in the world and have great marketing and great word of mouth but like if your
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  product's not that good that's not sustainable I have a great product so that really really helps
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  I recognized early on and like maybe part of my success just happens to do with my personality
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  I'm not a profit driven CEO that doesn't light me up at all what I am of what really does get me
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  going is recognizing that like we are helping people and hearing people's transformations and
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  listening to their stories and recognizing that like what we're putting out in the world is making
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  people's lives better that's what I love so you know for the first three years we gave we still do
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  but we gave everything away for free the whole 30 program is completely free you don't need to buy a
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  thing except the food you eat to do it that stands to this day that will always be true but especially
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  in the beginning it was everything I do is for the community everything it's what do you need to be
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  successful what are your pain points what are we missing in terms of resources if you have this
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  question can I write this blog post and answer it for you and every person who comes after you
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  when the program grew and I started bringing on team members and we started partnering with brands
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  all of the decisions work is this in the best interest of the community and I turned down
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  big deals because it wasn't and I occasionally would be like oh man this would be amazing to
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  partner with like this brand they're so big and it would be so good but it wasn't the right fit
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  and I recognized early on that it's so incredibly precious to build this kind of loyalty with
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  your community and this kind of trust and with one deal that can all go away with one misstep
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  so I really I treasure that I do I have always said that I have never had a good idea in my life
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  every good idea that we put out everything that we do is because the community needed it or
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  suggested it and my entire business is focused around the community like whole 30 is at its heart
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  a community my team is on board with that and even for the people in my company who are responsible
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  for generating revenue and profit we still won't do it at the expense of the community and that's
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  a really important point for us thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to
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  hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this
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  conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see you in the next one