Why Everyone In Your Team Should Own a Number — Lee Benson
Lee Benson grew an aerospace business from three people and $360,000 in sales to over 500 employees and a nine figure exit. When he sold it, he got a 21.6x multiple of EBITDA in an industry where 8x was considered strong.
Jason Marc Campbell sits down with Lee Benson, CEO of Execute to Win and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Your Most Important Number, to unpack the MIND methodology and why most companies are tracking the wrong things entirely. Lee shares how he gave every one of his 64 leaders their own most important number, why he never had a single employee lawsuit across 540 team members, and how the same principles he used to scale a company now apply to building a stronger family.
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👂Listen out for:
Why most teams track too many numbers or the wrong ones
Trust the struggle to build capability
Material, emotional and spiritual value creation
Integrity means doing what you said you would do
Why the biggest limiting factor is usually the leader
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you keep doing this work on yourself to grow personally professionally and to the end of creating more and more value in the world, you have no idea what's possible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I can't believe about what you think you can do by definition to me as a limiting belief, because we don't know, I objectively, I don't think I've accomplished 1% of what I think is possible for me and I keep working on that stuff.
00:24.593 --> 00:32.123
[SPEAKER_00]: Plug into the mind of the world's cutting edge innovators, visionaries, and thought leaders, who are rewriting the rules of sales and success.
00:32.904 --> 00:34.567
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your time to make an impact.
00:35.268 --> 00:39.714
[SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Jason Mark Campbell, and this is The Selling With Love podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back everybody to the Jason Mark Campbell podcast and I'm very excited about the conversation that we're going to have today and if you are anybody running a business working with a team looking to develop yourself as a leader This is going to be a very important conversation not only about the types of behaviors and values you can have as a leader to be the most effective
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also going to be a conversation touching on the left side of the brain, the number side of the brain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're feeling overwhelmed looking at all the different numbers, trying to find focus and alignment and seeing how can we find that one metric that really aligns the types of behaviors, decisions to be done in supporting creating value for the business.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To be done, identified, depending on your industry, this is going to be the conversation that lets that surface and understand how when you start having that level of focus, more things get done, less waste, and you get to create that value and deliver the impact to the people you care about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Lee Benson is joining me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He is a serial entrepreneur, a leadership coach and a Wall Street Journal bestselling authors spent the last 30 years building in scaling companies, including a nine figure exit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He's today the CEO of Execute to Win working with leadership teams, creating measurable lasting value and not just the revenue growth.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His best selling book around your most important number talks about the mind methodology which we are going to unpack today and we're going to understand why is it that having this important number in place is going to help you do so much when it comes to the execution you want to create within the company.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He also leads dinner table, which is a family community of over 50,000 business owners that are looking at having the right values, bringing accountability and to have clarity to family life as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His upcoming book is actually taking a lot of the lessons he's learned in leadership business growth and seeing how translates as well within our family and personal lives with the value creation family.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited to be able to blend both the personal and the leadership to make sure that
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[SPEAKER_00]: or making an impact, but not necessarily sacrificing our personal life in the process but creating thriving communities as well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Lee, welcome to the show, very excited to have you here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today's some great to be, or thank you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking forward to this conversation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Lee, before we hit record, I was even sharing with you that I felt a little intimidated with the conversation because
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you work in, you know, aeronautics industry, you grew a company from a very small team.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I believe over like 500 employees, 20% year on year growth had the nine figure exit that happened maybe just about a decade ago.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that seems incredible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wondering now that you look back on that in the fact that you let that type of organization.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Does it feel surreal that that was the level of scale that was going through or does it feel like it was quite systematic while you were in it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think this is a journey, you know, I think all of us, it benefits us if we can answer the question, how do we want to create value in the world?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Personal, professional, I break it down and say material, emotional, and spiritual, and spiritual, and spirituals about connectedness, value being created with family, communities, you know, all of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I could always see the next step, so that first full year when I began the aerospace business that you described at the end of 1993.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So in 94, total sales were only $360,000.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody took any money, there were only three of us, but we believed in the future in where we were
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[SPEAKER_01]: It felt like we almost went out of business about 15 times that year, but it worked out well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The next year, we jumped close to a million dollars, those that didn't get paid.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The first year, they got paid fully for what they didn't get paid, and they kept their equity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They actually agreed to work for equity and no pay, but we did so well they got both.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then that just grew to over 500 team members, I think it was around 540 when I sold it in 2016, and at a 360,000, I could see the path to a million.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when we got closing on a million, I could easily see five million and then I could easily see as we close them at 25 and then 50 and then a hundred and when I sold that I was envisioning and it was it seemed like a pretty straightforward path to get to a billion dollars and sales and very profitable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I never thought I want to be there, it's like this is so much fun, it's hard work, cranking along, focusing on, at least for me, focusing on step three, four, five, or six when I haven't got step one done, doesn't make any sense and it would harm me in terms of my ability to fully accomplish step one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it's just a journey and enjoying creating this value and building the company that way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not surreal.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've even heard folks.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you have talk about imposter syndrome and things like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I built the hill, tore it down, built it again, ran around at 15 times, took it from every single side.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like we earned it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like the team had earned all of this stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And hey, I think that's perfect and I'd love to break the journey down in the specific stages because I think there's really cool lessons at the different parts and really at the beginning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm pretty sure nobody wakes up one morning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Me, like, you know, I think the industry opportunity is aeronautics repair.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there must have been some background and some research.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd be curious, you know, what was that initial phase where you got together with people and you identified
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[SPEAKER_00]: an opportunity was did you already have education in this industry?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'd be very curious.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a great question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I actually believe that all of us can start anywhere and go everywhere.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So whatever the thing is, if you keep doing this work on yourself to grow personally, professionally and to the end of creating more and more value in the world,
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[SPEAKER_01]: I look at it again holistically, you have no idea what's possible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I get any belief about what you think you can do by definition to me as a limiting belief, because we don't know.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I objectively, I don't think I've accomplished 1% of what I think is possible for me, and I keep working on that stuff.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So to get to your question,
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[SPEAKER_01]: My senior in high school, I'm living on my own, my parents get me out of the house at the beginning of that year, actually long story, but best thing that ever happened to me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I played guitar, in fact, you see my music studio set up behind me here, graduate high school 1980, first half of the 80s played over a thousand shows in a rock and roll band playing guitar and singing.
06:51.051 --> 06:53.092
[SPEAKER_01]: It's how I made most of my money back then.
06:53.912 --> 07:05.215
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, later towards the end of that decade, I got a job just to make extra money as an electroplating operator, and then I became a foreman in this shop, and we had about 25, you know, folks working there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But we only had one customer, which is a terrible position to be in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when that customer cut us off overnight, my boss had closer to sell it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm done with this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't find anybody to buy it so I went back to him and I said, let me assume the debt and I'm going to take it this direction.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I was an electroplating operator.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a electroplating nickel and cadmium and tin lead gold on aircraft components for a local aircraft customer and they're for engineering purposes, not decorative type applications.
07:37.923 --> 07:45.966
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, you know, we can take this one idea where if we played it for at the time as a company called LA Signal today, it's honeywell.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If we charge them $300, they grind it and inspect it and sell back to their customer for over $10,000.
07:52.529 --> 07:52.989
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go directly to the aircraft operator.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We can charge half of that and make 70% profit or more even subcontracting the work.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where the idea came from.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I was very skilled at doing this particular operation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I always believe even when I was a dishwasher bus boy cook and high school to support myself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be the best that ever did those three jobs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like I was and even as a letter-plating operator, I'm just very specialized kind of a letter-plating.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think I was that too and people would fly in from around the world to learn how we did certain things because they couldn't figure it out.
08:26.958 --> 08:31.882
[SPEAKER_01]: And so here's one application, let's develop it for helicopter operators.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some of them are small enough, where even saving $1,000 is a big deal.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Not that big of a deal for an airline, but a big deal for the small operator.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Developed seven repairs, hit the road for eight months selling them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then over time, we ended up developing over 10,000 repairs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we had 2,000 customers around the world,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our customers, when I think more than 60 countries back then, it was a really cool global business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I got to travel the world and went to most of those countries as we're building the business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Did I see that when we started?
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[SPEAKER_01]: No, I was just focused on let's have something that's viable and can sustain itself and then what's the next step and what's the next step?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That is so cool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can already see the seeds of the incredible positive and abundant mental frameworks that you seem to have embodied at quite a young age.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Was there any influence that made you have that kind of mindset that a lot of people still are trying to nurture within themselves, but it sounds like it did at the root of supporting you right from the start.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I love that question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think anybody's ever asked it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But when I grew up, so here's a low-income family, always had a roof over my head, always had food.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Low-income family, money's a giant issue constantly.
09:54.185 --> 10:00.770
[SPEAKER_01]: Several family members, I would say the immediate family extended family in and out of prison, some person really bad things.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a terrible environment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's why when I was kicked out, I was like, this is really good for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what saved me, there's no one in fluents or anything like that, what saved me, all the way back to six years old, I have a neighbor that I didn't know was in a friend or family member, flags me down, I'm right in my bike down the street in Spokane, Washington, and she asked would you pull weeds in my garden for 25 cents an hour.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, for a kid at that age, back in the mid sixties, okay, well, this is actually a lot of money, you can get two candy bars and have change.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It felt good, and then I took that, and I started, you know, fast forward a couple of years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm shoveling snow, I'm rolling lawns, I've got a paper out, I've got four paper routes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm trying to describe here, is this whole outside world of me trading my best efforts for the accumulated best efforts of others, and I could trust it, they wouldn't pay me if they didn't see the value.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so that I could work hard, I could apply myself, I could get sort of
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[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what saved me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And today I describe it as a value creation cycle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Struggle the capability, use that to create value, build confidence, fulfillment, self-esteem, all of it, and then just keep taking bigger laps around it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So my whole life has been trusting that struggle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because even the harder it gets, I've done it so many times now, I know what the reward is going to be on the other side.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, I guess what I've learned is to really value that struggle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then a question I have for you is, can any of us develop anywhere physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, without effort?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's my depth and of struggle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there are healthy struggles, and there are unfortunate, unhealthy struggles.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But even the unhealthy struggles, what are we learning that when we change our life situation and improve it, we can apply to create even more value in the future?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So this serves me way better than being a victim.
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[SPEAKER_01]: anywhere.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And even by the time I was out of the house at the beginning of my senior in high school, I realized because I had this whole other world like it trusts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My parents, I've helped back for them, never knew my natural father.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They had a hard enough time raising themselves, let alone five kids.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it was, it was never about me and I, I felt terrible for them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They were, they were in such a bad health state, but there was nothing I could do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There are adults making decisions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I ran at it for a while and I was probably in my 30s before, I just said, OK, I'm sorry.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This isn't working out for you, but, you know, again, adults make the decisions that they do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I love to choose the word a couple of times they're saying that you had that trust, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: That like the value creation would reap rewards.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe every generation does that pick it on the younger ones and putting labels like lazy and not working as hard as the previous generation But I feel like today one of the issues is that there's a lot of people who have never connected to the trust that their labor does bring a fruit and there seems to be a stronger disconnect between that
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[SPEAKER_00]: Although I feel this might be a bit on a tangent, but I'm wondering if you have any advice for somebody who's been disconnected from that trust.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If there are ways to start doing a certain activity that rebuilds that trust so you can have that kind of mental attitude knowing that when you put in the hard work the rewards come.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, anything that we do, it could be exercising and getting in shape to run a half marathon or like literally anything.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm studying for a course and we do really well in it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was a struggle to get through it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We add depth discipline to go through it and the reward was there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when it comes to creating value in the world and getting an exchange around that, let's just take the material value piece of it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is the really any end to how we can go through different types of healthy struggles to develop capability to create more value?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's running a business or working within an organization, I just met with a gentleman this morning that wants some assistance with his team.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's got several people that are making over a million dollars a year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: in base salary in the aviation business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've been disconnected from that business or industry for a while, but they're bringing that much value and it's justified going in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess I go back, you know, Jason to this value creation cycle, what capability would help you create more value in the world the way you want to, what you have to go through to make that happen.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's the struggle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then don't stop there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Once you have that capability, use it to
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when I look at those three buckets that I describe material emotional and spirit, so I think the most powerful one is the emotional energy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think positive emotional energy is the scarece's commodity on the planet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's supercharges.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Everything else we do when it's running a 9 or 10 on a scale from 1 to 10.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Almost anything can happen and you're just plowing through it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to solve the problem, make it work, whatever it is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When it's on, you know, one or two, you can get a flat tire and it runs your whole day.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, that's the most important one to supercharge the the material value creation of money piece of it and the connectedness piece on the spiritual value creation side.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It does.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I see this being applied on the individual level.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I can only imagine when we're talking about organizations.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is like amplified and still kind of same fundamentals, but now you're dealing with a group of people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And those same three pillars are probably very alive within an organization and need to be monitored isn't it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I, you know, towards the end, I'd say probably halfway into it in the 23 year overnight success story of building that one company.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was really intentional around those three buckets.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A cash flow is everything.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We're a really careful intensive business.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Never took any outside investment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Positive emotional energy is the X factor for leaders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I spent, especially at the end, probably 60% of my time, developing my leaders.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that was everything, you know,
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[SPEAKER_01]: And on the spiritual value creation side from a connect in this standpoint, all kinds of programs, even several iterations of it over the nine moves to point where I saw the company and we always move because we need a bigger facilities to do the work that we were doing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But in the last one, it evolved into a 10,000 square foot gym.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We had two full-time functional movement certified trainers
16:26.437 --> 16:29.959
[SPEAKER_01]: and it will pay you even more if you bring your family members in to work out.
16:30.059 --> 16:39.185
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we had about a 75% participation rate in everyday dozens of spouses coming in, kids programs, that's building connection.
16:39.905 --> 16:45.329
[SPEAKER_01]: And we didn't have a formal HR department ever where an employee could go with a grievance.
16:45.369 --> 16:48.751
[SPEAKER_01]: We had payroll and benefits and onboarding and all of that.
16:49.371 --> 16:54.453
[SPEAKER_01]: to make it easy, but we never had a place where they'd go with a grievance other than the Boschian.
16:54.474 --> 16:59.316
[SPEAKER_01]: So, technically I was the head of HR and they could skip an issue all the way to me if they wanted.
16:59.736 --> 17:11.362
[SPEAKER_01]: So, how many companies would you think are out there, Jason, that go from start up to 540 team members that never once had an employee lawsuit and never once had an EOC claim,
17:12.202 --> 17:12.402
[SPEAKER_01]: ever.
17:13.283 --> 17:19.307
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd never, to my, you know, best memory never had a leader quit ever in the company.
17:19.407 --> 17:26.111
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had a few that we sort of outrew them or they, their behavior wasn't quite a cultural match for what we were doing.
17:26.752 --> 17:27.993
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had to ask them to leave.
17:28.832 --> 17:31.053
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's a pretty good track record.
17:31.073 --> 17:38.657
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when we went to sell the company because of how fast we were consistently growing, the believable story into the future, the incredible culture that we had.
17:39.317 --> 17:43.580
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody acted like the CEO of their own role, even team members on the front lines.
17:44.920 --> 17:53.545
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a 21.6X multiple of EBITDA when I sold the business at a time in the industry where if you got eight, that was eight X was really strong.
17:54.245 --> 17:58.406
[SPEAKER_01]: And today is a really good time to be in that industry in aviation.
17:58.446 --> 18:04.828
[SPEAKER_01]: I was having that conversation this morning and some of the multiples are starting to approach 12, but we almost double that.
18:05.408 --> 18:06.888
[SPEAKER_01]: And at a time where it was lower.
18:07.588 --> 18:20.952
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, if you do it intentionally in the organization, if you only focus on the material side and the money is wildly important, we have to be profitable, we have to have cash to, you know, survive, you know, downturns and all those things.
18:21.272 --> 18:32.402
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you forget the other pieces, you've taken a lot of way in terms of your potential in my opinion, to earn even more money and make your organization more sort of recession resistant, you will.
18:33.657 --> 18:42.901
[SPEAKER_00]: When you speak of this, like I went to business school, I've heard a lot of leaders come on the show and we talk about the cost of replacing an employee is like three times the cost of retaining them.
18:42.921 --> 18:51.205
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of the principles that always reinforce like having the right culture, building the right team, treating them well, like those and everything you share.
18:52.717 --> 19:16.258
[SPEAKER_00]: always makes sense and it's like absolutely and then there's almost a caricature of what happened in Silicon Valley when things went really far when it's just like, okay, like everybody's getting you know pool tables and like the perks for benefits got really really strong and that was great to see especially when you a company that had very high profit margin, it seemed very obvious that you can do that for a lot of the team members.
19:16.899 --> 19:18.480
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd be curious if in the journey
19:19.261 --> 19:32.069
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially while you're having these cash flow cycles when things get tight and decisions need to be made to like like it's almost like you feel like you need to cut back on some of the foundations you've built to build that great culture.
19:32.930 --> 19:44.637
[SPEAKER_00]: What decisions get made and what is the mental models you need to have during the hard times when it feels like you need to to make cuts, cut corners, maybe not be as abundant to the team because times are tough.
19:47.175 --> 19:56.739
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there's like five ways I want to run out your question, their first saying have culture and do this and do this and do all of that.
19:56.759 --> 19:58.360
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody says it's a common thing.
19:58.960 --> 20:03.282
[SPEAKER_01]: Knowing what to do, I think is relatively straightforward and we should do it doing it's the challenge.
20:04.362 --> 20:07.326
[SPEAKER_01]: And the replacement cost is a 3x across the board.
20:07.387 --> 20:08.027
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's not.
20:08.308 --> 20:10.571
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes it's 0.25.
20:10.631 --> 20:12.193
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an error or it's 0.25.
20:12.634 --> 20:13.555
[SPEAKER_01]: Depending on what it is.
20:13.595 --> 20:15.257
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no absolute value there.
20:15.277 --> 20:16.659
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is disruptive.
20:16.719 --> 20:17.380
[SPEAKER_01]: It's expensive.
20:17.400 --> 20:18.762
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of things that go with it.
20:19.623 --> 20:31.450
[SPEAKER_01]: But doing these things in the right way for me, I always felt like inside the organization, employees will be the most fulfilled and productively energized, all of our team members if they're accomplishing challenging things.
20:32.371 --> 20:39.515
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I always loved to set it up to where there's not a fuzbel table, but everybody knows so much about the business.
20:39.575 --> 20:42.396
[SPEAKER_01]: I would give the financial statements to everybody in the business.
20:42.456 --> 20:45.218
[SPEAKER_01]: Even I would put plain English versions of these things
20:48.680 --> 20:53.505
[SPEAKER_01]: but they knew their part of the business so well, it was like they were running a business within a business.
20:53.525 --> 20:55.567
[SPEAKER_01]: They were acting like the CEO of the role.
20:56.307 --> 20:57.869
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's what we want.
20:57.949 --> 21:03.754
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we're working together, accomplishing really challenging things, it feels amazing.
21:04.535 --> 21:11.761
[SPEAKER_01]: I commented a long time ago when we were building that, I just said, you know, what's so cool about our company is the harder it gets the harder we laugh.
21:12.542 --> 21:28.773
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how you know you're doing it right, and I met a guy, he was employee 17 a few nights ago for dinner with his wife, and he just said, you know, that the thing about able the entire time I was there, I loved going to work every day.
21:28.813 --> 21:30.034
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't wait to get there.
21:30.934 --> 21:33.557
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think that's the culture we're looking for.
21:33.637 --> 21:39.322
[SPEAKER_01]: We want a high degree of productive engagement, productive and creating the value of the roles designed to create.
21:40.162 --> 21:42.764
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, what does it take to create that?
21:42.925 --> 21:49.030
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not a believer and we need to put in, you know, FuÃball tables, pool tables, or ping pong tables, and that kind of stuff.
21:49.710 --> 21:56.897
[SPEAKER_01]: But a gym where they can interact together and have fun exercising is a team like the spiritual or connectedness value that we're creating.
21:57.737 --> 22:03.742
[SPEAKER_01]: own a business within a business like a walk-in to, for example, a hydraulic shop and here's the manager and all the team members.
22:04.402 --> 22:07.525
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, how's it going on this actuator off this particular aircraft?
22:08.225 --> 22:09.446
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we're doing great.
22:09.506 --> 22:20.434
[SPEAKER_01]: We're currently at 40% gross profit on that job and here's the things we're doing to make it an 80% gross profit job while lowering the cost a little bit for our customer so we could be more competitive.
22:21.275 --> 22:26.118
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they're saying on the floor, like how many times would you think employees would say things like that?
22:26.578 --> 22:36.685
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring people on tours and they always walk away just sort of dumbfounded, like, oh my gosh, they all look you in the eye, they all shake your hand, they all know their numbers, how the hell did you do it?
22:38.646 --> 22:48.628
[SPEAKER_01]: Open book management and this is our approach and we're transparent on everything and fully aligned on as the best we can and what we want to accomplish.
22:49.049 --> 22:50.469
[SPEAKER_01]: Did we win everything now?
22:50.489 --> 22:55.070
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we've failed and learned just like every company does, but this approach.
22:56.471 --> 23:00.372
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it created a lot more self-esteem and fulfillment in the team members.
23:01.900 --> 23:03.621
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want them to feel a certain way.
23:03.781 --> 23:09.503
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to create an environment that energizes them and they feel that way themselves.
23:09.583 --> 23:10.843
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they want to be there.
23:10.863 --> 23:11.864
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to be the CEO.
23:11.884 --> 23:12.304
[SPEAKER_01]: They're on a role.
23:12.324 --> 23:13.464
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to have an impact.
23:14.185 --> 23:15.925
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a big distinction.
23:16.225 --> 23:18.806
[SPEAKER_01]: And when employees here, we're putting this program in place.
23:18.846 --> 23:20.287
[SPEAKER_01]: So everybody feels a certain way.
23:20.887 --> 23:25.089
[SPEAKER_01]: first thing they start thinking in the weight lands on me is why are you trying to manipulate anybody?
23:25.109 --> 23:38.334
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just lay out where we're going and here's the structure and all the roles required to do it and the outcomes that everybody's going to own and let's go and let's brainstorm and let's work together and let's have fun and let's push and accomplish challenging things.
23:39.386 --> 23:42.027
[SPEAKER_00]: You seem to have built everything very well.
23:42.067 --> 23:46.587
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know you talked about how every challenge you went towards you understood that value need to be created.
23:47.348 --> 23:55.849
[SPEAKER_00]: But it also sounds like you had a lot of the right mindset and like management principles from the start, or was there a moment when, because you started very operator.
23:55.909 --> 24:08.052
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you're like CEO, you have all these amazing, like innovative management models, like culture awareness, picked it up along the way, was there a pivotal learning moment that you went to discover these principles?
24:09.232 --> 24:11.693
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I struggled to go to step one.
24:12.054 --> 24:17.416
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's this idea of taking this brush-plating electroplating operation where you'd plate these bursts by hand.
24:18.297 --> 24:20.758
[SPEAKER_01]: I need customers, and we need money to pay the bills.
24:20.898 --> 24:23.460
[SPEAKER_01]: Because again, we never took a dollar about site investment.
24:23.540 --> 24:27.522
[SPEAKER_01]: My credit line was maxed out at 75 grand, a few credit cards.
24:28.282 --> 24:39.606
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm all in and I can't fail and by the way you're at least for me way smarter when you don't have money Because you don't have a choice right you can't just throw money and hope it works It's just just so much smarter.
24:39.786 --> 24:46.848
[SPEAKER_01]: I've made some mistakes because I just clicked the easy button with a lot of money over the last couple of decades I've right had money
24:47.788 --> 24:50.012
[SPEAKER_01]: and if I didn't have money, I would have been a lot smarter.
24:50.032 --> 25:02.250
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, this evolution, I struggled to get to step one and it was probably three years into that journey where I joined a CEO sort of mentorship group, a CEO for.
25:03.452 --> 25:20.292
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been part of a number of them, you know, combined for probably over 40 years and I actually run my own CEO execute mastermind groups now and it's Every leader in these groups, I limit it to aid in each group, our goal is to increase the value of their businesses responsibly and continually over time.
25:20.993 --> 25:29.101
[SPEAKER_01]: So struggling at this to get to step one, okay, we're stable, we're working really hard, but there's some cultural things that we need to work on.
25:29.121 --> 25:30.402
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to feel better here.
25:30.902 --> 25:32.003
[SPEAKER_01]: It came out in necessity.
25:32.023 --> 25:34.726
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't me learning some concept and coming back and applying it.
25:35.086 --> 25:39.330
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like I know we can get more done, more productively, and it can feel a lot better.
25:39.390 --> 25:40.851
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started diving into culture.
25:41.712 --> 25:50.015
[SPEAKER_01]: And then on my gosh, we develop a product and we get a whopping 0.0025% market share penetration and then we immediately develop another product.
25:50.415 --> 25:51.115
[SPEAKER_01]: What's marketing?
25:51.155 --> 25:52.656
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we make other people know about us?
25:53.096 --> 26:04.000
[SPEAKER_01]: So now it's so we went from work hard, now it's going to feel amazing with culture, and then we're going to work smart and get a lot more market share on the things that we want globally.
26:04.500 --> 26:06.621
[SPEAKER_01]: And every single step was about that.
26:06.661 --> 26:09.462
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember when I joined this CEO membership group,
26:10.362 --> 26:20.047
[SPEAKER_01]: And our group probably had 12, 16 members and the chair sat down with me in a meeting between after the first meeting, between the second and first meeting.
26:20.327 --> 26:26.029
[SPEAKER_01]: And he just said, well, here's a list of just to have a conversation, 20 things that healthy companies do well.
26:26.470 --> 26:32.753
[SPEAKER_01]: And looking at the list, I'm like, wow, I think we do a couple of them, okay, most of them, I don't even know what you mean.
26:33.633 --> 26:37.235
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I spent, in fact, I still have stayed in touch with this guy, his and he's my
26:40.116 --> 27:00.726
[SPEAKER_01]: and he's well into his 80s now and and he was like the one of the best things ever for me just really thinking about a business differently and better and if it didn't feel right and it wasn't going as smooth as it should that's where I just doubled down on my healthy struggle to develop the capability to to get through that and have a
27:01.346 --> 27:03.028
[SPEAKER_01]: have a way that I can scale.
27:03.068 --> 27:06.813
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all these things, I wanted to scale and wanted to keep drawing.
27:07.654 --> 27:15.003
[SPEAKER_01]: I just realized that to be healthy a company has to grow in the single biggest limiting factor for my businesses over the years has always been me.
27:15.504 --> 27:15.844
[SPEAKER_01]: Always.
27:16.983 --> 27:26.346
[SPEAKER_01]: If the top leader can't allow it to happen, think it, believe in it, it's probably not going to happen unless it lands on you like a crazy, you know, lottery ticket or something.
27:26.446 --> 27:40.750
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was my mentality and even that company in 93 that we're talking about the aerospace business that I started it, it was probably around, it wasn't until 2001 or 2002 until I was the highest paid person in the company.
27:41.733 --> 27:52.701
[SPEAKER_01]: And even when I sold it, my salary was only $330,000 a year, but I was making long before that, you know, millions of dollars a year because of the profit, I own the majority of the companies.
27:53.741 --> 27:56.363
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a few companies in the group at that time.
27:57.264 --> 27:59.105
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always looked at everything.
27:59.225 --> 28:04.909
[SPEAKER_01]: If I had to find a really good hired gun, what's a reasonable salary or a comp package for that.
28:05.526 --> 28:09.469
[SPEAKER_01]: that person, and I treat it myself that way all the way through.
28:09.489 --> 28:17.015
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to get the trust of the employees, and I know a lot of business owners out there that do these things where they do a lot more personal things.
28:17.736 --> 28:19.357
[SPEAKER_01]: On the business account, then they should.
28:19.377 --> 28:30.406
[SPEAKER_01]: I always treat it as though it's an entity, and I'm a good steward of this thing, and I'm going to treat everybody equitably based on, you know, finding the best talent for each seed, and I would look at myself that way.
28:30.526 --> 28:31.667
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense?
28:32.288 --> 28:34.229
[SPEAKER_01]: It just really fostered a lot of the trust
28:36.117 --> 28:36.282
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:37.338 --> 28:45.740
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look, everything you're saying, I'm just taking mental notes because these are the types of values I want to do while I'm leading and I'm seeing how you were putting it in place.
28:45.780 --> 28:50.321
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I asked a question earlier about like, how do you see this level of trust being rebuilt?
28:50.381 --> 28:56.482
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hearing stories about how you've went forward and did it and how much dividends it paid by doing it right.
28:56.943 --> 29:02.284
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in a culture that is always tempting us to do it fast as opposed to
29:08.065 --> 29:18.231
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always thinking about the longer term, I'm really patient, that marshmallow experiment with kids, you get one, but if you wait, you can get two, if you don't eat it right away when we come back to you at another one.
29:19.011 --> 29:26.435
[SPEAKER_01]: I've waited for a really big marshmallow in a number of situations and I'm good with it because I trust the struggle and what it takes to go through.
29:26.796 --> 29:28.536
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's just talk about trust for a second.
29:28.737 --> 29:33.819
[SPEAKER_01]: Integrity which to me, the way to exemplify that is to do what you say you're going to do.
29:34.220 --> 29:36.041
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, this person does what they say they're
29:36.981 --> 29:38.182
[SPEAKER_01]: that's a unicorn today.
29:38.462 --> 29:45.565
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like any younger adult going into the working field, whatever they're doing, they're getting a job starting a company.
29:46.005 --> 29:49.827
[SPEAKER_01]: If you work for somebody, if you do, you say, well, it's close.
29:49.847 --> 29:50.887
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't 100% of the time.
29:50.907 --> 29:51.788
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll be a unicorn.
29:52.668 --> 29:56.869
[SPEAKER_01]: If you start your own company, do you say, well, because you're now working for your customers.
29:56.889 --> 29:57.789
[SPEAKER_01]: People say, oh, it's great.
29:57.809 --> 30:01.590
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got your own company and it's so great to be on your, you don't have a boss.
30:01.730 --> 30:02.390
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I do.
30:02.431 --> 30:05.691
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got 2,000 bosses around the world that I work for.
30:05.871 --> 30:10.392
[SPEAKER_01]: And I need to do what I said I was going to do every single time for them.
30:10.412 --> 30:12.213
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're doing it as an organization.
30:13.034 --> 30:21.082
[SPEAKER_01]: So organizational trust to me, those that get the most opportunities are the ones that do what they say they're going to do the highest percentage of the time.
30:21.642 --> 30:32.273
[SPEAKER_01]: I even one time, and when I sold the business side about 64 leaders, and probably a year or so before that I set them all down, I said, let's do an organizational trust exercise.
30:32.433 --> 30:35.557
[SPEAKER_01]: And this isn't trusting you as a person to watch my kids or
30:36.220 --> 30:38.322
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, you're going to be honest and that kind of stuff.
30:39.003 --> 30:43.007
[SPEAKER_01]: But on a scale for one to five, we just went around the room and people were voting.
30:43.787 --> 30:46.750
[SPEAKER_01]: Five is they do what they agreed they're going to do a hundred percent at a time.
30:46.770 --> 30:50.354
[SPEAKER_01]: They keep their commitments because we're all independent of the things that we do.
30:50.995 --> 30:52.997
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were a number of ones and two's in the room.
30:53.617 --> 30:56.978
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was kind of weird watching them be uncomfortable as we went through it.
30:57.738 --> 31:07.659
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I believe when you don't do it, and I fully believe this to be true, you just made a judgment call that this is a higher value thing.
31:07.679 --> 31:10.200
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to get this done and let that other things slide.
31:10.220 --> 31:16.181
[SPEAKER_01]: But what we're not realizing when that happens is the ripple effect of others that were depending on you to do this thing.
31:16.641 --> 31:19.421
[SPEAKER_01]: So organizational trust to me is doing what you agreed to do.
31:23.439 --> 31:24.980
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we have an integrity crisis.
31:25.060 --> 31:28.783
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear a lot of folks talk about quite quitting and the cultures and right people aren't.
31:29.063 --> 31:30.564
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just checking out at work.
31:31.305 --> 31:33.747
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's the integrity with all the team members?
31:33.967 --> 31:36.248
[SPEAKER_01]: You agree to do this work for an amount of money.
31:36.288 --> 31:48.878
[SPEAKER_01]: The company is paying you 100% of what they agreed to every single pay period, but somehow it's okay to justify only doing 70, 40, 50% of what you agreed because you're just not happy with the culture.
31:49.438 --> 31:55.689
[SPEAKER_01]: And when people say the culture sucks at my business, I always ask them, what are you doing to impact that?
31:56.070 --> 32:00.938
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the culture is how the team members interact to the business and you're part of it.
32:02.207 --> 32:09.493
[SPEAKER_01]: So dialogue around culture sucks and I shouldn't have to do this or that or you already agreed to do it.
32:09.513 --> 32:11.134
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's the integrity around it?
32:11.654 --> 32:19.460
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not I'm really not letting them off the hook and I just I just think it's a better mindset do what you say you're going to do if you don't like where you're working you want to do something different.
32:19.920 --> 32:25.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Do what you say you'll do be the best you possibly can be as you're doing it while you're looking for something else to do and go do it.
32:26.225 --> 32:33.935
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think that's a reasonable excuse to give half or less or anything less than what you agreed to do for the pay.
32:34.896 --> 32:36.157
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that controversial?
32:36.298 --> 32:38.500
[SPEAKER_01]: As I talked to that, I think it's integrity.
32:38.560 --> 32:44.267
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of those team members that justify I'm not going to do this, even though I'm getting paid fully to do it.
32:45.028 --> 32:54.292
[SPEAKER_01]: If somebody performed a service for them, paint their house or anything else and they only did half of it, painted half the house, it was a wrong color and they wanted to get paid in full liquid and pan.
32:54.692 --> 32:56.513
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a total, it's a total double standard.
32:57.193 --> 33:00.494
[SPEAKER_01]: So you may not like where you work culturally, but you're part of the culture.
33:00.974 --> 33:04.176
[SPEAKER_01]: Leadership to me is creating value within through others.
33:05.176 --> 33:15.326
[SPEAKER_01]: and some of the best leaders I ever worked with on my different businesses didn't have a leadership title, but they they materially influenced the majority of the employees.
33:16.387 --> 33:17.088
[SPEAKER_01]: Like incredible.
33:18.553 --> 33:35.588
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like this is an assumption you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're diving into creating the book, value, creation, family, it seems like you're trying to impact the generation to embrace this integrity and to kind of break that cycle that's creating these quite quitting environments and culture decays, right?
33:36.919 --> 33:38.501
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it starts with a family.
33:38.521 --> 33:43.428
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're complaining about the world, I go back and say, well, what decisions are you making as a family?
33:44.129 --> 33:48.434
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, parents are saying, you know, the schools getting it wrong and they're letting them raise their kids.
33:48.454 --> 33:51.679
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of lowering come families and some middle income families.
33:51.759 --> 33:53.942
[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of have that mindset and they get really frustrated.
33:54.682 --> 33:56.323
[SPEAKER_01]: With a system, well, what are you doing at home?
33:56.363 --> 34:11.369
[SPEAKER_01]: In my view of you're getting it right at home It really doesn't matter and if something isn't great Well, welcome to the world learn through healthy struggles to navigate You know less than ideal situations and people, you know that are out in the world But when I look at families you've got this environment.
34:11.389 --> 34:19.072
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just take the United States where I live and I've been around most of the world So I think this couldn't Reportionally sort of apply
34:20.117 --> 34:26.971
[SPEAKER_01]: But the environments largely the same for families and leaders really at every sort of income level.
34:28.578 --> 34:31.641
[SPEAKER_01]: Why does some climb out of it fast and some don't go backwards?
34:32.321 --> 34:43.150
[SPEAKER_01]: And so within a family, what creates the most value or impact your ability to create the most values of family is that decisions you make within the family or is it the outside environment?
34:43.931 --> 34:48.535
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say the vast majority of it to me are decisions you make within the family.
34:48.555 --> 34:54.800
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about leadership, Jason, how many companies you know or would you guess?
34:54.840 --> 34:56.561
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you know this as statistic.
34:57.362 --> 35:03.304
[SPEAKER_01]: have really cleared the find leadership traits, definitions of what it means to be a leader in the business.
35:04.404 --> 35:10.046
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some that can post it on a website, but as far as having everyone in the organization be aware of that, very little.
35:10.847 --> 35:11.147
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
35:11.787 --> 35:23.251
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you do that and you say we're going to intentionally lead this way, and we want leaders that are good in categories like a management operating system, like consistently doing things that cost the most value be created.
35:23.911 --> 35:31.314
[SPEAKER_01]: that are really good in foundational readiness for growth, growth readiness, and really good as in how they show up as a leader in different leadership traits.
35:31.954 --> 35:51.742
[SPEAKER_01]: In my aerospace company, super clear on all that, most SME, small medium size, you know, enterprise or businesses, they, they don't really have that, they don't understand the value of it, but it is, that was a turning point at my aerospace company when I did that, and the, probably 99, 2000s, like, wow, why are some leaders doing great and others
35:53.283 --> 36:12.056
[SPEAKER_01]: I categorized it and I put it on a giant board with all the leaders, all the general buckets and the categories within each and red green or yellow and every category, and the leaders that were doing well were mostly green, the ones that were doing the worse were mostly red, loan beholden 90 days later, they're almost all mostly green, they're all doing great.
36:12.556 --> 36:15.618
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're intentional about it, it really works.
36:15.658 --> 36:20.422
[SPEAKER_01]: Now go to the family and even smaller percentage of families are defining it.
36:21.022 --> 36:30.111
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I was doing research for value creation family, the book, and it's doing really well in terms of reviews and how it's selling and all that, it's resonating globally.
36:30.531 --> 36:30.992
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
36:31.672 --> 36:43.764
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was doing the research, families could always point to one matriarch or patriarch that was holding the family together, that sort of the glue, and it could be three generations, five generations.
36:44.304 --> 36:50.949
[SPEAKER_01]: But there was always one and not once that I find any one that had a clear definition what it means to be a leader in the family.
36:51.709 --> 37:06.580
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've worked with thousands of high school kids now in the last 12 years or so in smaller groups and young college students, I mean just tons of them and when I get to this point, you know, do you have a matriarch or patriarchy, like almost all of them say yes, there's one strong leader.
37:07.260 --> 37:11.965
[SPEAKER_00]: have you defined what it means to be a leader in the family and not one says you ask no we haven't done it.
37:12.405 --> 37:21.114
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think all of you could be a leader in your family and you just see this weird body language change like well as an epiphany?
37:21.214 --> 37:23.417
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, of course you can't.
37:23.757 --> 37:24.898
[SPEAKER_01]: But if we don't define it,
37:25.939 --> 37:34.601
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a really clear run, how is that going to happen if we're not kind of working on it, and even giving them the idea that you can be a leader in the family.
37:35.441 --> 37:41.143
[SPEAKER_01]: So in dinner table, as you mentioned, you know, 50,000 class parents in our dinner table family community.
37:42.603 --> 37:46.424
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the foundational things is running a monthly family meeting.
37:46.464 --> 37:52.946
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's meetings with the kids and talking about interests and kind of developing them to be these amazing value-creating adults one day.
37:54.115 --> 37:59.680
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a family, you sit down, doesn't take that long, probably 45 minutes to an hour at most.
37:59.700 --> 38:01.261
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it takes for me with my family.
38:01.281 --> 38:03.022
[SPEAKER_01]: But we go through and refine family goals.
38:03.443 --> 38:06.465
[SPEAKER_01]: We go through what it means to be a leader in the family and however everybody's doing.
38:06.485 --> 38:09.808
[SPEAKER_01]: We go through everybody's job for the family and how they're doing.
38:10.308 --> 38:14.952
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love how the little kids, they just like, I have a job for the family and they come totally prepared.
38:15.432 --> 38:30.027
[SPEAKER_01]: We go through the budget, we do budgeting as a team sport, every line item of the budget, the necessities and the ones as long as we have money for it, all family members have one or more line items on the budget, even kids as young as six and seven years old, that they're responsible for.
38:30.467 --> 38:35.573
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a savings goal as a family, we go through that, and we do a family value creation snapshot.
38:36.073 --> 38:39.135
[SPEAKER_01]: How well are we doing and growing on a material value creation piece?
38:39.175 --> 38:43.338
[SPEAKER_01]: How well are we doing on the emotional energy, the positive emotional energy piece, self-talk?
38:43.919 --> 38:55.928
[SPEAKER_01]: How we take care of our health, you know, like everything that goes into a developing, so we feel better, and how are we doing on the spiritual value creation, so when it comes to connectedness with a family and communities, extended family, higher power, whatever that is.
38:55.948 --> 39:01.792
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know I'm going kind of off here, but it's so cool to work with so many families,
39:02.553 --> 39:14.949
[SPEAKER_01]: on intentionally creating value as a family and it's pretty easy to do and it uncovers capacity for parents because people are participating more and consistently over time.
39:15.109 --> 39:16.511
[SPEAKER_01]: Does this resonate as I go through this?
39:17.572 --> 39:30.742
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because it's like it starts at the family and I'm also thinking about how like these are the same principles that we see in business Also including everybody into the decision making you've applied it with them to workspace You're applying it within the family.
39:30.782 --> 39:41.230
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it just brings a lot more accountability brings a lot more people getting invested developing leaders across the board So it does make a lot of sense and I kind of want to pull on something where you created that
39:41.950 --> 40:00.647
[SPEAKER_00]: that leadership understanding and scorecard of what are these behaviors or traits that made you thrive as a leader, is that what touches closer to the previous work you've done around like your most important number like measuring something that creates an exponential value across the board and is it something we should be developing within companies?
40:02.092 --> 40:03.153
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think we should.
40:03.433 --> 40:10.617
[SPEAKER_01]: The number one job and your business owner can grab somewhere you're at and you could go anywhere it can turn into whatever you want it to.
40:10.677 --> 40:13.518
[SPEAKER_01]: There's really no limit to it in my opinion.
40:14.139 --> 40:22.684
[SPEAKER_01]: But the number one job for the top leaders in each organization, you know, the CEOs founders, whatever it is to me is to continually and responsibility increase the value of their business.
40:23.425 --> 40:30.288
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you were going to sell your business and even if you'd never intend to, but if you were, what would that number be?
40:30.509 --> 40:43.495
[SPEAKER_01]: So if it's some version of profit, like EBITDA or whatever, and in your industry you get a multiple of that or it's a multiple of revenue that it depends on the industry, are you consistently growing that over time to have it to be a healthy organization?
40:43.575 --> 40:45.996
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of the most important number.
40:46.036 --> 40:51.239
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I've aligned all of my businesses going back to aerospace and the other seven businesses,
40:53.620 --> 41:01.107
[SPEAKER_01]: I align that and then every single function in the business and I think about the structure of a business like a value creation flow.
41:01.167 --> 41:03.229
[SPEAKER_01]: So who's running awareness?
41:03.369 --> 41:04.030
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, marketing.
41:04.050 --> 41:05.551
[SPEAKER_01]: How does the world even know about us?
41:06.152 --> 41:11.697
[SPEAKER_01]: And then from there we've got turning those into sort of sales qualified leads and then we're closing.
41:12.397 --> 41:14.799
[SPEAKER_01]: The sales were delivering the product or service.
41:15.259 --> 41:17.080
[SPEAKER_01]: We have an ongoing customer experience.
41:17.441 --> 41:34.793
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the support structure below that value creation structure, you know, it's, you know, admin could be finance, could be legal, could be HR, but you've got these support functions, who owns those things and what's their most important number that's most reflective of the value they should be creating for the organization.
41:34.953 --> 41:38.235
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we've set it up right, when they all win together,
41:42.058 --> 41:44.181
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not pick one number in nothing else.
41:44.441 --> 41:49.067
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these most important numbers by functions throughout the organization can be different.
41:50.008 --> 42:00.521
[SPEAKER_01]: And usually R, and there could be five to 50 other numbers that they're measuring leading indicators, et cetera, that help them make better decisions to improve their most important number.
42:01.263 --> 42:08.124
[SPEAKER_01]: So all this goes together, but just think about it, 64 liters of my aerospace company and every one of them had a most important number.
42:08.264 --> 42:11.665
[SPEAKER_01]: And within literally seconds, I could be anywhere in the company.
42:12.145 --> 42:18.046
[SPEAKER_01]: See how they're doing to their plan, their number is whatever they started here, they wanna go there over time.
42:18.606 --> 42:20.266
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see whether they're on track or not.
42:20.666 --> 42:22.367
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see the best work they're doing.
42:22.387 --> 42:25.487
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what are the things they can leverage the drive and proving at number?
42:25.507 --> 42:29.948
[SPEAKER_01]: And that kinda comes down to the mine methodology, the mine management system.
42:30.568 --> 42:39.300
[SPEAKER_01]: Most important number in everything that drives improving it, being able to see that without taking hardly any time to get to lay the land was so valuable for me.
42:39.740 --> 42:41.242
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just crazy valuable.
42:41.843 --> 42:47.650
[SPEAKER_01]: And most leaders, top leaders, when I look at their organization, ask them questions around, but they can't, they can't see that.
42:48.651 --> 43:02.399
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a really simple way to align everybody, to create the most value and if you were to ask your employees in any organization, how do you create value for this business?
43:02.739 --> 43:03.360
[SPEAKER_01]: What would they say?
43:04.280 --> 43:05.762
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's really telling.
43:06.002 --> 43:12.008
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of times they might repeat a job description and it tells me while there's a really good opportunity here if they understood it.
43:12.549 --> 43:21.217
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you look at the business model, the simplest definition I've ever heard and I love it, it's your rationale for creating, delivering, and capturing value.
43:22.013 --> 43:23.594
[SPEAKER_01]: and how does everybody fit into it?
43:23.894 --> 43:33.020
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's really important that we teach our leaders and to some degree, all the team members, how our business model works.
43:33.040 --> 43:35.301
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how we think we can really do this.
43:35.381 --> 43:39.644
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's going to evolve over time because there's no end how we can improve, how we create value and capture it.
43:40.504 --> 43:47.707
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Lee, I think we've wet the appetite for a lot of the listeners, at least for me who's actively listening right now.
43:48.287 --> 44:00.172
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I'm going to encourage for everyone is if what you're hearing aligns with the way that you want to operate in your business, you want to develop your leaders, you want to give them some clarity on what activities actually create value and get a
44:01.573 --> 44:08.479
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to put a link to a lot of resources from these businesses that support individuals to be able to get that kind of alignment.
44:08.539 --> 44:16.045
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you do a lot of calls with people that are filling up the surveys, doing the assessment and getting a chance to get a reflection on how well they're doing.
44:16.445 --> 44:24.132
[SPEAKER_00]: So we want to make sure that there's a link within the show notes so that if you want to get on the phone, want to be able to have that kind of conversation, you will be able to do that.
44:24.232 --> 44:26.834
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to grab a copy of the book, you're most important number.
44:27.254 --> 44:34.597
[SPEAKER_00]: It will go deeper into the mind methodology, it will help you kind of diagnose and set how you want to operate to be a lot more effective in the process.
44:35.077 --> 44:45.441
[SPEAKER_00]: And if what resonate with you a lot during this conversation is how to take these kinds of principles and bring it within the family system, then of course, value creation family that just came out fantastic literature.
44:45.481 --> 44:47.882
[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what you can apply in the family because
44:48.422 --> 45:11.954
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like you're creating not only the positive ripples that you've had in the industry that you've worked with creating kind of that legacy by being able to impact people at the family level, the community level and that's really where it seems like I mean you're in America right now and it sounds like we were mission will be making the grassroot impact within the American culture so people are value-created oriented and seeing how that solves so much of the problems we face today.
45:12.614 --> 45:16.017
[SPEAKER_00]: but I got carried into this conversation.
45:16.198 --> 45:21.142
[SPEAKER_00]: I love everything that you're bringing for the way that you're managing, the way that you're running the family.
45:21.523 --> 45:22.644
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really inspiring.
45:22.824 --> 45:24.425
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that I'm walking away with.
45:24.926 --> 45:31.272
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to dive back into my own way of looking at my mindset and value I want to create in the organization I'm representing.
45:31.652 --> 45:47.006
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know there's a few adjustments I need to do when it comes to looking at these numbers, sharing that accountability and making sure there's some transparency around, but it's truly remarkable to hear what you've done in your organization, how you embrace challenges that makes me want to be digging more into your work.
45:47.046 --> 45:50.269
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure that for the listeners are having a bit of a similar feeling right now.
45:50.389 --> 45:51.710
[SPEAKER_00]: But Lee, thank you.
45:51.911 --> 45:53.612
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for sharing and everything you're doing.
45:54.857 --> 46:03.282
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me, and by the way, our parents in our dinner table community are from over, I think it was 67 and 70 countries.
46:03.843 --> 46:05.724
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're all over the world on that.
46:06.544 --> 46:13.468
[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing I love doing, I have a community called Leadership Value Lab, and every month I do a live call, there's lots of resources around it.
46:14.129 --> 46:17.371
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can learn about that at etw.com.
46:17.511 --> 46:19.312
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really cool community to become.
46:19.792 --> 46:40.834
[SPEAKER_01]: continually talk about this stuff over time and if you want to know more about dinner table go to dinnertable.com and you can see the programs that are going on there and I think that I mean I fully believe we if we get this right for more families around the world it's a better world for all of us to interact with so selfishly I want a better world to interact with.
46:41.855 --> 46:52.008
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's why I do it and my whole purpose is driving holistic value creation behaviors in the world, material, emotional and spiritual in the right balance for every individual and every organization.
46:52.661 --> 46:57.342
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I will finish with this, seeing all the musical instruments that you have behind you.
46:57.362 --> 46:59.683
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like you've always been creating some sort of melody.
47:00.123 --> 47:06.744
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the beat that you're playing and I think if a lot more people are dancing to that beat, I agree the world will be much better in the process.
47:07.424 --> 47:09.265
[SPEAKER_00]: Lee, a fantastic conversation.
47:09.305 --> 47:13.306
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad to connect with you and for everybody who just discovered Lee for the first time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, all the resources mentioned are gonna be in the show notes so you can take the next step, take the next action and dive into these incredible resources that can support you and your personal and your business life as well.
47:26.508 --> 47:31.061
[SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Jason Mark Campbell, and this is The Selling With Love podcast.
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