MRM - Pilot.mp3
[00:00:02] Welcome back to another episode of the MRN podcast. I'm Chris,
[00:00:06] And I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life and legacy, its business. All right. That's why why
[00:00:17] The MRM
[00:00:18] Podcast? Why in the hell are we doing this?
[00:00:20] Great question. Well, I mean, this started three, four years ago. This was a hallway conversation. And I can't remember the specifics, but it was something we had just dealt with some kind of wacky situation. I don't know if it's an employee deal or it was some, I don't know, got or lost a customer. I don't even remember. But I just I remember one of us turning to each other and just thinking, man, we need a podcast. We have we have so many stories
[00:00:46] We
[00:00:46] Need to find out. There was more to it. It was like we need to
[00:00:50] Document these experiences.
[00:00:52] That's what it was. Yeah. It wasn't just, hey, we need to tell people these stories. It actually came from a sense of there are so many amazing and terrifying and awesome and horrible experiences and we're going to forget this stuff. And it started that way as an internal podcast idea, like we need this just to document the history of our company as we're going through all of these motions, the trough of sorrow. We need a way to document this stuff. And literally, I think it was a few months later, you're like, hell, yeah, we are going to do this. Yeah, we got some microphones. We got an audio interface. And then, of course, life took over and we didn't end up doing it then. Yeah.
[00:01:32] And things went dormant.
[00:01:33] Things were dormant for a little while.
[00:01:35] No, you're right on. I think that is the genesis of this. This is an idea that certainly did start years ago, wasn't last night
[00:01:42] By any stretch of the imagination.
[00:01:44] And I think what we were recognizing in that moment, I mean, this is hard to put into words, but I think what we're recognizing in that
[00:01:50] Moment is the whole person,
[00:01:52] The humanity portion of problem solving. When you're an entrepreneur, when you're a business leader, like
[00:01:58] The emotional
[00:01:59] Context, the ins and outs, all the different dimensions in the sides of the conversation when we're trying to lead people. Well, and I think that's where some of that came from. And I think it's this idea
[00:02:09] That what we've experienced
[00:02:11] You've been working with people is that, yeah, we're pounding the pavement on these operational strategic items, these concepts, these tools. But, man, there's this whole thing that's happening behind the scenes in this relationship with a client or with a business partner or whatever. There's this whole world that's happening that often doesn't
[00:02:31] Get talked about.
[00:02:32] That honestly is so profound in its impact and it's change. And so I think a big part of what our goal for this right is to hang in that space, to take a look at that, to have more conversations around these ideas, these life altering, these life changing experience, is that we can have not only in our own businesses and relationships with people that we meet, certainly professionals and influencers from other industries or other categories of focus and really just having an awesome adventure as we get to experience the stuff. I almost said shit as we experience this stuff firsthand. Right. So and, you know, we have kind of categorized this. We've thrown it into some pillars, if you will, of the space that we want to hang out. And we're going to be bringing content. We're going to be talking to folks about stuff that's going to impact our business. It's going to grow our business. We're going to focus.
[00:03:23] Yeah, we definitely want to get into some tactical stuff. And I think we've picked up a lot of things along the way. And I think we've learned as much through failure as we have through successes and wins,
[00:03:35] If not more.
[00:03:36] I mean, frankly, yeah, that's where the real transformation has happened. But we definitely want to get tactical and strategic, but not just from our own perspective. I think we have kind of a wish list of guests that we want to bring
[00:03:48] In that can
[00:03:49] Bring in their own best practices and learning experiences,
[00:03:53] Without a doubt. Yeah. The other big category. Dun dun dun. Right. Business life, man. This is the bottomless category, right? There's so much opportunity here, but we've got to unpack stuff. This stuff, the things, the opportunities, the experiences that are changing
[00:04:09] Our lives or
[00:04:10] Have the stored energy, the potential to change our lives, that's got to be a space that we just
[00:04:16] Can't ignore it.
[00:04:17] We'll do it. Isn't that the biggest force multiplier as a business leader is if you can get your life
[00:04:23] Healthy and your role
[00:04:24] And your behavior in your business healthy when we can get there. And I don't think we're there all the time now. Right. But if we're pursuing that because there is no separation, we've talked about this compartmentalization. Like I'm one way at work as a boss and I'm another way at home with my family. A, it does not work now. Our kids see through it, our spouses see through it. We ultimately
[00:04:48] Know and we just carry
[00:04:49] That stress and anxiety when we're not pursuing health in our day to day life as well as our personal professional growth. Like it's just it's limited what we can do.
[00:04:59] It's undoubtedly here's the reality, I think you and I have even had conversations where at times we could be killing it like business was rocking and rolling and we had momentum. We had things, new relationships with a bunch of stored energy walking in the door. And I might have been in a three month scenario where I was just struggling to communicate effectively with my kids. And you don't feel good like you just don't feel good. I don't care. You don't.
[00:05:26] The way the wind's at work just do not
[00:05:28] Feel as good. It's not the same. Yeah, it's not the same. You got to have both. So we got to hang there. We've got to unpack stuff that's going to have a positive impact.
[00:05:36] And we kind of talked about putting together a segment periodically called like Family Hour or something where we just camp out on that, because
[00:05:42] The reality is most of us, they're
[00:05:44] Listening to this, certainly you and
[00:05:45] I, we're also fathers.
[00:05:48] We're also spouses, we're somebody's uncle or somebody and whatever. And so who knows where we'll go with that. It's not going to be every episode, maybe once a month. We'll just camp out on kind of a family topic.
[00:05:59] They're specialists out there that we're going to reach out to, that we're going to have come in and talk to us. And God knows there's going to be a ton of opportunities to learn about his legacy. Yeah, you're right. Where are we going? There. What's that word even mean?
[00:06:11] I think it's I feel like you and I are figuring out what legacy means. I think we are figuring out more what it's not it's not the money and it's not even the achievement,
[00:06:19] Because we've had that
[00:06:21] And I've experienced both in this industry. And it can give that in spades. But but
[00:06:26] You get to a point and I don't even know it's that
[00:06:28] Far down the road where you just
[00:06:30] Realize the money's not what I was looking for.
[00:06:32] Oh, sure. The house, the boat, that kind of stuff. It's great. It's awesome. But it doesn't satisfy for very long. Yeah. I mean, it's like our mom told us this, right? We learned this Sunday school, whatever, the money's not everything. But you figure that out pretty quickly. Yeah. That if it's not about more than that and I think you and I too, man the pleasure of help seeing other people grow like you and I still have people in our wake that are different people because
[00:06:58] We worked with them and we are too.
[00:07:00] That's a keeper.
[00:07:01] And we are, too. And we are, too. And that's yeah. That's legacy. Like we grew together. Yeah. We grew together with our downline.
[00:07:08] Yeah. Which I think
[00:07:08] We forget about sometimes when it comes to legacy is that are people are impacting us as well.
[00:07:13] Well and I think you even said this not that long ago. You use the term that you learn when you teach others because it just hold you responsible differently. Once you're taking that information that you acquire and you're doing something with it right away, it does change the intake of that information, how you assimilate it. Here's the other thing. I just want to talk about what the legacy is. I want to get rid of some of the kind of
[00:07:37] Myths, maybe
[00:07:38] Misnomer. I don't know if that's the right word, but this misconception, if you will, of legacy is I think sometimes people hear that term and they want to turn that into. This is about me. I like the reputation reputation title. Right. And obviously, if you have a great impact on people's lives, obviously some form of title or vision of you is going to be created. But I think what's really key here and what we're talking about, where we're going to focus our attention is we developed this podcast. Is this idea of legacy being how are what are you doing to leave others? Like how are you leaving them? Yeah, and we're talking about everything from walking into a room to the end of our journey. Yeah. When you walk into a space, what is happening? Not about you,
[00:08:20] But by the way, you
[00:08:21] Carry yourself, the standards that you follow, the way that you communicate, how much of that is thought about in a proactive way to
[00:08:29] Ensure that the impact
[00:08:30] That you're having
[00:08:31] Is as positive as possible?
[00:08:34] Right.
[00:08:34] Does the rising tide in your business lift all boats?
[00:08:38] Right. Or are you leaving people behind?
[00:08:40] Right. Oh, man, that is
[00:08:42] Your ship sailing and everybody else is just sort of left to figure things out for themselves, right. Are you building people up? You know, I mean, and that's I think that's a question we always have to check in on ourselves with, because, boy, we've had seasons where we've been more focused on our people and we've had seasons where we've been less focused. We've gotten wrapped up in the numbers, the achievement, the everything else. And we all know the difference.
[00:09:03] We do everybody
[00:09:04] Who's listening to this knows what we're talking about. It's easy to get things out of balance, but that's a focus for us.
[00:09:10] It is so much so
[00:09:12] That in a lot of
[00:09:13] Ways, and this is for me personally, I think part of my dream of starting a podcast like this has always been like, is there an opportunity on scale to have impact like that, to build this legacy, be in this space where we're being transparent enough that we're being proactive enough, that we're challenging ourselves
[00:09:34] Enough that
[00:09:35] We can really share experiences with people, we can share information, we can
[00:09:40] Share people
[00:09:41] Specialist in such a way that people's lives really are changing and that we can get to the end of our race. And I mean literally like when we can't run any longer and look back and say, are we proud of what we spent our days doing? And for me, this is part of that. I want to make sure that when we're. Recording a session that we're thinking about it from this perspective of, will that be part of that journey that we took and can we look back and say, wow, that was an opportunity to have a really positive impact on someone, some team, some business somewhere. And I think that's massive for us.
[00:10:14] So let's talk
[00:10:16] A little bit more about the why behind this, because I think there's another piece here that a lot of people even that know us, that we've worked with and stuff may not fully know is sort of the the back story. But you and I have developed a special working relationship. I mean, we're going on seven or eight years that we've been working together in some capacity. And you and I've had a couple special not a couple lots of moments where we've been able to be that iron sharpening iron. I think the Bible says. Right, about men really honing each other's character and craft like it's important for us to kind of bump up against each other and grate against each other because it helps us both become sharper and more effective. And you and I have experienced that a lot. I think that's part of what we're wanting to one, just share like just openly share about what that's looked like working together, because I think there's stuff there that people can do themselves within their own working relationships, whether an owner with their general manager or their general manager and other somebody else on their leadership team. Yeah, there's something there that's been really powerful for us. And I thought we should share a little bit of that. Yeah, I'll start with my example. I think back this must
[00:11:25] Have been four or five years ago
[00:11:27] I was given a presentation
[00:11:29] At a
[00:11:30] All company meeting.
[00:11:31] There's probably 30, 40
[00:11:32] People in the room. And I got to the end of the talk. And like all of us, when you've given to talk in front of a group, you're like, how terrible it must have been. Lame people thought of you because everybody just staring at you blank, right? All they want to do is just eat their donuts in the coffee. Right. But somehow as leaders. Right. You want people to, like, pay attention, whatever. So I got down from that after the meeting. I said, hey, how to go about how do you think I did? And you were like, dude, you're great at this.
[00:11:59] It was fine. It was good.
[00:12:01] But you said it in such a way that I'm like, oh, no, there's more. There's more. OK, well, what
[00:12:05] Else, man? And you said, well, you know, this is
[00:12:08] Just an observation. I don't know if it's dead on, but I feel like you have a really strong sense of self confidence. You're good at speaking in front of people. You know what to say. You're good at saying it. But there's this energy that you
[00:12:22] Put off that I wonder,
[00:12:24] Chris, if
[00:12:24] There's like if you
[00:12:26] Lack self esteem and that when you said that it just hung there. I just remember no one had ever said that to me before. I grew up in a church environment leading music and worship. And I did. I developed a lot of self-confidence from an early age, singing in front of people, playing the piano, all that kind of stuff.
[00:12:44] But when you said
[00:12:45] That, I realized there's something there. And it actually made me kind of emotional in the moment because I could just tell that it was obvious to me that you did see something and it felt true to me in that moment. But nobody ever said that to me. And so really, honestly, for the last three or four years, I have that's become something I'm just keenly aware of.
[00:13:04] And I think
[00:13:05] What you were pointing out was there was a neediness
[00:13:09] That I was giving off
[00:13:10] That was affecting my leadership because I was needing people to react a certain way to what I was saying, rather than just sitting in the strength of this is what I feel like needs to be said. This is what I need from the team and just settle being settled in that. Instead, there was this energy that you saw and I really needed people to like me. I needed them to like what I was saying, and it really was affecting my leadership. And I'll just never forget that man. That took a lot of courage for you to say that. But it's something that I continue to work on today of just keeping that in check and noticing when I'm putting
[00:13:43] That out and giving myself
[00:13:44] A moment to pause and I go, what's this about? What am I feeling? I remember feeling kind of imposter syndrome. I'm in a room of people that I want to have like me and what's what's going on there. Yeah. Whereas before I think I was doing that really subconsciously. Yeah.
[00:13:58] And likewise man, I have experienced
[00:14:00] Opportunities
[00:14:01] Where even in it at times we've had employee employer relationships. Right where I was in roles where
[00:14:07] You were senior to me technically
[00:14:09] I was senior and still though we had opportunities to experience that iron sharpens iron, same kind of similar setting. I have an example that stuck with me and in fact we were talking about it again this morning is I have eight years of military background. After that. I spent a number of years in different forms of construction. One part of that being part of a team that built communication towers. Now we're literally you're hanging on sections of steel while a crane is dropping them in place. Right. To be fully transparent there. I didn't do a terribly long, but in my military career, I was jumping out of airplanes. I was part of the Eighty Second Airborne Division, which was a real honor. Anyways, where I'm going with this is that I had spent many years being in a position where whether the role or position required it, at least that was my perception. Or building as we grow up and we go through life situations, we develop these armor's right, these things, these behaviors that make us feel strong or that we feel has the appropriate level of influence that we want. And I had developed and really consistently stayed in this place of respected fear. And it was very effective. I was often winning in my work environments by being that. And I remember that that was obviously something that was brought to many situations and interactions as a leader of a growing restoration business. And even in all company meetings. Right. There was definitely this vibe of I did care about people and I think people saw that 100 percent. But more often than not, I was in this place of this is a non-negotiable. This is how we're going to do it,
[00:15:47] Kind of a default command and control.
[00:15:50] And by default, I think default is a great word there. And I remember we got done with something. And I honestly, man, I don't even remember if I asked you for feedback. I think you literally were just like, hey,
[00:16:01] I followed you back to your
[00:16:02] Office. Yeah. You, like, follow me. Hey, can I tell you something that I'm thinking in my mind?
[00:16:06] Do I want to hear this?
[00:16:07] Probably. But I don't know if I want to hear what you're about to tell me. And you just very strategically and really professionally just said, hey, you know, I think the team already has a respect for your commanding control. Like, I don't think that's an area that you need to spend more time and energy developing. But have you thought about doing more spending more time in this place of affirming the team, reminding them that you're proud of them and that you're in their corner? And honestly, in the moment, I think it probably pissed me off actually in the moment. Right.
[00:16:42] I remember that first interaction. It wasn't like rainbows and butterflies, like, oh, I've been waiting for this feedback. Like, somebody might help me understand it. Yeah, you were pretty, like, just neutral.
[00:16:53] Yeah. And this is coming from a
[00:16:55] Subordinate, right?
[00:16:56] That's true. That's true. And I want to clarify, because I think the words I used and it may have been part of what hooked you is I use the word anger. Yeah, I like it. I think you're overusing your anger tool and you're not aware of how others are experiencing that. Like before you even open your mouth, when you walk into that room of forty people, you already have the command of that group.
[00:17:21] Dude, you're the guy that
[00:17:22] Signs off in their paychecks. Yeah. You already have in some ways the fear of God. Right. Any extra
[00:17:28] Amount you heap in there
[00:17:30] Is going to free people
[00:17:31] Out. Yeah. And I think that's what
[00:17:33] I was observing was there was a real angst in the room that I was feeling of. This is too much anger. Energy. Yeah. But I also and then I said the love energy, which I think is the moment where anger, love.
[00:17:46] But it felt
[00:17:47] True. It's like we were a company that and you you led the charge on this. We want to be a company that changes people's lives and that's both externally is we're helping clients recover from unexpected damage events to our internal people. This is what we want to be about. And I think it was me. Just hold the mirror up and say, hey, you say you want this. I know you do. I believe you. Yeah. And instead, this is what's coming out more right now. And what if you double down on the love, encouragement, affirmation while you still you're the boss? People know and people also know your capacity
[00:18:19] For
[00:18:19] Righteous anger. They know it's back there when needed.
[00:18:22] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:23] And it took balls like I mean, the fact that you stepped into that. But here's the reality, man. And this is part of what we were talking about this morning. It changed my life. Right. And even in the moment, if I did it because, of course, my egos flared up, I was going certainly using some angry energy, like, how dare you know, like there's all these conversations. Now, of course, at this time, you and I already had a respected professional relationship. So it wasn't completely left field. But there was this reality that that check in the willingness to say this looks out of alignment with what the vision is that we're casting for the company. It was an amazing stopping point for me to be reminded. And it really did change my life. It affected everything. It affected the way that I thought about the relationship with my wife. Like how often was I rolling into a conversation with my spouse, with that energy instead of the hey, you're my partner. I believe in you and I love you. And that's the basis of where we're starting, right? This engagement, this challenge, whatever. And it really was profound. And I will say
[00:19:28] This, and I won't use any
[00:19:30] Examples for the sake of my son, but he and I have not always had really easy communication.
[00:19:37] And I do
[00:19:37] Remember that having a profound impact on the way that I thought about the next time I was going to have a conversation with my son, what energy was I bringing to the table and how often had I in the past and still do bringing kind of that commanding control, that anger side instead of this, hey, let's hit reset. Make sure we're all starting from this place of we're on the same team. I'm in your corner now. Let's talk about. This thing that's challenging me and that's what we're seeing with this is the opportunity with this podcast to have real conversations, to take off these presentation layers and really be honest about the shit that kicks our face in and the things that happen. They motivate the crap out of us because they're so phenomenal. The experience is so amazing. So having more conversations with people, with specialists, with folks that have spent their professional lives focusing on ideas and concepts that honestly can make us better, that's where we're going. That's what's motivating the creation of the MRM podcast.
[00:20:41] And that's a lot of people can expect a year between you and I and what we're going to try to draw to, I guess, is this real organic, the real
[00:20:49] Shit, real, the real stuff.
[00:20:50] Right. You, I think, kind of inclosing to another perspective on that. Or another aspect of that is you and I really love looking outside the industry. I mean, you've got buddies that own all different kinds of businesses. We just went camping with one of your attorney buddies a while back. And the conversations we get in inevitably
[00:21:07] Benefit us
[00:21:08] In terms of our perspective, ideas or creativity in our own industry by pulling from outside. Absolutely right. And so, for example, I know eventually we're going to have a podcast about how we engage with Ritz Carlton, the famous hotel group, in helping us transform our customer experience process in restoration. Like who does
[00:21:27] That hotel
[00:21:29] Business? Yeah, but there's a lot of value. And so we're really excited to explore some of that. And we hope you guys will
[00:21:35] Come along for the ride. Absolutely. So let's do
[00:21:38] This. OK, we are setting a tone. We've committed to a wrap up, if you will, a summary.
[00:21:44] This is Brandon and I'm just humoring him.
[00:21:46] This is just how my mind works for those of you that it aligns with. Awesome. For the rest of you, hang on. So here's what we're talking about, guys. We're going to hang out in concepts and ideas that are going to enhance our businesses. We're going to hang out in places and talk about ideas and concepts that have a positive impact on our life, that challenge us in such a way that we change as a whole person better as a whole business
[00:22:11] Person, dad, the husband, whatever
[00:22:13] The whole person, it's the rest of the iceberg under the surface. Right. And with this idea that we can all get towards the end of our race and look back and be really proud of the legacy that we built because we were willing to challenge
[00:22:28] One another and
[00:22:29] Challenge ourselves to be different. We want to provoke change in each other in our audience. We want to encourage you guys. We want to fuel you. We want to motivate you to take on these challenges and stretch yourself so that you can be a different person at the end of your journey, one that you can be super proud of. That's where we're going.
[00:22:52] Ok, we hope you join
[00:22:53] Us for the ride. We'll see you next time.
[00:22:58] All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Mahram podcast.
[00:23:02] And if you got something out of it, share it with the friend hit. Subscribe it. Follow leaves five star review. Thanks a lot.