Chris Hallberg, The Business Sergeant – From Prison Sergeant to Business Sergeant: Building Elite Teams, Strong Culture, and Entrepreneurial Freedom

Boy Scouts just wasn't enough in my teens.

So that's where the National Guard comes in.

~ a little different. You know,

you get to blow stuff up, not just like ~ tie knots and and and learn first aid.

And now I'm in this civilian world just helping people beautify their property,

like this too easy. I can't believe you could make,

you know, four or five times the money with a hundred times less danger and stress.

Like a a unicorn is rare. So like unicorns don't like to be penned

up with with jackasses and I see it all the time.

So like if we want to create a unicorn preserve,

that's like the funny part of it,

but that's real. I have teams that are ninety-five percent unicorns

and five percent junior unicorns.

Hey there, and welcome to From the Ground Up Show,

the show where we encourage and inspire the next generation of free thinking leaders

by telling the stories of those that have been there,

done that, and are still getting it done.

Building a life that they love with their hearts,

their hands, and their hustle.

I am your host, Erick Loden. If you guys get anything at all out of the show,

help me out. Like, follow, share,

subscribe on your favorite podcast platform on YouTube and on social media.

pause the show for just a moment,

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helps us move up in the algorithm and gets the content out there to more leaders

and business thinkers to ~ make their businesses better,

their lives better for their employees,

their families, and their customers.

So today, ~ this should be a fun one.

I am joined by the business sergeant,

Chris Hallberg. Chris is a former National Guard and Correction Officer,

turned business specialist. He scaled and sold a successful remodeling company

during the Great Recession and now offers his expertise to others

as a business consultant. He is also the author of the Business Sergeant's Field

Guide. Chris, thank you for joining us.

this should be fun. I'm excited to have you.

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on,

Erick.

Well we like to start every show going clear back to the beginning.

we like to learn a little bit about you and where you came from and what kind

of life experience produces a person like you.

So ~ do you mind starting out telling us just a little bit about your childhood?

Well, I think my mom and dad met in college.

r that's really early, you know,

and then we don't need to describe the rest of how that all worked out.

Okay, great. So ~ you know, so I was born in ~ December of nineteen seventy-two.

So that makes me what fifty-three years old.

the gray is starting the the the pe the salt is overcoming the pepper in

a lot of places here ~ w in my life.

But ~ all joking aside, you know,

I grew up ~ in the twin cities,

Minneapolis, St. Paul.

Where it's 40 degrees ~ below zero.

I had to walk to school both ways.

~ it was uphill one's one way,

not the other. But ~ but ~ basically I I ~ was not a great student.

~ back then they just I spent the majority of my school in the hallway because

my teachers all said, Hey, no you you you're way too disruptive.

Like no one's gonna pay you to talk all day.

You lean to learn how to be quiet and be a better worker.

So like eventually I proved them wrong.

because essentially I run this thing,

you know, most days all day. and I think school is for workers,

right? ~ entrepreneurs, influencers,

~ interrupters, you know, the A kids are the managers managing the B students,

who all work for a C student and the the billionaire probably a D student.

So like you s you see everything they tell you it's not necessarily true.

And ~ you know, learning disabled,

you know, neurodivergent, you know,

hyper ADD, got bored easily,

but I loved activities. So I was like the president of my decada thing

in school and thesbian society student council,

like basically a politician, like before that was a thing.

So like wasn't a great athlete,

but had a gift for the gap, loved bringing people together,

leading teams.

volunteer for anything. So Boy Scouts just wasn't enough in my teens.

So that's where the National Guard comes in.

~ a little different. You know,

you get to blow stuff up, not just like ~ tie knots and and and learn first aid.

So, you know, I did a nine year career in a bunch of different uniforms,

full time, 20 years old, super maximum security,

~ prison five stories underground,

never been an escape even to this day.

super, super ~ interesting place to be 20 as a corrections officer.

By 23, made sergeant in the Department of Corrections at a medium security facility.

So 23 years old, in charge of,

you know, 100 inmates and six officers,

now my current age, essentially.

So very young leader, ~ and volunteered for everything,

made rank fast everywhere I went because I have two speeds,

on and off, Erick.

My wife jokes, she likes to hit me with a a dart at about nine thirty,

ten thirty PM and like wherever it hits me,

that's where you'll find me in the morning.

All the way on, all the way off.

Not a lot of gears in the middle,

which can be a blessing. And it's also a curse,

I assure you. So like basically the typical be quiet,

no one wants to listen to you,

experience. And now, you know,

I'm fortunate to come onto your show and,

you know, be able to, you know.

Preach against that and say, Hey,

we we all have unique skills. And ~ what I do now and spend my time doing

now as a husband of twenty-eight years,

a father to two great sons, twenty one and eighteen.

They're both musicians. So there's a lot of fun rock music in the house

and and we love that. But you know,

as an entrepreneur for the last,

I don't know, what would you say?

~ probably ~ pushing twenty years as an entrepreneur.

Help other people scale businesses after getting out all those uniforms.

I just love people. Not all people,

the right people. There's

Ha ha ha.

a lot of people that, yeah, I don't I don't see the utility here.

But what's neat about business and human relationships and being great

is became the business sergeant once I understood personal branding.

And when you hire the business sergeant.

You're not hiring a Sunday school teacher to romance your issues

or tiptoe around your tulip field.

You're hiring someone to come in and call the balls and strikes and,

you know, get everyone committed,

fired up, and liberate those that aren't and replace those with those that are.

I coach EOS or the entrepreneurial operating system,

EOS, the traction program. I've been doing that for twelve plus years.

Great system to align and synchronize all the moving parts of a business.

So I've really enjoyed

implementing EOS in about 135 companies.

I have my business sergeant brand,

which is a veteran powered recruiting company.

We get like, you know, my partner is a Green Beret ~ veteran who's only been

out for a year and a half. So we have access to all these superhumans that want

to go do business stuff. And they're so smart and so well trained,

you know, you can put them in any almost any business.

Like 90% of the businesses could just take a world class leader and then teach them

what you do.

And the other 10%, nuclear fission,

like just you do that. We'll be over here ~ doing that.

And then I have a software brand.

I'm a big fan ~ of of software sp this software is a specifically

EOS licensed product called Go Expand.

So, like, I sold my last business,

the energy efficient remodeling company,

in twenty eleven when I had like employees and stuff,

and I've just been coaching CEOs and their leadership teams ever since,

and now I have

The software brand, I have the the veteran-powered recruiting brand.

And I'm just having fun because I have what we call integrators in the EOS process,

you know, chief operating officers,

presidents. You know, I have a team that runs a software company.

I come and go as I please. You know,

I'm talking about a right here.

I'm doing my job as we speak. and then the recruiting company,

like I said, I have a team that runs that.

So I get to just be

A visionary entrepreneur with two brands,

and I still have basically a part-time coaching practice.

So what what does that all mean,

Erick? That's a lot. Is I'm living the life that I've always wanted,

that I can have a huge impact,

spend time with people, you know,

be compensated appropriately, have time for other passions,

right? That EOS life we talk about.

And I'm blessed to be here to talk to you today and

Be happy to share any of these tips and tricks it takes to build a world-class team.

my clients do all the work. I just come up with some crazy ideas and some

of those actually are scalable.

So that's the way I like to look at it.

And and ~ like I said, pleasure to be here today.

That's fantastic. I'm ~ I'm a little bit envious.

I would love to be sitting in the chair you're in and ~ hopefully someday

I can get there. But

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every day, sweating in the hot sun,

I was always frustrated that my clothes really didn't get clean.

They would be stiff uncomfortable to wear.

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I know you you kinda hopped right over it there.

You went from school straight into the National Guard.

what was that decision like? Did did you ever consider a college education?

Was college ever on the table?

what were some of the considerations you looked at?

Yeah. Well, I I came from a a pretty modest family.

So the the guard and the GI Bill was the answer to that.

But I had so much fun actually applying ~ the skills that I had learned

in the military police corps and the Army National Guard and the corrections that

I found myself just doing the work that one would go to school to do,

right?

Yeah.

And I didn't really appreciate like I was explaining the confines

Like the discipline and the structure of the army,

yeah, you you you're not gonna change that.

You're gonna you you're gonna bend before that one does.

But like, you know, that high school or or w what I perceived college to be like,

like I just said, including kindergarten,

right? I had 13 years of programming and that was enough for me.

So I was at least gonna do a gap year or three,

and then ultimately it just got back to I just was full time working.

And thought, do I really want to go get this piece of paper?

And it's probably important for a little bit later in life,

not knowing about AI and Google and not having to memorize random shit,

and and the utility of that, right?

And getting an underwater BB stacking degree,

right? Liberal arts, something like that,

you know, they they don't have a lot of use in today's society,

right? And now they told everybody go out and learn how to code software.

You'll you'll always be valuable and

And now we're going through the AI interruption.

So like I think I think the the thing here is all the people that know what

you should do really don't know ~ what's coming.

No.

And I kind of lean into that. And everyone's an entrepreneur,

like if they want to be. what's the old saying?

Everyone wants to be a gangster until it's time to do gangster shit.

Yeah.

So I think it's

the same thing with entrepreneurialism.

Like maybe 10% of the

Population is wired for this kind of stress and operation tempo and super high highs

and super low lows. Most people kind of want to have a some stability

and some regularity in their life.

But for those that are like never fit in,

go against the grain. Like I have an Android.

My whole family has iPhones. Like I'm that guy.

Like whatever else is doing, I almost always want to do the opposite thing because

that's just kind of how I like to be different.

or ~ or somewhat unique I g I guess.

But you know, being unique doesn't make you useful.

it it just, you know, lets you kind of do things your own way.

So you you dove into my next question there a little bit.

I can guess what your opinion's gonna be,

but you know, you have two now adult sons as they were reaching the

end of high school. what is your opinion of a formal education now?

How did you advise your sons ~ as they reach that point in their life?

Well, we actually homeschooled both of them.

there were a couple of years where they went to school,

~ formative years. I thought that was important.

But once once we got into corona here in Colorado,

~ the government kind of lost their way with like telling you kind of

how to live your life a little more than I'd liked.

And then the schools were ten times worse.

You know what I mean? You see the meme of the kids in band with

the surgical mask with the hole cut so they could play their instrument,

you know. I like

If you understand anything about infectious diseases or common sense,

you have like four brain cells or more,

you are safe or you are unsafe.

There is not like a gray middle ground where you're like almost safe,

kind of safe, somewhat safe. So,

like understanding ~ that and seeing that the rules,

I'm just like, nope, we're gonna do this.

So think about you know, them starting businesses.

My oldest son won a worldwide guitar competition in 2018.

Young guitarist of the year, you know,

for the world, the big the big contest that he won in London.

And he's, you know, got an album and a new single out.

So he's like a a ~ practicing,

you know, artist who who so we created a record company and we produced

an album and you know, for a senior project,

Hunter Hallberg, sh shameless plug.

If you like instrumental

Yeah.

guitar music, the the boy is a phenom.

so we did kind of a practical thing where hey,

I have some business work. I need you guys to help me with some client work.

So instead of going to a traditional school,

we did they we still had to follow the the ~ the county or the state,

whoever that was stuff, but it's it's pretty easy.

All that stuff is an open book test,

when you have the internet. so they obviously got that experience and

and so to answer your question.

I had such a poor experience with formal education.

~ where like, hey, could we just,

you know, do it at home? And the answer is yeah,

but there's a horticulture ~ class,

meaning the pine cones and the pine needles gotta get we have a a couple

of acres here. So their schooling involved a bunch of running the household,

learning about life, helping me with business and being good humans.

So we did things a little differently at our house.

And I have two super smart, well adjusted,

handsome young guys who who I'm very proud to call my sons.

But ~ they're not good at waiting in lines.

they don't like to, you know, be in environments where we know we're

not speaking the truth. So, you know,

I've got some mini-mees, and and and that's the neat thing about having kids.

But they're also quite different.

And I'm in awe of their abilities,

~ and they help me many times to to to be a

a better person and you learn a lot from the innocence of children and

as they come up and you know what I mean you look back and you're like,

yeah, I didn't do a good job with that.

I did a really good job with that.

Or I won't even

Ha

take credit for this. I don't know sure how this happened,

but it did. So we're gonna take a W on that.

So I think there's lesser and lesser utility to that.

Now at the same time

You know, going to school or certainly going to college is like even after drinking

too much and staying up too late for four years,

you still have to go to class,

you still have to pass, your GPA can't be trash if you're really trying

to be competitive in the workspace.

So what I think it is, it's kind of like it's an in it's a it's

an unpaid internship. Can you show up not disheveled at eight or nine a.m.

for four years in a row?

without being arrested more than a couple of times.

So like so

Yeah.

that's my joke. That at college and high school to some degree,

you know, lower school, it's about how into learn to interact with other humans.

So I think if if anything they missed,

right, was that. But we had a a a cooperative,

a homeschool group. And the kids that they entered homeschool with at when they were

five or six were the same kids they graduated with at 18.

There's the same group of

You know, shout out to all the homeschool moms,

my wife included, who lugged.

Just think about your school and my school.

We went on one or two field trips a year and they were the greatest days.

Every week they are going on some amazing behind the scenes access field trip.

So I actually think that their experience was pretty awesome.

they agree when we talk about it.

And I don't think, you know, setting your kids to be programmed by people.

is necessarily the the right thing to do.

And now it's never been easier,

you know, to to get access to information.

So other than the social stuff,

which we acknowledged and and had a plan for that.

So they were well socialized, because there's a lot of joke about homeschool kids.

Yeah.

And I remember the homeschool kids when I was a kid

and they weren't the most social kids.

So that was my concern is that they were able to,

you know, find a pack and run with it.

We were able to figure that out through Taekwondo and their home school group and,

you know, church and other activities to to make sure they were socially rounded,

~ if not academically rounded as well.

close friends, he chose to go the homeschool route.

Him and I discussed that a lot.

~ both of us have similar opinions to you as far as school and how

it should be done. And he said that yeah,

when he was growing up, you know,

there was all the jokes about the weird homeschool kids and and most

of the homeschool kids he knew were weird.

But when he sat down and really thought about it,

the weird homeschool kids came from weird families and they were just weird kids.

And so he thought, you know.

Is it that homeschooling made the kids weird,

or was it just that the weird kids were the ones doing homeschooling when

we were a kid? And ~ I think having watched his kids grow up and

the experience I have with my own kids and as a parent,

I think he nailed that. It's weird families produce weird kids and it's

it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with homeschooling.

Yeah, I I think you're right there.

I mean, kids and adults and you know humans in general.

I'm like, I talk to clients all the time and say,

listen, like your job isn't to take broken humans and fix them.

Your job is to locate unbroken somebody else's kids,

right? And then onboard them onto your team.

Because well, how do I put this here?

Society is not putting more accountable kids out on the street.

I think like

Public education, like the spending's up,

but the results are down because it's bureaucratic,

you know, virtual signaling. It's become politicized and weaponized.

And it's it's not a healthy environment where like free thinking happens,

right? Universities used to be a place of great discussion.

Now you like you think this way or you get canceled.

So it's like no longer. So I think there was an arc,

right, in American society where all of that made sense.

~ it's just it's changed. And I think that one thing social media and you know,

democratization of ~ media in general.

And, you know, it used to be Walter Cronkite said,

and this is the news, and everyone believed him.

Now, you know, network news is not believed very it's under

ten percent confidence because you know,

they don't report on the news,

they just give clickbait headlines.

So I think like even young people today know that it's a lot of bullshit out there.

And

And you get to opt in. You got to double opt into the life you want to live.

And like I think about like when I was a kid,

like having a bunch of tattoos,

you must be a felon. you have a child out of wedlock,

you must be this or whatever. And now we look at society society today,

and all the stuff people used to get so uptight about isn't even like

a thing we worry about today. Now people are found other things to be uptight about,

and they're equally as dumb.

But they're just new things. So,

you know, society moves forward and you know what I mean?

We need our heroes, we need our villains.

That's like the storyline of life,

as a human being. But, you know,

one could say, I wish we could go back,

right? You get all the memes being in a wooden spoon survivor,

Yeah.

right? Born in the 70s, like fully like awake in the eighties and nineties.

Like, I'm not gonna lie. Like,

I think these kids got a pretty crappy deal today.

You know, these high school kids are treated like adults,

right? there weren't cell phones around,

you know, cameras everywhere. I I would I would be in jail versus working

at one if you know what I mean,

I have said that many times, yeah.

from 16 to 19, you know, if

all that stuff was documented.

So like I I think there's some advantages to being a young person today,

~ but I don't know. ~ I I I I think it's outside of our control.

And, you know, your job as a human is to adapt.

That's what humans are good at.

It's the best thing about us and it's the worst thing about us is we can

get used to anything. So I that's a bit of a rant,

but you know, life is what you make it,

and what works at your house doesn't need to work at my house or vice versa.

You know,

Yeah.

that's the beautiful thing about America.

you know, the land of the free,

free speech, and it's pretty neat to be a part of ~ you know,

the greatest nation in history of civilization.

I agree a hundred percent. Well,

this is not necessarily what we're here to talk about today,

but ~ you hopped over it really fast.

I found it pretty interesting.

Tell me a little bit more about this max security prison that's five stories

underground. What what does that look like?

what kind of people wind up there?

What was your role? can you run us through that real quick?

Yeah, so the facility opened in nineteen eighty-two.

I started there in nineteen ninety-two,

ninety-three. I want to say early ninety-three,

actually. And the name of the facility is called the Oak Park Heights Correctional

Facility. It's in Minnesota, it's built into the side of a riverbank.

So you roll up to the parking lot and it's a one level,

but it looks like a junior high school,

one level one. And then it's, you know,

has five levels underground with a a yard in the middle.

Never been an escape. the only way to get out of there is probably,

you know, by a couple of h gunship helicopters.

~ like, like no one's climbing out of there,

high security, layers and layers of technology,

and a place where at that supermax tag,

you have to do something really,

really bad at another prison to be there,

Okay.

or you need to be on the news famous for your crimes to spend your first couple

of years there to.

high control situation. So it was the worst of the worst.

Quite a few federal inmates that were escaperists at other facilities because they

had money or gang influences. So lots of famous inmates,

you know, people they made movies about,

so kind of like the place to be.

And their philosophy was really interesting.

And I think it hasn't changed much.

and it's a ton of privileges if you're getting along and absolutely nothing

if you're not. So it was a

really a bipolar example of all right,

you're here for 400 years. Like we're not here to punish you,

right? You know, that that's not what corrections is.

They're not really rehabilitating either.

They're just kind of you're on a timeout from the world is the best

way to to explain it. so the philosophy was unique,

you know, it's very low homicide rate per person.

So it's a very

you know, safe. I mean, don't get me wrong,

there's they still have issues.

It's a maximum security prison.

But it was just truly ~ kind of statistically an anomaly in

the maximum security prison game.

So ~ it was more about respect and dignity and and your reputation

and and talking to people because when someone's got five life sentences,

they can just kill you for being

Yeah.

a petty, you know, writing you up for this,

right? Like the guys like, I mean they just snap and they wouldn't even take them

to court because

They're already not getting out.

So just imagine, right? ~ there's guns on the roof,

right? There's a perimeter, there's weapons that can come out,

but day-to-day correctional officers are unarmed because any of the weapons could

be instantly procured by the, you know,

20 to 1 or whatever, you know,

three officers to 50, some inmates,

~ one in a secure bubble, you know,

and the other two who are expendable.

So you learn to be really good at de-escalating situations.

And speaking. Like here's a quick example,

right? Like being a being a rookie and being in that environment where some convict

had, you know, is a very senior gang leader,

highly respected and feared by everyone,

except for the new guy who's kind of feeling his uniform and you know,

spent a few years in the Army National Guard and thinks he's big stuff,

you know. ~ then noticing doing a a line of searches,

like, hey, what's in your hand?

The guy says, nothing. And then you say,

let me see.

And then I just realized, ooh,

I just disrespected this gang leader.

and and and the coaching was after.

Next time, just say open your hand.

If you ask somebody a question and then you instantly don't believe them,

that was disrespectful. You you something sharp might land in your soft parts

if you continue down that road.

So that was a little kind of a wake up to be like,

~ yes, we're in charge because they allow it.

and

you know, twice during my career,

one disturbance there and another disturbance.

We we're not going to call riots because we put them down in a matter of

an hour or two in each location.

But if you've ever lost control of a situation for even just a little bit,

I assure you, ~ not a not not fun,

not something you want to repeat.

So to go through two of those and make it out the other side,

~ respect is the the currency and

That was the the biggest kind of,

ooh, okay. So when you work in a life and death environment for a number of years,

you gain a certain respect for humans and their capabilities.

So like a bad day at the office in a coaching session or,

you know, leadership team thing.

this is sucks. We're all gonna die,

or we're gonna like, what are we gonna do?

Like, hey, everybody, story time.

This is

This is like a wonderful place to be right now.

Even though everything isn't perfect,

let's have a little story time here.

This is what a bad day at work looks like,

right? You're, you know, putting your insides back in,

or you know what I mean, you're covered in in stuff and in it and it's

not a great experience. So I think that perspective has helped me kind

of help other people see that I I know in a in you're making this a big deal.

But it's really not a big deal.

And as soon as you decide that this is no longer a big deal and it's

not going to control you, it won't.

~

Yeah.

so really understanding, and you get a fair amount of time to,

you know, talk to people and you know,

I've I've learned a lot of life lessons from people that made a really big mistake.

And when you realize that, like,

you know, fifty some percent of homicides are alcohol influenced,

and you know, the another percentage are drug fueled.

You know, make these are some pretty normal people in a lot of cases,

just made a really bad decision or three in a row.

And now they're like in a place that,

you know, you think you're having a bad day.

I assure you, they have a bad day every day,

whether they want to or not. so that was just really kind of a lesson in humanity,

~ not a course that just anyone can take.

So I I feel like that's some advantages understanding the full spectrum.

of the human psyche, you know,

hope of gain, fear of loss. These are all interpersonal communication skills that

I brought into the business world.

And ~ you know, they're effective.

man, I'm sure we could I bet you have some stories.

We could probably chat about that for hours.

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I wanna

Yeah.

move into your next big transition.

as you move from correctional officer into ~ entrepreneur and business owner,

w what was the impetus for that transition and what did that look like?

Well, I I ~ left Department of Corrections and then worked for a couple

of sheriffs' office, ~ ending as a deputy sheriff,

which is ultimately what I wanted to do is get out of the correctional environment,

work a road environment. But the reality of of of that is that's just

a a different set of rules, right?

And when I was at at a ~ a sheriff's office

and realized that the

Tuesday, Wednesdays off, working 11 at night to seven in the morning

and getting punched in the face on a regular basis.

At some point, I realized there's some other things that I could do.

So I started selling part-time in in sales,

doing construction sales, and you know,

made about four or five months' worth of income in my first month of deputy

as a salesperson and thought, ooh,

~ this looks fun. So

You know, got out of all my different uniforms in nineteen ninety-nine

and got into sales, became a sales manager,

became a sales executive, and then started,

you know, a series of businesses.

Some I sold, some I crashed, some I I I abandoned,

you know, typical ADD business owner.

but when I realized that all those inner personnel communication skills,

no one's trying to stab me right now.

I'm just asking for someone's business.

And you when you're in hostage negotiations situations or life

and death like conversations, confrontations,

and you can excel in that environment.

And now I'm in this civilian world just helping people beautify their property,

like this too easy. I can't believe you could make,

you know, four or five times the money with a hundred times less danger and stress.

So it was one of those things I didn't want to do 20 years in a gold watch because

the average correction person retires at 55 and dies at 58.

It is not a profession for long,

healthy retirements. It is a hard job,

lots of caffeine, lots of nicotine,

lots of alcohol, lots of divorce,

lots of sadness. And saw the writing on the wall,

saw this opportunity.

crushed it and said, okay, we're gonna close uniform Chris and we're gonna start

civilian Chris. And ~ that was a very exciting time ~

Yeah.

to transition, but I didn't want to lose it.

I loved it. so that's that personal branding.

I'm gonna be the business sergeant and that'll give me license to give some

hoo rahs and some colorful language and some very direct communication,

some, you know

Really inspirational. Let's go be awesome.

that's not awesome. What are you gonna do about that?

Okay, you're okay. You need to go and use that military team building mindset

to help civilians. And 93% of civilians never served.

Only 7% of Americans are considered veterans.

So it was kind of neat to bring like some of that style to folks that never

experienced that. And it was fun for them and it was fun for me.

And

Now, you know, ~ twenty five, twenty-six,

twenty-seven years later, almost thirty years,

people still like the whole shtick.

and that's all I know. That's just being genuine.

And I think, you know, leaning into who you are and being a hundred percent your

authentic self has been one of the most liberating great life experiences.

And I highly recommend it to everyone.

Even if you think you can't do it,

somebody's gonna love what you do.

I assure you. It's a big world.

That's some good advice. So was there some fear that came with that change

of of leaving the regimented officer military lifestyle to first go into sales

and then l leaving a a sales job working for someone else to actually starting

it yourself and being the the the person with the most in and putting your entire

livelihood in your own hands?

Yeah, that's a little scary, but you know,

you know, paying in taxes my first year of what my salary was made it

a little bit easier. So just having instant gratification,

that it wasn't scary at all. It's like this is liberating,

this is freeing. You know, here are the rules.

Don't break the law, be a good human and have fun.

a very short set of just basic civilian worker rules.

~ so to me, I miss being part of the team.

Like most people don't miss the pay,

the hours, the the the weather conditions,

the sleeping conditions in the military.

Most people miss those relationships.

So I I've done an okay job, you know,

keeping in contact with a lot of people I served with,

and that feels great. because I can't remember all the crazy stories,

but they remind me from time to time,

and I really appreciate appreciate that.

But no, it wasn't it wasn't scary.

Now the discipline

The roll call, the uniform inspection,

the learning all these acronyms.

Here's the process for this disaster.

Here's how we do this dangerous thing.

Yeah, I I it's just you just learn new things.

~ so you take that capacity and you just vector it other people.

So wasn't scary for me, but going from a,

you know, safe government salary,

great benefits, job security up the wazoo.

Dude, I've been on a hundred percent commission since nineteen ninety-nine.

I haven't really had a salary or any stable things in my life.

It's it's been go out and create a future for almost thirty years.

And I wouldn't trade that for anything,

because you know, obviously the ROI can be really good or it can be really bad.

But I I'll I'll take betting on yourself.

because if you don't like your boss,

you can just have a conversation in the mirror with that boss.

Ha ha ha.

And

you can get things fixed. If you've got a shitty boss and they're

ten years from retirement, well,

this is gonna hurt. And I like to joke like TV shows like The Office,

like that stuff's hilarious. Unless you're kind of in the cast and you have

a Dwight Troot ~ and a Michael Scott in your field office,

and it's less it's less amusing when that's your real life.

So like ~ stay away from those TPS reports,

they can they can get you.

Good stuff. Good stuff. Well,

when you were building your remodeling and construction company,

w what was the most difficult step building a business when maybe

you didn't have the experience that you have now today?

Ooh, finding the right people,

right? back to what I was saying,

your your job isn't to take broken humans and then repair them in the workforce.

Your job is to identify people that have the correct attributes,

that have a good work ethic, can communicate,

can express their feelings, you know,

really wanna be with like minded people who care and go above and beyond.

And when you can curate a team like that,

there's very little management.

It's more curation, like

assembling the Avengers, not managing the Avengers.

I think Captain America might actually be in charge of the Avengers,

but you wouldn't really know. Like they're all superheroes that don't require

a lot of management. So I'd rather assemble a small team of Avengers than

a large team of corporate lemmings.

right. You know, and and and I think

being privately held, being entrepreneurial,

is where you can create your own reality.

And and I and I don't want to knock,

you know, working in a big corporation because there's certainly some good ones,

but most of them are just like the sitcom.

And when you've got two kids in college and that stuff's expensive

and you just heard the dumbest idea on the planet and they ask for feedback,

you have to capture that and hop push it down inside because they don't really want

to hear that it's a dumb idea.

That's a rhetorical question.

when someone says, Hey, am I crazy?

And the answer should be like,

Yeah, all the time. Look at the last 14 things that failed.

right. ~ so I I I think like really creating your own world happens

by you having enough control over it,

even if control is a construct and we could get all esoterical

and spiritual about what do you really control?

It's a it's a much smaller list than than what people attempt,

myself included.

Right. You can control your attitude,

how you respond to things, your views,

like the little things you get to vote on,

the little things that you have say in.

It's a very small list. The things that you try to influence or control,

it's a much larger list. And it it really doesn't work that.

Once in a while you get lucky with some happenstance,

and then you think you did that.

So that empowers you to keep down that.

So the older I get now 53, I realize that control.

Cont control is largely a construct.

And what you can do is plan a fill flag and say,

this is who we are, this is what we do,

this is why we exist. This is who we help.

And we love doing it. Are there any of you else out there who feel

the same way about this? And then a few hands raise up,

and then yeah, that you can come in.

Other people are like, Yeah, it's cool.

I could take it or leave it. Ooh,

there we are. ~ so when you spend a third of your life with people.

you know, that would leave for another dollar an hour.

That's a very mercenary, very,

you know, subjective experience versus,

you know, the best teams are slow to hire and quick to fire.

most teams are very quick to hire and very slow to fire.

So not everybody feels the same way I do,

and that's okay. You know, you can create your own adventure on this rock.

and that's I'm all about that personal freedoms and personal choice.

But I choose to spend my time with people that if you're gonna spend eight

to ten hours away from your loved ones,

whole reason why you work, right?

Not just to have some meaning and purpose,

but to drag a big bag back for your family so they can have these great experiences,

right? Because you've figured this out.

That's what's exciting to me, is to share that dream with other like minded people.

And for other people I want to operate differently,

bless your heart, knock yourself out.

It's just that.

being mediocre, like doing the minimum necessary every week not to get fired,

which pretty much sums up all those shows

Ha ha ha.

and most, you know, American workers,

right? that that that never appealed to me.

Go big or go home was kind of how I was raised,

or that was kind of my etho. My spirit animal as a child was probably

a lion or tiger or some other animal that's pretty,

but you wouldn't want to hang out with one for a while.

So I think

Yeah.

I think, you know, people burn at different pilot lights,

you know what I mean? The ~ you you've met people,

their pilot like a little it's flickering,

a little bit of breeze and that thing's out.

And then other people it burns like all the time.

I I'm more of the latter, not

Yeah.

the former. And that's not for everyone.

So like being t back to personal branding and being your authentic self,

which is like if we're getting into the advice stage,

right, in your intro, you do you.

I'll do me. And if if if that's compatible and you're liking that,

I'm liking that, let's keep that going.

But let's not assume that we're both going to be the same me's 10 years from now.

And, you know, being a human, it's evolution,

baby. Like I'm not the same person I was five years ago.

Thank God for that. Or five years before that,

or or even five years from now.

And I'm excited to where things are heading.

And if anything scary, it's the robots and

Like the destabilization. What's even scary to me are the people in charge

of all this stuff. Like I don't have a lot of confidence in them.

So that's what scares me is our politicians are children,

you're who are just, you know,

robbing people blind in the guise of helping people.

And they probably do a little bit of that.

Like you gotta put up the facade.

but yeah, I I if I look at like technology and AI and

just relationships, like this whole pat batch of kids these days.

What was important to me at eighteen,

my youngest son Hayden, like none of the stuff that was important to

me at eighteen is important to him.

So it's really interesting to kind of see the evolution or,

you know, the degradation of some parts of society and and the evolution of others.

Yeah, you don't accept the ~ the Jim Halpert recipe for success to

do mediocre work half heartedly.

Yeah, no, I

I that's never been my jam. And,

you know, bless him and all those that subscribe to that thought,

but

Yeah.

that's not me, and that's not how we operate here.

and that's that free will that I'm expressing here.

Yeah.

And I'm not knocking anyone who thinks that's awesome.

That's just not me. That's not how I vibrate.

That's not my frequency that I'm operating on.

Yeah. That reminds me of another ~ a quote from another military guy,

Charlie Beckwith said, ~ I would rather go upriver with seven studs than

a hundred knuckleheads, except I think he used a little more colorful language,

so

Yeah, and obviously Colonel Beckwith,

you know, started Delta Force and,

you know, was a Green Beret and a legend in the special operations community.

So like ~ I'm with the Colonel there.

A a small team of butt kickers can run circles around a massive team of,

you know, mediocre C type players.

Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, I want to hear a little bit more about

the ~ building of your construction company.

I know it kind of one of the the big accolades you have is ~ building

and exiting a a large and successful company in the middle of the Great Recession.

what did that look like and how did you pull it off?

Man, I don't know if I could do it again today.

it was like lightning in a bottle.

I the last job I had was a VP of sales and marketing for

a disaster restoration company.

The first year I got there doing about nine million in sales.

Six months later, we were, you know,

trending over twenty or just under twenty.

And then for a few years, well into the high twenties.

And then in the third year, the the owner sold it to a private equity group

and the new equity guys came in and were like,

Hey, you could you you could stay for about half the money.

we have other companies in our portfolio and you know,

I'm like, yeah, that's probably not a deal I'm gonna take.

Like, ~ yeah, we we don't know each other well,

but that's a that's a hard pass.

So basically I I was like, okay,

I gotta do my own thing now. and ~ not the best time to start a you know,

a high ticket construction company in the middle of the Great Recession.

but there were some energy tax credits,

some EPA energy star tax credits.

So I just figured out

To get some really super efficient windows,

use the tax credits and the leads are what the hard part.

So even people that weren't affected by the Great Recession adopted

low spending behaviors like the people that were.

It was the weirdest thing. ~ and that was one of the reasons why it

was the Great Recession and not just a big recession,

is because even the folks that weren't impacted all adopted the same,

which exacerbated the situation.

So

Finding opportunities went from about two two hundred fifty dollars for

a a warm lead to run to about twenty five hundred bucks in a matter of months.

So it just wasn't sustainable to be able to get fresh appointments.

So what did I do? I leaned into the whole green thing.

So whether you you you're into global warming or not,

we can all agree that being miserly,

you know, having good efficiency,

if you use half as much energy,

it costs half as much money for you and

draws on half the resources with then not doing it that way.

So to me, it was like, duh, this is commonsensical.

Let's just get rid of some of these big name brands that people pay this huge money

for. And let's get some other name name brands that aren't as namey

but are wonderful brands and they're highly efficient.

So finding marketers that would go out Minneapolis at night in the dark,

in the cold, in the winter, not easy to do.

So of course

Because my central mission was energy efficiency and saving energy

and using less and being responsible.

It also accelerates your ROI. It's comfortable,

it's quiet. There's all these other features.

~ but my marketing team was led by a Greenpeace environmental

~ team leader, city leader. shout out to Josh Schlipp,

my man. And ~ he got about, I don't know,

20 green piecers to go out and knock doors because we're here to lower.

Your energy dependency. This is the greenest energy,

is this? So, like I just had all the leads because I had a bunch

of fanatical people who cared about that.

And we were the only ones that were getting out there.

And when you had a tax credit,

I built the sales presentation where I showed those big name products

and their efficiency and their costs and their OI.

So it was like Windows and siding and insulation and energy audits

and weather ceiling for smart people.

Like you can do it this way or you can do it this way.

Like, my God, I can't believe this.

This is like twice as good for half the money with these.

I'm like, yeah, you get it. you get it.

So I had this brand new company.

This is brilliant. I y you don't strike me

Everyone's

as a a Greenpeace supporter or person yourself,

but to to partner with them in an aligned vision like that,

i i yeah, that's just brilliant.

I've I I have no other words. That that's amazing.

I love it.

Well, it was it was counterintuitive,

right? If everyone was like they had these programs,

but everyone was broke. It was the recession.

I can't spend money. Well, this tax credit's gonna expire.

So it's an opportunity. So yeah,

if you want to pay an extra fifteen hundred in taxes,

knock yourself out. But you don't have to.

And we can show you this accelerated ROI and and we can get to it in

six to eight weeks. Like done done.

And and so we had

We had success where others didn't.

As a brand new company, within three or four months,

we're in the leaderboard for a number of of those different vertical products.

W y yeah, you had the most fanatical salesman ever.

And everybody's like, Well, what are you doing?

They're they're not just working for a job,

So I so I only ran

they're working for a mission.

Like

Yeah,

no, and and and the other thing was the other thing that I did,

which was very different, is most people treated their canvassers,

you know, like and when the carnival's over,

let's go find these people or let's go to the jail and see who needs

to get bailed out. Like it's it can be kind of a rough space,

I'll just say politely. Okay. And these aren't folks watching your house when you're

on vacation. Okay. Let's just throw it out there.

The average door knocker, door to door sales person and and I'm generalizing

and I apologize. There's

There's 10% of those folks that are have all their teeth and don't have 14 felonies.

But at the time, the demographic was pretty rough.

So canvas crews, by and large,

were a bit of a crap shoot because,

you know, you you it was they were coming in drunk high or calling in,

I'm in jail. I'll I'll be there on Tuesday,

my lawyer thinks. And so to find a a highly educated fanatical about

the environment.

group to go out and do a very hard job and do it gladly,

yeah, that's different. But everyone in the industry prior to this recession would

pay these folks like minimum wage and like a half a percent or a percent

of the contract total. So think,

you know, 200 bucks on, you know,

two 20 grand or something like small.

But, you know, adds up. ~

When the leads got hard, I just took the sales commission and lowered it and said,

look at listen, if you want to go out and knock doors and get your own leads,

I'm gonna give you a little bit more for that.

These company leads are in really short supply.

So paying you guys full freight to sell the most valuable,

you know, hey guys, go to the fancy restaurant.

Lobster says market price. Okay.

So the market price for a lead has changed,

right? Since we're not fishing for for lobster like we used to.

So

I think I I think it was gosh,

so it was eight percent, it became equal.

It was eight percent of the contract to be the door knocker.

So if we sold a twenty thousand dollar project,

that's like a sixteen hundred dollar check.

And the Greenpeace folks were used to working for almost no money because

Yeah.

of their passion. So now they could go out and save the world and make crazy money

doing it. That was the second piece that that really made the rocket fuel.

So we are.

Canvas team continued to grow.

I think we had 20 some people when I sold the business.

And it's because they were paid for what they brought and they were excited

to do it. So I had all the leads when multi-generational huge $20,

$30 million businesses were going out of business.

And within three months, I was leading several manufacturers' sales boards.

So that got some attention. And eventually one of those larger manufacturers,

you know.

Said, okay, ~ you don't need to run this business.

You need to show us your system.

And then I want you to teach the system.

And we want to license this approach across other brands that we represent.

So, you know, I I basically sold the company quick to another operator

and went on to this joint venture.

and several companies today still sell with this systems and the process and the,

you know.

elevated, high touch, high data common sense selling versus high pressure,

what's it gonna take to get together?

So it was really cerebral and it just built all right,

this is a no-brainer argument because it really was if you took the time

to explain all the components and then had world class installation

and beautiful warranties and like five star rating,

you know, hundreds of jobs.

in a couple of years all you know really really well received so it was a

lot of fun but if I was just gonna do what everybody else was doing wouldn't have

made it like like being the new guy in an environment that is really beat down

and the guys that have been there forever that never had a downturn,

they were laying off half their staff,

three quarters of their staff.

The only way you can do something like that is to be really interruptive

Yeah.

And

everyone said I was crazy and it wouldn't work.

Of course they did. But I'm like,

you know, I got six months a year to prove this,

yes or no. And if it doesn't work in the year,

I'll just go lead somebody else's team like I did successfully in the past.

So it was really kind of a a lower risk thing.

And you know, I built that business for five or six months before I

ran my first appointment because I knew I was gonna have a team,

we're gonna do things differently.

So it wasn't like

Never swung a hammer. I I never set one screw on any one of those jobs.

And for good reason. We had professionals doing the installation.

That's a great story. I love it.

There's a lot of wisdom in that and a a lot of unique angles.

you mentioned that you kind of sold that business relatively quickly

to pursue yet another opportunity.

It was l less about exiting the business and and more about the opportunity

in front of you. But what did that exit look like?

Was that still a a successful exit that you were pleased with?

Yeah, I mean it was it was successful,

right? ~ but it wasn't optimized,

right? So if I said, all right,

I got a year to prep this for sale,

I'm gonna get myself out, it was like,

I have this opportunity. Well,

I can do both of these. And the truth is,

I really didn't enjoy operating the business.

I'm more of a visionary. I like to start businesses,

right? I don't necessarily like to get in the day-to-day.

And when your crew has roofed the wrong house,

right, and

the the owner of the right house shows up at their lunch break and calls

you and say, You're doing my neighbor Bob's house,

you know, eating those ten thousand,

fifteen thousand dollar mistakes was like,

I really don't enjoy this. that's why we have a photo right after that incident

of of every house with clear address and ~ you know ~ written what color

it is and what the address is and then a photo showing those same elements.

That's something I learned in the military was

I I

have experienced that exact same mistake.

Yeah, I mean, think about the homeowner who's getting a free roof

and didn't say anything. You know,

they were home, didn't stop it.

They they knew like like, hey,

~ at least give me half of this.

Nope, nope, that's not how it works.

Like, yeah, you're right. this is our mistake.

So hopefully you you like the color.

Yeah, I didn't stop them. I thought the color was great.

So Yep. you know, that's where if you if you know anything about contracting,

right? And if you have the same experience,

it sounds like you do, Erick.

If you look at the back of a contractor's contract,

all that four-point font, like the more text on the back of there just shows

how long they've been in business.

Yeah.

Because

you know what I mean? There's a reason why there's small print on

the back of construction contracts because some contractor bled a bunch

of time and money ~ and doesn't didn't want to do that a a second or third time.

Yep. Yep. man.

w what mistake have you made that cost you the most money?

goodness. ~

Like being in a bad partnership.

Like like it's an ar it's an arranged marriage sometimes and not a good one.

even though it's you know it's optional,

you know, things look this way,

like equal partnerships. There's no such thing.

Some one just the way humans are,

nothing's equal. Someone's gonna outwork the other one,

someone's gonna add more value.

Like without having that discussion up front and

Right. You know, equity should be more about initial capital risk.

There's some sweat equity for sure.

I get that. But don't confuse the ownership with the leadership.

Having equity in a company also there's they're an owner.

They don't have to do it like that.

Like a family business where if your last name is this,

here's a small set of rules. If your name is that all the other names except

for that one, it's a very long list of rules in in in

So I I would say like not being selective enough with partners

or realizing like if I I did a partnership where I was a a perfect third

and the two partners had done business together for 10 plus years.

So when you enter an existing partnership as the minority,

~ the 66.66 carries the 33.3 every time.

So it really wasn't an equal partnership,

even those three people with equal partnerships.

I automatically was outvoted on on anything I wanted to do.

And that was a very short lived experience because I realized like

my next business partnership, I'm gonna have 51%.

I'm okay with someone else being a high equity partner,

but I need to have the final say to be able to sleep at night.

And and there's nothing worse than you know getting your ship close to the rocks.

And you ever been in the passenger?

Side, my wife will kill me, but but I'll mention this.

Like, there's not a brake pedal on the passenger side,

but when my wife's dropping me off somewhere or something like that,

like I wish I had like a student driver thing.

She's like, You are the worst passenger.

Your job is to work the radio,

deliver the snacks, and like if a bus is gonna hit us,

please say danger right or something.

But you know, the like when anytime we go anywhere,

she's like, Okay, here are the keys.

You're driving because

I'm not somebody who's a good passenger.

I'd rather, you know, have have the wheel.

And being in a business partnership feels like heading towards a wall

and feeling like the breakpoint is here,

but not feeling the brakes for another hundred feet.

Yeah.

And that's not an experience that I really care to spend a lot more time in.

But you can't be the major every time in in the business world.

So if you have

great partnership agreement or you know what I mean you have partners that

you have a a a past with you can mitigate all of these concerns

but at the end of the day people are in different seasons of life

and there's only so many F's to give and once you've ran out of Fs to give,

you know you operate differently when you give an F about everything,

when everything's important. A little later in life you realize it's not.

So

I would say some early partnerships that sounded great on paper were like,

we're gonna crush this, getting in an echo chamber with a bunch of industry experts,

like how can this lose? And failing to test that to the actual end users

who are like, This is a dumb idea.

Right.

Yeah.

You know? So second idea, right,

is getting stuck in your bubble,

your echo chamber, first one.

is being in that echo chamber with the wrong people.

~ so if you could if I could add two to one,

that would be the one for me that didn't feel great at all.

Okay. Is there an opinion that you once held strongly that

you have changed as a result of your experiences?

Yeah, thinking back to what I started,

changing people, right? ~ what's the what's what's the quote?

I don't know who said this. My apologies.

what's you can't change the people around you,

but you can change the people around you.

That's like a great that's a great,

That's good. Yeah,

you know what I mean?

I have not heard that one before,

but I'm gonna repeat it.

Yeah, it I stole it. It's not original,

~ by far. But but like you can't change the people around you,

but you can change the people around you.

Like like I know that sometimes it takes a couple of times to hit,

but it's it's brilliant, that quote,

because like that's what I've learned.

It's that curation of a team, not necessarily building,

you know, the bad news bears into the,

you know, World Series champions,

because that's

That's a movie arc. That's not really realistic.

the World Series teams, right,

are built and curated. And there are five or six years of building a team

to go to the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup or,

you know, ~ the NBA finals or any these other sports teams.

Not every year you're fighting for the trophy.

You're building to be in a position to run for it with a handful of teams

who also did the correct things.

And businesses are kind of the same way.

~ right. You're in a building your business,

you're leaning out your business for sale.

You know what I mean? Like reuse staples,

everybody. we're gonna try to sell this thing versus we're rich.

Get whatever you want. and and seeing the different seasons of ~ of

a business and and understanding that the behaviors that you know I would do,

the amount of hours, the just the sheer tenacity in my thirties when I was.

You know, building that company and then some other ones after

it completely different than now.

Now I have other people who believe that while I'm just now using some

of these gray hairs, like, ooh,

this thing right here, I've seen this three or four times.

This isn't good. you think this is good?

Okay, hang on, campfire talk. I've seen this however many times and it ends this

way every time, because everyone says what just came out of your mouth.

Every time they say that, and what they're missing is X,

Y, and Z. And they figure that out here when it's too late to do this,

when X and Y converge and it's too late,

kind of a thing. So based on all of these conditions being the exact same,

this is how the team figure it out.

So let's just adopt that posture right now.

Even if it sounds extra conservative,

not cool, some extra work, some extra time.

This is the vegetables. This is good for you.

Eat this and be quiet. And getting to be kind of the sage,

grisly, gristled, you know, ~ well worn by losing a bunch of money

on on dumb things. When

Yeah.

you see those dumb things now,

you're like, I know what that is.

And everybody's like, What you mean?

And then you give them story time,

and they're like, Wow, that is so awesome.

I'm so glad we didn't do that.

Hey, if he wasn't here today, we would have just did that.

Yeah, we would have. I had feeling like it's okay.

Maybe.

You should just do that to really get the lesson.

But if if you're okay with the Cliff Notes version,

you know, that's what I see. And helping people like that using

my past experience for their present and future things,

that feels good. That's like that was an expensive mistake.

you know, ~ I'm not cheap to work with,

but the ROI on some of my time ~ is way better than,

you know, a seven figure haircut by not,

you know.

seeing that the ice is a little thinner and not driving your truck on it.

Yeah, that's great. I don't have quite as much gray hair as you.

It's starting to get there, but ~ I'm I'm starting to turn that corner

and make that transition transition in my career and it's a lot it's a lot

of fun to sit in that advisor seat and ~ feel like y your experience

can give more value rather than being the practitioner,

just the the experience, the wisdom,

the knowledge can provide significant value.

That that's a fun place to be.

So

Yeah, to be a trusted advisor's honor just came from a lunch right before

the interview. And my past client who just exited his company for

$33 million after it being almost dead on life support when I started with him,

said some very nice things. I won't repeat them here,

but he, you know, basically it was like the praise was ~ overly high,

right? You know, you want to be humble,

Yeah.

like

no, definitely not the smartest guy in this room.

but

After the meeting, like comes to me and he's like,

Listen, there's no doubt about it in my mind that you are the smartest

guy in this room. And this room is filled with business people that have done

way more in business than I've done.

But they weren't in the foxhole with this guy when things were bleak.

They didn't do this turnaround.

Yeah, you know what I mean? That years in a foxhole with someone gives

you a different perspective. So it was humbling,

it was honoring.

And I walked out of there on cloud nine,

but I also thought, well, I I could see from his perspective,

considering how bleak it was, and now he's like on cloud nine,

and this whole meeting was getting investors,

and now he's got money to invest.

And now he's like, All right, we're gonna do it again,

and we're gonna do it with the Avengers.

This guy and does this, this gal does this.

Chris is gonna keep us out of trouble.

We're gonna implement the operating system and he's gonna be on the board.

Like,

This guy already has worked with,

you know, 135 businesses. A lot of them in the space we're about ready to embark in.

So like I like our odds with Chris on the board.

You know, let's make Chris an equity partner and let's meet with him.

Let's get let's he's gonna help you get your team set up.

We'll get the structure going.

And, you know, you're gonna see some Chris.

And I I'm gonna I'm gonna feel much more comfortable deploying almost

all of my capital because he's involved.

So like

That wouldn't have happened 15,

20 years ago. You know what I mean?

Like I I didn't have those experiences.

So it's weird because at 53, I still think I'm 33,

like in every department. And and I'm I'm starting to learn.

and that and that's part of it,

right? Just just be in your own little world and no one can tell you that.

but it's been a journey. And and to be one of the oldest people in

the room at today's lunch.

And to be, this is the old guy,

this is the ringer, this is the guy who's seen it.

It's like, wait a minute, I I'm not the thirty-three year old Chris here.

Like in my mind, that's me. So like seeing my reflection in the mirror

as I walked out, like, yep, I guess I am getting to be the old guy here.

And that's a trip. But you're as old as you feel,

right? Age is a number, Erick,

a hundred percent.

Yeah, my ~ my background is in roofing,

so ~ i I can relate to that. What the the age I feel like is very different than

the age I am, which is very different than the wear and tear on my body.

Yeah, well if you spend

any time on on the roof deck, then yeah,

that is that is a young person's sport

Mm.

all day long. you know, like pilots,

right? What's the old saying? You're gonna see some old pilots and you're gonna

see some bold pilots. But you'll never see an old,

bold pilot. I Yeah.

I love it. That's one of my favorite quotes.

I use that all the time. Yeah.

Yeah, that and then like a roofer,

like it's hard to see a roofer with gray hair because

They they either lawn dart in and that's the end of them,

or the stress and the roofing people.

The the humans of roofing, like just for anybody who doesn't know,

there's every industry has a redheaded stepchild,

right? That's that's the one in the construction business.

And the roofing industry is full of great stories.

And when I was the VP of sales and marketing,

that last job at that disaster restoration,

roofing insurance

Roofing is what w that company did.

They were like pioneers of it back in the nineties.

Now I don't think anyone buys a roof without,

you know, some sort of a hail damage claim or something.

That that whole industry changed and that's why people's premiums are crazy.

But anyone who'd had some success or had been around on that had been sued,

had been divorced, had been imprisoned.

Like that is a rough industry to have long time success in.

It is hand grenades.

Everywhere. so I shout out to any roofers listening.

You guys are on hard mode every day.

~ like even an easy day is is complex.

It's stuff it's a tough place to be.

J just

like the Navy SEALs. The only easy day was yesterday.

Yeah.

So you've had quite a number of experiences and your career trajectory

has been quite unique. if you could go back to the beginning and do

it all over again, is there anything that you would change?

Yeah, I might might have gone to college because back then it actually mattered.

~

Ha ha

you know what I mean? Or, you know,

maybe I would have went full time for three or four years in the army instead

of just doing part-time for my nine year National Guard enlistment.

So, you know, those are things I think about,

you know, now that my business partner is a Green Beret,

you know, Silver Star, Purple Heart,

Bronze Star of Valor, like a like a legit war hero,

Michael Chrisilla. his stories in the army.

Are way better than my stories than the army,

you know? And and so I I do think like,

yeah, maybe maybe I could have,

you know, worked out for a year to be in shape to to try out for special forces

or something like that. So like maybe,

maybe some earlier regret, right,

and that's the whole point. But then I think,

well, if I'd done that, I might not be where I'm at today.

And where I'm at today feels kind of good too.

So I I I would say as the tattoo says misspelled,

no regrets.

you know what I mean? R-A-G-R-E-T-S regrets.

I I don't really have too many ~ because they're they're useless.

You I can't take a regret and deposit it.

worrying about the past too much is what where depression comes from.

Worrying about the future so unnecessarily is where anxiety comes from.

So like I did a an ayahuasca trip a few years back and I let go of a lot of things,

regrets

~ second guessing and stuff. And now it's just kind of like you

hit the reset button, you know,

kind of reinstall the operating system on your hard drive.

I definitely see things much more differently now.

You know, I'm I'm I'm still half crazy for sure.

~ but I I I sweat things a lot less than I used to sweat the little minute things.

And life is a lot better when you're again not like worried or controlling or

Like this could happen. All this ~ Navy SEALs,

right back to the SEALs, you know,

they're they're saying is don't borrow pain from the future.

You know, you don't need it's not like a credit card where you're like,

let me get some fear, but I gotta pay for it later.

You know, no fear on the layaway plan.

Like there's plenty right here,

right now, for us all to bask in if you choose to do so.

So maybe, maybe understanding that I don't control everything,

so don't try.

~ and then when it actually works out because you're a control freak,

kind of empowers you to do more.

So I've said this before like the early part,

not even your best years, your most productive years,

society itself, Erick, doesn't always reward the best version of you.

Right? So I think like happiness is not a million dollars in the bank.

Because if you're not happy,

You could have 20 million dollars or a hundred million dollars,

or you know, I don't know how happy Elon Musk is with a billion

or trillion dollars almost now.

But you know, it's harder to be depressed on a jet ski,

is is my counterpoint to that,

Yeah.

right? So, like

there there are ~ money, right,

is a vehicle. It provides opportunity.

But it thinks if I just achieve this,

then I'll be happy. That's a big fallacy.

I'm sure you have this this had that discussion more than once being a

podcast host. ~ so yeah,

I I think if I would have mellowed out a little bit,

maybe I wouldn't got there, or maybe I would have got twice as far because

I wasn't holding on with a white knuckled grip.

And I can only imagine, you know,

the people that worked with me and for me back then.

If anyone's listening, I apologize.

I've healed, I've learned,

Yeah.

right? You know, but at the same time,

sometimes I meet those people and they're like,

man, you are

while back there, but I learned so much.

A lot of it was like what not to do,

like, which is which is as a leader,

like I learned more from probably bad leaders than I did good leaders.

But you know, but this was really good and and this has helped me and

and thank you for that. But yeah,

I never wanted to do all that stuff you did because I thought it was crazy

at the time and even more so now.

And now with the benefit of hindsight being 2020,

I would agree with them. So yeah.

Not not trying to control everything,

squeezing everything till it bleeds its last drop.

being okay. You know what I mean?

With with being okay with being okay.

I think is something that happens a little later in life when you realize that maybe

you don't have some great relationships because of how you were,

or you didn't communicate really well,

or you steamrolled a thousand people,

and now, you know.

That's their recollection of you and re-engaging with people and people saying,

Man, you're completely different.

You've you're you still burn pretty hot,

but you're you're you're more chill about it,

or you're you're less like holding on so tightly.

there's an old saying, you're right,

you can't want things for other people more than they want it themselves.

So I think that would have been dis everyone needs to be like this all the time.

We're gonna be maniacs and work hundred hour weeks and

Do the impossible every day. And,

you know, high five is like high praise.

And now I think I stop and smell the roses and appreciate the sound of the birds.

And, you know, life is actually the the moments,

the present. And not looking as the present is just purely a vehicle

for investment in activities to gain this future,

but understanding you gotta enjoy the journey.

It's really the only part you get to keep.

Yeah. So this is a a little bit of a left turn,

but you threw something out there I know almost nothing about.

~ what is ayahuasca? What wha what was that?

What did that do for ya?

Yeah, it's not common in the roofing industry,

but there there are other ~ so it is a thousands of year old plant medicine therapy

that happens in the Amazon, right?

I went down to Costa Rica and basically it is not a recreational drug.

This is not a fun experience. Think about projectile vomiting and diarrhea

for four nights in a row, all night long.

So this is where you take a route.

And a leaf and add them together.

And the active chemical is DMT.

Like when someone's about ready to die,

they had this bounce back or this life review or any

of these out-of-body experiences.

They're like you have DMT inside of you,

but it's a very small dose. So it's like basically if you have a mother load dose,

you kind of go th back to your childhood where you lost your innocence.

You

Wherever you lost your innocence,

you kind of try to go back to that moment and reattach your soul.

And then, you know, what have I be show what I've become,

merge me back in my soul at all costs,

and heal my heart of the three intentions that you get to one,

then you go to two, then you go to three,

and then you feel like a million dollars.

So it is work. It is I wouldn't say it was fun,

although there were some fun parts.

but not.

like let's do mushrooms and go to the the walking dead show or something it's

not no not like that. So basically you just purge one way,

the other way, or both ways if you're lucky.

And just feeling horrible and retching all this stuff out is purging

the bad energy, the bad thoughts,

the pain, the guilt, the suffering,

the anxiety, the depression.

trauma, the abuse, the, you know,

all the the stuff, chemical dependencies,

all those things. And when you go through like a week of intensive things,

it's life changing because you just leave a bunch of dark energy weights behind that

don't serve you. And it is the way it was pitched and it it was pitched

by Ron White on Joe Rogan's podcast.

And Ron White, the comedian, had a

Yeah.

pretty big

trouble with ~ alcohol and then he started a tequila company which is

a great idea when you're an active alcoholic and that wasn't working out

for Ron so he cleaned himself up a little bit and then went down there

and he hasn't had a drink since so I was just up later than I should stressed

out about the world and it's like he says he told Joe Rogan well it's like

10 years of therapy in one week and I'm like that sounds like me that sounds like

the fast pass at Disney

Or you know what I mean, the express lane.

Yeah.

I I'll I'll I've I'll drive in any express lane.

I'm a big fan of, you know, living my life ten or twenty minutes earlier than bumper

to bumper traffic. So there's small things in life that I'll upgrade every time

and and and fast and and and and sure is is is two for sure.

So I I just basically went down there and my father passed away on like Monday

and we were his hospice team and that was traumatic to to lose

Gosh.

your pops and

You know, be with him when we passed was was a gift,

but it was also a very tough weekend of watching someone you you love very much die.

And I was scheduled already, you know,

months ago to go to this arrhythmia life advancement center,

the top place to do ayahuasca in Costa Rica.

And I'm like, Yeah, I should probably cancel and just deal with this stuff.

But his funeral wasn't gonna be for a couple of weeks,

and I'm just like

Let me take this fresh trauma with the old trauma and see if I can just batch

it all together. So, you know,

my ~ stepmom and and and family said,

Yeah, you should you should definitely keep your thing.

Cause I was not in a great place and then to go through that.

So I went down there and got there on Saturday,

you know, after he passed. So less less than a week.

Did the week experience felt like a complete like a baby.

taking his first breaths and eyeballs looks at at everything.

It was it was really I I can't even really explain it.

You just have to go go and do it.

And and ~ went and gave his eulogy at his funeral a week after I got back

and ~ probably didn't integrate.

You know, you should probably have a week or two of not heavy stuff like that.

So my recommendation is

have a very chill week to reintegrate.

Don't don't stack trauma on

trauma on ayahuasca on public speaking.

Yeah, public speaking, but Yeah,

Yeah.

but I'm a professional public speaker.

So to me it was like less so, right?

And I've I've I lost it in my rehearsal ~ an hour before the speech,

but somehow just looked over the top of everyone's eyeballs into the back

of the room and made it through in one piece.

so that was like it worked out.

But now they have like Ibogaine,

which is a medical drip for like veterans with traumatic brain injuries.

yeah, that's one I've heard

They're

of. I was gonna ask kind of what the what the comparison there is or

how those line up.

Yeah, so like I think Ibogaine is a pretty rough run,

but it's highly effective. It's a very big treatment.

But there's like not just the Iowa gain,

there's a counselor and you're talking through things.

Ayahuasca's like, go to your mattress and work this out between you

and the bucket and the bathroom and another glass of the stuff that tastes like dirt

until the spirits show you where you've kind of lost your way and and ~ you know,

I you know

had this huge purge during ayahuasca and I saw spaghettios arranged in a word,

What have I become? And there it is.

And you know, that's that's weird.

So I'd never done any hallucinogenics my entire life.

It just wasn't my thing. So to go from none recreational stuff to the

top of the mountain, which is like a a plant medicine experience with

the experts for four nights in a row.

Yeah.

You know, I think it was a life changing experience.

And, you know, it'll be three years ~ in August.

And I'm thinking about a return visit.

You know, I think like there's a layer,

there's a couple of coats of stuff in the last three years.

So like remembering how I felt,

I also remember how I got there and it's like,

boy, but t juice totally worth the squeeze,

no pun intended.

Hm. Okay. So is that something you would recommend for everybody

or only people really struggling with something?

Yeah, I mean, a at the end of the day,

I think everyone should do it on their eighteenth birthday because we're

all you know, her children and and back to this whole premise

of being separated from your soul.

The premise down there is from four to seven years,

you lost your innocence. You got bullied,

you got abused, there's divorce,

trauma, death of the family, like oof,

things aren't sunshine, ice cream cones,

and unicorn ~ horns. And ~ everything changes.

when that happens. so to kind of reunite and replug in that cord and kind

of get back to that fun, playful,

not so jaded, like anyone in law enforcement,

corrections, you know, law enforcement,

the military, ~ first responders,

firefighters, EMTs, like you're looking at really gnarly stuff every day.

And even if you've gotten good at suppressing that pain and suffering,

it's it's there.

So I think anyone who's had any of those things,

the vocation, personal trauma,

and trauma's not like a a a sport,

like like like, yeah, that's about a three on the 10 scale.

Like it could be your three, right?

Could be my ten or my ten could be your two or three.

So all this stuff is ~ relative again,

but I think it without it, I wasn't doing good.

That's putting it mildly. Like drinking a lot.

Being really sad for no reason,

being very dark. Like it's it's not a ha healthy,

happy place to be. And when your friends and family are noticing that,

hey, you're extra salty today.

Like, what happened? Who peeded in your cornflakes this morning?

Then you realize, like, all right,

this is a problem. And then after you get back from that experience

and people are like, my God, I can just see like a whole glow around your whole

self. You are

so much brighter and and so much more in like interested and you know

I mean like you're not so go go go.

You're like tell me more. And old Chris would be like,

is there a point?

Yeah.

stop circling in the airport. Land the plane.

I need a point. You know? so I I don't know.

For me it was good. I I I don't know if it works for everyone.

I think it's highly effective.

So if you can gather up the courage to go do it and

If you're carrying around things that don't serve you anymore,

highly recommend Rhythmia. they've done like fifteen thousand patients

or something like that in ten years.

So I I wanted to go to the place with the most experience,

you know, doctors on staff, you know,

Yeah. man, for something like

like a

that you don't wanna be ~ you don't wanna be somebody's first patient.

Some weirdo's basement and boulder,

Yeah.

which

is the other way to do it. which no,

that doesn't didn't sound good to me at all.

Yeah. Well you said something a minute ago that hit me.

~ you said you've learned more from bad leaders than you have good.

~ w what is the resource or the source of ~ the most significant growth for you?

~ how have you improved as a leader?

Well, I think learning from bad leaders when something happens and you're just like,

Is this happening for real? And everyone's looking at each other

and like there's low trust. So you can't say anything because there's

you stick your neck out, somebody might just collect it.

Like somebody talk about a another consultant,

Patrick Lencioni. ~ Pat Lencioni's five dysfunctions of the team.

Like he's got if you want to talk about team health and just being a great leader.

Like Pat's work is seminal. Like it is awesome.

He is probably also the best clean comedian.

~ maybe Nate Bargazi could give him a run.

But if you ever heard Pat speak,

he's hilarious and he doesn't swear at all.

~ so basically he's got this trust triangle,

these five dysfunctions. So the first one at the bottom,

the basement is trust. So if you can't be vulnerable and I can't trust that you're

do here for the right reasons and you're doing the right things,

and I have to assume positive intent that you're not trying to,

you know, steal from me, take from me or

subvert me or hurl over me or whatever.

then when you can be vulnerable,

like in those bad boss situations,

like want to say, like, excuse me,

it sounded like you all want us to kill ourselves for your benefit.

Like that didn't like, where's the,

you know, like where's the equity in this situation?

Right? You know, but like anyone talks,

you're fired. You're fired. Like,

like we all need our paychecks,

like

What 60, 70% of Americans are a paycheck to paycheck.

So it's really hard for people to stand on their morals when your house

car payment and whatever is due.

Like let's just be honest there.

So what he says is if you can't be vulnerable and we can't speak the truth,

then you can't get to the next one,

which is conflict. Not F you, no F U,

no F you more. Unhealthy conflict,

but actual, hey.

love you, man, but that's whack.

I think you've completely glossed over this.

You forgot this. And the way you just said that to Mary,

you should just apologize right now,

and then we'll move on. Versus the,

my God, I don't want him to say that to me.

So I'm not gonna say anything,

right? Conflict. And growing up in Minnesota,

long ~ the land of the passive aggressive people.

Like, that's wonderful, dumbass.

You know, like as soon as you turn around.

That's like I grew up around, you know.

You know, you ever meet somebody that grew up in New York City?

Yeah.

F

you, no, F you too. Like, that's a greeting.

They like each other, right?

Yeah.

It's completely. Then the South is like,

bless your heart. And that's code word for damn you're dumb,

even for down here, right? You know,

all joking aside. and then, you know,

the West Coast is like, It's cool,

bro. You know, you know, so like wherever you came up.

Anyways, Midwesterners are known for being passive aggressive.

And we all saw Bambi and Thumper's mom saying to Thumper if you

Don't have anything nice to say,

don't say anything at all. So,

like that whole thing. So we can't get into conflict because we're like,

no conflict. Run from conflict.

There's no conflict here. Like,

even if I disagree with you, hey,

it's not worth fighting over. It's good.

Just yeah, that's great. I just was trying to help,

you know, just completely diminish that.

So if you can't get into healthy conflict,

you can't get to the next one,

the third one on the ladder, which is commitment.

Because how do you sol hold someone

accountable, the fourth ladder,

accountability, and the results is number five.

But let's back up. So being vulnerable means I can engage in healthy conflict

and we can have our conflict. And whoever loses gets shoulder

to shoulder with whoever proverbially wins.

Don't have to look at that way,

but just for ease. and we'll be arm in arm as teammates.

Now, thank you for letting me have some conflict.

Thank you for altering two parts of your 47 point plan because of my input,

but

Ultimately we're going with you and we're on the same team.

So I now support you. That's you know the good conflict.

Now, because we've had the conflict,

we can commit because we've talked about what could happen,

what is gonna happen. You're like all that is out there.

And now we can really commit to something.

If you don't have the have the people to shoot holes in it,

like I'm not getting in this boat.

it's the first you just built this airplane.

This is the first flight. I'm gonna I'm gonna watch the next five flights.

~ put me in for the last flight.

You know what I mean? I I'm not gonna be the first one in a new airframe.

Sorry, that's not not me.

conflict, ~ then we get to commitment,

I will go in the hundredth flight.

That's more of my commitment level for for that example.

And then once we have that commitment,

then the accountability, the fourth one,

happens almost automatically. And then results is at the very top.

So most people bring me in, I want my team to be more accountable.

And I'll just be like, well, how's the trust?

What do you mean? Like, well, if this meeting sucks and it could have been an email,

can someone say that? No.

You would probably get fired for that.

Okay. then that's why your team isn't accountable,

because there isn't a safe place for them to have healthy conflict,

the second run. And because that no one's really committed,

and because they're not committed,

is why they're missing deadlines.

Because at at this point it's easier just to go along to get along than

it is to stop and say, Hey, this is why we're failing,

and it's because of you, boss,

or it's because of you, Jeremy,

~ or it's because of you, Mary,

right? And and

And when people really understand,

everyone wants the results. They want a highly accountable team,

but they're not willing to be vulnerable.

They're not willing to engage.

I'm the boss, do it, or I'll transfer you to the Anchorage Field Office,

right? That's why you get these huge companies working on fake problems

and they don't deliver and and no one cares because somehow this

big company makes enough money for us to piss away half of it and still have happy

shareholders, right?

Yeah.

Versus a small business, a roofing company of 20,

30 employees, like just having an extra one or two crazy people

can be the difference between no fun and some fun.

Yeah.

And having a very low for the industry level of crazy people means you're gonna have

an amazing roofing company. It's probably gonna be super profitable

and you're gonna get a ton of referrals because you guys are just kind

of crazy on the crazy ometer. Not you're not like full roofing crazy,

right? You're just kind of crazy,

and that's a competitive industry.

When you're in in that space. So I would just go back to can we speak

the truth or are we gonna be polite?

So

Yeah.

the answer to your question, because I've been circling the airport,

I'm gonna land the plane. You have to be kind to people,

not nice to people. If there's a lot of niceness.

Niceness doesn't involve, hey,

you got a little something right there.

Hey, that wasn't your best work.

That meeting could have been an email.

You know what the problem is? You know,

grab a mirror. You'll you'll you'll find it.

and and being kind to someone means you're bringing up a blind spot

and putting it into the open pane.

And sometimes that's uncomfortable.

And that's why if you have like a new business idea and you show your friends

and family, they're all gonna be,

this is a you're gonna be a millionaire.

Can I swim in your pool? Like this is gonna be so great.

Show it to someone who actually cares for you,

that's not related to you, that doesn't want to see you go bankrupt.

And they're gonna be like, this is the almost this is like the second dumbest idea

I've heard in last year.

Yeah.

And you're like, what do you mean?

Everyone else has been my mom said it was wonderful.

Well, remember, your mom loves you no matter what.

~

Yeah.

never vet your business ideas through mom or dad unless they're world-class

Yeah.

entrepreneurs.

because your friends and your family are gonna be nice.

They're probably not gonna be kind.

And the one relative who's actually kind,

you're like, Yeah, Uncle Jerry's a dickhead.

Yeah.

Well, actually.

Uncle Jerry was the only one at the entire party who who saw what actually happened

a year from now and had you not just dismissed his thing as well,

Uncle he he's an idiot, he doesn't what he's talking about.

You could have maybe not lost a half a million bucks or you know what I mean,

some sort of a scar, a souvenir,

a t shirt one gets after learning a lesson like that.

Yeah. I know i you brought it up a lot there and ~ I know this

is something you really talk about and work on in your coaching

and helping other businesses is accountability.

What do most companies misunderstand about accountability?

Yeah, that it's not situational.

You either are or you are not.

Also, if you haven't really defined what the standard is and you've trained

to it and you've enabled and empowered it,

it's not going to happen. So, you know,

holding employees accountable for your failure as a leader is is

a very common thing. So, like the right person in the right seat.

Well, now we'll talk about Jim Collins here,

in in good to great, like sold five million copies.

Most people have heard of it, or at least had the Cliff Notes version of it.

right, the right people share your core values,

they value what you value, like they're in it to win it,

just like you. Whereas someone with the opposite work style,

like, oof, this is, you know, ~ oil and water,

positive and negative polarity.

And then right seats, in the EOS terminology,

we got an ~ an acronym called GWC or get it wanted capacity to do it.

If you live the core values, right,

you're the right person and you get it,

you want it, and you have a high capacity to be awesome at it,

we're good to go. ~ most companies are not 90 to 100% right people,

right seats, even profitable ones,

certainly ones on the TV show,

might be 30, 40% engaged. People actually like it there.

~ they're they're culturally a match because the company's done

a really explicit job to say this is what what's a one of our teammates look like.

If you're not that, we want you to go and find your people.

Most people are overly inclusive.

so your unicorns will bite through the fence and eat Skittles elsewhere,

chase other rainbows because you put a jackass right next to them,

Yep.

right?

And ~ a donkey, a burrow, jackass.

I mean, they'll eat bolts, saddles,

like the wagon itself, like anything you put in there,

they're gonna eat it. Whereas unicorns,

right? Also four-legged hoofed animals,

but the Skittles, they chase the rainbow.

Like a a unicorn is rare. So like unicorns don't like to be penned

up with with jackasses and I see it all the time.

So like if we want to create a unicorn preserve,

that's like the funny part of it,

but that's real. I have teams that are ninety-five percent unicorns

and five percent junior unicorns.

The horn is just starting to bud,

Yeah.

but they're no longer eating metal and wood and and other things.

And and really understanding that if

If your company is in the excellence business and you really mean it,

then it'll like the being consistent with that will culturally be the norm.

Being not awesome should cue the scratch record sound and everyone

all looking at the exact same time.

But when you have pockets of awesome and pockets of jackasses,

and the jackasses are the loud ones,

and like, you know what I'm saying?

It's it's confusing if there isn't like a standard.

Well, hey, for for for Jeff, that's about as good as you're gonna get.

Let's in Jeff's world, that's a 10.

And in Marcy's world, that's a four.

Well, no, a four should be the same across the company.

A 10 is the same across the company.

There shouldn't be a sliding scale or a bell curve.

There is the standard. And then you have seven billion people on the planet

to pick from to fill in the fifteen to fifteen hundred,

you know, fifteen thousand, depending on the scale of your business.

So the companies that curate a team of,

you know, I'll say 80% right people write seats,

you can have a top performing business.

Very profitable, great numbers across,

but it's still hard. that 20% is enough for that 80% to not to get

to the final stage. Once you curate a team to about 90% right people write seats,

they have enough mass and volume to clear out the last 10% organically from

the bottom up.

And once once you're ninety six and a half percent amazing,

that's where there's a waiting list to work there.

I I have my clients have won over 200 individual best places to work awards.

And these are not write a check to get a crystal award.

These are full engagement surveys.

75% of the company has to participate in the survey.

If your people don't like the coffee filters,

You're gonna hear about it because it's an anonymous what do you think about your

boss? It is like the moment for an employee who is not being treated well

to light you on fire four times in an hour.

So in order to win these awards,

Erick, you better be high eighties,

low to mid 90th percentile to be in the finals.

So over 200 of those is the end result of a couple years

of doing ~ EOS coaching.

Putting the right people in the right seats,

getting this mindset, doing the stuff.

So very high success rate. and it's a proven process.

So if you're not running a business operating system like EOS,

there's other ones, but that's the one I know the best.

So I don't want to be salesy. But at the same time,

if you're a business owner and you don't have a business operating system,

you are making it up and that's gonna catch up with you.

So I highly recommend. And ~ if you're a smaller company,

you can join the self-implementer academy.

and get the tools to nominate someone on your team to to be your Chris,

or you can hire a professional certified or expert EOS implementer ~ locally

and we are like Sherpas. We help people get to the top of the mountain back without

falling off the cliff,

Yeah.

basically is how that works.

man, you speak with such imagery.

I love it. It's been a lot of fun.

So i your background,

you have a lot of military background that I think has served you well

as you brought it into business.

What did you learn in the military that you don't think just strictly

a business career would have ever taught you?

You are seventy four percent less cool than you think you are.

Like in every case, like always someone bigger,

always someone stronger, always some faster,

somebody can shoot better, somebody can memorize things better.

Like like no matter who you are,

there's always a better version of you in the military.

It's just like the place where these types of people tend to congregate

and measure themselves against some pretty impressive s measuring sticks,

so to speak. So like

Thinking I was pretty hot shit and then realizing,

boy, I am probably in the middle third of this group physically,

right? the bottom third in this,

maybe the top third in this thing or thing.

but I am really gonna have to like summon up it all to make it through like this

environment. This is not me making it look easy.

This is, you know, finding some actual adversity and not having

It's solved for me, or you know what I mean?

Like I so I think that was just kind of like the learning how respect

and respect comes from your teammates by being tactically and tactically proficient.

Not one, not the other, both being that holistic soldier or or or whatever,

and not being a because I said so because I have more stripes than you have,

because

I've done it before and this is how I was taught and this let me show

you how this works. Come over here.

Let let me tell you. Let me show you.

So I found the best leaders are the ones that would show you.

The worst leaders would just tell you and then not be around for QA.

I love that. I I think it has to include the why.

That that was always a big thing for me as a leader.

you give somebody a rule, you give some parameters,

they may or may not follow it,

but they don't care. And i if you can give them a why,

that this is why it matters, this is why it's important,

th this is the story, this is the experience that led to the fine print

on the back of the contract. You know,

it then it hits home. Then they get it,

then they're

bought in. Just the the this is how we do it doesn't cut it.

so I think

Yeah. So

Gino Geno Wickman, the founder of EOS,

~ the book is traction, get a grip on your business.

If you don't have that book, you should really get that book because that's like

the entry ~ to to EOS right there.

It's just a book. and it's usually CEO to CEO.

Hey, read this. I know there's a million business books out there.

This one's different. And he talks about in there as as EOS implementers,

our job is to set the context.

Facilitate the conversation and then conclude and move on to something else.

Context, why, what we're doing here,

right? Facilitate. Let's have not just the popular answers.

Who's got an unpopular answer?

Who disagrees? Who thinks all of this is bullshit?

Okay. Okay, you got one? Good.

Like, do we have your permission to be open and honest?

Okay, great. Send it. The more you send it,

the more I like you. So getting people to enter the danger and making it more

of a support, a sport with high fives.

See that everyone? He

They didn't spontaneously combust.

They didn't get fired. So, like,

we got to stop holding back. You know,

that's that real good facilitation.

And then once we got the answer,

all right, who's got the to-do?

Who's called? What's the next step on this?

All right, let's end this one.

Let's go on to another issue. Set the context,

facilitate, conclude. If you operate as a business owner or leader or just

a good human, because you ever meet someone that can't make a point?

I know I've been drifting a little bit on this conversation,

but hopefully I'm landing the plane for you.

~ I talked to some people and like a minute later,

like, what topic are you even on?

We're we're we're like, you know,

some people really don't have a GPS and they just kind of float around.

so just being super clear with what you want,

having an economical, efficient conversation,

no fluff, you know, no bread, just the meat.

Let's go. Carnivore conversation.

And then what's the action step?

Who's gonna do it by next week,

buy what?

Okay, and then have those promises come true.

When 90% of your weekly commitments,

your to-dos come true, that's the only part of the tire that touches

the actual road when we talk about traction,

is 90% of your promises to each other coming true.

I'll I'll get this done by next week.

I'll get it this far and I'll deliver that next week.

You might not have solved it, right?

But you you you move the ball.

Down the gridiron and we're gonna score at some point if we keep having positive

yardage. So I think I think those three things are what separate the rock stars from

the groupies in business right there.

Okay. Well we we talked about ~ the military lessons and their

how they're applicable in business.

was there anything from your military experience that fails when you bring

it to the civilian world and try to apply it in business?

Yeah, you can't take your supervisor if you like them and lash them to

a cannon and shoot it twice. Like pretty

Yeah.

sure the Department of Employee Resources are probably gonna probably

get it's probably not gonna buff.

hazing would be the first thing that comes to mind.

And even though there's like civilian versions of code reds or hazing,

like yeah, that's not ~ in the military,

like the amount of of team stuff.

In a great team is next level world class,

it feels great. But also you could also be sentenced to go to Delta Company,

right? If Bravo Company is the big the best unit in the battalion,

Delta Company is where they send you when they're not happy with

you at Bravo Company and Alpha Company and General Company.

so like every unit kind of has a reputation.

Alpha Company's awesome. Like that's the one you want to go to.

Ooh, the first sergeant at Delta.

Yeah.

This guy has got some issues that he hasn't resolved.

so like being a leader where people want to be on your team,

it doesn't feel like a sentence or boy,

what did I do to deserve this?

You know, like ~ a a discipline.

That's a big deal. The reputation of your company,

your culture, like if your glass door says you're horrible human beings at 80%,

like you're probably not good.

If your glass door says you're 80% amazing,

like that's about as high as praise you'll get from humans today,

is about eighty eighty, you're right.

Like political polls. The the top is eighty,

the bottom is forty. Like that that's a poll.

Like there's no there's no such thing as you know what I mean?

Like it's it's not a hundred and it's not zero.

That's just not how humans operate.

So I I would say that that is is is something it might take a while to figure out,

but if you can figure that out early.

You'll have a huge competitive advantage over people still operating under

the old auspice.

Yeah. I know a a big part of your program,

what you help with, what you teach is scaling businesses.

~ are there any businesses that cannot or maybe should not scale that

are ~ better off remaining kind of the small office business,

or is everything capable of scaling?

Well, I think that's a individual decision for the founder and what works well

for them, right? A lifestyle business.

I mean, you know, making a million bucks a year with no employees doing what

you love, that sounds good. Or managing a ten million dollar business with fifty

employees and it's one calamity after the other,

you know, to make that same million dollar EBITDA and then,

you know, get taxed on that and all the other thing.

Like I ask people all the time,

you you want a twenty million dollar business that makes ten percent?

You want a ~ ten million dollar business that makes twenty percent?

Like which one sounds better to you?

I already know which one I want.

Half the brain damage for the same amount of money.

Like, let's go. What what line is that?

Where do I where do I sign up?

So

Yeah.

some businesses are obviously,

you know, easier to scale, some are better ~ to say ~ yourself,

but that's a founder thing.

And I know private equity gets a bad rap for ruining everything.

Like veterinarians, like it's five grand to take your dog to the vet.

You know, five years ago it was five hundred bucks.

So there's a great example where,

yeah, we're gonna inject 30 million dollars into this in order to pay

for all these people and advertising and systems and technology,

the end user is gonna pay. So not everything is being scaled well,

if that makes sense, Erick. And I think some things should probably

~ I don't know, ~ be better, closely held lifestyle.

But once the founder's like, I'm getting too old to do this,

I've done this for 20 years, I don't enjoy it anymore.

I have this reputation, I have this brand.

Some other people could really do great things with this.

And, you know, I want to scale my business and then sell it,

then ultimately, you know you mean you can't sell a job.

I guess that's the short answer.

You can sell a company.

And the multiples you'll get are the le the least the the the the less

the business is dependent on the founder,

the more valuable the business is.

If

Yeah.

you slide down the brass pole with your cape on and you put out all

the fires three times a day, like that business isn't worth much without your hose

and and ~ you know turnout gear.

or you might just be an arsonist too,

because some people

You know, st star fires, you know,

the founder is the most disruptive person in the company.

And I know that's funny, but you know,

a little less so to the people being subjected to that or literally trying

to help the founder from not murder themselves every day,

~ and keep the wheels on the bus or keep it between the ditches,

whatever whatever you want to say.

So that that's a founder thing,

but I don't know off the top of my head any businesses that shouldn't

or should be scaled. I I'll say that's an individual decision.

Okay. All right. Well, this is my favorite question I ask of every guest.

are you a person of a particular faith tradition?

And if so, how has that shaped your business,

shaped your leadership?

Yeah, I I think, you know, I was baptized and went through communion,

so identify as a Christian. However,

there's a lot of flavors of Christians,

right? It there's a there's a lot of different sects,

that that you could be a Lutheran,

you could be a Catholic, you can be a Baptist,

right? It's all it's all J C, it's all Jesus Christ,

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, right?

The triune God, that's a little bit more on the Catholic side,

right?

But I mean, religion, by definition,

I also have kind of more of a worldly view.

Because if you meet people with wildly different religions and you talk to them,

they're all 100% convinced that their version is correct and your version

is somehow wrong. By definition,

if everyone's right, you're all wrong.

If if you understand what I'm saying?

So like this

Yeah.

is where I I get into like the spirituality God,

source, Ra, Jesus Christ.

Right, you know, ~ Ganesh Muhammad,

Hare Krishna, you know, John Smith,

like I think of all the right,

the the prophets of all these different religions,

they all say, Hey, we're doing it right.

Everyone else is doing it. Don't mind these other people,

they're just doing it wrong. Try to try to get to do it our way.

So when I met Mother Ayahuasca,

right, and in this voice I'm hearing.

Well, it's my voice. This is my psyche,

right? I choose what I believe.

But pretty clearly, look around at this beautiful world.

Like an accident, the things banged together and made all these beautiful creatures.

Probably not. So, like, like you know what I'm saying?

Is there a god, an energy source,

a singular thing that created this?

Has to be. What name do they go by?

What's on their name tag when you meet them at the Pearlie Gates

or some other feature?

don't know that either. So I am you know,

~ identify as a Christian. ~ we have a great church we go to,

but I also don't go with the company line,

hook line, and sinker. I I am a a critical thinker,

otherwise known as a conspiracy theorist.

~ now the conspiracy theorists are about bat and eight hundred the last 10 years.

New name Critical Thinker.

I like to be a critical thinker everywhere.

And I I also will do that with religion.

So, you know, probably not a hundred percent lock stock and barrel,

a 100% Christian score. but I think the whole point is you get to kind

of do it your own way, and you can't tell me I'm doing it wrong.

you can, but I don't have to believe that,

Okay.

even if we roughly agree.

On the book, the story, all that.

I mean, I also sit and listen to people who say that religion is just

a construct to help the batteries,

the souls not murder each other between now and the aliens gonna harvest

our energy source. Isn't that the the matrix?

Wasn't that like the the whole concept where batteries

Yeah.

like I've seen some sci-fi movies and there's a handful of them like that could

actually be the simulation we're in,

right? So like I know that's a really wacky answer,

right? But

Doing my own thing over here, Erick.

I don't even want to be pigeonholed into saying I'm this.

I can be all those things. what's

Okay.

important about religion, right,

is taking care of each other and making yourself small and and and you know,

making God or the earth the thing that we serve,

and fellowship and a bunch of broken people get together on Sunday

and sing songs about being good people and.

Aspiring to be better and helping each other out and lifting each other up.

Like I don't know how you can make fun of that because so many people

get so much from religion. At the same time,

religion has been weaponized to murder societies,

~ entire races and creeds.

And ~ you could also have a pretty good argument that religion has has harmed

~ more than it's it's done good.

so I I don't really share

Any of those particular opinions,

but I entertain them all. And the truth is,

I don't know. I wasn't there. It's a story you can believe or not believe,

or you can believe most of it and leave a little door open like I do.

And some people would say, That's blasphemy.

You're a bad like whatever. It's just a label,

it's your construct. It's what you think.

Good luck to you with those thoughts.

They've your thoughts don't reflect in my thoughts.

And that's okay.

So I think anything that allows a group of people to get together

and help others and level up and do good is a good thing.

That's my so I don't even care what flavor you

Okay.

like. Just if it makes you and your family happy and you're giving back,

you're making deposits, you're not just taking withdrawals from this planet.

I'm a big fan and we don't need to argue about who versions right because

I don't I don't care. If that's right for you,

more power to you.

If if you need to project your version of thousand year old story to me,

and if I don't take it a hundred percent and you don't like me,

well, I think you're probably violating whatever verse or book by doing that,

but that doesn't stop people. So to answer your question,

it depends. There's

Gotcha.

great religion and there's not so great religion,

and there's a bunch of gray between those two poles.

And ~

Whatever works for you works for me.

That's the way I operate.

~ is there anybody that you would like to see on the show?

~ somebody that has a really unique business,

a unique career, a great story to tell.

that's a great question. I'd ~ kinda have to think about that one and send

you a list of names. But ~

Okay.

yeah, I I I I definitely, if you're looking for guests,

I know a lot, ~ actually quite a few really,

really, really amazing people.

The work I get to do, I'm so blessed to to not be the smartest guy in the room.

and learn a lot from, you know,

hundreds of really smart people.

And ~ I think I think it's

This this whole earthly experience is a choose your own adventure thing.

so I definitely I don't have anybody to give you here right now,

but I'm sure if I just looked at my contacts and started flipping,

~ I could give you a hundred of them.

Okay. Well, I might reach out.

We're always looking for a great story,

~ an interesting business, an interesting industry,

something that we can all learn from.

So Chris, thank you so much for joining us.

This has been a lot of fun. You have a tremendous amount of experience,

a tremendous amount of wisdom.

And I really appreciate you taking the time to share that with us today.

~ this has been fun for me and I think our listeners are gonna get a lot out of it.

So thank you.

I'm happy to contribute. Thanks again for having me on your show.

Great. And thank you guys for joining us here on From the Ground Up Show.

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