The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 3: Lessons in Entrepreneurship and Work-Life Balance
TJ's inspiring journey from a corporate IT role at Microsoft to building a nightlife production company showcases the trials and triumphs of entrepreneurship. Through grit, self-examination, and a commitment to creating memorable experiences, he learns key lessons on resilience, partnerships, and the importance of prioritizing impact over profit.
• Reflection on early career choices and passion for nightlife
• The importance of community in building a successful business
• Navigating struggles with finances and personal sacrifices
• Learning to delegate and the significance of partnerships
• Understanding the difference between resume-building and eulogy-building
• The role of resilience and self-discovery in entrepreneurship
• Strategies for sustaining passion and purpose in business
Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring you the latest insights, opinions and thought-provoking conversations to give you. We've covered a lot of topics and today we're going to talk a little bit about business, entrepreneurship, culture, maybe chasing those dreams and goals. We all have various different experiences in the world of entrepreneurship. I'd like to start with you, tj. You were kind of the pioneer, the first one to take a leap, moved out to Seattle. We're originally from Indiana and started a production company. So why don't you just take us through kind of where you started and what you learned along that process?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know I was lucky enough, I guess, to have the skill set that afforded me the opportunity to move to Seattle at the age of 20 to pursue a corporate opportunity with Microsoft. And you know I mentioned this in a prior episode about wanting instant gratification in the professional world. That was something that I looked for in that first opportunity. During that time again, you know, I think one of my strengths was efficiency, and that boded well for me in my early career at Microsoft. But after a couple of years things were getting a little bit stale. I wasn't meshing with my bosses and, like a lot of people, I had this vision of doing something for myself, and it was interesting how it came about, in a sense that it was in an arena that I had no experience in at all. It was in the. It came about in a sense that it was in an arena that I had no experience in at all. It was in the nightlife arena.
Speaker 2:I was again working in IT and I was about as typical an IT guy as you could possibly be. I'm sure you both remember that 12 to 16 hours of video games on the weekends. I worked third shifts when I first started out there, so I was the night owl On the weekends. I worked third shifts when I first started out there, so I was the night owl, really that mom's basement persona, if you will. Even though I was on my own didn't have a lot of friends, everybody that was my friend was somebody that I worked with. You moved out. Trent moved out with a much richer social skill set than I had at the time. He was more into going out and having fun with people and so I was kind of pulled along, at which point I was introduced to. It was actually a guy I worked with, but I was introduced to his second job, which was as a DJ. Something interesting and something that I had done prior to my professional start in Seattle or in Redmond at Microsoft was I was really always drawn to delivering a good time for people. I really love to see people smile and when I saw you know, I mean I didn't have my first drink of alcohol until I was 23 um, but when I saw people out there having a great time, saw what vince was able to do through his mastery of music, seeing people dancing and having fun, I'm like let's do this. So it started to blend technology and nightlife and over a long period of time.
Speaker 2:And this is something that I think is probably a character flaw for me is that the business definitely didn't show up overnight. I think it took two years. I'm one of those people and I've met a lot of people like this in business, so I'd be interested to understand your guys' perspectives on this type of stuff. But for me it really wasn't until my back was against the wall. I did immerse myself in it.
Speaker 2:We did spend a lot of time early on throwing parties, really at our own expense. 10 people would show up, five people would show up, but you didn't let that daunt you. You made sure you gave those five people the best experience that they could possibly have. You made sure that they felt a part of it. If they showed up the next week with a couple of friends, you took care of them and a lot of time. That was money out of your pocket, but you were building this network. You were building this group of fans, if you will. People that kind of saw what you wanted to do for the community that you were producing events in, and we did that for a couple of years. And then finally the rubber really met the road.
Speaker 2:As the nightlife portion was growing and we were having more successful events and more events per week, it kind of came into conflict with my professional career and what ended up happening was I was working third shift at the time. I had left Microsoft and was at Disney and I was just unable to stay awake. During my corporate job, a typical day was waking up at noon, going to business meetings for the production company and then you know, just typical rest of your day, stuff. I would go to the club to set up around nine o'clock. We'd run the club from nine to nine to midnight and then at 1130, then I would leave and I'd work at midnight to 8 am shift. So I was getting about four hours of sleep at night and had figured out a way to work through that. But circumstances changed at work and then I was unable to get through it. So at that point and I think this is interesting and a couple people know about this, but at that point when I was let go from Disney, I was in my car for about six weeks staying behind the gym that I worked out at. Some of this was by choice. I had couches I could have slept on. I could have reached out to our parents and potentially gotten some help there, but I kind of wanted to solve the problem myself and when that happened it was really back against the wall and that's what fired me up to get that business to the level that I got it to, Started to really self-examine and look for my shortcomings, one of which was I just didn't know how to make money.
Speaker 2:I was too giving, like I was too giving, you know, like I I was still. Well, they're showing up and they're having fun. I'll just put everybody on the guest list and let them all in free. I found a business partner who was the complete opposite of that and I remember him saying, um, and you know, a lot of people thought that he took advantage of me at that point, but he's like I'm going to help you make money if we split this up. And I gave him half of the company that we'd worked for two years to kind of build the foundation for and ended up turning it into a really successful venture and successful endeavor.
Speaker 2:But there were some personal shortcomings that I had from a business perspective that ultimately landed it, landed me in a situation with that as well as kind of lost interest in that particular um, just that particular, I guess, industry that that kind of ultimately led to a failure, but we did have a couple of years of super strong success and, um, it was it really helped me change my mindset. You know, I grew up, like you guys did, with the father who worked a job and he was there for 50 years and it was I worked and I get paid this salary for the first time in my life. As the nightlife thing grew, it was this complete change in perspective where you had confidence in yourself to go out and generate revenue. We used to justify purchasing things like hey, that's only seven people paying cover, right, and so, oh, I just got to get seven more people out there. And that shift in mindset really changed a lot for me personally.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, you, you, um, one of the things that I admire that you've continued to do and you did it with, uh, the machine Gamisha track club. One of the things that I admire that you've continued to do and you did it with the Machine Gamisha Track Club, which is the running club is you have a vision to start something and you're able to grind it out Like I, if I, if I start something and it's I'm a year in and people aren't showing up, I'm probably out. Like what, what's that mentality like? How do you approach to you know, when something isn't you know, immediate gratification, things aren't working out. You've time and time again put the work in and then it's taken sometimes two, three, five years for it to build into something special. Like, how do you mentally take that, that journey and stick with it?
Speaker 2:I just try to do the best I can with what we have. And again, you know we talked about being honest with yourself and I think our first episode that's the other thing too. I'm not putting in 14 hours a day growing these organizations or these events at this point in time, so my expectations aren't necessarily through the roof. I think having that conversation and it's like you're going to get out of it what you put into it, but really trying to maximize, I think that's the thing right, trying to maximize human experience. So many people are driven by I want to have the biggest of this, or I want to have the best of this, or I want to make the most money doing this. For whatever reason, I don't care. We've been doing MTC now, for we've been producing races. This will be year five for FOMO and we probably haven't been profitable yet. Uh, so you know, hopefully one day we will be. I don't even know if that'll go to the bottom line. Frankly, it might just go to philanthropy, but it's. It's having a different purpose, having a different inspiration. It's like man, I would much rather see somebody accomplish something spectacular and improve their life, and I want to.
Speaker 2:One of the big things for me lately, especially in the running world, is you're seeing a lot of the major marathons. I think one of the big stories it's kind of a cautionary tale is rock and roll. Right, rock and roll marathon a decade ago was it like they had bands playing and it was so cool and you got all this stuff. And we experienced rock and roll marathon in january of, I think, 23 and it was like, how little can we give you? Like here's a cardboard t-shirt and we're gonna set some things out on. Uh, we're gonna set some like random, you know, items out on tables and if you want to to set some like random you know items out on tables and if you want to pick them up and put them in your packet, like, that's great.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm very conscious of experience. If somebody pays 150 or $200, you know what can we bring to them. You know, and those types of things keep me up at night is just, I don't. I don't ever want anybody to feel taken advantage of and I'm not sure where that comes from. I'm not sure what experience we've had in life or I had in life that you know. Maybe maybe somebody at some point in time left me feeling, um taken advantage of and I never want. You know, the smallest things mean so much to me.
Speaker 2:One of the things we've been dealing with with Fulham over the last couple of years is transportation in the morning, because it's a point-to-point race and transportation for a race like that is cripplingly expensive. You know, to bus 30 people, 20 miles is a thousand dollars. 4, 30 in the morning, that would you know, especially when the race was young. That would completely cripple us. So the last couple of years we haven't provided that. But I mean, I'm known and I'll do it. I get people, ubers, back to their car after the race is over because I just want to make sure that they have a great time and that they kind of so. So that's kind of what it is for me. It's just a different purpose, a different underlying approach.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean what I'm hearing there and what's really interesting is your why is different Right? And so I think it's a little bit cliche to say do what you love, right, and then the rest will fall into place. But I think there's something there. If you're doing it for the following and the following isn't there in a year, you're out. If you're doing it to make people happy, and you're making people happy, even on a small scale, you're in, you're staying in that, I don't know. I guess that's what I heard there. It makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's, you know. That's one of the reasons that I love. You know both of our races, but I think you can feel the groundswell too when you go and you experience the community, and it's just so infectious, you know, and that's why, like I, get so excited to invite people out to these races, especially something like Prairie on Fire where everybody's congregated into one area. It's like you've got to come experience this. It's so. Even people that don't eat, don't run. You've never been in an environment where people care about other people so much. You know. It's funny. It's counter to what we were talking about last episode with parents and being so competitive and so viscerally angry when something doesn't go their way and so cutthroat. You'll never see that. And so you know, growing that aspect of society and having people that care just as much as that parent cares about winning I have people on the other side that care just as much about their peers finishing or achieving a goal in a race that's been something that is so inspiring to me.
Speaker 3:I would just add one thing, because this came up at the Prairie on Fire last year is the attention to detail. You talked about this and everyone having great experience. It was fun to hear because I observed it and didn't really notice it at the time when we first started Fulmo there were a few people that took longer than what the allotted course time was to finish the race. It was like I think seven hours and we had a few people coming in at seven and a half, eight hours and you kept the finish line open and you stayed and people stayed, and so when people finished they had that opportunity to still be celebrated, even though it took them longer, for whatever reason that was.
Speaker 3:Someone brought that up specifically, it was, I think it was. Maybe one of their friends was like they kept the finish line open for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever it is, and he's like that's when I knew I wanted to be a part of this community and so I think those that attention to detail and those small things that you mentioned I think they make a. They make a huge difference and they build. You know you talk about in business there's there's concept of building like lifetime clients, right Building and I think those those small things where you have nothing to gain by staying right, and people see that and they could see like the heart of why you're doing it, has a really lasting impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you articulate that beautifully.
Speaker 1:The purpose behind what you do, what you do in your drive, comes from a different area, which is special, comes from a different area which is special. I wish I had more of that drive, but I've seen it come to life in not only TPD back in the day, but now in the races, and you've always been a creator for the family as well. Whether it's something new or it's a game, it's like TJ's bringing an idea to the table and he's probably put 10 to 20 hours in it before it even got to us. So I think the thing you're going to find out through this conversation is that there's different stages of entrepreneurship and there's different cycles and we all have a little different skill set. Now, todd, you came from corporate, so give us a little bit of that like what it was and where you're at now. Give us a little bit of that like what it was and where you're at now and just kind of some of those things that go along with where you're at and how your journey has got you to where you are today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I mentioned in previous episodes and my orientation is more purpose-driven.
Speaker 3:So I try and remain positive and kind of play the hand I'm dealt and make the most of it, and in the corporate world that's certainly different than where I am now.
Speaker 3:I was in the corporate world for a Fortune 100 company for 11 years and it was a great run and I think I took a lot of skills and development from that. You know, in that sort of environment you can't control a lot, and so one of the things that I probably took from that more than anything is and I've kind of explored this more since then is you can't control everything, and what's interesting about people's happiness levels is 90% statistically. Sean Accor did this great YouTube TEDx talk on the happiness advantage and gosh, it's probably 10 years old now, but the studies that he did showed that only 10% of your happiness has to do with your external circumstances and 90% is how you respond to it, and to me that's just always really resonated. So I've developed this ability to just again try and make the most of whatever situation I was in, maintain a positive outlook and invest into that.
Speaker 2:You know I'll jump in here really quickly, um, just to kind of pose this question. I was thinking about it prior to you jumping in. You know, um, in my journey I've been able to always take it to a particular point and haven't really we've. We've had success, but relative to what you've experienced and what you've contributed to, not anywhere near that level. So you know, I think, what I've seen from you, trent, over the last gosh, how long has it been now? Since 15 years 10 years since.
Speaker 2:Okay, so a long time, regardless. You have a knack for taking things that are at a particular level and elevating them considerably. I mean, you know, the IMG has grown exponentially since you kind of came into being there and then you've started other businesses or jumped into other businesses were at a particular place. So, like what, what drives you there? What do you think are the characteristics of your personality that help you take those businesses to the next level? Kind of give us a peek behind that curtain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I, um, scalability building has always been something that I've enjoyed. Uh, very similar, though, like I like to um see people live out their dream, and I would say some of the skillsets would probably be a connector. Um, I'm a feeler, which is sometimes it's me and Todd are kind of opposite on that. Uh, we actually work together both at at IMG, and so my journey has been it's just been that I've been fortunate enough to buy into companies. I would say I'm not great at the starting from scratch. I like to take something where somebody's already kind of developed a business model and then help attract the right people and the right talent. So I care deeply for other people and I want them to enjoy the journey, and so part of what I focus on is how do I help someone achieve their goals, how do I lean in, how do I unite people around a common purpose and goal, and that's kind of where my heart is most of the time. So when we have in the example with IMG, it was about recruiting Todd, it was about recruiting all the players that are there now, bringing them in behind a unified vision, and then I spent the last decade learning how to be a good business owner. The other side of that is none of us had really experienced being entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:I went to school for IT and tech and I found myself in this situation and I had to continue to seek out people that had been there before me, look for mentors, look for coaches. Tony Robbins, from a kind of a motivational he he gave a lot of insight. I did a lot of his events, so there was a lot of different things. I kept trying to put myself in rooms where I could continually learn and learn and learn, and then I was just willing to try stuff to. The other side is just, we all have a certain type of risk appetite and it's not good, bad, indifferent, but mine is really high and so I'm willing to take risks that don't logically make sense to most people. And a lot of the times it's because I'm like, when I look at those situations, like I did at IMG, I had 23 people. I'd been there eight years and these people were like brothers and sisters and still are a lot of them Like we were so close. I would do anything for them, like we were a family and I bet on people and I said, you know, when it came time for that business and it was going to, it was going to be sold. It was like it's going here which we would have been a part of a national brokerage or I have an opportunity to go here and I'm going to bet on those people because I I mean they're, they're, they're family to me, and so that's really a lot when I find the right team and the right culture and then I try to find ways to add value to that culture and I try to get other people excited about that culture.
Speaker 1:And the other component of that which Todd has come in and been great at is there's the process and the structure side. And so I think a lot of entrepreneurs, when they have a smaller business, it's really hard to go from small to medium. It's probably the hardest jump. I would say. Medium to large is probably a lot easier, but that small to medium is tough because generally the owner is wearing several different hats and the sacrifice you have to make from a time standpoint and a financial standpoint to get from small to medium is really really difficult. And, as I think about it, in my mid forties now or early forties, I'm not sure that I would make those sacrifices, given the phase of life I'm in now. I was very fortunate to get that opportunity at age 34, because I was young enough and dumb enough to to kind of take a shot. Um, and it's paid off.
Speaker 2:There's two things I want to. You made a comment that I have to ask you about. You know again really caring about the people that are in your organization. You know, I kind of want to peek behind the veil, because it isn't all unicorns and rainbows, and I've I've heard this from a number of business leaders. When you do care so much about your people, there will be times that they do not perceive it that way. How does that make you feel? How do you deal with scenarios where, honestly, you believe that you're doing what's best for not only the person but the organization right, because the company has to stay solvent, the company has to stay profitable for that person to continue to have a job. So, like I'm sure, that's an extremely stressful thing that you face on a regular basis, and probably one of the most stressful things. How have you learned to deal with that over time?
Speaker 1:It's like anything, it's kind of repetitions it's. You know you run into a situation for the first time and you're going through it and you don't sleep right. You're like you're just beside yourself of this situation. Then the next time you go through it it's a little easier, and the next time it's a little easier. If you have the right motives and you care about people, it's always going to bother you. I don't think you ever get away from that. And so there are times when we're doing difficult changes at the company for the betterment of the company or the growth of the company, where you got to be like why, why do we want to grow? What's our purpose in growing? Why do we need to make changes? Because, and as you start to go through that, you start to think about that and you realize it truly is the best thing.
Speaker 1:People's lives are impacted, right Like they're. Somebody may lose their job or someone may have to, you know, take a pay cut. There's different things that happen that truly impact people's families, and what I always try to think about is if I was in their shoes and this was happening to me. And so, being a feeler, I've, I feel that, and so those, those have been. Some of the toughest things from a leadership standpoint is making tough decisions that impact people's lives and their family's lives, knowing that if they trust me, it's going to hopefully work out and most of the time it has. Where it's worked out on the other end, but we also aren't perfect right. So we're firing bullets all the time. We're taking chances and some of them turn out to be great and some of them don't turn out to be great.
Speaker 3:But about some of those failures. I mean, I think obviously you know both of you as you look back, and you have achieved, you know desired levels of success and and the things that you were shooting for. A lot of times, I think there's the misconception that you just you know, you had the skill set, you were right time, right place and this is all worked out super well. And I mean, did you briefly alluded to being in your car for six weeks, which, and some different challenges? But talk about some of the failures. What, both of you? What are some of the things that you guys ran into and you learned from? And maybe at the time it felt like that was going to be the end of the world, right, but you learned from it and adapted.
Speaker 2:I mean for me my no-transcript very scary One of the endeavors that I took on. So you know, in the nightlife industry, logical progression is going from throwing parties to owning a nightclub, and so we opened our first nightclub when I was 31. And I'd chosen some partners at the time that also did not have the financial or operational skill set and that placed me in predicaments where this is kind of ironic because and I guess I'll be forthcoming about this there's really no reason to hide it at this point and it's quite interesting we had really no approach to bookkeeping, really no approach to financial solvency. It was really flying by the seat of our pants and operating on cash week to week, and a couple months in I recognized this just out of sheer nervousness and wanting to be responsible. So one of the things that I ended up setting up was hey guys, maybe we should pay sales tax on the liquor we're selling, and so did the requisite things to make sure we had everything in place, hired a bookkeeper to make sure we were being upfront and honest, and started the process of filing on a regular basis and paying our taxes.
Speaker 2:Well, towards the end of the year I'd been in nightlife at that time eight years and I had a pretty good gauge as to what the ebbs and flows were going to be. And I saw something coming from a profitability standpoint that did not look viable and it was time for me to go. So I ended up getting out of this organization, ended up signing over my ownership to someone else because it was at a point where there wasn't any profit to be made from a sale. It was really just getting out. And, goodness, maybe a year later I had to be over a year later, a year and a half, I get a phone call from the Washington State Department of Revenue. Turns out that after I left, taxes stopped getting paid. Well, because I was the person that set it up originally, the way that Washington State DOR operates, it was on me, so these guys hadn't paid sales tax. All of a sudden I'm getting a phone call that I owe $70,000. You know, and I had I had changed industries entirely, so I had to start from a, from a salary perspective, from scratch.
Speaker 2:I was making when I got the call. I was making the same amount of money, maybe less, than I made when I came out to work for Microsoft when I was 20. And this is 13 years later, so there's no way that in the way they work, this isn't like personal income tax. You don't get to make deals right. It is. The clock is ticking and really long story short.
Speaker 2:Luckily had a great agent that talked me through what it would look like if I didn't address this and what other ways there were around it. Again, I guess by the grace of God we made it through, but it did impact things like my ability to buy a house because there was a lien on my credit. That was a really hard lesson learned my credit so that was a really hard lesson learned. I've been much more cognizant of that with MTC and working with you a little bit and having some people that have helped you do your books, help with the LLC portion of this and making sure that I'm up to speed. It's still not my top focal point, but that was a real big learned lesson for me that you just you can't ignore those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah and this is actually dovetails in nicely with what you're saying is what you realize, and I've realized, is that you don't have to be good at everything, you just need good people around you, and I think one of the big misnomers with entrepreneurs is it's like I got to do it all. I got to be the finance guy, I got to be the marketing guy, I got to be the sales guy and I'm not big enough to do all these other things and I need to, I need to be the expert. And then we use all this time and energy doing things that are just counter intuitive to what you know, who we are and what God created us to do. And so I would spend.
Speaker 1:You know, I was 34 when I took over and I probably spent five years straight just 70, 80 hour work, just working and working, and we were growing the company, and then we broke the company and we were switching this and switching that and that didn't work, and so we were constantly changing and evolving, and we probably lost some really good people during that time just because I was trying to do way too much, and so I lived in that mode where I knew a little bit about everything. I wasn't paying as close attention in different places. We probably lost some good people because of it. We definitely burnt some people out because of it because I just wasn't as locked in on both the sales side and the ops side. I had the largest book as a producer. I was trying to run a sales team of 10 plus we had our whole operationals team. We were trying to build processes and I worked in kind of oversaw finance. We had another controller there at the time. So there's all these things happening and I wasn't really good at any of them. I was just good with people. I could get in a room and everyone would walk out feeling good. It was all about how they felt and we'd talk or we'd hug it out or we'd figure out how life was doing.
Speaker 1:But I was running in so many different directions I wasn't doing anything well, which is when I realized that I need to bring in other people and so I would encourage people, like it's one thing to try to do it all, and sometimes you kind of have to cause that's all you can financially afford. But if you can really understand your skills and talents and what you're good at and start to hone in on that because I also realized that I don't love operations and I really struggle to maintain things Anything. That's even when we could talk about parenting and building structures, like my kids laugh. He's like we have no traditions because I can't stick with anything longer than a couple of years and so I'm really, really bad at that side of it. And my wife we took these assessment called the working genius and she's not any better, so she's got big ideas as well, and execution is a struggle for us. So I would say a lot of my early shortfalls were trying to think that I had to do it all.
Speaker 2:Was there an inflection point Cause I've seen this with people that I've been in proximity to over the years Was there an inflection point where you realized you know, I see it quite often, especially in younger entrepreneurs, where there is some self-worth associated with doing it all right, like you know and they become this massive bottleneck because it's exactly what you said. They feel like they have to touch and approve everything, but they can't stay focused long enough to approve anything because there's a fire that needs to be put out on the finance side or there's a fire that needs to be put out on the sales side, and it's just this completely chaotic thing and some of the behaviors that I've witnessed. I guess you know you'll hear individuals like this again kind of younger entrepreneurs. They have teams around them but but yet they want to take. Like there, there's still that desire to take personal credit for things maybe not, you know. So was there a point for you where that kind of switched?
Speaker 1:yeah, there's definitely a point of that. Like the you, you know, your identity gets tied up in the business. And then it used to be like the things you used to brag about in your 20s and 30s were like, oh, I worked 80 hours, didn't sleep at all, I mean, like it was almost like the more you could talk about how much you worked and how burnout you were, and oh man, I've been to the well, haven't slept in three days, like that actually became like a, a status. It became like, you know, you would say, oh, I scored 13 points at a basketball game. Well, no, it's like, dude, I've just been on the grind, I've been working. So, yeah, it definitely was a sense of like the harder I worked or the more I put in, or the more I could talk about how I'm self-sacrificing to build this thing. It was almost like an identity. And there was a point in time where it came, where it stopped being about me, and it was much, much later in my career. But I've had those inflection points in my in my career where it's like who gets credit is really not important and and and I don't care as much, but I will.
Speaker 1:I will give you one example, building a business, one of the things that I really identified with as being the man right, like as uh, todd came on, came on board and he'll probably remember this moment, but I had so much of my identity wrapped up in being the president and the CEO of IMG, it was just I couldn't move on. I couldn't get to that next step because it was like when someone had a problem, who'd they come to? I could solve the problem. I was finding my recognition and my appreciation and my identity and people would come to me and I could solve problems and it made me feel good. It gave me self-worth and when I started to realize how much of a stronghold that had on me and the desire that I wanted for that, I realized how much of a bad thing that was. And that's when I kind of separated the roles at the company and Todd took over as president and I moved into a CEO role. I'll never forget I had him and James in there and it was like an emotional moment for me because giving away the presidency to Todd, who was much better operationally to run a company he processes procedures, he's really good with people, it was better in his skillset I found myself like missing that interaction and missing the go-to, even to the point where he probably knows this, but probably for the next four weeks there was some sabotaging going on.
Speaker 1:You know people would look at us as mom and dad and they'd you know, and I'd be like, well, you know, todd's not a feeler, you know he's, he's a process guy. If he has a blind spot, and I wanted them to know, I knew his blind spot and there was a little bit of this and I'm like I finally, after about four or six weeks, I'm like what the hell am I doing? I've given this responsibility. I need to let it go. There's other things that I can be focusing on. Here's where I add value and I kind of settled in. But that was not an easy transition and there was a lot of time during that time where I just my self-worth and doubt of like who I was really came into question.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned something and I think this is an interesting thing because there is a perception out there you talked about small and medium business and you talked about wearing a bunch of hats and I think there is this perception out there with really high level, really highly motivated executives, and there's a bunch of hats, and I think there is this perception out there with really high level, really highly motivated executives, and there's a lot of content out there today that kind of glorifies 80 hour work weeks and the grind and this and that and the other thing. You are involved in the day-to-day operations as heavily as one can be, or at least in building the processes that keep this company umloat, but in growth mode. What does that look like? You know, is there truth to? I'm spending 80 hours a week on this one business. What are the? What are the perils that one may fall into, you know, wanting to achieve that status of extraordinarily hard worker when in all reality you know you can establish or implement some efficiencies to.
Speaker 2:You talked about something the other day. This is kind of but you said prayer multiplies time. So I want to look at that through the same lens, not necessarily with prayer, but multiplying time. So I want to look at, look at that through the same lens, not necessarily with with prayer, but multiplying time. You know, have you been able to implement efficiencies or whatever that have taken that badge of honor? 80 hour work week reduced it to a point where you're able to focus on other areas of your life, to make the time that you are working that much more impactful. So, like, what does a day to day look like if somebody who's running, you know, a multimillion dollar company?
Speaker 3:I, I, uh, I would say I don't have it all figured out and it depends on the day. Um, you know, we talk about some of the things that we've talked about and, uh, I find it's a, it's a journey, like you know, to get on the other side of some of these things. You feel like you're on the other side of them and then they rear their head. And so, to go back to your question about operational efficiencies, I think one of the most important things is prioritization. We love to talk about how busy we are, and there is, in today's distraction prone world you could stay busy all day and you could do absolutely nothing, literally this concept called switching costs, and that that is something that I'm very passionate about. And switching costs, the idea of your topic, your mind. It takes it time to shift topics Right, and so you're like this email to that email, to this conversation, to that, and all you're doing is you're you're keeping balls in the air, but you're not making definitive progress in one particular direction, and I think that's the trap in today's world, today's society and today's businesses. You mentioned this earlier going a thousand. You know, when you're saying I wasn't doing any of them, well, I was going a thousand different directions and it's death by a thousand cuts. You can go an inch in or a foot in 5,000 different directions or you can go a mile in one direction.
Speaker 3:And I think for me, when I have had my good days or my good months or years, I have focused on the three things that I need to go deep on and figure out and accomplish, and I've stayed the path. And I think the hardest part about that is you have to disappoint people along the way, the people that you're not ready at everyone's beck and call to keep the ball in the air. Good, hardworking employees who need your input on something tactical. Sometimes they have to wait and that is really hard. That's really hard.
Speaker 3:But from an ROI perspective, and you look at the long-term benefit of the organization and you look at some of you know, when you're implementing and making meaningful progress on strategic things, those usually the benefit has several, a couple to several more zeros on the end of it, and so I think that's been the guilt of kind of letting some things fall.
Speaker 3:I've got this image that I had put on LinkedIn. Gosh, it was maybe a year ago now and I had a good employee who was juggling like eight different balls right there's, like you know, and a couple of them were a silver ball and a gold ball and all these other little basketballs, and then there were a couple on the floor right and then I had next to that the great employee who had was only juggling three balls, but they were all the gold balls right and was doing that effectively and the other balls were laying on the ground. And so I think that's the misconception that I would articulate is that it's not how much you're getting done, but how important the things are that you're doing and how those are strategically moving the organization.
Speaker 2:So is there? Is there always a? I guess too? You said you don't have it all figured out and it depends on the day, week, month, year, so so I guess then you're saying that that is kind of the North star versus there being a specific, uh, balance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say the balance, and I hate to use these cliche terms, but usually there's some sort of source of truth. So I'll try and unpack that and uncover that. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail is probably the cliche phrase I would lean into, and let me explain that. Why I think some of this in particular phrase has some sort of hold, some weight is, if you don't take the time to plan and know what those three things are, that day, that week or that month or that year, you're just going to chase the shiny objects. I like to say, if you don't prioritize your day I forget where I heard this, so I'd say I'd like to repeat this If you don't prioritize your day, someone else will right Huge problem.
Speaker 3:And we all have these unique gifts and talents that we're given and responsibilities, frankly, that we're entrusted, and you could take this in business and in life. And if we don't, we know, I guess, best how to deploy those and accomplish those. The people who are, you know, people who are around us, are worried about theirs, right, and so if you spend your entire day reacting to things people are putting in front of you, you're helping them achieve, maybe, their goals and objectives, which is important, but you also have a unique set of talents and responsibilities that you need to tend to as well. Better times have been when I've taken the time to plan. It's so counterintuitive, right In terms of multiplying time.
Speaker 3:It's like, okay, I've got an eight hour day, I'm going to spend an hour planning and that seems to think like I could be doing stuff for that hour. The reality is, if you were to do that and you were to step back and look at not just how busy you are, but how productive you were, when you take the time to plan, maybe it's 30 minutes a day, maybe it's 15 minutes just getting your top three priorities of the day there's ways to do this in very lean fashions and get 80% of the benefit. Certainly, when you're talking weekly, monthly or annual plans, you're going to spend some more time, but if you take the time to identify those boulders, it's incredible. In my experience, the output is exponential in terms of the impact.
Speaker 2:As someone I think would be considered a hyper producer, have you gotten to the point within yourself where, as long as you're accomplishing your priorities, you're just as satisfied with a three-hour day as a 12 hour day?
Speaker 3:I would say uh, yes and no yes and no I would.
Speaker 3:It depends on how I'm using those other nine hours. I think one of the things that I've struggled with is kind of you could say a manic in some regard with respect to productivity is maintaining the mental balance and the mental calmness. This is something that I would say I've struggled with in the last 12 months because I haven't been as intentional with my, I wasn't intentional with my annual goals to start the year, so I don't necessarily have these targets out there to know that I have like a peace of mind and I'm I'm accomplishing the things I needed to accomplish this week, month or year, and in the absence of that, there's a whole lot of anxiety. It's like am I doing enough? I don't know. I just need to keep going, going, going going because, like, I'm not sure, am I there, am I not? And and that has created a lot of challenge. To go back to answer your question, if I'm spending three hours a day on the top priorities that I need to for that particular time and then the other time that I'm doing in my day is invested in other activities, that whether that's personal growth type stuff, or mental wellness and balance type stuff, or fitness or other categories, you know. That's where I think I can be in that environment and feel really good about that, even if in a given day I only focused on professional objectives for a few hours.
Speaker 3:Zit ebbs and flows. I think where I would struggle is if I invested and got my priorities done in a few hours and then just jumped on Roblox and played mindless games for nine hours. I'd probably look back on that day and say but we all are going to run into unplanned things, unexpected things, unexpected obstacles and things are going to drag out longer. So I try not to. If I do get through something more quickly than I had anticipated, I try to make up that ground. Got to stay balanced, and that's something I'm still trying to figure out. Got to stay balanced because I know there's going to be a time where I have three hours of work planned and it's going to take me 12 hours.
Speaker 1:I struggle with the word balance because there's never like you're 30% here, 30% here, 30% here. It's just you're kind of ebb and flowing with what the demands are and what the purpose of the day is and what the priorities of the day are, which I think you've articulated very well. For someone out there that owns a business small business, that's an entrepreneur, why don't you walk them through, kind of what you do or we do, to really gain that clarity walking into 2025, to help, and maybe some of the even go as detailed as like chunking time on days, or maybe how you kind of set things up to be most impactful and effective.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say there's no magic sauce, but I think the first step is taking the time to plan. And so when you're looking at 2025, I think there's a lot of things to do, there's a few different inputs is you're looking at 2024, what went well, what didn't go well, what were some of the challenges, and then you're looking at the opportunities. Right, it's almost like a SWOT analysis. I don't want to get too MBA with those sorts of things, but what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what are your opportunities out there when you look in the future and that could be optimizations to your business model or other things. And then what are your threats?
Speaker 3:And I think it's just spending time. I think it helps to spend time with others. I think doing it in a group session, if you have multiple employees, or if you bring in a consultant with fresh eyes, just someone to bounce things off of, I think are really really important to getting to the core things of. I think are really really important to getting to the core things. And this isn't something that takes 15, 20 minutes. It takes several hours, in most cases, a few days to get to a really crystallized list of things that you want to accomplish in the subsequent year at the highest level, and then remind me your follow-up question on.
Speaker 1:My follow-up question was just some of the day-to-day strategies you put in place to get as much done, but I wanted you to touch base as well. So, from a planning standpoint, you do some of the planning. How often do you revisit the overarching annual strategic plan to make sure that your time, that you're spending directly, correlates to the outcomes that you want to achieve for the company at a high level?
Speaker 3:Generally, that reset process happens quarterly. So you know, that's how I kind of break up the goals when I annually like, hey, here's what I want to accomplish, and those then break down into quarterly goals In order to accomplish this at the end of the year. I've got to do this by the end of the quarter and, honestly, that for me, in my better years breaks down to a monthly goal and a weekly goal and a daily goal. So when I'm looking at my goals on a daily basis, they're connecting to much broader, bigger things that you know. The question I like to ask myself if you want to know, do I have a great set of goals for 2025? Is if all of these things happened, would I look back and say this has been a fantastic year? And if that's the case like, that's generally a barometer and obviously they need to be realistic, right, but that's generally a barometer for me. But I would say, quarterly, I look back and try to reset and refresh and things change, right. Like people say, well, I'm not going to spend my time planning for the year because in three to six months it's going to be different, I would say yes, and I would say it's both like you plan and you forecast as much as you can and even three to five year plans, right, it's important to go through that exercise and it absolutely does evolve and that's okay. Right, that's part of the process and I think on a quarterly basis to reset and you're tweaking and refining To your question about on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:I do when I've had my best and I always qualify that when I'm at my best, because I'm not. There are days where I come in and I don't plan and I'm just running helter skelter and by the end of the day I'm stressed out and the anxiety is high. When I have my best days, generally three times a week, I have three hour time blocks in the mornings. Generally, my peak time is usually between nine and 12. And that's different for some people. For some people it's five to eight, some people it's eight to 11 at night. Whatever your prime time is, that's when I try and schedule my really higher in strategic thinking type work.
Speaker 3:People have referred to it in different, so that because a lot of the times when you're doing the responding to emails or having certain conversations or things and just kind of keeping balls in the air, that's stuff you can do when you're not necessarily in peak, at your peak level of the day, and so that's how I try and schedule that, and so you would be. I guess I think a lot of people would be. I know I am shocked when I block off three hours how much I can actually get done. It takes you about 30 minutes to get into what I would call some sort of flow kind of state, and then you can really crank and get an incredible amount done in a few hours and then you can kind of keep the balls in the air at different points of the day. So I would say that trick in and of itself was probably the most impactful for me to accomplish.
Speaker 2:I want to talk about something a little bit different, a little gear shift to the both of you. We've been talking kind of higher level right, Kind of executive responsibilities and growing businesses and things like that. We are fortunate to have friends who have grown businesses into the billion dollar, multi-billion dollar range, and some of them one in particular early on in their career had this philosophy of hiring good people and figuring it out, and it seemed to work out well, at least for a period of time. So when you guys talk, what do you guys think of your team and I like that word personally let's not talk about skill sets, but let's explore some of the morals and values and personality traits that you look for when it comes to a team member. They may not be the right fit skillset wise, but they have these other things that are so important that it has proven successful for you over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously, the some of the moral, the moral characteristics, the integrity, some of the moral characteristics, the integrity, a good work ethic. You know it's really a tough question. Those are the ones that come to me right away. But we've introduced a couple of different things on the front end from a testing standpoint. So we do some assessments. We also do what's called a working genius Patrick Lencioni has a book and has a system, and working genius talks about people's working styles. I know there's several things out there. There's the disk analysis and the personality We've really honed in.
Speaker 1:There's certain types of individuals that work better in different skill sets and, just to be clear, we don't ever use these assessments as all or nothing like oh they, if they're not this exactly, then they don't fit. That's not really the point. The point is is if we can understand how someone works and we have a position to where we think that that's a really good fit and the employee is going to have a high level of job satisfaction, then that's going to increase their happiness at work, it's going to increase their productivity, it's going to be a good fit for both of us. So what we've tried to do is really identify, you know, what is going to make a really good account manager is not going to be the same skills that's going to make a good producer. So there are some intangibles. Like you want to work with good people, I want people that are going to be good teammates that are humble, um, that are, you know, like.
Speaker 1:Our sales team is really remarkable because they work together. A third of our new business revenue in 2023 came from people working together, and these are people that generally would compete for accounts right, but they actually would come together. Someone need help, they would come in and they'd work together and they would close an account. So somebody that has a team oriented mindset would be something that probably wouldn't be on that test. Obviously, honesty is a big thing you can get into in sales, where you have individuals that are all about themselves and they're savage salespeople but they destroy teams and we won't let that come into our organization. So, outside of doing the assessments and really trying to align some of those different working geniuses, that's probably where I would leave it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you made a great point that it depends on the role. I think it depends on the role for sure. Sales, service, leadership, admin versus client facing I think are huge. From an underlying moral characteristic, I think integrity is huge. So I think that's just a integrity and that that's just kind of that honesty, openness is huge.
Speaker 3:I would say, in terms of just general characteristics, that I, if I were to draw out three, I would say problem solving skills are extremely important. You just run into problems all the time, things that are unexpected, and someone's ability to kind of work through those, have the confidence and capability to work through those and figure those things out, is super important. I would say communication skills would be another one that is huge, because you've got to be able to solve the problems and then you have to be able to communicate with others about those and that could be clients. Clients that could be internally, you know, I would say if I had to have a tier of characteristics, you know, and I'm looking at hiring those are in addition to kind of the underlying integrity, and there's a lot of other things, right, vulnerability, people's willingness to be wrong, or to the humility and those I mean. There's so many different things, but I would say um communication and problem solving skills are at the top of the list.
Speaker 2:We talked earlier. There was a mention of failures. Has there, have there been any cat? Obviously, we're not naming names have there been any catastrophic misses that you thought like, oh, this could be great? And it was not just like, oh, it didn't quite work out, but like oh no, I got a funny one.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's not very serious, but hired someone, thought they would be great and we weren't doing a lot of testing at the time. And she got to the first day of work and she couldn't type, boy, and it was like it was one of these peck typers and I'm just like, oh gosh, what did we just do? Like, your full-time job is typing. So the typing test question was put in from then on out. But it's like within two days we had to part ways because you literally couldn't. Her efficiency was one-tenth of anyone else because she couldn't type.
Speaker 1:So there's been a lot of others and I don't know what Todd's going to jump into to. Where there's always misses, turnover is inevitable and I would say, like the end of the day, if you want what's best for people, I've, I've always said this Sometimes we're a stepping stone and sometimes we're a career. We try to make it to where someone can have a full career with us, but sometimes that's just not not in the cards and so sometimes they leave on their own accord and sometimes it's just not a good fit for us, but we try everything we can to put them in the right spot. I don't know if you can think of any more misses just off the hand. That was just something like man. I wish I would have asked that question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I won't get into details, but there are certainly misses and it's not that these are bad people or people that aren't capable of doing a job. It was just the fit with us wasn't there and people just from a. I think sometimes it's easy to. I think the underlying, some of the more subjective things are tougher to assess and understand what you're getting into. You can test on certain skills and capabilities, but where someone's coming from from a moral perspective or just underlying qualities and characteristics, it's, it's. You can miss on that and you realize it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the company intangibles. I could think of two separate situations for you guys. Again, I don't want to get too specific on people, but where people have left your organizations in pursuit of other things like, oh this isn't working out, I'm going to go here because there's a bigger financial windfall and they've come back. Have you had I'm sure at some point you had the conversation when they wanted to return, or after they did, or whatever what were the underlying intangible things about the organization that brought them back?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think when I've in the conversations I've had and that has happened quite a bit it's just the fact that we care.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people, everyone that works, and this is maybe a fortune of our size, right, this probably, you know, can't last forever at every size of company but at our size between 50 and 100 employees every single person matters. Trent and I, james and others, interact with just about everybody at different points in time throughout the year and they get a real, true understanding of what it means to matter. And I think as human beings we normalize to situations. And I think it's happened more often with maybe younger employees who haven't necessarily experienced a lot of other environments and understood the value and kind of the difference in feeling that that creates and the difference in environment that that creates. But it's happened with others as well. I think you normalize the environment, you take things for granted we all do this right and then you go to another environment. It becomes crystal clear what things you had and maybe weren't fully cognitively or cognizant of that you're appreciating. So for me I would say, yeah, that's that jumps out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's culture. We are very, very intentional with everything we do. A couple of years ago we put up the list just to kind of get a at Christmas to see, hey, which ones are these you guys? Because there was almost a sense of like, too much culture. We had probably 100 different things that we do throughout the year and for us it's just to create those levels of engagement, because back when we had 20 people and we all basically lived and eat and breathe together, there was this family and as we've grown that 20 can even tell you now it doesn't feel the same. Right, there's 60 or 70 and it doesn't feel the same.
Speaker 1:But we really, really try to make it that way. And and all of us, you know, I believe an organization is a top, is a down, down up model, like my. I'm at the bottom and my job is to support and remove any roadblocks for Todd and James so they can do their job and they have good job satisfaction and theirs is. You know, we kind of support all the way to the, to the front line. So, trying to, people want to feel a part of something, they want to feel appreciated and it's got to be genuine.
Speaker 1:I would say that's the other part, because this isn't something that you fake it until you make it and if you truly care about your team and you care about your people, they, I think they they get that and they appreciate it. But to Todd's point, you kind of need context and sometimes you need perspective into like what what we do isn't necessarily normal. I would say in most companies. There's a lot of great companies out there, a lot of people doing incredible things. So I don't want to say anything but like the amount of owners and leadership that have that pour in the way we do and they do the things that that we do within the company, I think is pretty unique, especially for our geographical area.
Speaker 3:I wanted to ask you guys a question again shift gears. A little bit about balance, trent, you mentioned earlier you struggle with that word and you're probably as good as anybody about making sure you get your fitness in in the day. That's a key priority. I mean, I personally struggle and I'm sure a lot of people do with professional obligations, with kid obligations trying to fit it all in, stay balanced and not run yourself so ragged of like hey, I've got to do this, this, this, this and this, that you just survive the day and wake up the next day trying to like survive the next day. How do you and when have you been most successful in finding that mental balance where you're doing the things that you need to do on boat, on on all the fronts, but also having a good quality of life while doing it like feeling, you know, confident, comfortable and relaxed throughout the day, like, yeah, talk about that.
Speaker 1:For me when I'm firing on all cylinders and I think it's great for us to iterate that like we don't live here all the time right, this is like it's an ebb and flow of life. You have ups and downs, is I realize that if I wanted to get my work at workouts in and and uh, have my best foot forward at the family time is I got to get up early, right, if I'm we are. Our mantra is six at six, you know six miles at 6 am, you're done by, you know seven um, you're home by 7 10. I can still be part of the kids getting ready for school, I can take them to school and then at night I don't feel so crunched in. There has been nights where you know that hasn't worked. There's morning commitments or something hasn't happened and I gotta get on the treadmill late at night, and or I got to do it after dinner and there's running people around. So for me, the fitness generally in the morning has to be a priority and it really gets me going for the day.
Speaker 2:You know, for me it's interesting. I've kind of felt like this that my balance there is none, it's more of a roller coaster. So there's points in times in life where and I can almost feel it coming, it's like an intuition, where it's like, okay, like these three years are going to be everything and then the next three years are going to be off of the fruits of that labor Doesn't mean I'm not doing anything, so to speak. Of course there are some non-negotiables, but those are discussed up front. I'm one of the three of us that works for someone I mean you technically do, but you have a lot of, I wouldn't say flexibility but probably more communication around your roles and responsibilities. So for me it's a non-negotiable.
Speaker 2:When I sit down for an interview with a company, like guess what I'm running between and this is a result of the role I was in prior I thought I had made it clear that this is what I do. Well, it was. I used to work remote and so for those I would engage with remotely, they got it. But when I would go out to corporate and I would do my runs at lunch cause that's when I run there was a lot of resentment. Oh, I wish I could go do that. Well, it came back to me and again reiterated it like this is not negotiable. If you want me me at my best, if you want me to be able to perform, if you want somebody that has a clear mind, if you want somebody that's emotionally under control, this has to happen. And if it doesn't, um, then this isn't the right fit. So it's almost being willing to die on that sword. In terms of of that time it was and I think this is something that's out there in the ether too is that it was 20 hours a day of work. I say that with quotes, right, because we go back to the badge of honor type thing.
Speaker 2:Work isn't necessarily sitting down hammering at the computer, but it's what's on your mind too. So like constantly thinking about it, looking for these little things that we could do to gain an advantage, because when you're in producing shows in nightlife, you're basically selling air. You know there's not a lot from a differentiation perspective. When you get to a certain level of competency from a musical perspective, you can find a lot of people that tick that box. So the DJ doesn't really matter and you know, most nightclubs are pretty shallow in terms of the ambiance they offer. It's a lot of similar stuff. So what are the other little things that we can do? So you know grinding on that for a couple of years and then stepping back, and you know reflecting and tweaking and whatever. So life has kind of been I think been a little more like that lately and then it's just been for me and I know a lot of people don't always have this flexibility but trying to discover my job.
Speaker 2:So this last role, I was hired for a very particular reason. There was a little bit of overlap between myself and another individual in the organization, so I kind of sought out, um, um, my own role, and that's done via looking for shortcomings and having conversations with people at your level. Like, hey, I see, this is somewhere that we really could grow. There's this level of financial opportunity or this level of uh opportunity to gain more brand equity. If we go and address this, I'm going to do that. Does that work, yes or no?
Speaker 2:And after a few back and forths, typically it's yes. Sometimes I get looked at like I have three heads, but after talking through it and maybe executing against some examples, they're like oh, this could be. And a lot of times that's done with a little bit of foresight, like, oh, if I tackle this, I know that there are going to be two days a week where I'm just not going to be able to put forth any more than X number of hours, because there are these roadblocks or these things that need to happen from a timeline perspective or that need to happen in parallel or that need to happen sequentially, that are going to prevent me from whatever, and so I may afford myself an extra couple hours a week to focus on whatever it is that I need to focus on, whether it's from a fitness perspective or mental health perspective. So it's kind of my angle on that.
Speaker 1:What about you?
Speaker 3:I think to your point. I think consistency is a good thing. I say variety is the spice of life and we all get a little bit of a kick out of having variety in our days. But I think I have the most anxiety. We'll just use our example of running every single day, that's on the list. If it's 2 o'clock and I haven't run, it starts to take up cognitive space. When am I going to run? How am I going to do that? What you know and I noticed that, and then you and then things can compound really quickly like from a stress and anxiety perspective. It's like I don't know what I'm going to run and then someone unexpected reaches out and need something in short order and then something else, something happens with the kids and before you know it you're like off the deep end. So I think for me, when I'm at my best, there's a schedule when I do get up and run in the mornings and having that done it's well-documented.
Speaker 3:I really have never been a morning person. I don't enjoy getting up in the mornings. I've always done kind of a later night thing, but one of the things that I have gotten into the habit of doing. We've got a group from our church that gets up at 5.15 in the morning and we go out to the track and we run on Tuesday mornings, track Tuesday, and to have that under your belt, tuesdays, we always just kind of talk about it. The text threads are just, they blow up on Tuesdays. We always just kind of talk about the text threads are just, they blow up on Tuesdays because everyone has such a great I mean, you start the day right with your fitness and there's spiritual elements for us in that regard, and when you have that out of the way and you've got those things to kind of carry through you with the rest of the day, it always makes for a much better day. So I, but I, I just wish I, I could find the discipline to get up and do that more regularly.
Speaker 1:I think you nailed it Like 6 am getting up at 5.30, being out there at 6, especially if you're outside it's still dark out. I'm lucky to have a couple of guys that meet me. Without having someone else there, it gets really lonely and it kind of gets a little spooky. You know you're like do I see a dog coming? You know like sometimes you run even faster because it gets a little, even though we're on a trail and kind of out in the middle of nowhere, um, finding other people that have that same drive but yet can help you create the accountability Cause. Again, I think the thing that's kept me running every single day is like I don't want to let you guys down. I mean, yeah, it's like I want to do it, but at the end of the day it's like we've kind of made a deal right and finding your way to, to find those people in your life that are going to help you, is a, I would say, trans transformational and it'll keep. It'll keep going.
Speaker 2:I think this is unique. This is this. We may have to cut this out, but I want to bring it up anyways. Um, one of the things I struggle with personally. We're at a point now with the race race productions where, um, I need to look at financial partnerships with other people inside of our company and, again, I've always been one, because I really don't care too much about that. Again, I mentioned this with the nightlife thing. People will say that I overgive, I'm too generous, and I've been sitting here thinking about this as we've been talking, and I think it applies as well to employees and team members, and I think it applies as well to employees and team members.
Speaker 2:I think it would be interesting to explore, from your perspectives, kind of what goes through your head, because you know you have a different perspective. You have a decade into maintaining the health of a business and maintaining a growth trajectory of a business and maintaining a growth trajectory of a business, and so there are, I'm sure, calculations and thoughts that go into. Okay, I know I need X, y, z, like when you brought Todd and James on in specific. We'll direct this towards you. I have to evaluate these particular things, or I have to value these particular things at this particular level. If I want to maintain the health of the business, if I want to maintain a growth trajectory.
Speaker 2:I also, though, as somebody in an executive position, want to reward these types of skill sets and or these types of behaviors. You know, it makes sense that someone who wants to buy into the company from a share perspective receive more in return, because they're betting on the growth of the company, so they're going to get more out of it than someone who doesn't. But at the same time, you have entry-level roles or mid-level roles that they have to top out somewhere, because if they don't, the business goes under. And so I'd be interested to see if I could take some of your thoughts and processes and apply them to a situation like mine, where you know I have a skillset that I need to bring in and I'm not quite sure as to what that's worth, because I don't want to look back in two years and be like, oh, we're in the red 20 grand every year because I decided that this guy gets this, this person gets this and this person gets this, because it's not something that I have experience with or that I care about.
Speaker 3:I'll say one of the things that Trent's always done well, that I've learned from him and then I'll add one other piece and hand it over to him is he generally starts with what does that person want and what are they looking for, where are they at and what does success look like to them. So that's how he started the conversation with me coming in. I've heard that. So what does it look like for the other person to be a win right? And so I think that is a great place to start, because, based on where that person's at in their life, what they're looking for, I mean you'd be surprised how many different permutations there could be of someone maybe more interested in equity of the company, depending on what kind of level you're bringing someone on. Someone may want more cash, someone may want something other than either of those things. That people can be compensated in a lot of different ways. Maybe they want discounts on certain things or entries that they can give to their friends. I mean there are a lot they can give to their friends. I mean there's a lot of different ways to compensate people.
Speaker 3:I think Trent's always been good about starting that there is like what compensation means the most to you. And then, secondly, I would say the thing that we've leaned on heavily structurally is just benchmarking. So we've got platforms that will tell you, hey, for this role in this area, this is the general range and then, based on how that person's performing, they'll go up and down in that range and then, as they get near the top of the range, it's time to talk about like, hey, are you happy, kind of staying here? Sure, you'll get the range inflation bumps a little bit right, but or are you wanting to grow and develop and get to this next role? You know those conversations, I would say, play out. So those are the two components that I think but trying to.
Speaker 1:Are you asking more specifically on your end or on the other person's end?
Speaker 2:I'd like to just explore both.
Speaker 1:So, like, as you look to grow MTC or grow the races, hypothetically there's things that you love doing right and we could do a session right now, and I mean it's like so what do you love about the races and what are the things that you don't love? And then, so what problem are we trying to solve for right? Is it? Are we trying to solve for somebody that can handle the finances, that can do the bookkeeping? Are we trying to solve for somebody that can handle the finances, that can do the bookkeeping? Are we trying to solve for a partner that can help promote the races? So, really understanding what you need is probably part one and what you're looking for to fill those gaps. Do you know what that is?
Speaker 2:I do, but I think it's more for me about feeling good about the decision you make. Example let's say I have somebody who needs to manage the social media aspect of the races, right? So a couple of different platforms, consistent posts, content generation, whatever. I struggle with feeling good about any offer I put forward.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. That's why you don't put the offer forward. You ask them what they want. Back to Todd's point. It's like if you're like, hey, I need help with social media, or someone even offers that, what does fulfillment look like to you? Because at the end of the day, the only way you're going to be able to answer that question is if they give you the answer for the question.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because if they're giving you the answer of like, I would just like to be recognized as someone that's given back. I want to be part of something that helps people transform their, their life, and just to be part of the team, I would be excited, and then it's great. They may say my goal is like I want to be able to make 200 bucks a week because my daughter's in dance class and I want this to pay for her dance class and so expectations for that person when they set them. Then it helps remove the guilt. I will tell you that bar moves. As things go right. It changes like oh, I want this, now I want this. But generally speaking, like start with what? What do they want to get out of it?
Speaker 3:And then I think you'll know really quickly to turn to their point about the uh, the business side of it you'll know real quickly if that's there to give right. If someone says you know, I mean we've had a lot of conversations and you know someone wants something, that it's just very clear. If you look at the math, here's our revenue. This just it doesn't add up.
Speaker 1:And so there's another person you know you can explore, but there's, there's a thousand ways to to solve the problem if you understand exactly what the problem is and what you're trying to solve for, because it could be bringing a person in, it could be outsourcing, it could be, you know, now, with AI I mean, there's probably a lot of different ways you can brainstorm around that.
Speaker 2:Well, and then back to the other side of the coin. You said you know them. I think it would be interesting. We've heard his perspective, but your perspective as well on the actual individuals, and so you mentioned benchmarking and kind of that range. Do you have a perspective on that at all, or is yours the same? As far as um just the thoughts that go through your head when you're establishing new roles or when you brought, when you brought those two in. Like what goes through your head, like something, something gave I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm wired a little bit like you. Like I tend to want to give the farm away to some extent and sometimes that comes to bite me, like the ongoing joke with our, you know, back I. I I bought a business that had some, had two or three different comp models in it and we've had to make adjustments to that, which has been really, really hard. I've done different deals from an acquisition standpoint that met the needs of both parties at the time. That had to change over time and that's painful. Changing and having to make adjustments after there's kind of been an agreement several years down the road, even though it's for the betterment of everybody, is really, really hard. So I haven't been.
Speaker 1:We are much more uniform now in how we approach bringing on new talent.
Speaker 1:But, like for Todd, I needed somebody that had the same moral values, that could fill in the gaps, which for me is process procedure, but also could approach people in a very like mind whereas lifting people up.
Speaker 1:So trying to find someone that can take the same values that you have and really would approach situations similarly with people and value people, but yet so very different from an operational perspective. Like you know, we had to come up with it and it took us, took us a lot of time and we had some really hard conversations, but then at the day, um, there was a point in time in our relationship where it went from. Maybe I felt like I was self-sacrificing, like I gave you all this opportunity and I, I, I to being grateful because of where I'm at in my life now. So I don't know when that flipped for, if that ever flipped for you, but there was a little bit of butting heads of like you know, like we, we would don't here here. Here's an example. Don't ever get in a situation where you have to negotiate compensation with your brother on an annual basis. It's the worst month of your life, especially with him.
Speaker 1:Well, but it's just like it's hard, because you don't value a relationship, especially a brother relationship, financially, like I can't put a value on what he brings. But here I am, I'm trying to come up with all the reasons why I should be here. He's telling me all the reasons why I should be here and it's like this is the worst two weeks of my life, right, and so that was super painful. And we got to a point in that relationship to where something happened and I think both of us matured and grew from it. So understanding what he wanted, his outcomes, was super important.
Speaker 1:I wanted him to win. There was enough there for everybody to win, and so I don't know if there's a perfect science to it. And I went in knowing that I was going to be better with him than without him and same same with James, kind of the same thing. It's like when you find the person that's going to help elevate the entire company and it all, it all aligns. You just got to be willing to make a sacrifice. So I was willing to sacrifice equity within the company because I wanted good people around me. I wanted to enjoy the journey and it was an evolving process that may be a good point.
Speaker 3:To close on, I think you both have broken the mold in a way of the standard working environment, right? I mean, I think most people feel trapped and constrained in an eight to five, nine to five, and I think in a lot of cases, there's constraints there that are out of our control, right, and you do the best you can, although you've talked about when you go into interviews having non-negotiables about certain things. How have you gone about? And I think, like you know, sometimes we mock Europe, right, because they take naps during the day or whatever, but there's part of that that, as we get older, is making more and more sense.
Speaker 3:It's like they've had this figured out. We've had our identity and grinding and all this stuff and it's like, no, they're the ones that have actually figured this out. But you guys have, I think, taken some really large leaps to again break that mold. How would you encourage others who are feeling trapped and might be surprised by what kind of change they could, what kind of a different life they could be living if they really made it a priority? Does that?
Speaker 2:make sense. Yeah, I would say, try to establish it early. There's only so much you can uncover during an interview process, and I learned this lesson very young. So when I went to Microsoft, it was a very bumpy period of time in my career. I was 20. I flew across the country, I didn't know anybody and I had I mean, I, I. This is in part of the reason I landed here. I'm coming from a 1.5 GPA in college. I did a year and a half and it just I just wasn't responsible, I wasn't consistent and and you know, luckily, I had just to be clear.
Speaker 1:You probably had the highest SAT score of anyone here.
Speaker 2:Sure, but but. But I wasn't applying it in that regard and unfortunately and you kind of, I think, spoke to this in our very first episode about natural talent I'd been told a lot that I was very smart and that, and, and luckily for me I was able to use that in in the technology field to be very effective and very efficient with my work. We I mean, it's been 20, some years, 24 years, now 25 years, so I think I can say this, you know, but I remember my first job. We were in an operations center and we were all of similar ilk and we would get work done and we'd have one in an operation center.
Speaker 2:Just so that the audience understands, what you're typically doing is, as you all know, the cloud isn't just a cloud. There's data centers around the world that serve up your web experience, your internet experience, your cloud storage experience, and so if you're in an operation center, you're typically monitoring the machines that serve that opportunity to you, and so you're essentially with a group of people watching a screen and watching alerts come in and you're typically monitoring the machines that serve that opportunity to you, and so you're essentially with a group of people watching a screen and watching alerts come in and you're fixing those alerts. Well, we had become efficient enough as a team working together, where we could put one person watching the screen and eight other people would play video games and we would swap out on an hourly basis and we would just continually play video games. Sorry, microsoft, it is what it is. That was a long time ago when MSN was still there.
Speaker 1:At least it was a Microsoft game.
Speaker 2:It was. It was Age of Empires, shout out, aoe2. So, anyways, at some point I had elevated out of there and become a systems engineer and worked as a systems engineer. Back then, microsoft was trying to figure out how to make MSN go, how to try to make it work, because they weren't having success. At that time, Yahoo was the one that was having all the success and, of course, subsequently Google. We all know how that's ending, but they were reorging, reorging, reorging, reorging, and I didn't stay on top of it and what ended up happening was my work style at the time, which was effective for my personal wellbeing, was to get it done, like, put it on my plate, get it done. I'm out.
Speaker 2:Well, my seventh manager in three years was from a culture where working just to work was important. Working just to work was important. You know, my coworkers is like he sleeps with his laptop on his nightstand. His laptop is open at dinner. You were much better off sitting at your computer typing to type if he walked by your office, because that was the culture he was from and I didn't stay on top of that and I didn't adjust my behavior. So I eventually got let go because he'd come by my office, I wouldn't be there, my work was done, but that didn't work for him. So what I learned early on was I need to stay on top of it as early as I can and I need to build towards, through conversations with my superiors and my peers, what I want.
Speaker 2:When I went to my not the following two jobs, but the third one down the line, because the other two stints were fairly short I built my job and the executives at the time luckily I had one that I was very close with and that I stayed engaged with thought it was nuts, but at that point in time in my life I hadn't done any real traveling. I was extremely interested in technology. I wanted to consume anything I could on new tech and I found in the organization I was in again for reference, I'm in mobile accessories at this point In the organization I was in, we had a real blind spot for new technology. We had a real blind spot, as did our customers, for conveying the efficacy of said technologies in a meaningful manner. So what we did with that organization was we were a distributor of tech accessories to your Verizons of the world, and one of the things that was causing an issue was new accessories would arrive at these stores and they wouldn't know how to sell them to customers. And of course, they can read a spec sheet, but translating that to something that a customer would understand can be very difficult.
Speaker 2:What does a customer care about? The output wattage of a charger? And so what I noticed is like wow, I can travel around the country, I can meet with all of these brands that I've looked up to over years, these big brands. I can learn about this technology. I can utilize my excitement for making people happy and helping people realize the impact that something could have on. You buy a charger. This is back when Apple had their tiny little bricks and they were just. You buy a charger. This is back when Apple had their tiny little bricks, and they were just. You know. You buy this charger. Guess what? Your phone used to take four hours to charge. Now it takes an hour and a half. You get two and a half hours back every day. So I'm making people happy, which I think has been the underpinning of everything we've talked about over the first couple of episodes.
Speaker 2:So there, early on, the top level executives are like why is he flying all over the country? Who's approving this stuff. This is wild. But after that first year when we started to roll out these learnings and putting them in front of, that became the backbone of the entire business. As a distributor, how do you differentiate yourself between you just move boxes? Well, ours was we back up the products that we're putting in your stores with information about them so that you can actually sell them.
Speaker 2:And for me, I got to again do all of these things that I hadn't done. Now we talked earlier about, like how my life has been a roller coaster. Those were the years you guys are aware. I was flying 140, 150,000 miles domestic and I was on the road 200 days a year when my kids were first born. That was a two or three year, four year period and from that I've gained a lot of insight and built a lot of knowledge and, I think, helped myself establish a baseline to then, in my life today, find something that to then, in my life today, find something that is challenging but isn't as time, committal in terms of being away from my family. So I can do a lot of this because I spent that time out there doing it. So that's how I would answer that question.
Speaker 1:I want to flip this back to you in a second, but I would say, if you're I mean because I think there's a lot of different ways someone might be in a working at a distribution center, right, and they want to do something different. Or someone might be in corporate, or I can you know you. I think that was a great example of being in a more of a corporate business but creating a new niche and finding a way to live into your passions. I think that's great, by kind of just so you can take a look at your current situation, maybe discover if there's something at your current organization you want to do, but if it's something you're not doing, something you love, it's probably finding someone that is doing something you love. So it kind of starts with what do I love, what's my purpose, what do I want to get into?
Speaker 1:I mean, there's been several stories of people that have gone back to school and got the MBA or they want to move into a different industry. But find those people and change your circles, because I believe you start getting around people that are doing things that you want to do, you're going to start to be motivated and you're going to find a way to make a transition For those that are in, maybe, a larger organization. I know you were one of the youngest directors ever at your previous job so you figured out the science of kind of moving up and what that looks like. So maybe it's switching jobs, Maybe it's recreating your job or maybe it's climbing the corporate ladder Talk to someone. So hopefully you guys have some insight of how to kind of approach all three of those. But talk to us about the corporate game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know honestly TJ hit on a lot of this. The beauty of being in a corporate environment is there are job postings, a large corporate environment. There are job postings all over the place at all times and there are so many different opportunities. On the same bus, different seat, right when that may be a better fit, that may have more flexibility inherent in them. You know, I know my wife, who I met there and has worked there based on where our kids were at at different stages, has had different roles when you know we had the two really young, and you know she was in more of a role where she was a portfolio kind of manager, kind of an assistant to a director there, and she had a lot of flexibility in that role and that made it much easier for her to do some of the other family obligations that were extremely important at that time. And now she's back into more of a managerial role that has more. You know you need to be more available and there on a regular basis and supporting the team and that sort of thing. So I think that's the beauty of the corporate environment is there are opportunities built in across the company for you to take advantage of and explore with, because I think sometimes that's a little easier than having to change companies or industries altogether of and explore with, because I think sometimes that's a little easier than having to change companies or industries altogether.
Speaker 3:The one thing I wanted to have you kind of close with is you've just just again we kind of backed up at the end of the last episode and kind of talked about the bigger picture here. Right, we're kind of immersed in business and how to be successful in business, and but I think you stumbled upon something the other day that you shared that I think is really powerful for us all to think about, as we're kind of contextualizing, okay, how to be successful in business and then how important is business in the broader scheme of things, and that was resume builders versus eulogy builders. So why don't you share that in closing? Yeah, I read somewhere.
Speaker 1:It's like everything we do either falls into one of two buckets. It's either a resume builder, which is your personal goals that's how much money I make it's stuff that's really tied to you. The house I have, the car I drive, those things are resume builders and things that are super important to you but probably most people don't care about them. The eulogy builder is the other side. So you got resume and eulogy and really those are the things that you want people to say at your eulogy.
Speaker 1:And, frankly, what I've started to realize is maybe a lot of my early on career and a lot of my aspirations were resume builders and I got to a point in time and I'm like that stuff isn't as important to me and I want to be known and I want our companies to be known for giving, for helping people, to helping people live out their dreams, and I think the more time we can spend on the eulogy side, it really is the side with the most energy and the most passion and really the most fun. Anything that I found on the resume side is really short-lived. So I would encourage you you're going to do both and that's part of it but focusing on things that you want people to say about you at your eulogy would be a great place to start.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a powerful exercise, I feel like in life more broadly, I've had success thinking about when I'm 85, even if it's not my eulogy thinking about what I might think about my life at 85, looking back and saying what regrets might I have? What would I have wanted to accomplish that I didn't, what did I not take advantage of? And I think, looking at that kind of a premortem, if you will, it's a good exercise.
Speaker 1:I really Yep, good thing to close on, all right. Well, that will uh be the end of episode three. So thank you guys for uh tuning in and hope to see you next time.