Latest / The On Purpose Podcast / Ep. 340 - Michael Walsh
Transcript
- speaker-0: You are listening to the On Purpose Podcast. There's a moment in every man's life, especially for veterans, first responders, and men called to lead when the uniform comes off, but the mission doesn't end. Too many try to navigate that transition alone without structure, accountability, or brotherhood. That's why I'm proud to partner with Missions Purpose, a community built for men who refuse to drift. Inside the school platform, You get live calls, challenges, frameworks, and disciplined brotherhood that pushes you to rebuild purpose, direction, and daily structure. If you're ready for the next chapter of your mission, click the link in the show notes to join us inside the Missions Purpose Community on School. You were never meant to walk this road alone. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to this week's edition of the show. It's our privilege to be joined by Michael Walsh, the founder of the Walsh Business Growth Institute and a strategist, strategist, making up my own words already, strategist who helps business owners break through plateaus. What I like about his work is that it centers on building the right team, the right structure and the right habits so that leaders can scale with confidence instead of chaos, which you know is something we talk about all the time, is building ourselves up. on purpose, with intention, and not just leaving things to happenstance. He's known for challenging conventional wisdom around hiring, growth, and leadership, and for giving owners the clarity they need to get unstuck, which in this kind of time in our lives, I think a lot of people might be feeling stuck. So his wisdom is very spot on. I'm super happy to have him here at this time. And Michael, it's an honor to have you on the show, my friend. speaker-1: Well, thanks for having me here. speaker-0: Before we get started, we're just talking off air. You got some electrolytes going. You already got your workout in for the day. And I like to think of this talk. ⁓ I like to think of this show as the same thing. Like you just didn't walk into the gym today and do the heaviest thing. So I got to give you some warm up questions, Michael, to give us a little insight into who you are and get us ready for some of the heavier lifting in the conversation. You ready for that? speaker-1: Sure. speaker-0: All right, Michael, go ahead. speaker-1: Go ahead. No, you go ahead. speaker-0: What's you've been learning about yourself lately? speaker-1: something I've been learning about myself. ⁓ I find that I'm a better responder than initiator. So I actually work really well when I'm working tag team with people ⁓ and ⁓ we can get into great like we are today. We're going to get into ⁓ great dialogue. I trust that we'll have a great time in the conversation. But if I'm just, if I have to initiate something from scratch, I find that I'm not as strong at that. Now my way around that. I'll do research and then the research will be the thing that pokes me and allows me to sort of expand on an idea or test different theories and things like that. That's probably why I've been writing the books that I've written myself because it's like, you know, I get curious about an idea but then you read enough different things and then I go test it in different situations and all of a sudden I can expand an idea or a concept. speaker-0: I love it. Yeah, that's good. What's a small habit or ritual that's been giving you energy lately? speaker-1: Just making sure that every single day I'm doing something that has something to do with motion. One of the things that I do is I do, on pull days I use bands and on push days I use either body weight or different weights. And the pull weight, it sort of pushes me as, it pushes me, so I'm pulling it. And that's where I can do a band version of deadlifts. as well as bicep curls and ⁓ bent rows as well as ⁓ calf raises I started doing as well. What I found was that in doing it that way, I've actually gotten myself further along faster than I had when I was just using free weights. ⁓ Again, little habits and all I have to do is like, so what did I do two days ago? That's what I beat today. and what I did yesterday in a push day is what I'll be tomorrow. That kind of thing. So just by taking little incremental steps, I just need to do one more or two more than I did the last time. And it's been growing. speaker-0: I love that and I have no doubt that theme is going to come up in our conversation because in doing some research I saw that those terms a little bit incremental steps and slow progress is still progress so we'll keep talking about that. Michael, who's someone in your life right now that's been influencing your thinking or inspiring you? speaker-1: influencing my thinking? one of my favorite people that I watch and follow is Marcus Buckingham. He was one of the researchers that originally did the whole, ⁓ he worked with Gallup and he was involved with the 12 elements of employee engagement and they did studies on what engages employees and he's really taking it very far, but everything he does is based on empirical evidence. and I've always enjoyed his thinking, his processes, more importantly, how he applies that very positively to support people in being the best they can be. I just love the way he thinks, I love the fact that he's not anecdotal, he's empirical. He says, well, let's go find out if it's true. So he's one of the people that comes to mind. I mean, I have a few, but. speaker-0: Good, I'll have to look into him. ⁓ Where are you finding his stuff? Where is he publishing at? speaker-1: I originally found him when I went to the World Business Forum in New York a number of years ago and then every few years he'll come back and I'll see him speaking at some different place so I've been watching that. ⁓ But I originally ran across him in the 90s when he was part of the Gallup organization and that's when they did the whole, I think the first book that he co-authored when he was still part of Gallup was First Break All the Rules. then Gallup organization continued to do longitudinal studies on that. ⁓ Buckingham left and created his own organization. don't know if he's still in the UK, I think he may be, but he actually built his own international research company and they've been doing a lot of things about employee engagement but also productivity at work and what supports people to be high performers. He brings a very human-centric approach to everything which I love. speaker-0: Yeah, are studies that are based out where very easy, at least I find very easy to apply to your own life and to apply it to the lives of those around you. I love that. All right, one more question for you, Michael. What's when you think about the season you're in, what word or phrase describes it best? speaker-1: So the season I'm in geographically or the season I'm in my life? speaker-0: Spiritually, your season, where are you at? speaker-1: Okay, in my season, ⁓ it's interesting that where I'd say that I'm at is learning more and sharing more actively. ⁓ have, one of my goals has always been to see where I can contribute, but it's like, I ⁓ mean, my business last May was 30 years young. So I've been around for a minute or two. and what I'm finding is that for example with the last book that I wrote, it was as much or more about just contributing to people on a standalone basis, no ifs whatsoever. Before I'd show a part of something or I'd give ⁓ a dimension or perspective, but this one I tried to give everything that I would happen to be working on at that time and it's like if people never met me or saw me or heard of me or heard a podcast or anything like that and somebody happened to pick up a book, ⁓ what I was hoping is on a standalone basis they could actually do something that made a difference and I thought well the more I can do that, mean you got to be careful with the book because you have to make it complete enough so that it makes a difference but you also have to make it straightforward enough that it's not like a horrible thing to try to read. You have to have a little compassion for your reader right? for me it's more about like evolving from that and into thought leadership more. I don't think of thought leadership as just being an expert. think of thought leadership as ⁓ contributing first of their kind projects ⁓ in particular communities that have a ripple effect that don't end up having anything to do with me, but they actually quietly make a difference somewhere. So I'm doing that a lot more. ⁓ that would be, that's what I would say about the season that I'm in. speaker-0: If you're a business owner who feels like you're doing everything yourself, this is for you. Our friend Dr. Elise Rigney, who we trust and have learned from personally over the years, put together a free 25 minute training on how she runs multiple businesses with a virtual team that works even while she sleeps. It's the exact three step framework she's used to stop being the highest paid administrative assistant in her own company and actually step into the CEO role. If you're tired of juggling emails, scheduling, customer service, and a little task that drain your energy, this training will show you how to build a team that handles it for you. It's free, it's practical, and it's waiting for you. Grab your spot through the link in the show notes and start getting your time back. Yeah, I love that, and I love talking about being a thought leader, and sometimes I think we get confused that being a thought leader means we have to have all the answers, and sometimes the best thought leader has the right question. speaker-1: In fact, think the right questions are way more important than the right answers because everybody will come up with their own version of answers and different answers fit for different people. if you can provoke thought, ⁓ that's the interesting thing. What I find is thought leaders are never thought leaders of the answer. They're thought leaders of the issue and it's by encouraging and engaging dialogue that a whole series of answers come up that nobody could have ever thought of. One of things that I do, if I get stuck on anything, the first thing I do is I say, ìWhat questions should I be asking myself the answers to which will get me past whatever this logjam is that Iím in?î Itís fascinating because when I come up with the questions, go, ìThatís a good question. That leads to this question and Iíll have 10 or 12 and there be 5 or 6.î I start answering the questions and all of sudden I pass the logjam. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's such an important strategy. I think that's an important thing to do in life is to stay curious and continue asking questions. speaker-1: I mean, here's what well, let's put this way. This goes into a whole different thing. I mean, do I have permission to go on my? I'm not going to call it a rant because that would be. go, but how do you do? speaker-0: Here to rest the Dequalifier. Let's go, Michael. Let's go. speaker-1: It's more of a misconception. If an individual contributor grows, what makes somebody a high performer is the ability to generate a result. The way they generate that result, everybody goes, wow, they just have the determination, they do whatever and they just get stuff done. Well, yeah, but there's a little bit more to it than that. Thought always precedes action and action is what leads to the result. When people, yet at the same time in our businesses, when we want to promote somebody to a manager, we go, know, Maxine, she's amazing. She always gets the results. I can trust her. She is, she's absolutely super. Everything I give her, she does, and she brings it across. She keeps her word. She actually, you know, she's very supportive and all that, but it's like, she's amazing. She's got to be my manager. So I'll make her the manager, except here's what happens when people go into management. is they think the same skills that they learned to be an individual performer have anything to do with management. Her thinking led to action which led to results. In management, people think they know less than me, I know more than them, so if they don't know, no problem, I'll just tell them, then they'll know and then they can do what I did. It doesn't quite work that way. In fact, the number one job I would assert, if you want to support people to generate superior results or whatever you want to call it, The number one skill that any manager needs is the absolute opposite of what it takes to actually generate a result and that's to provoke thought or thinking in others. And I can't provoke thinking if I'm telling them what to do because they go, ⁓ okay, I'll do that. And then their thinking stops and they just go do it except they attribute it to the person who told them they don't actually own it because well, that was their idea. They said I should do it. So I really don't own it. But or they might rebel against it and why you telling me what to do, you know, like, I mean, there's a whole bunch of different, gets worse from from just doing it. But the bottom line is the only thing they're not doing is thinking. Yeah. Because I've actually taken it off the mat. Whereas if I ask as a manager, you have to actually be become a specialist at asking the questions that would provoke their thinking without saying, you know, I'm just avoiding everything that you're that you're asking me to do. Well, how do I figure out this? Well, I could tell you but the problem with that is that your thinking doesn't move forward. Let's get into a dialogue. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Sure, what have you done so far and what's worked about that? Okay, so if there was one thing that you could do that you think would make the biggest difference, what do think that might be? And if I see they're about to get themselves in trouble or if I'm under a really tight deadline, go, well. That's one possibility. If it was me, then I might do this. So at least I'm in dialogue. I'm not just telling them what to do right off the bat. If I don't have a deadline that's immediate, then I might, or if the learning is too great from the direction they want to go and they don't understand it. It was interesting. I was talking to a client this morning and he was telling me, says, you know, people really do need to experience things. He said, for example, he says, when I was in high school, I thought I was, you know, I played football and I was part of the defensive core and all that, but he said, you know, I wanted to try, I wanted to try being a quarterback. And so he said to the coach, he said, we had a really good team. Our team was way better than the other guys. And he says, you know, I could do this quarterback thing. So I thought, you know, in the third quarter, you know, when we're way up and, know, I'm not going to do damage to the team. Okay. You know, he talked the coach basically into letting him have a few plays at quarterback. So he goes in a quarterback and he said, Michael, they have something as a quarterback that they have no other place in football. I said, well, what's that? And he said, they hit you from behind. I said, well, why do you think the left tackle gets paid so much more than the right tackle? Most people are right handed, they're turned this way. Whomp. He says, I had one play, I handed it off. I was absolutely, I was a train wreck for somebody. He said, I played, I got out of there. said, Adam, you got it back again. I'm not doing this thing. He had no idea what it took to. to do that sort of thing. you know, sometimes we do get clobbered, but the key is if you can keep the experiments really small and give people the experience, he would never have believed it had somebody told him that. Because he says, I'm used to hitting in football. That's not a problem. He says, I'm on defense. I hit guys all the time. And he says, guys will hit me too. But you always see what's coming except for the quarterback. So until you've actually experienced something, sometimes you need to let people go through that path. The key on those is to make the experiment small enough. So they said, well, I should do this action. You say, OK, are you sure that that's what it's going to give you? I'm pretty sure I think so. I'll tell you what. What would be the first step that you might do with that just to determine whether that's the direction you really want to go? And they go, well, I could do that. OK, I'll tell you what. Why don't you do that and then come on back? It'll take you the next day or so. Let's take a look and see how you did. And all of a sudden, they're like, Now I know why people don't do that. But then life teaches them, they'll remember way more. the fact that they're in dialogue, they also feel like somebody cares about them and they're interested in their growth. What I find is when people take the time to ask questions rather than do that, everybody thinks, well, that's far less efficient. It's going to take more time. What we're finding is people that were two years to become into more of a senior role are doing it in six to nine months. Just because it's not about the individual item. It's about the trust that's built with a quiet, evolution of somebody's growth and development. so we find that as we're working for example with new managers or people growing into managers or even season ones, it's amazing what you see just by actually provoking thinking rather than telling. And everybody knows that in management you should tell them and then they'll know and they should do it. And it's like, yeah, so much. speaker-0: Yeah, let's stay there for a sec because that was the question I was going to propose to you because I so I've worked consulting with a large international tool company and one of the projects they brought me in on was their first line supervisors have terrible communications, right? So one of the things I asked them is well, how did they get promoted? Like why are they a supervisor? Right? Because I want to look at what is the process that move them up? And it was exactly as you said, Michael. They are the supervisor because they were the best at doing. So they were the best bucket builder, the best welder, the best painter. So of course, we should just make them in charge of all the buckets builders and the painters. But they don't have the communications, right? They're good at doing. They have not taught anybody how to do. So my question to you is, and I think I know the answer because I think we're on the same wavelength there, businesses will push back and say, that's too much time. We need to be more efficient. We don't have time for you to sit down there and coach them through the process, tell them how to get it done to get it moving. But I would counter that you may, you'll save time in the long run because you'll actually have critical thinkers that's problem solve all the way down the line if you teach them upfront versus creating employees who are dependent on you for every answer. speaker-1: Well, that's absolutely true. And people who tend to micromanage, really all micromanaging is, you see, it has to be done this way. Well, those are people that think that there's only one model of the world. I mean, there's many ways to get stuff done. And it's more important that the person owns whatever their actions are than it is that they get the actions right. Because if they own them, they'll figure it out. You see, the thing that people don't realize is you say because they do and they get the results when they do stuff in other words they take action they get it. Well thinking always precedes action. If I go back to first principles I will move somebody faster at first principles than if I had to go through the entire litany of different situations where that action may or may not apply. If they can think this through they get there very quickly and so on initially it does take a little bit longer but not a lot longer. I gotta tell you it's like here's the thing that I found. We actually had a ⁓ It was a group of ⁓ journeyman tradespeople in a particular industry and these guys were like between 10 and 15 years in their industry. These were senior guys and they had juniors coming in and the company was growing so they were bringing in more juniors and so... ⁓ Here's how it went. I tell you what to do. You do what you know you do What's there and it literally would take two years for them to grow into a senior minimum in two to three years depending on how strong or not somebody was and you know, they were usually good with their hands, but ⁓ There was this notion that people that are in the trades aren't necessarily good thinkers That's not my experience at all my experience is you get some of the smartest brightest quickest people they're in that industry They just are also good with their hands guys like me are just like know how to work a cell phone. One of things I did was I said, Iíll tell you what.î We had a group of eight guys and we picked on one guy and Iíll call him Joe. He just said, ìOkay, so Joe, Iíll tell you what. Are you willing to do an experiment?î He said, ìSure, letís try something.î I said, ìOkay, good. So hereís what I want you to do. How often do you tell peopleÖî what goes wrong and he said, time it goes wrong, I have to tell them because they have to fix it.î I said, ìNo problem.î So youíre pretty much on top of when something goes wrong. said, ìYep.î I said, ìOkay. How often do you tell people what goes right?î He says, ìWell, thatís their job. Theyíre supposed to know what goes right. mean, what do you sit there? You might blow sunshine up at their butt.î Forget that. This is like a waste of everybodyís time. mean, what am I, their fairy godmother or something? I said, ìNo, no, no. Hereís what I want you to do. Iíll tell you what. Just experiment. Okay?î Now these guys donít write anything down. but they will put stuff in their phone. said, so here's what I want you to do. Each day, I just want you to notice one thing or two things right that this person is doing. And the guy, we're going to call him Peter, ⁓ is the junior. And so Joe would actually watch Peter and he'd just. put something in the phone and you know so we came back two weeks later I said how's that going he says you know I'm picking up a lot of different things I'm noticing certain things the guys actually picking up a lot of stuff I'm really happy with his progress I didn't realize he was doing so well I said okay and so you know let's keep going another two weeks he did it again and I and then at the end of that two weeks so we're now a month in so you know this is the third time I'm meeting these guys and and I said so what did Peter say when you told him about it he said you didn't say anything about telling them what I'm noticing I said, ìYou guys are driving to and from sites which is fine because they have heavy equipment and a bunch of stuff. Hereís what I want you to do. Let him drive. Heís allowed to drive. Weíre all licensed for the big equipment that we use. Let him drive once a week and then you just share back what youíre noticing. This week, these are some of the things that I noticed. Okay, so he did that for a couple of weeks and he said, okay, so I said, so how did it go? And he's talking to the other guys are in the room, right? His colleagues are in the room. He said, well, I'm not sure. I said, okay, so what do mean? said, what Joe said is he said, he kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. And I said, what do you mean? He says, well, you're telling me this good stuff. What did I do wrong? Like, why do I get the feeling I'm being set up here? You know, nobody ever tells the good stuff. And so after two weeks, said, ⁓ he said, okay, well, I'll tell you what, just let him know, just say, listen, every time something negative happens, we deal with it on the spot, don't we? And he says, well, yeah. And it's like, well, do I have to regurgitate that and go over it again and again and again, or did you get it when I told you? He said, well, I got it when you told me. said, so is that okay that I can let it go? And he's like, sure. But how often do I? tell you the things that I noticed that I really impressed with." He says, well, you don't. Well, do think that might help you grow? Okay, and so two more weeks and he's just hid once a week he told them and it was interesting because the second week so so this was now week three and week four of sharing with him what he noticed and he's and he said I said so how's it going and Joe says well I think it's going okay and I said so so what has you think that and he said well he likes it, can tell he likes it, he's finally relaxed around it and he trusts that I'm just telling them the good stuff because we've already covered the bad stuff and because they come up as they come up. He said, but there was one thing that was really curious. I said, what's that? He said, he's asking me for my opinion on many things now. It's almost like he trusts me more to tell him the things that make a difference. Okay, Peter. was seven and half months. He started doing this with Peter at about four months. At seven and a half months, they made Peter a senior leader. They never had anybody grow that fast because Peter started trusting Joe and he asked him about different things and he was trying things and he'd say, so what do you think of it? And these guys were up on scaffolding and there's a bunch of different things they do. But he learned so much so quickly but he got so inspired and it was just quiet like this guy is not like Mr. know, ⁓ cheerleader or anything like this, you know, you don't get rougher than some of these guys. And he's like, right, right. But but it's like, ⁓ my gosh, you should see the difference. And Peter's now part of a whole breed that's evolving. And they're doing so well that these guys have to double the guard because there are some areas that hadn't come up. Now they're making sure they have to catch those because they're making assumptions about how good these guys are. when they really haven't had a ton of experience. they're now watching, okay, now what's the second level? What's the area that I've missed letting them know and things like that. So their training continues to go. But what's happening is that the team and the company as a result is getting so much stronger. And last year they had a 40 % increase over the previous year. So they literally, and there were several million in the previous year and they're 40 % more last year than they were the previous year. And they figured they'll probably double this year. just based on watching the levels of growth that the guys can achieve, all of a sudden they can go a lot further. So it's fascinating to watch and that's all based on putting in his phone things that he notices that are working. And he's really mastered the art of asking the guy questions rather than actually telling him what to do anymore. And so it's been fascinating to watch. speaker-0: Yeah, no, I agree. It's funny when you said that because one of the strategies I had the the manners do the same thing. I actually had them put it in their calendar every Friday. Actually, I think we did every Thursday at two. They got a reminder that they needed to go down to their team and close the day with something good they've done all week. Right. Because we are so programmed to look for the negative, to look for the bad that you're absolutely right. We forget to to nourish the other half of the human spectrum, which is what am I doing well? And if you don't feed that, you just play into my negative self-talk, my doubts, because then I'm looking at myself critically, like, why don't I ever hear anything good? Or, like you said earlier, I just shut you out because all I ever hear is the bad stuff, so then don't really want to be around you. speaker-1: Right. So but you're the boss, so I have to be around you now. I have a question for you. Yeah. So Jared, do know where that comes from? speaker-0: The critical parent kind of focused the negative job speaker-1: The critical part, the negative part, yeah. speaker-0: Well, I'll tell you primarily in the industries I work with is because that's what we're trained to do, right? It's the easiest thing to do. It's the most tangible. I can come in and say, stopped these errors from happening because I saw it. I don't, it's hard to quantify giving people good conversations that get them to believe in themselves if I don't see a result in the next hour or they're not more productive at the end of the day. And quite honestly, it's easier for human nature as part of our survival instinct. We look for the bad stuff that would have killed us back in our old days and now we're safe and comfortable so we don't have a lot of bad stuff to kill us. Now we look for all the things that we don't think are right. speaker-1: Well, and so let's take off on that last point you made. would say that this is part not only is a part of human nature. This is a biological feature of wiring. We have the in the biological need to survive and anything that looks like a threat. got to you know what? It doesn't matter how much we have the need to survive and we have the innate desire to thrive. But I promise you survival always trumps thriving. That's why when people say, you know, you need to hear three to one. for somebody to seem that it's equal. And they said, for every criticism, you need to come up with five good things, just so that it starts to overbalance it a little bit. if somebody goes one to one, one positive, one negative, you what we call that person? Incredibly negative. They're so negative. You know what? When people are really positive, they're like 10 to one. they're they're critical a little bit. And when they see people are so positive, They're like 29 to one. mean, they've studies on this stuff. And the truth is that three to one is equal for us. So one to one is absolutely negative because we need to survive. You know what? There's no alternative. And we think that we're logical. Okay. We are not logical. We are emotional. Like, and that's not a problem. It's part of the survival mechanism. Now think about it. You know, the question I look at is, well, why are we, why are we emotional? Why are we not logical? Cause logic is too slow. So there's a bus coming at me. Well, what are the pros and cons of getting out of the way? No more Michael. Where if I go, eek, and I run and I get out of the street, you know what, I'm alive. And we even got adrenaline, noradrenaline pumping through the system. But that's all linked to the amygdala and the elements that have emotion around them. So that is a feature of survival. Now, not every day are we in survival mode. Do we have life and death incidents? But that does keep us alive. And we don't need all our survival mechanisms done before we can actually thrive at all. Because surviving is about ourselves, thriving is about others. If we had to get everything in survival done first before we could do anything that was thrive, why would a five-year-old ever share a toy? They're not in survival. So the truth is that that's when, of course, we want to be with others. It's only when we have that need and it's either me or it's we like my family or the people in my company against the competitor or whatever it happens to be. Whoever we deem we, that's where our focus is in survival. So it's biological, it comes to us naturally, of course it's there and there's nothing wrong with people that do that. It's part of biology and there's more to life than that. For anybody who can actually move past that and that's why when people talk about workspaces they go, well we need psychological safety. Well that sounds all nice and fine. The bottom line is you need to have somebody relax in their chair. Because then they can actually focus on bringing their best and they want to. But I need to know that you've got my back and I have your back. And if we have each other's back, we can relax and we can actually create something cool together. If we don't have each other's backs, I have to protect myself from you, that will take up an inordinately high amount of my energy. So when I see somebody negative, don't hold it against them. But there's way more to life than that. And so the key is if I can set it up so that, you know, I mean, psychological safety sounds like such a conceptual term, but scared to death. Yeah, we feel. ⁓ So, you know, I know that if I've got anxiety or fear or concern about something, if I can relax and find a way to sort that out, then I'm in a situation where I can actually participate in a very productive way. So I love what you're saying with regards to, you know, the different reasons why people are negative, but I got to tell you, it's like, it's like you said, it's part of our survival. It is. speaker-0: Let's talk on that. Let's talk on that, Michael. I'm interested on your thoughts on this because you, in researching this, I've seen different places where you said growth requires becoming a different version of yourself, right? Allowing yourself to become somebody different. So what does that look like for our community? What does that look like to explore that? speaker-1: Well, it's interesting because one of the elements that I would say is you need to be able to, you need to learn how to trust yourself. Okay. ⁓ there's no such thing as trusting somebody else. Trusting somebody else is either out of victim. I trusted them or manipulation. I trust you. In other words, don't screw up. Whereas you know what? If you invite a snake into your tent and it bites you, it's not on the snake. That's part of their nature. Okay, now I may need to learn a little bit. ⁓ snakes, they bite. This is not good. mean, it's, know, the more I learn in life, the better, the better I am at handling those things, right? But the other side of it is if I trust myself, you know, my discernment, I'm in good shape. So it's not that I trust you. I trust my discernment about you. I notice these behaviors are there, you know, everybody's got strengths and weak spots. So well, let me just check with you, Jared. Do you have strengths and weak spots? Okay, so what's one of your top strengths? Other than making speaker-0: For sure. speaker-1: podcast guests feel comfortable because I feel very comfortable. speaker-0: I appreciate that. My greatest strength has always been self-belief. I believe I can accomplish things. speaker-1: Okay, so. Okay, now, and what's one of your week spots? speaker-0: ⁓ Probably staying just my self beliefs awful is one of my weak spots because I'll believe so strongly in things that sometimes I miss indicators I should move, pivot or be on a different path. So I would say that I'm focused on the beliefs. speaker-1: So one of your strongest strengths is your self-belief and one of your weak spots is sometimes you miss things when you're hyper-focused. Okay, so just because you miss things when you're hyper-focused, does that mean that one of your strongest strengths is not your self-belief? Like both can be true, can't they? Yeah, so to say I trust you would be like blindly taking all of it and pretending the negative stuff isn't there, okay? speaker-0: For sure, yeah. speaker-1: and thinking that everything is like flowers and roses or whatever. Whereas I could say, I trust my discernment about you, here's what I know, is you've got really, really strong self-belief. You have this can-do attitude and you will get through something. And what I also find is that, you know what, there'll be the odd time where you miss some things because you're so focused on what it is that you're after. Well, that's my discernment about you and I can be fully present to everything that's there with you and not like... judge you for having a weak spot because we all have them and not blindly accepting your strengths because again we all have those but you see what I mean? There are many dimensions to who we are. If I trust myself then I'm fine. Now if I take that another step, when do we stop trusting ourselves? speaker-0: When do we stop trusting ourselves? What would I say? When do I stop trusting? Probably when I'm not getting the results I want or things don't go my way so I doubt that I was capable to begin with. speaker-1: I would say that there's an underlying thing going on when that happens, you start getting tired. Fatigue, stress, pressures, things like that. It might take me three days to decide something. I go away on vacation and come back and I'm like, this is how we're doing it. In 15 minutes, the same issue that I used to mull over for three days, all of sudden I'm crystal clear because I have my senses about me. speaker-0: Fatigue? speaker-1: I bet you there's a reason you work out because your brain works better and your body works better and your clarity is there. And when you have your self-belief, it's based on you when you're fully centered. Was your stressed out or preoccupied by a concern or worried or anxious? It's really hard to bring your best decision-making to the table, isn't it? So I noticed that if I'm looking at trusting myself and I learn how to trust myself, one of the critical things that leads to that speaker-0: For sure. absolutely. speaker-1: is self-care. Electrolytes in your water. So that you're not just, it's not just running through you. Cause when I do three liters of water a day, which of course, you know, I live in Canada, so we do liters, but, but you know, I'd spend a lot of time in the States as well. And so there we do gallons when I'm down there. so, know, a gallon of water is about three liters. That's a lot of water. Okay. But if I put electrolytes in, some actually gets into the cells. That's good. know, we'd like to be hydrated making sure that you get enough sleep making sure that you do workout making sure that that you find ways to make your Nutritionist right, you know things like little things like that Just quietly make a big difference in terms of the clarity of thinking or the clarity of focus that I can bring to a situation And it's amazing because I always look at what's the underlying or what's the background thing that drives these things? And so, know, if I know survival is driving behavior at work or I know that, you know, that fear because I'm in an anxious situation because it's really uncertain, we don't know what's going on is impacting it, then the question is what do I need to do to take care of myself so I can make better decisions and actually generate the types of results that I'm looking for. Now, if I'm working with other people, how do I support them? And you can read, know, 90 % of the time, anybody that's a parent with children knows, I guess it's hard to be a parent without children, anybody who's any parent knows that if you've got a child that's acting up, it's either food or sleep. They're either tired, they're overtired, something like that, or I haven't given them the right nutrition. They're either hungry or they've eaten the wrong stuff. They had too much sugar and they're coming on a crash or I mean, it could be anything, right? ⁓ 90 % of the time it's one of those two things. Every now and then somebody gets hurt or they have an alley or something. But it's amazing to see basics and the impact of basics on all of us. speaker-0: Yeah, what are Michael? What would you say are some of the blind spots that people carry? That keep them from being able to move forward? speaker-1: ⁓ Well, one of the blind spots is what I'm going to call traditional model of business. see business the way it's perceived to operate these days has come from the Industrial Revolution and it wasn't always like that. Before that, if you look at even back to management and people, there was management of hierarchy and all that. But setting that aside, functional management was always a function of Learned from the master apprenticeships were huge whether you were a doctor and apprenticeships are still big in doc in in medicine But a blacksmith ⁓ an engineer an architect any profession a legal profession You know it was learned from the master if you were if you were the master and I was your underling I would do all the Joe jobs That's that's part of our equation and you would teach me what I need to learn to be to grow in that particular profession Then in the industrial age, you know when we when you've got you know factories and assembly lines. Well, if I have 20 veterans, each of which have two apprentices, they're all teaching these apprentices in their own likeness. It makes for a lumpy assembly line. It just doesn't quite work. So what they did was they said, instead of teaching one apprentice six things, I'll have six different people and I teach them one thing and they just do their piece and the managers hold the cards and see the overall picture. The person only sees their piece. Now the employees hated it. They actually sabotaged the equipment and stuff like that. Well, the bosses said, ìI donít care, you pay for it.î Thatís where unions actually came up in the early 1900s, 1903, 1904. ⁓ But the capitalists didnít care. It was so lucrative that they literally said, ìPay them. We donít care.î Bethlehem Steel was processing and cutting nine linear feet. of steel per minute. And then they started bringing in management practices where there was more uniformity. Within three to four months, it went from nine linear feet per minute to 50 linear feet per minute with fewer people. They said, why do we dose the whole lathe? Why don't we dose half of it and keep the other half going? Why do we have all the raw materials way over there? Why don't we put it by the front of the machine? mean, basic stuff, and everybody was following the same systems, and all of a sudden, productivity just shot forward. Well, we learned that that was actually the way to do business. And now we're in an information age. We're not in a product age where consistency of inputs and consistency of outcomes, you you can break that down. In an information age, you're in a situation where you've got a lot of different things that are playing on. And there's many ways to get it right. There's many ways to get it wrong in services. Whereas there was one way to do it, you know, for the most part in different products. It would be different for each product. So when there's so many different things, It changed from the boss being the manager to people actually, we need their brains at the table. I don't care how long, know, how much of a veteran you are or how new you are. So thinking that people need to be told what to do, thinking that people need to be directed on things as opposed to actually tapping the brain power of each person. I mean, that's been happening for the last 40 or 50 years. It's only with the pandemic that it's sort of accelerated the motion that people are starting to notice. It's like, No, actually, our job is to facilitate the power of the brain power of the people that are there because in an information age in a networked world, you need the brain power of people at the table. And so that thinking has shifted dramatically and it's very slowly come in. Now, some of the best companies do operate and tap the power of their people as opposed to treat them like cogs in a system. companies are becoming intelligent ecosystems rather than a well-oiled machine. I mean even to this day you'll hear people go, people come people go, you want to grow your company you need to focus on the systems. And what they mean by that is focus on systems to try to constrain people and get them to do what I want them to do. Except to do that you'd have to control people and nobody wants to be controlled. People do want to contribute. speaker-0: Everybody wants to contribute Michael for sure. So let me let's stay on this topic for a second. How does AI factor into that? speaker-1: I think that's an interesting thing. you know, as people have been learning, one of the features of learning if you're a junior is that you'd have to do the Joe jobs. Yeah. And you'd learn from those. On the one hand, AI is accelerating the effectiveness short term. You know, as it gets better, I mean, still there's still hallucinations going on in AI. as it's becoming better, AI is taking over more junior roles. ⁓ And as a result, what's happening is that junior people are blocked from those junior roles because I can get a machine to do it at a fraction of the cost. And so there's this chasm that needs to be jumped to get people into something that's a little bit more mature because otherwise I'm going to run out of people that get to the top end. So that's one of the challenges that they're facing. AI has been magnificent in many ways. mean, Alphabet was using, they weren't. replacing developers, they're not replacing developers with AI, but what they do is they get developers to work with AI as a sort of a check and balance against different things that they're doing. And they've actually accelerated the progress of developers with the use of AI. So I mean, there's a lot of, that's just one example. There's many, in medicine, there's a ton of examples where AI is being used at some of the lower level tasks. And there's also some things we're working out in terms of saying, well, how do we grow the juniors then? if we're getting the junior jobs being done by ⁓ this platform or the thinking associate or what we call the thinking associate with that. we're still working through bumps and hiccups in AI and it's revolutionizing how everything goes. mean right now, the economic situation in North America, US and Canada ⁓ has been struggling. It's actually dropped except the stock market hasn't. Well, why has the stock market not because of AI data centers are being open left, right and center. There's such a there's such a surge of what's available from from an AI perspective. The stock market actually looks like the economy is in a highly robust state, except a lot of construction is on hold at the moment because people are uncertain about how things are going to evolve. So it's it's interesting. It's created sort of a mixed time for people, you know, and we're still discovering. what's available with AI and where are the edges and the problem is of course, if you want to call it a problem, the edges keep, you know, what's available keeps expanding and the edges keep moving. So, it's been hard to contain. A lot of people are still trying to get their head around, you know, what's going on with it. Everybody needs to learn it. This is not something bad, but at the same time, people aren't quite sure what and where and how, and yet the companies that are steeped in it are actually doing quite well. So it's a really, really interesting time. speaker-0: It's not slowing down, but my concern is, like you mentioned, Michael, was that gap we're creating where people don't get to do, you call them the Joe jobs for the community that doesn't quite understand the menial jobs, the entry level jobs, the jobs you got to do and the task you got to do to prepare yourself to move up because they don't have the experience doing them. What happens to these people? Like who's going to be prepared to be the senior leaders if they never got the chance to be the junior leader? And what do we do with the people that are displaced because if those jobs are being done by robots or AI, what are they doing to better themselves at that point? speaker-1: Well, I, my personal belief is as a humanity, we've always run into challenges. And the fact is we figured them out. Yeah. And we're going to figure this one out too. Do we know yet? How? No. Are we, are we enamored with what it can do? Yeah. and there's going to be a way we're going to figure it out. Like humanity is pretty smart. People are pretty, you know, they're pretty good. And, and, and so There are people that are addressing those types of challenges and sort of working with those challenges and saying what do we do about that and how do we build it and the question is not how do we just well we ignore this future thinking because we have to go back to do something. what will happen will be some sort of synergistic solution will come up where we've got the best of both and people are pretty cool. ⁓ speaker-0: Especially when... We hit a pain point, we'll come up with solution. speaker-1: Absolutely. I mean, whoever would have thought you could send a working population home and still have a country survive and thrive. Yeah, nobody thought about that. speaker-0: It wasn't in any of the business plans I'd ever studied. speaker-1: Nope. now that said, Peloton did quite well. Thank you very much. So there were some industries that actually thrived. know, home renovations. speaker-0: The electrolyte business boomed as well. speaker-1: Absolutely, ⁓ So there's always those that happen. mean, whatever the economy is, whatever the circumstances. speaker-0: Yeah, and that's I love your perspective on that. And that's kind of what I like to share, too, is like, don't know, I'm not going to be afraid of this, right? Because we're going to adapt. We're going to we're going to figure stuff out just like we have with every other industrial revolution or big shift in how our lives are led. But one thing that never changes, and this is what I want to get your opinion on, is you specifically teach business owners to hire the right people. And I want to take that concept and kind of shift it also to for our community members that aren't business owners, the importance of having the right people in your lives in general. Because no matter what AI does or doesn't do or robots do or don't do, having the right circle around us will always be important. So what do you say about, I guess a couple of things, like surrounding yourself with people that are elevating you, identifying the people that are elevating you and helping you get to where you wanna be, and then also with the balance of recognizing like, Maybe this doesn't serve me no anymore. I'm trying to move in different directions. speaker-1: Okay, so there's a couple of things about that. When people talk about putting themselves around like-minded people, and that's said a lot, a lot of times people confuse that with people who have the same opinions as me. And right now with social media and the algorithms, you will get more of the same of what you show an interest in, and it just keeps coming at you. Well, that's at the level of opinion or manifestation. see where you want to align yourself and this is true in hiring ⁓ and it's also true just in as you as you build your friendships and relationships. The question is what are the core values that drive you? Okay now everybody has the things that they think you know should be good or whatever but different people have different values and they're not necessarily better for some are better than others it's just that mine will be better for me, yours will be better for you and where we see that there's synergies between that's where we'll participate together and where our values don't necessarily align, we won't play in those domains. But if I know ⁓ that I can trust you no matter what with let's say my family because you have such a love of children and you have such a love of really making sure that people are taken care of, you know what? I want you around my family if we're friends. If I know that you're not that great with kids, you're not that great with others, but you've got this brilliant mind and you love to explore different things, we'll participate in a completely different area of life and we'll explore different ideas and things like that. If I know that you're an avid camper and I'm an avid camper, now here's the thing, I'm not an avid camper. Okay, my notion of camping is when there's wood on the brass taps in the five-star cabin, right? I you know, I'm gonna suck when it comes to stuff like that. But if we had some alignment on something, ⁓ that's where we'd participate in life. And so the key is what's important to me? What are the types of things? What drives me? What are the things that I really care about? Like one of the comments you made that I, based on something I shared was, you know, this whole notion of contribution. I want to be around people who contribute. Others may be around people that are absolutely masters at creating incredible wealth. Other people might be masters around what it takes to take care of the pet populations in the world. Different people have different things that are really important to them at the level of the heart of them, not just an opinion about what's going on in the day. Anybody who's a sports fan has an opinion about which team is better than what other team. Okay. ⁓ And what counts? So when I look for like-minded people or people where I connect with, and this is true and it's really interesting in hiring because they don't always look the same as you. So if you're really brilliant at coming up with great ideas, and I'm completely the opposite personality, I'm the person that protects against what goes wrong, I may be ideal fit for you if we share the same values. If we don't share the same values, we're probably not gonna fit. At the level of personality, we may not fit as well as we might otherwise, but the shared values are the connection that, because I'd look at you and I'd go, wow, you know, with his values, which are aligned with mine, I love how he steps out in that. And you might say, you know, with his values which are aligned with mine. love how he protects our bottom line and supports that out. But if we don't have the aligned values. stuff we do will get under each other's ⁓ speaker-0: That's good. Let me ask you this about that right because I think sometimes you mentioned the social media and algorithms and you get bombarded with Information that it thinks you're going to like or that it knows you'll hate to get a reaction to keep you scrolling longer And we're losing a skill. And that is to remain friends when we disagree on something and have polite discussions about Michael, tell me why you think this and be open and learning. But that is if I want to really trust you, I don't trust people that only see everything the way I see it. Right. I will trust somebody more that's like, hey, Jared, you said you were you were going to be doing this. And I know you haven't done this. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: Right, having this more critical conversation. Do you find that, do you share that thought? how do you feel? guess, cause I guess long winded question, I'm trying to find my actual question is, trust is built upon both sides of the relationship. I agree with you on things and I can be safe to disagree with you. speaker-1: Okay, so can I, I know, I feel like I'm a little bit of a broken record here, but you know where I'm gonna go is behind the scenes on stuff. Okay, so that's at the level of the surface. Here's the thing. I would assert, sir, that you do not control the relationship that you and I are generating. I mean, we've met each other for the first time today. I do not control the relationship but we both influence it. So there's this dynamic between us called the relationship. You influence it, I influence it, neither one of us controls it. I can't control this unless I try to control you. And I bet you you're not one that wants to be controlled, are you? No, neither am I. I don't know anybody who is. They want to be controlled. I just don't know anybody, right? But there's this thing that we both influence called the relationship. And so that's the thing that we... speaker-0: No, for sure. speaker-1: interact with. ⁓ so I don't look at do you believe my opinion or not? I look at what's important to you as we evolve this relationship and what are the what's the domain or what are the domains, you know, in which we do that? Is it because we each have relatives that are married or something and then we end up being in the same social circuit? circles is that we both volunteer for the same things, that we're both involved in the same work activities because we happen to be in the same company, you know, whatever. And it's interesting because this dynamic actually causes more pain in businesses. If you take a look, anybody can participate in a group of five, eight, ten people, but when you start to get to twelve people, one group breaks into two. We just have natural, ⁓ you know, it's easier to deal with five or six people than it is to deal with a dozen. Okay, and so you can grow up to eight or ten and then in the minute you get to eleven or twelve it starts to break go past twenty people it gets a little bit hard to handle if you take a look though, and I actually did Some stats on this I've got them right here with me So if you had four people the number of one-on-one relationships with four people say there's you me ⁓ Slam and Jerry. Yeah. Well, there's me with slam me with Jerry me with you There's you with slam you with Jerry and then there's slam and Jerry. There's six relationships six one-on-one relationships. Now, if we go, that's a two by two little matrix, we go to three by three matrix, That's nine people, that goes to 36 relationships. If we have a 25 person company, okay? Now we're at 300 one-on-one relationships. A 50 person company is 1225 one on one relationships and a 50 person company 1225 relationships and you know what? In a 50 person company, you know each other. You know them to say them. It's not like you don't know the names of half the people. There are only 50 of you. It's not that big. 1225 one on one relationships and by the time you get to 100 people, there 4950 one on one relationships that are potentially there. almost 5,000 relationships with 100 people and then you wonder why people try to constrain behavior. So this gets really hairy so I have to try to reduce it. Well how am going to reduce it? Well I'll try to increase my comfort so I'll go to people that think like me and the easiest way that social media has decided we think like each other is if we have the same opinions about the same stuff. That's not necessarily where the richness goes from the thing. I have to laugh when you look at 100 people. you know, almost 5,000 relationships. Now you know, you know, I the term hurting cats is real. And now we also know why the wedding is so hard to plan the seating arrangement in your 100 person wedding. I can't put Jerry next to Mrs. McGillicutty. He'll talk her ear off and I'll hear about it for months. You know, these, I mean, these are all the dynamics that happen in normal life, right? So it's fascinating to see the dynamics. In fact, One of the reasons that I see people getting stuck is they hit different plateaus in business. It's a combination of two things. One is they outstrip their structures. And the reason they outstrip their structures is because they got more people than the structures can hold. And second of all, I got all these people going on and I don't know how to deal with it. So you combine those two, the level of problems people hit at different stages of their business just continue to compound. That's why people try to exert control. That's why everybody thinks of, if I had a well-oiled machine, I'll go with the systems and structures because I feel safe. It's an illusion because we're stripping our structures anyway. It's like, I look at this in terms of a $1 million company, so if you have your company at a million, your same company at 5 million, and the same company at 10 million, the question I have is what do they share? Well, the first thing is, well, hopefully have the same product although even that can morph. They've got the same value set if they're owned by the same owner or owners and a few of the same key people. Not many because how many people do I have in a million? Whereas at 5 million or 10 million, I have a lot more. Everything else is different. The structures haven't lasted that long. There's no way you can run a $5 million company on the structures of a $1 million company. We all know that and there's no way we can do it 10 million. focus on the structures, people come and go. It's like, okay, so you're throwing out the X factor of brilliant profits in your company. If I can tap the strengths of each person and really set it up so that they can wanna bring their best, I have a whole different experience of business. By the way, that's why militaries, that's why fire departments, that's why orchestras, that's why ⁓ plays, they all work. because it's people lining up with their strengths and saying, what structures will support those strengths? They drill soldiers forever in times where they're not in the middle of a war. But I gotta tell you, they have to keep each other alive. They say, well, I joined the army for my country. That's a concept. The reason they stay in the army and they work so hard and they do what they do and they save everybody's lives is because they're doing it for each other. You've got my back, I've got yours. Right? So you're in a situation, that's where the power is. The power is always with the people. So if I can tap that X factor, the power, how do I build structures that support people as they grow? You know, and I find that if you take a look, this thing called relationship that's between us is actually, in my opinion, the core of everything in life. So how's that for it? Yeah. speaker-0: It's I love it. It's the easiest to neglect. It's the easiest to say I don't have I don't have time to check in with Michael and see how his weekend was. I don't have time to check in with Michael and make sure his his wife was just in the hospital or is doing okay. Right. We missed that. speaker-1: ⁓ we assume it all the time. Yep. speaker-0: and we scramble down the road when things aren't going the way we want. And it turns out all that's been missing is just what you said, the actual people portion of our jobs. speaker-1: Absolutely. And that's not some mom and apple pie utopian notion. It's probably the hardest, hard-headed, nose to the grindstone, the most effective way to maximize profits and maximize customer value and maximize shareholder value is to actually put the people first and have the structure support the people because the people are amazing in the power that we each bring to situation. Now, it is a design issue. You want to design it so that you've got complementary strengths to your people, you have common goals that everybody's working with, you have ways to communicate with each other. I keep my team sizes of a certain size so I don't have the cliques and the breakdowns of different structures. But there's ways to do all that. a lot of companies are doing that, and not everybody is because they're so busy trying to protect themselves against all the survival things that are coming up as they hit each stage of growth. speaker-0: Well, it's harder, right? In my opinion, it's harder. It's harder to actually lead and coach people to be their best because that takes my energy. That takes my attention. It takes conversations. It takes me going, I'm going to have a difficult conversation today. It's much easier for me to put you on a task, hold you to that task and only come tell you when you mess up and don't deliver the task and never pay attention to the good. That's way easier on me. speaker-1: excepted I would say there's an illusion that it's easier for sure. It's just that you pay it down the road. Exactly. speaker-0: I was gonna say right short term. It's easier long term. It's a deficit. It never pays off and the inverse That's right. Yeah speaker-1: Eat the cupcake now. Or three or four muffins as opposed to, I gotta do my squats, okay fine. speaker-0: Hey Michael, as we wrap up, me an idea of, for our community out there, what's one small improvement somebody can make this week that would create momentum? Getting them forward, whether it's in their business, their personal lives, their fitness, whatever. How do you suggest somebody goes about creating a small habit that builds momentum? speaker-1: Well, there's people that have already said things like make your bed. You want to have a win each day and things like that. Here's what I would say. And this sounds really trivial. But again, if I look at little things that are too small to fail, that's there. I know that if I'm centered and in good space, I make better decisions. ⁓ Find three people to be grateful for each day and let them know. Listen, I really appreciated that. No, you sent me the other day. Thank you so much for that. and it takes 30 seconds and I feel better for sharing it, you probably feel better because I acknowledged it, whether you do or not, I'm actually doing it as much for me as I am for you and if I do the three of those things early in the day, then I'm in a situ, and if I can't do three, I do at least one. Too small to fail. And if I do that on a regular basis and I just get in that habit, what I notice is I need my survival skills a little bit less because I've got myself in a little bit more centered space and I'm in pretty good shape. So if there was a little thing that I could do, you know what? Acknowledge three people a day and see what happens. speaker-0: I love it. Michael, thank you so much for joining our show. I loved our conversation. Where can our audience follow you? You got a new book coming out. Where can they join your community and be part of your journey? speaker-1: The latest book that ⁓ Iíve got is ìFreedom by Designî. ⁓ established business owners guide to grow, make an impact and find the joy again. Itís for established business owners who want to take their business to the next level and theyíre looking at how do I increase my freedom. Iím thinking of freedom in the business, freedom from the business and freedom because of the business. ⁓ Any country that has Amazon has got access to that book. We're at walshbusinessgrowth.com. That's our website so you can always look up that or just check me out on LinkedIn. just type in Michael Walsh and I'm in there somewhere. anybody who wants to get in dialogue about anything, we have a great time connecting with people and seeing how we can make a difference in different people's lives. speaker-0: Awesome. Michael, thank you so much for joining us. My friend, it's been a pleasure. When you're training with purpose, your fueling can't be an afterthought. That's why I use NeverSecond, the simplest, most reliable system I have found for staying energized, hydrated, and steady through their long efforts. Their C-Series carbs take the guesswork out of performance. No stomach drama, no complicated mixing, just clean, consistent fuel that actually works when the miles get long. If you want to train with more intention and recover without feeling wrecked, check out Never Second. Click the link in the show notes to get dialed in. And remember, team, life is far too short to live any other way than on purpose. We'll see you all again next week.