[00:00:07.450] - Chris
Welcome back to the head, Heart and Boots podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:00:10.870] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead.
[00:00:17.650] - Chris
Man, I love this industry.
[00:00:21.890] - Brandon
A little laughing off camera, off recording there.
[00:00:25.250] - Chris
How's it going, man?
[00:00:26.060] - Brandon
Came in with some laughs. You know what?
[00:00:27.930] - Chris
How are you doing?
[00:00:28.730] - Brandon
I'm doing okay. I'm doing actually just fine.
[00:00:32.000] - Chris
We had a good man conversation earlier and did that feel cathartic at all.
[00:00:35.930] - Brandon
Just to be able to talk about it? Did, actually. And it's where I want to go. It's actually where I want to go with this episode. I think before we get too deep into it, we're going to talk about our sponsors. But just to kind of give you guys an initial thought here, holidays are coming and they're coming real fast. And if your worlds are anything like mine, the holidays are interesting. It's like this really unique mix, right, of sometimes there's some pain and sorrow associated with it.
[00:01:07.730] - Chris
Oh, yeah.
[00:01:08.130] - Brandon
There's a lot of joy. There's a lot of focusing on what I think we can collectively say are probably better priorities, more important things, right. Often surrounding relationships. But I think what's interesting is this kind of year tends to be a fuel for a lot of head games, good, bad, or indifferent, and I'm not impervious to that. I've definitely been experiencing some mounting, I don't know what, recognition of some hard stuff. So it just got me thinking, you know what? We can't be the only ones. And with the holiday season approaching, it seems like a good time to chat maybe a little bit about some of those things that pop up in our life that make us question, make us think, make us wrestle. And I think that the timing is good because I don't think we'll be the only one.
[00:01:56.390] - Chris
I like it.
[00:01:56.940] - Brandon
We're going to go.
[00:01:57.750] - Chris
There's something about. Something important, about us giving airtime, I think, to those things. So, yeah, let's dig in, dude. All right, sponsors, which one do I want this time?
[00:02:08.780] - Brandon
Well, I'm going to go answer force. I'm just going to cut right in. I don't know if you guys Listened to our last episode or not, but Chris got a little preachy on answer for us. It was actually very respectable. But dang, you're a believer, that's for certain. And we are in general, guys, we've said this a lot. There's so much that happens in that initial primary interaction with our company. And so many times our clients are calling in a very distressed state. There's a lot of anxiety, there's stress. There's just this, we're trying to do life and this thing has happened and it is really confusing and very stressful. And so these people reach out to our teams in a moment of real deep need, and then we often kind of fumble that initial interaction. We don't prioritize it. We don't make it something where people feel invited and hopeful and ultimately experience something that's consistent and value added. And so anyways, if there's a potential wrestling match happening within your organization where we don't have enough redundancy, we haven't really prioritized an intake system or process. One of those partners is honestly, answerforce and Answerforce.com floodlight.
[00:03:18.950] - Brandon
You can kind of see the opportunities that are available by being a listener of the show. But at the end of the day, they're just an outstanding bolt on partner that will customize an intake process to match yours so that it's fluid, it's seamless, it's consistent, have some redundancy, have a safety mechanism put into place. When our teams get overwhelmed, somebody goes on vacation. Whatever the case may be, these guys are an opportunity to help you really professionalize and level up what that initial experience is like for a client. And God knows how much we spend to get the phone to ring.
[00:03:51.750] - Chris
And no contracts.
[00:03:53.120] - Brandon
Yeah, no contracts.
[00:03:54.830] - Chris
You can change how much you use them every single month.
[00:03:57.580] - Brandon
Yeah. You throttle, you dethradle, you do whatever the heck you want. Make it make sense to you. They're not going to put you into a box or into a forward slash floodlight. Check it out. And if it makes sense, guys, bolt them on. Right.
[00:04:09.790] - Chris
Love it. That was good, dude. All right, liftify Zach and Co. Zach and the team are just know. I mean, they're obviously an advertiser. They pay us to say nice things, but they back their stuff up. Yeah. And we believe it because we've seen it. We get the emails from them. Hey, thanks for this client. We just onboarded them or we get the update. Oh, my gosh. These folks just eclipsed 200 reviews. They were only at X and it's exciting. They're connected, they follow through, they follow up, they do what they say they're going to do when something's not working. We've also seen them get into motion. The restoration industry is their fastest growing vertical and they recognize it. They're taking care of it, and then they're taking care of it. They're finding unique ways to augment their process to create even better results within the restoration industry. Because we do have a weird industry. It's weird. Like the way we invoice for stuff, the way we close out jobs is just different than if somebody's just putting a new furnace in or getting pest control done right. It's just different. And so they've optimized their process for the restoration industry to drive results.
[00:05:15.630] - Chris
And what more could you ask from a partner than somebody that's tuned into your business and how it works and is trying to drive better and better results? So I don't think we've said it for a while, but the industry standard is that people convert five to 10% single digits of their jobs into a Google review. They at liftify are targeting 20% to 25% and they're getting it. We've seen it consistently. And so if you say do 1000 jobs a year and you're not accumulating 250 reviews a year, then your stuff's probably not as good as it could be. Your people aren't remembering to talk about it as often as you think they are or they say they are.
[00:06:00.690] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:06:01.640] - Chris
And so put a platform like liftify in place where at the very least, you're going to more reliably catch that conversion that you want and it drives your business. It's going to drive organic search results. Right. That'S one of the main reasons why we do these Google reviews, is because it drives organic inbound calls. Yeah, we're all trying to just grow. We want to make more money. Don't trip over dollars to pick up dimes, folks. Call Liftify.com floodlight. Get a demo. Get a demo and just look into it. Maybe you're using podium or bird Eye or one of these other platforms right now and you're like, well, it seems to be working well. Take a closer look and look at how much you're paying, too, because a lot of vendor fees and subscriptions that we do can kind of get lost in the shuffle. It's like maybe at one point in your business when you had everything in a storage unit and you were really excited about doing a million bucks that year, you would notice that $400 a month charge. And now you're gotten to the point where it's like, $400 ain't a big deal.
[00:07:03.030] - Chris
Yeah, but is it doing what you think it's doing? That's the thing to investigate. It's easy to blow off those lower costs when we have so many bigger rocks that we have to move in our businesses. But is that little expense doing what you think it's doing? Take a look and you ought to get a demo and see what liftify can produce for you and then compare and make a decision. So anyways, Liftify.com forward slash Floodlight. There you go.
[00:07:29.090] - Brandon
And then last but certainly not least, Michelle and the team, CNR Magazine. You guys know we've referred to her many times as a friend of the industry. We've been kind of pointing towards some of the work that she's currently been partnering with, know how on, and just the key and critical information and influence that she continues, her and her team continue to provide to our industry. It's awesome, guys. And really, there's no ask, right? There's not even ask. It's just subscribe, get access to this free information and leverage it for the health of your team. And also just having a consistent perspective on what is going on in our industry now more than ever, we really have an opportunity as an industry to continue to unify our voice behind a common mission of wanting to provide really high value to our clients, our clients experience, and wanting to protect our businesses so that we can all do this and serve this industry for a sustained period of time. And in order for us to really do that, we have to find more common ground. We have to find more spaces in the industry where our voices can be unified.
[00:08:33.240] - Brandon
And just an outstanding starting point is get behind CNR and participate in their sphere. So, yeah, you ready to get into this, man?
[00:08:40.980] - Chris
Let's do it, dude.
[00:08:41.820] - Brandon
Okay, so we kind of set the stage. There's just been this overwhelming sense of, there's some things that all the self help and self development, personal growth that we try to focus on via podcasts and influencers, that we pay attention to, our own mentors and mentee relationships, all those faces, I inevitably will hit a wall where it doesn't feel like it's answering the real problem, right? There's this thing kind of underneath it all that for whatever reason, it doesn't feel like the work is penetrating deep enough to create change there. And therefore the rest of the outcomes still kind of have this sticky something on it, right? I'm just trying to describe this in a way that people can relate to. But long and short of it, I've just been experiencing more so over the last handful of weeks going into the holidays. Just this sense of, man, the work we've been doing this year, it's not getting down in the threads. There's something below, right. That I need to wrestle with more.
[00:09:46.170] - Chris
Well, yeah, yours and I's conversation earlier, for me, the tears were flowing, which I think is hard. There's not many people in my life where I allow myself to do that. I allow myself to feel those things. And I think that for me, that's part of the issue is just unintentionally, I think none of us try to stuff those emotions, but we do. And I think particularly in business, and we're in a powerful industry in construction, there's a lot of machismo, there's a lot of get shit done. There's a lot of salty language and tough shit that's really valued and sort of praised. And I get it.
[00:10:33.310] - Brandon
And it's useful.
[00:10:34.310] - Chris
And it's all the things. It's useful. And at the same time, I think we don't acknowledge enough the reality that we all sort of carry burdens with us. We talked about it in that heart of the matter post and in that keynote we did at the collective, where we all have these file folders, and it's very personal to each of us. Some people listening to this conversation are in the cab of their truck by themselves. We all have those moments alone where it's just us and our thoughts and those file folders. That's right. And I think most of us don't have people in our life where we can expose that. We don't feel safe exposing what those thoughts truly are. So, I don't know. I guess I'm really thankful, dude, that you and I have that kind of friendship. And it's taken years. It's taken years to build that to where we trust each other in that way. But when I'm in the shit in my head, like, in those stories, like, the real stories, the real stories that not everybody sees or knows about. Right. My fears and inadequacies and also just the impostor, it's that same place as the impostor syndrome, when those stories come out.
[00:12:02.460] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:12:03.910] - Chris
I don't have a lot of people in my life. I think most of us, that's probably true. Yeah.
[00:12:08.550] - Brandon
I mean, the hope is you have at least one.
[00:12:10.700] - Chris
Well, the hope is, like, if you're married and you have that kind of relationship with your spouse. But I think the reality is most of us have some sort of filter, even with our spouses. There's some things that are just so personal, we feel because of the way we grew up or just what we believe about what you should be, how a man should act and think and talk and all of these shoulds, we don't feel like, we can share certain things with anybody.
[00:12:40.120] - Brandon
Yeah. It's interesting kind of the way this is starting to go. And I think I want to hang here because it's important.
[00:12:47.270] - Chris
And that is often.
[00:12:49.480] - Brandon
We're going into November, right? So about the time this show comes out, we're going to be like mid November. WE're going to be approaching third Thursday. Right, which is Thanksgiving. And there's kind of two opportunities I feel like that can happen right now for us. One is that we have a moment where, and like with all holidays, we're going to get wrapped up in all the. To Dos, the planning, the preparation, the foods, the things, the stuff, the beer. Right. But we do really have an opportunity to physically be reminded, to pause and give thanks. I think one of the pockets I want to stay in this year, as I think through that, is, that is like those friendships, the relationships that really are meaningful. Meaningful to the point where they change the way that you experience life. Right. And it's interesting, I think a lot of people that listen to our show are business owners. They're in key lead positions, they're in team lead positions, and it can feel super lonely. Or there's just this constant grind to succeed and carry the weight of leadership, which is both profound and heavy all at the same time.
[00:13:52.110] - Brandon
And those relationships or those people that you can speak truth to are just so imperative because you and I were talking about this idea that often I feel like my life is in that Tupperware container. Like the things that I'm struggling with or wrestling with are there. And every so often I just get enough of a burp, right? Old school, seventy s, eighty s Tupperware. You could hit the button and I can let a little steam out. I haven't removed anything, though, from the container. All it did was burped out some air and it gave me a little bit more runway to go kick some ass. And then inevitably, I'm going to hit that marker again where that cap is at full pressure and I've got to do something. And I've realized that I've spent most of my years just burping that Tupperware container instead of actually getting in, pulling the lid off and trying to pull some shit out from inside that container.
[00:14:41.610] - Chris
All right, headhart and Boots listeners wanted to stop here just a moment and thank our underwriting sponsor, Bloodlight ConsulTing group. As all of you, you know, Brandon and I, this is our passion project. Headhart and Boots is. But it's also a way more and more that our consulting clients find us and in fact, they interview us, right? Those of you been listening to show for a while, you get to know who we are, right, what we're about. So if Headheart and Boots is valuable to you, one of the best things you can do is share it with your friends. And it's been incredible to watch just the audience grow. And we still get text messages from many of you about shows that you really like and impacted you. So that's number one. And please keep doing that. Many of you have been huge advocates of the show. We also just want to remind you too, if you're a restoration company owner and you're interested in a partner in your growth, you want some help building out systems, developing your leadership teams, helping set up the infrastructure for you to scale and grow into the company that you're trying to build.
[00:15:40.880] - Chris
That's what we do. That's what we do is we come alongside restoration company leaders, we help equip them and we help support them in that growth trajectory. So if you're looking for that, go to Floodlightgrp.com. Potentially we could be a great match for each other.
[00:15:54.980] - Brandon
Another way that we really do serve our client base and our sphere of influence is through our premier partners. We work really hard to vet those folks that we believe bring a level of value to the industry, that it can really be leveraged in a way to have a sincere, positive impact on your business. We take that very seriously. The folks that we create, those kind of ongoing partnerships, that's not a check the box kind of scenario. We really see strategic alignment in the value that they bring. We see value in the way that their leadership teams and their partners are developed. And we've done very sincere work of ensuring that these folks that we introduce our clients and our sphere to can actually create vetted value. So go check out Floodlightgrp.com Premier partners and see if there's some folks on there that you can connect with and begin developing some other resources to support your growth and your business. One of the things that I'm leaning into this year is just the idea of how important my friendship is, not you as one of those people, how important I think those relationships are going to be in order to give me both the courage, the competency, the support to get the lid off and start removing some of the items in that container so that I can actually create permanent bandwidth and not temporary bandwidth that I got to return to later.
[00:17:13.340] - Brandon
And so maybe one of the opportunities for me, I think this year is, as we approach Thanksgiving, doing the best I can to not get so consumed by the event of the holiday itself and really lean into what am I extremely thankful? What are the things that have changed my life, the relationships, the wrestling with some of the hard things, the commitment to some of the self disciplines that you and I share? Those are things that moved the needle in my existence. They helped me be a better person. And I think I have an opportunity to just really sit in that this year and be thankful for those things. I don't know. I'm not saying it'll fix anything per se, but boy, it does seem like there's something healthy about that.
[00:17:59.340] - Chris
Totally agree, dude. It's also worth maybe saying out loud for our listeners. Before we started this podcast and we were talking about kind of this topic, we were like, God, are people going to get tired, as always, going into these kind of heart conversations? Should we talk about maybe some project management best practices? Or maybe we should talk about commercial sales? Again, we haven't talked about that in a while. Or maybe we should talk about some leadership principles and how we run our leadership. And I've had one conversation after another, and I know you have too, with clients. And I think of one of our clients where we were on site with them a few weeks ago, and you relayed a conversation you had with the owner about kind of what the family culture they were raised in and how it affected. I mean, the way that you were able to see that person, it made so much more sense. Understanding the file folders that live inside of all of us, those good and bad things that happen to all of us, man. It's just, there's something really important about acknowledging these parts of our life and having people in our life that we can verbalize these things.
[00:19:26.310] - Chris
I don't even know exactly why it is that way, but there is something special in a word that somebody random person told me this before, is this Hebrew word called yada yada. I just latched onto it and it describes what I now kind of think is just this ancient, universal, permanent thing about humans is we have this inherent desire to know and to be known.
[00:19:57.970] - Brandon
There's this thing, it's built into the DNA.
[00:20:01.730] - Chris
And yet in social media, it's interesting because for the last, like ten years, most of us, not all of us, but most of us are on some form of social media and in some ways legitimately, we feel like a lot more people know a lot more about each of us, and we know a lot more about a lot of other people that we otherwise wouldn't have known without social media. But then it's also created. It's become this tool for knowing. But we can control what parts people know, right? And of course, generally, we like people to know all the good shit about us when we've got ourselves dialed in physically. Well, we want to share pictures of that view of us right then, but not six months ago when we packed on some pounds from whatever.
[00:20:51.410] - Brandon
Are you referring to me right now?
[00:20:56.050] - Chris
But it's like, we curate the image that we're putting out, and we don't just do that on social media. I think, in fact, social media has kind of taught us how to do that in real life, too. Yeah. Oh, for sure. We curate how we present ourselves to other people. So yesterday, man, I spoke in this RIA technical conference.
[00:21:18.650] - Brandon
Oh, yeah.
[00:21:19.830] - Chris
And the topic was AI chat. GPT. It was a cool, mean, I think that stuff's really cool. And yet I was kind of like, why am I the guy talking about this? And then I found out Jeff Moore, and I realized I'm name dropping mean, right? Like, Jeff is this icon in the industry. He's a really cool dude. And what I love about Jeff is know, it's not like we're best friends, but just the few interactions that we've had with him. I just really quality guy. Well, I love how I hate to use word authentic because, right, but he just is a very genuine dude. And the times where I feel like when I've seen him in a public setting or I've been around him or when we've had him on the podcast, when I ask a certain question and I'm expecting kind of a PR answer from him, instead, he responds with a more authentic, from the gut answer. I think when others may have crafted a more diplomatic response or whatever, he's just very honest. He comes off that way to me anyways, professionally, I just I really appreciate that. And he's one of those people and where, again, you just feel like that you're getting the real copy of them, right?
[00:22:35.600] - Chris
Anyway, and so when I found out Jeff was going to be also part of this session, I was like, oh, sweet. Okay, well, I don't really care why they asked me to do this. Now I get to do it with Jeff, and it's like, okay, this is cool. Let's talk about chat. GPT anyway, it was great. But again, I was just reminded of I felt so much imposter syndrome, dude. Coming out of that, I felt like Jeff did a better job than I did hitting on the know. Jana and I created the slide deck. I thought the slide deck looked. I just I felt so unconfident in the moment. And it's so funny because I think a lot of people perceive me to be really confident and extroverted in those kind of settings. And there is a part of me that is it isn't a show in that sense, you know what I mean?
[00:23:31.810] - Brandon
Oh, for sure, yeah.
[00:23:33.280] - Chris
But it's so funny. I have to remind my kids this sometimes too, because, dad, it just seems so easy. You do this podcast and you get up and talk in front of people and you do workshops and stuff, and I remind them. I'm like, I get nervous and concerned every single time I do anything in public now. A lot of it starts to melt away when I'm in it because I practiced it so many times, you know what I mean? Sure. But like yesterday during that RAA virtual deal, I just felt off and I felt like I didn't come off the way I wanted to. I wasn't as confident with my delivery of, I mean, it's funny. Beforehand I asked Jeff, I was mean, you do so much of right? I mean, like, he's all over the A. He's such a huge frontman, I think, for mean, I think a lot of people, when they think ATi, they think Jeff, right?
[00:24:29.740] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:24:30.180] - Chris
I said, do you ever feel nervous anymore doing this? And he, you know, especially if I feel like thrust into something where like I just it's it's kind of outside of my know, definitely. And I think that was part of what it was for me is that chat. GPT it's something I'm curious about and I'm interested in, but I don't feel the same authority, I guess, over the information that I might with some of the resto stuff we talk about and commercial sales and a lot of the things that you and I get involved in. And so that was certainly part of it. But there was also something very, just, again, meaningful to me about being able to have that conversation with Jeff. Sounds like navel. I fear as people listen to this shit, dude, that it's just so navel. Gazey.
[00:25:21.790] - Brandon
Sure, yeah.
[00:25:22.310] - Chris
And it's like, let's fucking get back to work. But there is something about dealing with those head stories and those emotions and games that feels really productive to me. I mean, just even right now, you and I just have a little bit of a pause break this morning. Our schedule happened to have some time in it for us to sort of process and digest some of these feelings that you and I have been in different ways when we started. You kind of opened the conversation this morning, and I felt myself just tapping into the same place of, like, shit. Yeah. There's some of these emotions and things that have been stacking up for me, and we've had a couple of events, a couple of interactions with people in our orbit that have kind of poked and prodded at some of these file folders. And I think you and I, just. The nature of the work, you just kind of stuff it down. You have your internal reaction, you have all your thought head games that are rolling around. But I think, like this morning for you, you're just like, shit, I have to get this.
[00:26:29.860] - Chris
I have to talk through this. And I'm so glad you did because I think that's the other thing I've noticed, is sometimes I'm the instigator between you and I, and sometimes you are, and there's something really powerful about that.
[00:26:45.250] - Brandon
That's an interesting point. I think it kind of makes, like.
[00:26:47.910] - Chris
By you being willing to go there, it gives me permission to deal with my shit.
[00:26:52.520] - Brandon
That's it. That's what I was going to say is I think there are times where I'm the one that leads out, because again, it's just, I got to burp the Tupperware. I don't have a choice. Something is going to happen. Right? But then I think, just like what you've referred to, there's been many times where you're the one that initiates the conversation for the same purpose. You got to burp your Tupperware. But I immediately connect with it. I don't know of too many times ever in the last nine plus years where I didn't have some kind of experience or relationship or whatever, that there was context that I shared with you. So when you started to bring this item up, this topic, wrestle with it, whatever, it wasn't like I was only listening for the sake of you. Almost every time I could listen because it was cathartic for me as well in the moment. Like, the timing of it almost felt ordained. Right. In a lot of different circumstances. As you're talking about that piece, this is what's got me thinking a little bit about. So I'm kind of a visual guy. Like, when I try to remember things, they tend to come to me in some form of a picture.
[00:27:56.190] - Brandon
I don't know if anybody listening are Lord of the Ring fans, but I'm like, old school nerd. I love all Sci-FI nerdy. Nice, dude.
[00:28:03.300] - Chris
I saw the first Lord of the Rings. Like, the old school, the original Lord of the Rings of the first trilogy.
[00:28:10.640] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:28:11.470] - Chris
Not the book, but the movie.
[00:28:13.250] - Brandon
Well, there was like old school cartoon, probably when you and I were kids.
[00:28:16.050] - Chris
No, I'm talking about the cinematic.
[00:28:17.510] - Brandon
Okay.
[00:28:18.180] - Chris
Like the real. Because if you think back to that, when that came out, it was groundbreaking. I mean, it was in the same vein as like Avatar.
[00:28:27.640] - Brandon
It was.
[00:28:27.970] - Chris
Remember when Avatar came out?
[00:28:29.110] - Brandon
It was stunning.
[00:28:29.960] - Chris
Avatar still holds, I mean, it still holds weight. You watch it now and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is 21 years ago. Yeah, same thing with that. But I watched it at the old Whiteside Theater. Oh, yeah, one block over from where our offices are. Yeah, it's 100 year old theater and it's got like the rosette on the ceiling and this old school theater. It's amazing. And we watched it only seats like 200 people.
[00:28:52.240] - Brandon
Oh, that's sweet.
[00:28:52.960] - Chris
And anyway, so I have memories of that first. So they're hour long film.
[00:28:57.360] - Brandon
Yeah, all of them were like three plus hours. Three or 4 hours. Anyways, there's the scene, and I'm brain farting right now. There's going to be lot nerds listening and chastising me. I think it's the third film. There's this scene where the lead bad guy is, oh, this is the Hobbit. I think this is the Hobit series. Yeah, the Hobbit series. Okay, so this is pre Lord of the Rings. This is about the Battle of the Kings when the dwarves try to take their kingdom back. Okay, anyways, there's this scene where the lead bad guy is floating under the ice. So there's this body of water that's frozen over. And one of the kind of like lead good guys, if you will, is standing over the ice as this enemy who you think is dead is floating face up.
[00:29:41.390] - Chris
Oh, dude, I've.
[00:29:42.240] - Brandon
Right underneath the ice. And then right as he comes underneath his feet, his eyes, these pale blue eyes open, and he sticks this weapon up through the ice and it goes through the foot of our hero. Okay, so hang with me here. To me, often my emotional state feels like this, where I am very confidently standing over this thing, where I feel like I have made progress. There is infrastructure between me and this moment of danger or weakness or whatever, and there'll be this thing that happens. And that weapon comes through the ice, punches through and punches me. And I realize in that moment how vulnerable I was on thin ice, like not being tongue in cheek, but the things that I had been doing and building up and putting into place were merely ice. And they were so easily broken through to where I then experienced firsthand. Dude, that is the pain, the danger, the moment. Right.
[00:30:43.860] - Chris
That is a powerful.
[00:30:45.540] - Brandon
It's trippy.
[00:30:46.340] - Chris
Sure, man. Right.
[00:30:47.870] - Brandon
And I think today, if I'm just. I'm not trying to skirt around any of the topic. I was having one of those moments today where I rolled in and something punched through the surface and hit me right in the gut. And it made me realize the fragility of the things that I have put into place to address some of these issues. Again, it's your file folders. Right. It's why that talk was so important is because it is so universally relevant. Now, we may not all be in a state where we're willing to accept it or recognize it or admit it, but this is universal experience. And then I'm thinking right now, our people, our teams are made up of people who very likely are experiencing something.
[00:31:36.380] - Chris
Not very likely. They are experiencing. They are the exact same kinds of things.
[00:31:43.600] - Brandon
They are experiencing similar things.
[00:31:45.640] - Chris
The individual that you and I are thinking of, where we had an experience, they also have the exact same thing going on inside.
[00:31:54.920] - Brandon
That's right. Yeah. And I think that's just kind of. I'm not sure what else to say. I think it's just a matter of giving folks permission, if not myself, permission to recognize, dude, the ice is often thinner than I think. And at a moment's notice, boom, something happens. It breaches the service, totally slaps me upside the head, and it becomes very overwhelming. And I think what you and I were really dialing in today, before we hit record, was this idea of, there's more work to be done. I've still only done a good job of adding multiple layers to that ice sheath, but I haven't burrowed through the ice and found out what is this thing that keeps floating underneath it.
[00:32:44.870] - Chris
Right. So I have a hypothesis around this. For me, I think the power is in the sharing and acknowledging. Yeah. I don't know anymore, at 43 years old, if it's about the fixing. Yeah. Our conversation this morning, I feel really connected to it, dude. And kind of, by extension, I feel connected to you, because I realize, God, we're all in the shit together. We all have it if we're honest, if we feel safe enough to be like, yeah, you know what? Here's the shit that's tumbling around in my head. Nine times out of ten, I'm thinking of another entrepreneur buddy of mine. I had him over to the sauna. We had a sauna sesh. I love this. I freaking love the sauna.
[00:33:31.690] - Brandon
I like how you call it. Soak. Yeah, sauna soak.
[00:33:35.580] - Chris
So we had a sauna soak, and we're all soaking in our sweat. It pools up and dropping on the floor. Drop it on the cedar bra. No, but it's like you're in a confined space. There is an amount of suffering in motion that's shared, and we end up talking. I was talking with this dude, this budy of mine about we just went to the deeper places, man, and the shit that's going through his very successful. Oh, my gosh, man. Very successful, dude. And I think somehow in our heads, we're always protecting ourself from looking less than in front of. More than people that we perceive to be more than us perceived. Yeah. So we look at people that have more money, bigger businesses, whatever, more attractive spouse, bigger house, more toys, more security. They're more responsible, make better choices, all the things more spiritual, more Christian, more whatever, and we compare ourselves to that impression that we have of them, and that creates an immense amount of suffering and self doubt. And then you have these moments where you are totally honest and they meet you in that honesty, and you're like, oh, man, we're actually all the same here.
[00:35:04.370] - Chris
There is something important and special. I believe about that. And I Don't care if you're Christian or you're Buddhist, you're Mormon, or you're whatever it is I think that seems to be. There's something important about us having those kind of honest relationships where we can air that stuff out, where you can just take the lid off the Tupperware and you see the three day old casserole that you brought back from the office. We're all the same stuff.
[00:35:39.550] - Brandon
Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's becoming more universally clear. It's interesting because anytime you start talking in absolutes, I think there's always something inside of me that my skin crawls just a little bit because it's like, yeah, but our world has changed so fast because of our exposure to experiences and new people, new relationships, new perspectives, all the things. But there is just something that I am growing more bold in is that universal truth of human suffering. And I don't mean that like, dum, dum, dum. It's like, oh, my. Depressing and all the things. I just mean there's a reality that all of us have something that we're wrestling with, but it's the act of ignoring it or seemingly thinking that we are in a silence. You're alone in it, that we're alone in it is what the problem is.
[00:36:27.370] - Chris
It feeds it.
[00:36:28.080] - Brandon
I almost think of it a little bit, know Jocko Welling's dichotomy of Leadership. And that idea is it's this balancing act.
[00:36:36.420] - Chris
It's the both and it's the both.
[00:36:38.100] - Brandon
And it requires both. And it just is. You can not like it. You can love it. It really doesn't fucking matter. This is the truth. There is this need of equilibrium. These things exist at the same time. And I think when it comes to suffering, pain, issues, challenges, emotions, anxiety, they are going to exist. I don't think there is a moment or a world that we are going to create, manipulate or control where someday I wake up and I no longer have to wrestle with these things. I think, though, my understanding of the balance can get better the more time I spend looking in the dark spaces to wrestle with the things that I feel like are compromising me or creating the thin ice. Right. And I don't know what that looks like. I mean, in full humility. I don't know. I don't have the answer. This is not something I can teach or preach to. This is something I'm actively wrestling with and figuring out how to do it in a way that's healthy, that then I can mirror, potentially for our team and mirror for my kids as an example.
[00:37:43.040] - Chris
Well, as part of our conversation, I think maybe it's less about fixing. Right. Than we are kind of conditioned to think. You had a problem. You have something you feel crappy about. Well, you just need to make changes, and then you'll never feel crappy again. Well, of course, we all know that doesn't happen. Then there's something else to feel crappy about that's going to pop up. Right. And coming out of yours and I's conversation earlier, I felt a new motivation to lean into. Like I told you, I've been kind of locked up with my wife the last couple of days. Frustrated. She and I had an interaction. Both of us sort of reacted poorly to it. And we've been at this stalemate for the last 24 hours or so. And of course, between work and kids and everything else, you can almost put your marriage on hold. Okay? Right?
[00:38:35.910] - Brandon
We're all in this shit together.
[00:38:38.630] - Chris
You don't verbalize it. Nobody says, hey, let's hit pause on our marriage. No, but it's just like, you flip that switch and you're like. You just kind of gut through. You almost shift into roommate status momentarily. Right. And I shared with you some of that, and you were sharing some of the shit that's kind of been in your head. And somehow, even though neither one of us really offered each other any advice on, well, you just need to do this. I came out of it feeling like, you know what? We're all in this, and I need to reconnect the dots with my wife. That's what I want. That's what I want. And so what's the next right thing to do there? I don't know that I'm ever going to fix the thing. Maybe this isn't true. Maybe some people just have unlimited bliss in their marriage relationship, but it feels as though there is a level of suffering in life that is never entirely going to go away. And I know sort of my religious upbringing is Christianity, and so there's this hope, I think, that Christians often reflect on of, like, hey, someday in heaven, all of this is going to be made right, that all the suffering will go away, will fall away.
[00:39:52.990] - Chris
And that's a beautiful thought. And I think for a lot of people, that holds a lot of hope. Like, someday there actually will be relief from all of this, but here on earth, it's just like, things are never going to be perfect in relationship. But just by feeling heard by you and you acknowledging that some version of that struggle exists for you too, just helps me move forward. And so I texted my wife, actually, when you got up to go get more coffee or whatever, I was texting my wife, and I'm like, look, let's get the kids set up with dinner, and let's you and I go out. We need to clear the table. We need to reconnect the dots.
[00:40:31.950] - Brandon
We just have, you know, Jenna and I are getting ready to go on a little bit of a vacation together, and it's literally the same thing. We're so funny. And right after that conversation happened, I texted her. I was like, hey, I need to see and hear you this week. Let's make sure we maximize our time on this vacation. What I want to do right now, if we're just completely transparent, is just like every other business right now. We are crashing towards the end of the year. I feel like we're on a train. I'm tied to the front of it, and that fucker is screaming, and I can see the counter in front of me, right, that it's almost up. And so what I want to do is just kind of eat, sleep, and breathe our business. But in light of how I was feeling this morning, I'm like, you know what? That is precisely what continues to add in my confidence. Of that thin ice is if I just keep myself busy, I won't have to worry about this thing. And then I'm like, okay. But if I want this year to have significance, having a week where I get some ground on my understanding with my partner, my understanding to our relationship, my understanding of how that affects me personally and the foundation I'm trying to build under my own 2ft, that seems like it will likely yield more return for me than just hyper focusing more hours on the business because it will do something to our revenue stream.
[00:42:01.420] - Brandon
Secure one more client or put one more system in place before the end of 2023. I don't know if it's the right answer. My gut says it is. And that's what I'm going to lean into. I'm not ignoring the other shit, but I'm going to try to maximize that week.
[00:42:15.260] - Chris
You know that visual that you just have tied to the front of the train? It reminded me of that story. And I can't. I've never. A big Greek mythology guy, but is it Oedipus? Right? The story of burning the ships?
[00:42:27.190] - Brandon
I don't know if it's Oedipus or.
[00:42:28.980] - Chris
Perseus, but where he had his crew tie himself to the mass of the ship so he couldn't. They were facing almost certain death right as they approached the shores. And they could have turned around. He had them tie him to the. Whatever the front of the ship is. I think of Titanic. He's out on the front of the ship. Whatever the view was anyway.
[00:42:56.630] - Brandon
Semen. We are offending right now. I use that term on purpose. Okay. We're falling apart.
[00:43:02.770] - Chris
We are falling apart. I think maybe it's time for us to land the plane, you guys.
[00:43:06.560] - Brandon
Listen. You guys have probably grown accustomed to this, that sometimes.
[00:43:10.240] - Chris
Would you please write to us and reassure us that anybody gives a shit.
[00:43:13.560] - Brandon
About this stuff, because give us a damn direct message. Do something. But here's the reality, man. There's got to be a part of us, too that just kind of doesn't fucking care. Like, if this is meaningful, if we really do believe some of the universal truths.
[00:43:27.740] - Chris
Yeah, it is to me.
[00:43:28.600] - Brandon
We have to be really careful because we're asking broken people who are all just like us, trying to build up that facade, protect themselves, control their ego, do all the things to give us their opinion sometimes on the realities of some of the things that you and I talk about. And I feel like by doing that we end up perpetuating the problem. I think that many of us can relate to the stuff that we're talking about. And if this is the kind of show that doesn't work for you, sure.
[00:44:00.900] - Chris
Okay. There's lots.
[00:44:02.090] - Brandon
Yeah. But I think it does for many. And we're going to continue to stay in this pocket. It won't always look like this.
[00:44:09.620] - Chris
Maybe we'll talk about project management next week.
[00:44:12.290] - Brandon
We'll get into some PM school, talk.
[00:44:14.230] - Chris
About inverting more recon in your business.
[00:44:19.170] - Brandon
But to me, at the end of the day, this is more meaningful and it's stuff that's powerful. I think for us to wrestle with guys going into the holiday season, thinking about Thanksgiving coming up, maybe one of the opportunities we have this year is to do two things. One, recognize again the humanity of our people on our team. Recognize the holidays get difficult. They just are difficult. If you're not wrestling with an event that's related to the time of Year of the holidays, you're also still stressed out and all the things. This is a tough time of year, both good and bad. Remember that with your team. Ask them questions, engage in the conversation. Call out the elephant in the room. Don't be afraid to recognize that our people could have some challenging experience over the next six weeks and that it's real and that by you recognize it may be the most meaningful thing you could do all year. Then I think the other set is how confident are you standing over that ice? Is there something else for us to admit? Wrestle with? Incorporate a friendship or a trusted mentor into so that we could potentially make some ground and keep the ground.
[00:45:25.210] - Chris
Good man.
[00:45:25.900] - Brandon
Okay, guys, we'll see you later. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, heart and Boots.
[00:45:32.550] - Chris
And if you're enjoying the show or you love this episode, please hit follow. Formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on Linkedin, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.
