Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Business Collapse to Purpose & Fulfillment: Gene Hammett's Inspiring Road to Reinvention

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From Business Collapse to Purpose & Fulfillment: Gene Hammett's Inspiring Road to Reinvention · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Today we're joined by best selling author, keynote speaker and renowned executive coach, Gene Hammett.
• 0:08
  Having successfully scaled his own business and helped numerous CEOs achieve their potential, Gene brings a unique perspective to the table.
• 0:17
  You may know him as the host of the Growth Think Tank podcast where he dives deep into leadership and business growth strategies.
• 0:25
  In this episode, Gene shares his journey from thriving in the sports travel industry to facing a devastating business collapse that led to his transformative career shift.
• 0:37
  We delve into his passion for entrepreneurship ignited in high school the importance of finding true purpose and building a business.
• 0:45
  Driven by meaning over mere success.
• 0:48
  Gene also opens up about rebuilding confidence and the pivotal role of tough conversations in leadership.
• 0:56
  Whether you're navigating your own entrepreneurial journey or seeking inspiration to lead with purpose, this episode is packed with insights and stories that you won't want to miss.
• 1:07
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:12
  Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment podcast.
• 1:17
  I'm your host Dave Gulas, and this week my guest is bestselling author, keynote speaker, executive coach and podcast host Gene Hammett.
• 1:28
  Welcome, Gene.
• 1:29
  Thanks Dave.
• 1:30
  Excited to be here.
• 1:32
  Yeah.
• 1:32
  Appreciate you taking the time if you could, for everyone.
• 1:36
  Gene, can you just walk us through your journey and your backstory and how you got to where you are today?
• 1:42
  Yeah, I'm going to go quick and then I'll slow down and you can pause me wherever you want to.
• 1:47
  But I feel like I've been an entrepreneur at heart ever since I was a kid in high school and I didn't have an idea.
• 1:54
  So when I graduated from college, I went into consulting because I felt like that was going to give me the best chance to really put my skills together.
• 2:03
  And so I did strategy consulting and mergers and acquisitions for about three years.
• 2:09
  I wanted IT experience, so I went to a big consulting company called PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• 2:16
  Did consulting there for a few years and then the dot com craze.
• 2:20
  So I'm a little bit older than probably most of you listening, but I'm 54 right now and I was hitting my stride in my professional career when the Internet was really starting, coming on strong and I said, I
• 2:31
  got to work in that space.
• 2:33
  I don't want to miss this opportunity.
• 2:35
  And that was in 99, 2000, 2001.
• 2:37
  So we did e commerce for large brands and at 911 everything changed.
• 2:47
  I guess I got a golden parachute.
• 2:48
  It wasn't that big of a parachute, but about $35,000.
• 2:52
  I used half of it to get engaged to my wife.
• 2:56
  And then I used the other half is about $17,000 to start a business in 2001.
• 3:01
  And I scaled that up very quickly.
• 3:04
  Every year was better than the last, and every year I got up to about 7 million.
• 3:10
  I'll pause right there, because that's kind of the quick view of where my business was before I actually became the version I am today.
• 3:20
  So you mentioned too, you.
• 3:22
  You felt you wanted to be an entrepreneur ever since you were a kid in high school, like, at heart.
• 3:28
  Yeah.
• 3:29
  What.
• 3:30
  What was it about entrepreneurship that.
• 3:33
  That attracted to you.
• 3:34
  You to it?
• 3:35
  I don't really know.
• 3:36
  I think it was just natural, if you will.
• 3:38
  I.
• 3:39
  I was into making money.
• 3:40
  I had my own lawn service.
• 3:42
  I sold candy as a kid.
• 3:43
  I mean, you know, probably everyone has similar type of stories.
• 3:47
  I just enjoyed being my own boss and making the money, but I didn't have the idea.
• 3:53
  So I worked for others.
• 3:55
  And when I look back at it, it was very strategic that I was putting skills together that would prepare me to run my company when I did launch it, which was in 2001.
• 4:07
  Okay, all right.
• 4:08
  And you said that was around the dot com craze, right?
• 4:12
  Yeah.
• 4:13
  I mean, you know, you're younger than me, Dave, but I.
• 4:16
  It was similar to now with AI.
• 4:19
  Like, everyone was like, is this for real?
• 4:21
  You know, is this going to last?
• 4:23
  I mean, a lot of people thought that it wouldn't last.
• 4:25
  And we look back now and go, go.
• 4:26
  You know, it certainly changed the way we.
• 4:29
  We operate, the way we buy things, the way we research things.
• 4:32
  You know, I have a son who's 17, and he doesn't know what looking up something at the library is and how easy it is today.
• 4:40
  But I look back at that time as it prepared me for this, and then I will kind of pick up the story just a little bit, just so the audience gets the understanding of who I am.
• 4:52
  I ran that business successfully for about nine years.
• 4:55
  And I say that because at the height of that message or that time, I was doing sports tours.
• 5:03
  So I was doing.
• 5:04
  Selling tickets and hotels and flights and whatnot to the largest sporting events in the world.
• 5:10
  My biggest event ever was in the Beijing Olympics 2002.
• 5:13
  I did 8,500 people to Beijing.
• 5:16
  I'm not going to say we didn't have any problems, but it was a very successful event.
• 5:19
  I made over a million dollars in profit in about six weeks.
• 5:23
  And it was an incredible ride that I was.
• 5:26
  I was getting burned out on a little bit, but I was so good at it and had created such a lifestyle business that I wasn't sure I'd ever quit.
• 5:35
  Even though I didn't like what I was doing.
• 5:38
  I was just making good money and I was traveling the world and who doesn't want to do that?
• 5:43
  But then everything fell apart.
• 5:45
  I don't know if you know my background, Dave, but I, I, I ran my business successfully for nine years until it one day it wasn't successful.
• 5:52
  It completely fell apart right in before my eyes.
• 5:55
  All because I made the wrong decision.
• 5:57
  I, I trusted my, my, my friend and partner.
• 6:00
  I signed a contract, I paid him $3 million.
• 6:03
  I expected inventory for that for the Vancouver Olympics.
• 6:07
  That was 2010 and he was not able to deliver.
• 6:13
  In fact, that, that it wasn't just not able to, it was, it was a malicious attack on me and my business and my money.
• 6:20
  And he had all of it and I had none of it.
• 6:22
  And I was not just losing my business, but I lost my house.
• 6:28
  I lost my sense of confidence, my sense of my identity with who I was.
• 6:32
  Everything changed in 2010 for me and that's when I started searching internally to decide what was my next move.
• 6:40
  Being an entrepreneur, I knew I'd get back on my feet, but I wanted to really help others.
• 6:48
  I really wanted to make a difference.
• 6:50
  And in 2010 is when I decided to become a coach.
• 6:53
  And that's what I've been doing as my primary income since 2012.
• 7:02
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• 7:41
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• 7:46
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• 7:54
  Wow.
• 7:54
  So a whole lot to unpack there for the audience.
• 7:56
  I just want to go back in the story just a little bit.
• 7:58
  So you mentioned something that I, I thought is profound.
• 8:01
  So you had this lifestyle business as you call it, and you're making very good money and you were very good at it, but you weren't Happy?
• 8:10
  Yeah.
• 8:12
  Can you just explain, like, it was.
• 8:15
  A combination of things, Dave?
• 8:17
  I.
• 8:17
  I'm not really that much of a sports person.
• 8:19
  I like to go into a game every once in a while, but I'm not going to watch, you know, six hours of football on a Sunday or, you know, watch every baseball game or basketball game.
• 8:28
  And so when you're in sports tours, you know, a lot of your life depends on who's going to, you know, be in the super bowl or who's going to be in the National Championship or who's going to be
• 8:37
  in the World Series or whatever it may be.
• 8:40
  And I.
• 8:42
  I didn't watch tv.
• 8:43
  You know, I watched.
• 8:44
  I paid attention to what was going on because that was business.
• 8:48
  But it wasn't a natural part of my life.
• 8:50
  I look at my peers and they love sports.
• 8:53
  It was just, you know, much more ingrained in their life.
• 8:57
  And so I was doing something that I was good at, but it wasn't a part of who I was.
• 9:03
  And part of me was missing out on the fact that I was just selling tickets to sporting events.
• 9:08
  I mean, one of my biggest events ever was the Masters Sports Golf tournament.
• 9:14
  Familiar with golf?
• 9:16
  I used to take 1200 people to the Masters.
• 9:19
  And so we.
• 9:20
  I was very good at it, but it just wasn't.
• 9:23
  It wasn't really fueling the purpose in my life.
• 9:26
  It was.
• 9:26
  It was.
• 9:27
  I was making money, I had freedom, but it wasn't.
• 9:30
  I was missing something.
• 9:31
  And that's what kind of allowed.
• 9:33
  When it.
• 9:33
  When everything fell apart, I decided to be intentional about rebuilding a life and a business based on purpose, not just what I'm good at.
• 9:44
  And another question, too, because you hit on a topic that I think is so prevalent for so many people.
• 9:51
  Like, so often you hear about people wanting to get into entrepreneurship for the money, or, you know, it's.
• 9:59
  So the success side of it is glamorized with the cars, the houses and all that kind of stuff.
• 10:04
  And here you had the money, you were making very good money.
• 10:08
  You had a lifestyle business where you had freedom, but yet you were missing that true purpose and fulfillment of your life.
• 10:16
  And maybe for someone who doesn't have the money or who is struggling, it's hard to imagine that.
• 10:20
  But here you have all these material.
• 10:22
  These signs of material success, but yet you weren't happy.
• 10:27
  Yeah, you probably don't know.
• 10:29
  I've published two books.
• 10:30
  The most recent one we'll talk about in a few minutes.
• 10:32
  But my first book is, if you can see the title in the video, the Trap of success.
• 10:39
  And in essence, when I look back on where my business was and where I was as a person, I was so successful with the money and the freedom that when I had the next level idea, I talked about
• 10:52
  it, but I wouldn't take action on it.
• 10:55
  I wasn't living from a place of courage.
• 10:57
  I was living basically in fear of losing what I had created.
• 11:01
  Even though I didn't like it that much because it was paying the bills and it was giving me the lifestyle and all of the things that we've already talked about.
• 11:10
  But when I look back at it, I wasn't evolving.
• 11:14
  And that was part of my downside into the business fell apart.
• 11:18
  Yes.
• 11:19
  By some other source, whatnot.
• 11:22
  But I trusted him way too much.
• 11:23
  I'm not going to blame him for what happened, even though it was very malicious and he's doing 17 to life right now, or 17 a half years in prison.
• 11:34
  All that said, I, I really, I look back that that is the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it's also the best because it woke me up.
• 11:45
  It woke me up to living a life that's more aligned with who I am, my identity, the purpose, making a difference in the world.
• 11:52
  Because I love what I do right now.
• 11:54
  I love the clients I have.
• 11:56
  I love seeing them win, seeing them grow their businesses.
• 11:59
  Most of my clients are.
• 12:00
  They're not small, but they're not huge corporations.
• 12:04
  My average client right now is, is 10 to 30 million in revenue.
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  And I'm a CEO coach for them.
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  And I just, I love seeing them win and create more stable businesses and businesses where people are.
• 12:17
  Are leading, not just them.
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  And that's, that's what I love doing right now.
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  And that's what I'm.
• 12:23
  I'm actually, I feel like I'm world class at that aspect of business at this point.
• 12:27
  And that just gives me a passion for what I do.
• 12:31
  Okay, and we'll get into the coaching here in a second.
• 12:34
  Just one more piece of the story.
• 12:36
  So your friend and partner who you trusted basically stole $3 million from you.
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  Is that one way to put it?
• 12:44
  Y.
• 12:45
  You lost, I mean, from someone that had worked very hard and, and built up the successful business and had financial success and security.
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  To lose everything so quickly.
• 12:57
  Like, what was that like?
• 12:59
  It's hard to even describe the doubt that came into me because when we say quickly, I'll paint the picture for you.
• 13:07
  On January 15, 2010, was the date written in the contract that he was supposed to deliver the inventory for the Vancouver Olympics, which was three weeks away.
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  It was in early February 2010.
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  And everything in my life goes around these events.
• 13:24
  So I know I've been to, you know, seven Olympics and in multiple World Cups and, you know, probably 20 Super Bowls and whatnot over my lifetime.
• 13:32
  But this one event, everything was supposed to happen on January 15th, and it didn't.
• 13:39
  Now, it took a few days to unravel, but that was the moment where I knew there was an incredible, you know, shitstorm, if you will, about to hit me.
• 13:52
  And I didn't.
• 13:54
  I didn't immediately believe that my friend was doing something dishonest to me.
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  In fact, I protected him.
• 14:01
  And I protected him to my lawyers, I protected him to my wife, and I said, no, it's just a misunderstanding.
• 14:06
  He's going through a tough time.
• 14:07
  We're going to work this out.
• 14:09
  And, you know, the optimism that entrepreneurs have, I still had it, even though it looked really bad.
• 14:16
  But then as I started pulling on the story that he gave me and some of the things just didn't start to add up and everything.
• 14:24
  I started hearing about the lies and about the things that were inconsistent, and then I would talk to him about things.
• 14:31
  In the early days of this, very quickly, though, I sued him, he sued me, and it got to be a lawyer thing.
• 14:40
  But that.
• 14:41
  It really crushed me, and I went into a dark place.
• 14:45
  I cried for days on end.
• 14:48
  I was not allowed to live in my house because I was afraid of people attacking me.
• 14:53
  And I spent about four plus years in doubt that maybe he would take some of the money that he gave me, hire a hitman.
• 15:02
  And if I walked out of my neighborhood and went for a run, that I would be taken out.
• 15:07
  And I know that's no place, no way to live, but that's the way I lived for four plus years.
• 15:14
  Wow.
• 15:15
  Okay.
• 15:16
  So everything unravels, business falls apart.
• 15:22
  You lose everything, you lose your house.
• 15:24
  You're having to start over, basically, and deal with this emotional nightmare.
• 15:30
  Yeah.
• 15:31
  That you just described.
• 15:32
  And then what happens next?
• 15:35
  I really did some internal searching.
• 15:38
  As an entrepreneur, I knew I needed to have a pathway forward.
• 15:41
  I need to have some clarity.
• 15:42
  But.
• 15:42
  But I was broken.
• 15:45
  I had.
• 15:46
  I was still living in my house, and we affectionately call it the big house because it was like 5,500 square feet.
• 15:51
  And that's, you know, that's the lifestyle we created.
• 15:55
  And we had to move out of it.
• 15:57
  We had to, you know, I had to find a job.
• 16:00
  And, you know, one of the things that.
• 16:02
  That I went to my wife and I was discussing, you know, my path Forward.
• 16:07
  My first coach, her name was Linda, my first ever business coach or anything like that.
• 16:12
  She was actually pretty new to coaching at the time.
• 16:15
  And this was in 2002.
• 16:18
  She helped me get to a million dollars in the business.
• 16:21
  It wasn't her, you know, that wasn't her claim.
• 16:23
  There was, you know, back then, you didn't have to make the claims that we make today or people make in their marketing, but she just helped me get clarity around who I was, what I was going to do
• 16:32
  next.
• 16:33
  And the best way I can describe it is Linda and I would have a conversation where I was about 70, 80% sure of what to do next.
• 16:41
  After the conversation, I was 100% sure I would get off the phone call with her and I would just go do it every time.
• 16:49
  And when I did that over and over and over, that created success in my business.
• 16:53
  It created a sense of confidence and clarity.
• 16:56
  And those things were exactly what I remembered.
• 16:59
  When it was dark days for me, I wanted to be that person for someone else.
• 17:04
  And so I started thinking about being a coach.
• 17:07
  I started looking at coaching programs.
• 17:10
  Most coaches today are not certified.
• 17:12
  I didn't know that, but I wanted to get certified.
• 17:16
  And I actually, if I, you know, really being honest with you, Dave, I was broken because what happened to me, and I went through a coaching program that was so intrinsic to who I was and my identity and
• 17:28
  rebuilding myself that it was able to rebuild me even when I didn't believe in myself.
• 17:34
  And I knew that was the skills that I wanted to work with for the rest of my life and bring to the, to the world and do what Linda did for me, I wanted to do for others.
• 17:45
  And so I became, I got certified as a coach.
• 17:47
  I did get a job.
• 17:48
  I had to do the things I had to do to pay the bills.
• 17:51
  But after 2012, I was on my own.
• 17:55
  And I've been a full time coach, speaker, author, podcaster ever since then.
• 18:02
  Okay, all right, so you're on this new journey now and you.
• 18:07
  So you're a coach and you got certified, you start building your business and just.
• 18:14
  Can, can you talk about how the other aspect, it came about, like the speaking, the writing, the books, the podcast, all that.
• 18:20
  I'll also tell you this too.
• 18:22
  I mean, when I was broken, and I know I've said that a few times, but my confidence level was just shot.
• 18:27
  Like, I just, I had just been successful.
• 18:29
  I'd never really been challenged in my business career.
• 18:32
  Everything had just worked out for me.
• 18:33
  But losing it all wrecked me.
• 18:36
  And when I Look back at that.
• 18:38
  I was carrying a lot of that into my coaching.
• 18:41
  So my value for, you know, what I would ask for per hour in the early days of coaching was ridiculously low because I had no confidence.
• 18:54
  But as I started working with others, I started hiring some more coaches to help me refine this and get to the norms.
• 19:01
  My first real client came in.
• 19:04
  I was charging 500 bucks a month.
• 19:06
  And I was able to.
• 19:08
  To.
• 19:08
  To.
• 19:09
  I don't know how I paid the bills at 500 bucks a month because I had probably three, four, five clients.
• 19:15
  I raised my prices a little bit here and there, but the first six years of me building a coaching business was nowhere like me building my sports tour business.
• 19:24
  The sports tour business took off immediately and I was making tremendous amount of money within two years.
• 19:29
  It took me six to seven years to get my foundation to get even.
• 19:35
  I think to even get more than a hundred thousand in revenue, which after paying your team and whatnot, I still wasn't making that much.
• 19:42
  And I live in Atlanta, so it's really.
• 19:43
  It was really hard.
• 19:44
  And it was me, my wife and my son and none of us.
• 19:49
  I was the one that was providing for everything.
• 19:50
  So my wife didn't have a job to kind of stabilize us.
• 19:53
  She was a speaker as well.
• 19:55
  So I go back to the struggle because I get it and I've been through it and I've helped others do it.
• 20:01
  I totally lived this for years.
• 20:04
  But as I started running my business, the one thing that worked for me was when I would give small speeches for free, small networking events.
• 20:14
  Could be a chamber of commerce, it could be a user group of some sort.
• 20:19
  I met them on meetup.
• 20:21
  I think that's still a thing.
• 20:23
  Meetup.com I think.
• 20:25
  But I started speaking and I started getting clients and I was able to grow my business from that.
• 20:31
  And that was about eight years ago.
• 20:34
  Again, I wasn't charging for speaking, but I would speak for free and I would get a client or two.
• 20:39
  And I did that ten times a year.
• 20:42
  And I started built my business, started scaling, started writing books as I got comfortable with the rear view mirror of what I experienced.
• 20:52
  The Trap of Success being my first book, that was a hard one to get out because it was very emotional to me to look back at what I had done and overcame.
• 21:03
  And then I wrote this recent book this past year with my wife, who's in my business as well, or we do this together.
• 21:10
  And it's just been an incredible journey.
• 21:12
  It hasn't been easy, but doing it together has been Very special.
• 21:19
  Let me just ask you another question along that same line, because so often, you know, the spouse of an entrepreneur is, you know, kind of goes through the same pain, right, with the journey and the struggle and having
• 21:32
  to really, you know, be there through all the dark times.
• 21:35
  I mean, sounds like she was with you kind of all the way up through to the mountaintop.
• 21:40
  And then when everything came crashing down and through the, the whole post, post, you know, nightmare struggle and all that, like how, how important was your, your wife and her support to.
• 21:53
  To help this whole situation?
• 21:56
  I probably couldn't stress how important it is.
• 21:58
  I mean, we all have heard those.
• 22:00
  I, I guess they call them cliches and whatnot, but it's really not a cliche.
• 22:03
  But the most important decision you'll make is who you decide to, to do life with.
• 22:07
  And I got married in 2002, so I've been married 23 years this year.
• 22:13
  It'll be an incredible.
• 22:17
  Just been an incredible supportive partner now.
• 22:20
  Not, not easy, I will tell you.
• 22:22
  I mean, there were times where she thought one way and I thought another way.
• 22:26
  And in the sportswear business, I kind of ran things and I made decisions.
• 22:30
  She told me not to do the deal where everything fell apart multiple times.
• 22:37
  And I overruled her in air quotes.
• 22:40
  But since then, when everything fell apart, she was right there beside me.
• 22:46
  She was holding my hand.
• 22:48
  I was the one that was being accused of whatever was going on because there was missing money, right?
• 22:52
  Missing inventory.
• 22:54
  I tried to shield her as much as I could, but as soon as we got past that and we got into the coaching world, she kept her separate business for a while.
• 23:03
  She was speaking to young high school students and some college kids, using her skills of speaking.
• 23:11
  And she wrote a book there called Faceplant because, you know, kids.
• 23:16
  Different kind of a different kind of angle for that.
• 23:19
  But she, in the last four years, she's been very integral to this coaching business.
• 23:25
  Actually, when I sell clients, I'm not just selling me, ideally, I'm selling her as a coach.
• 23:30
  And I have other coaches that work on our team that coach managers into leaders.
• 23:34
  And she was my co author on the book.
• 23:37
  You can see in the bottom there, Amanda Hemet, very much an equal partner and what we're doing.
• 23:43
  And she's got a different skill set.
• 23:46
  She is incredible with what she does, and I do what I do, and it has worked.
• 23:52
  It's also not easy to write a book with your wife, if you can think about it, because it's, it's, you know, it's a lot of time together that we've got to make decisions.
• 24:00
  And we just, we just wrapped up a couple's retreat.
• 24:04
  First time we've ever done this.
• 24:05
  We did a three day kind of staycation in Atlanta and we really reflected back on what's going on in our life.
• 24:14
  Next year we'll be empty nesters.
• 24:15
  Our son's going off to college.
• 24:17
  And so we looked at our, you know, how far we've come.
• 24:22
  We talked specifically about last year, the things that we did, we got right, the things that we want to improve on.
• 24:27
  And then we made intentions and goals for 2025.
• 24:31
  I would recommend that for anyone.
• 24:33
  We had a bunch of questions.
• 24:34
  We used to help us through that and happy to give them away if anybody's interested.
• 24:38
  But just an incredible partner in the journey.
• 24:43
  And I wouldn't be as successful and happy if we were doing this separately or if she were, you know, kind of not here.
• 24:53
  All right, and so you mentioned too, right, Going through the whole trauma of the business debacle and your confidence really took a hit and for years you were struggling.
• 25:04
  You weren't charging really what you are worth.
• 25:06
  And it took a while to get over that.
• 25:08
  I mean, how looking back at it now, right, because you're, you're, you know, clearly you've come a long way since then.
• 25:16
  Like how important do you think that was in terms of building your character to, to really sustain, you know, success in coaching long term?
• 25:27
  I think in any entrepreneurial business there's two things that are absolutely required.
• 25:32
  You've got to have courage and confidence.
• 25:36
  The courage to make the tough decisions.
• 25:39
  Like I jumped in both feet with the sports tour business.
• 25:45
  I continue to invest in the business, invested in myself as a coaching.
• 25:50
  I really jumped in and had courage to do that.
• 25:52
  And a lot of that gave me confidence to move forward.
• 25:55
  Now when I lost everything, I had to rebuild it and it took time for me to do that.
• 26:01
  My coaches helped me, my wife helped me.
• 26:04
  Just getting some repetition with my clients and their successes all help build the confidence.
• 26:10
  But if you don't understand how confidence plays into your business, then you're probably playing safe because it takes a lot of trust in yourself to charge more money to make bigger, bolder offers to work with bigger clients that
• 26:26
  have got different kind of problems.
• 26:28
  Every, not every one of my clients is exactly the same.
• 26:30
  In fact, some people, I'll give you an example, I've never had a board.
• 26:35
  I've worked with a lot of.
• 26:37
  I'm a serial entrepreneur.
• 26:37
  I've got lots of different businesses.
• 26:39
  I've never had a formal board, but I've had some of my CEOs that are running 20 and 30 million dollar companies that have trouble with their board.
• 26:46
  And I get to coach in areas where I have no domain of expertise and experience.
• 26:53
  Now, that's scary.
• 26:55
  But it took courage and took confidence and just being able to listen and support them.
• 27:01
  And I did.
• 27:01
  I think looking back at it, fantastic job helping each one of those clients navigate those challenges.
• 27:08
  And so when you're an entrepreneur, you've got to have courage and confidence.
• 27:12
  And it builds every year.
• 27:13
  Even, even when you think you've got enough, you look back and you go, I've grown just in this past year.
• 27:22
  I've been in business.
• 27:23
  I've been doing this coaching thing for 12 years.
• 27:25
  I've grown in this past year.
• 27:26
  I can see it, I can feel it.
• 27:28
  I know what it takes.
• 27:30
  I have my own coaches.
• 27:31
  I had two this past year.
• 27:32
  Made huge investments in myself.
• 27:34
  And that's what I think it takes to really be successful in today's ever changing world.
• 27:41
  And especially in terms of leadership.
• 27:43
  Because most people I'm talking to, they're building businesses that are bigger than they've ever run before.
• 27:48
  And every time they hit new challenges, they doubt themselves.
• 27:51
  And having me to talk to actually helps them get clarity and confidence to move forward the way I described what Linda did for me.
• 27:59
  And so I'm living the dream that I set out to when I was trying to put my life back together.
• 28:07
  All right, and another thing you just brought up there.
• 28:09
  So you said as, as entrepreneurs continue to grow and progress and reach new levels, they doubt themselves.
• 28:18
  And something we hear about so much today especially is imposter syndrome.
• 28:24
  Can you just talk about, like, what you see from that regard with the people you coach and you know, how you, how you deal with it.
• 28:34
  So imposter syndrome.
• 28:35
  I don't think any of us are immune to it.
• 28:37
  And if you really work with people that are really successful that you think would have overcome it, they're reaching new levels within themselves and it will still come up as imposter syndrome.
• 28:48
  If you dig deeper, what you realize is there's an inner critic in all of us.
• 28:55
  And the inner critic knows exactly what to say because it's part of your subconscious.
• 29:01
  It knows when to say it.
• 29:03
  It knows when to say, oh, but you're not ready for that.
• 29:06
  Oh, but you're not enough.
• 29:08
  You're not pretty enough, you're not a good enough speaker, you're not a good enough writer.
• 29:11
  You're not a good enough whatever.
• 29:13
  And that inner critic is what.
• 29:16
  Where the imposter syndrome, I think comes from.
• 29:19
  And I created some content a long time ago, and I didn't ask you if I can cuss on here, but it's called.
• 29:23
  The inner critic is an ass.
• 29:25
  Your inner critic is an asshole, because it will stop you from doing the thing you want.
• 29:31
  If you've.
• 29:31
  Let's say you've got an investment that you want to do, your inner critic will go, you're not going to.
• 29:38
  You're not worth that.
• 29:40
  We all have an inner critic.
• 29:42
  It all has a little voice inside of us that says things that will stop us.
• 29:47
  And if I go back to my career, I talked about running my business.
• 29:52
  I had an idea, but I was trapped by my success.
• 29:55
  I was making so much money and so much freedom that I didn't move forward because my inner critic was saying, but if you don't, if this doesn't work out, you're going to lose what you have.
• 30:08
  And it knew how to stop me, and it did, until I ended up losing it all and having to rebuild myself.
• 30:13
  And so now when I'm working with people I listen to, sometimes it's the words they say.
• 30:19
  I'm listening to the patterns which they have over time.
• 30:22
  I'm listening to the energy at which they have and the clarity.
• 30:26
  And I ask probing questions.
• 30:27
  This is what coaches do.
• 30:29
  And I've gotten really good.
• 30:31
  And I even have created tools that I can lean on that accelerate the success of someone that is trying to grow their business, because all of us have that inner critic that stops us.
• 30:46
  But if we listen to it, you'll never have the kind of life and success you want.
• 30:50
  But if you know how to rise above it, you know how to really get, connect with trusting yourself.
• 30:56
  And you can do that through coaching or you can do that through, you know, some people can do it themselves.
• 30:59
  I'm not saying that everyone has to have a coach.
• 31:01
  I just know I perform much more efficiently and effectively when I have invested in myself.
• 31:09
  And I will.
• 31:10
  I will move forward because I want to make sure there's an ROI there through my own coaching that I invest in.
• 31:16
  And so when I take on clients, I mean, that's.
• 31:18
  I'm looking for people that are willing to be that want to be really, you know, execute at this higher level.
• 31:24
  Not just that kind of want it, but are really committed and have conviction to.
• 31:28
  To growth themselves.
• 31:31
  All right, and let's talk about your new book, how to have Tough Conversations.
• 31:36
  So what.
• 31:37
  What made you decide to write that book.
• 31:41
  The.
• 31:41
  The short story behind that is I thought I was going to write a book about values because it comes up quite a bit on the podcast.
• 31:49
  Interviews.
• 31:49
  I've done over 800 interviews with CEOs from the Inc.
• 31:52
  5000 fastest growing privately held companies, and they talk about the importance of values.
• 31:58
  And so I've said that for a long time, but then I started diving into the work and it's still an important work, but I ended up writing a book on how to turn managers into leaders because a lot
• 32:08
  of my clients would say, help, I need leaders.
• 32:11
  Now I'm trying to hire leaders.
• 32:12
  How do I hire leaders?
• 32:13
  How do I develop leaders?
• 32:14
  And so I wrote a book and I wanted a very short book.
• 32:18
  And so once I wrote this book with my wife, Amanda, I stepped back from it and I was talking to my coach about it and I said, you know, finish the first draft.
• 32:27
  But I feel like it's too long.
• 32:28
  I feel like it's too rambly, it's really shallow on all of the different aspects of leadership.
• 32:35
  And my coach at the time said, which chapter do you feel like is most important for your work?
• 32:44
  I thought about it, he asked me a few more questions, and it came really clear.
• 32:48
  I think it was chapter 18.
• 32:50
  And it was about the tough conversations.
• 32:53
  Because the number one question I tend to ask in my coaching over the last 10 plus years has been, what's the missing conversation that you haven't had yet with that person?
• 33:08
  Because the CEO will get on here and rant about someone on their executive team.
• 33:12
  Or maybe it's a director, maybe it's a vp, maybe it's just someone on the team that's not performing, not aligned, whatever it is.
• 33:18
  And I will listen to it because they don't have anybody to rant to.
• 33:22
  And then I will ask them as a redirection, what's the missing conversation?
• 33:26
  That hasn't happened yet.
• 33:29
  And I've done this for years and years and years, but I didn't have a way to give them a tool.
• 33:34
  I think Radical Candor is an incredible book in this category.
• 33:37
  I think Crucial Conversations is another great book, but both of those books talk about the problem, but not real good at how to do the problem and how to solve it.
• 33:49
  And so when I step back from that, I end up writing a book with Amanda called How to have Tough Conversations to address the people problems that are so prevalent in our business.
• 33:59
  I joke around and say this.
• 34:00
  Every business has people problems.
• 34:04
  If you have people, you have people that are either not Aligned, not showing up, not giving their all.
• 34:10
  I was surprised when I heard this.
• 34:11
  There's about 40% of the world that just doesn't want to work.
• 34:17
  And they do the absolute bare minimum.
• 34:21
  And they're, you know, it's beyond quiet quitting.
• 34:24
  They're just coasting by.
• 34:28
  And that's a missing conversation that hasn't happened yet.
• 34:30
  If anybody has that.
• 34:34
  Wow, 40%.
• 34:37
  It's more than 40% for some, some places.
• 34:40
  I.
• 34:42
  But the people problems, if you, if you step back, do you have people problems?
• 34:46
  I don't know what your team looks like.
• 34:47
  I'm not going to ask you to call out anyone in your teams, but I know that even within my team, who's small, and I love the people that are on my team, I have to scan through and go,
• 34:57
  all right, what's the missing conversation I haven't had with that person yet?
• 35:00
  And sometimes it's about just communication, or sometimes it's about quality, or sometimes it's about hitting their KPIs.
• 35:07
  And I know that that one question has unlocked an incredible conversation with my clients.
• 35:15
  And then they take action from those conversations.
• 35:18
  I do Pride myself, in 12 years of doing this, I have never told a client that you need to fire someone.
• 35:25
  Now, I've thought it.
• 35:27
  I have asked a lot of questions around that, you know, why, why you keep giving them chances.
• 35:33
  But I do feel like the playbook that's in this book, especially page 35, there's a.
• 35:38
  There's a four different phases of a tough conversation.
• 35:44
  And if you don't know what the phases are, then you.
• 35:47
  That's.
• 35:47
  That's the first place I'd start with this book is.
• 35:49
  Page 35 is just looking at the phases and realizing which one you gravitate to.
• 35:56
  Most people say they don't do the first two or three phases.
• 35:59
  They just let things fester, let them get really bad, and they get into phase four, which is exit.
• 36:05
  And if you're waiting for things to get better, they usually don't.
• 36:08
  But if you wait till phase four, it's too far gone.
• 36:14
  You're ready just to say, I don't want to be in this relationship anymore, whatever it is.
• 36:18
  And we.
• 36:19
  Hopefully you will see these tough conversations earlier, you will have them sooner.
• 36:24
  And if you follow the framework that we've laid out in the book, you will do them more effectively and you will be seen as a better leader because you.
• 36:31
  Giving feedback to an employee is absolutely critical for them to have a good experience at work, but also for them to provide the value that, you know, that they can and for them to actually grow while they're with
• 36:44
  you.
• 36:44
  And so this book has changed everything for my clients in that perspective.
• 36:50
  All right.
• 36:51
  All right.
• 36:52
  And, Gene, if people want to learn more about you, your work, your coaching programs, your books, what's the best way people can.
• 37:00
  Can get in touch with you?
• 37:02
  I hate to give anyone a lot of things, but the best place is probably Gene Hammett.com I've been a speaker there.
• 37:09
  That's where I primarily put up information about speaking.
• 37:12
  But it connects to the podcast, it connects to the book.
• 37:16
  The core business is core elevation.
• 37:19
  That's what I run with Amanda.
• 37:21
  And so either one of those work and the book is, you know, it's available on Kindles and paperback and hardcover and Audible.
• 37:31
  So if you do want to be a better leader this year in 2025 and you're not as comfortable as you could be with tough conversations, I would say this is an incredible place for you to start.
• 37:42
  And, you know, a book is, what, 10 bucks or 15 bucks or something like that, Incredible, you know, tool for you to.
• 37:48
  To develop that skill of communication, specifically with tough conversations.
• 37:52
  So that's where I would go.
• 37:55
  All right, and we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 37:59
  All right, well, Jean, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
• 38:01
  We greatly appreciate you sharing your story and, and.
• 38:05
  And all the work that you've done for our listeners.
• 38:07
  We thank you so much.
• 38:09
  Dave, thanks for having me.
• 38:10
  And if there's anything I can do for anyone listening in, make sure you reach out.
• 38:13
  I'm happy to give as much as I can give away tools, give away anything I've mentioned, I'll give away for free.
• 38:19
  I don't.
• 38:20
  My clients pay me enough where I can give away nearly everything in my business.
• 38:26
  All right, and that's.
• 38:28
  That's all the time we have for now.
• 38:29
  We will see you next time.
• 38:34
  Sa.