[00:00:00.000] - Chris
Keep your mouth out of my face, please.
[00:00:03.040] - Brandon
What an opener.
[00:00:04.980] - Chris
I'll protect myself.
[00:00:05.990] - Brandon
And welcome to the show. We can't afford to keep your mouth out of my face.
[00:00:08.790] - Chris
I'm going on a field trip tomorrow with my kids.
[00:00:11.060] - Brandon
That's right. To the mountains, right? Yeah. Okay. We're going to talk to you about the mountain later, by the way.
[00:00:15.960] - Chris
Welcome. Hey, everybody. Yeah.
[00:00:17.800] - Brandon
Thanks for joining us. What are you joining us for? That's the question.
[00:00:21.660] - Chris
Yeah. Yeah, right. If you're new, right, welcome to the Head, Heart, and Boots Show with Brandon and Chris. We're the guys. This is a bit of a A passion project for the owners of Floodlight Consulting Group. This is a founder's podcast for Floodlight Consulting Group. We partner with restorers who want to scale and grow their business and create a ton of enterprise value along the way. That's what we do. Our team of consultants partners with restorers to help them grow and scale their companies. And to do it in the most professional and productive way possible, because I think what we've learned watching And many of you know this to be true. Watching as the industry has really come of age in the last 10 years, private equity companies and banks have been buying out restoration companies. And we've seen these amazing rags to riches stories and all this stuff. What many of us What we've learned watching that experience over the last several years is that there's a whole lot more that goes into building a healthy, exit-ready business than just growing your sales and just being profitable. In fact, there's a heck of a lot more.
[00:01:28.780] - Chris
Brokers will tell you this, investment bankers will tell you this. And yet many of us just have not yet put the things into place. And it's not even so much putting things in place. It's applying the right thinking and strategy to how we are building our business. What we're prioritizing and investing our people and our capital in. That's what we do at Floodlight. You want a partner that's going to help you roadmap that and execute? Well, that's why you'd hire us. Go check out floodlightgrp. Com. And read our Google reviews. You can Google us and see what other people are saying about us. But that's what we do. Love it. Yeah.
[00:02:06.270] - Brandon
Dude, so I'm actually excited for this show. We're not too far into the new year, and some of us took a little bit of a Christmas vacation, or at least attempted to. It just got me thinking. I ended up getting just ridiculously ill. I was literally bedridden for almost seven days. I rotated between a couple chairs and the bed, and it was fairly demoralizing, but it also was forced rest. There was something that happened in that forced rest that was interesting, and it really began to get me thinking about some previous experiences, things that I've heard, experienced firsthand, and then just the way that I think I'm shifting in some of the ways that I think about my development as a leader. I wanted to jump in on that with you. Here's the basis, I think, of where this thought started. When you and I are nature guys, we like to go hiking and go hunting and doing these things. The whole point is there's something special that happens when you go out, connect with the dirt, and just slow down long enough to watch around you. What systems, what processes are already in place that we can look to for guidance and examples of the way that life can be sustainable and leverage these synergies to provide resources and provide support and to support each other.
[00:03:27.720] - Brandon
Like these whole ecosystems. I'm Hang with us guys here. Anyways, I was processing that and I was really thinking about vineyards. It's this idea. The reason I love vineyards, because I wouldn't necessarily want to own one and take care of one, but there's something beautiful about the rose, the tidiness, the commitment to what it looks like. I've always said, it would be fun to have a house surrounded by a vineyard that I didn't have to take care of because I would just love to wake up and look out and see all these well-maintained tidy rows designed to do a certain thing in a certain way. Anyways, I'm thinking about vineyards, and I'm just thinking about the fact that normally in the spring and summertime, one of the most beautiful things in our area is when you drive by these vineyards because they're just gorgeous. But then this time of year, they're just rows of dead shit. It has a very ugly, non-beautiful look feel to it. It's almost the actually very opposite. It's like a bone yard. It is. It's a bone yard. Then I was just thinking again from there, just what happens in spring and my excitement about spring when the world around us begins to come to life, especially here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
[00:04:35.430] - Brandon
I started to get absorbed with this idea that nature has really shown us a clear path of developmental cycles. Nature has this cadence of dormancy, of rest, of revitalization. If we think about why in farming scenarios, for example, there will be several seasons where a crop is not planted in a specific field location. And because the soil needs time to reintroduce the minerals and the resources to make that crop effective, to make that soil effective. And so I was just pondering all these different reference points, how nature shows us there's this very consistent and natural cycle of we go quiet for a while, we rebuild the nutrients, we resupplement the soil, and then spring hits, and then there's this resurgence of growth where all those resources, the quiet, the things that we were able to develop in that dormancy state are then used and leveraged to create this growth. Then towards the end of that growth cycle, there's this massive production of fruit from our experience and from our effort. I was thinking recently how as a people, especially as professionals, especially as entrepreneurs or people running companies, we have an expectation that you're going to run hard into the paint 24/7, 365 days a year, and that somehow we've conned ourselves into believing that's a sustainable pattern.
[00:06:13.730] - Brandon
I think what's interesting And again, I'm going to be very careful here. This is me learning out loud. I am in no way saying this is a standard, a thing. It's just where my head's been going recently, where I feel like nature very accurately and very intentionally points to the fact that in order for us to do this sustainably over a long period of time, decades, hundreds of years, there's this intentional cycle where you are doing certain things and investing in certain ways in order for that bumper crop, that fruit production, to come on an annual basis. It's got me thinking. If that's true for Mother Nature, and you can... I mean, what's the historical record? It's pretty flawless. If that's true in nature, what could we take from that? How can we look at our own personal and professional development as leaders and the fruit that our efforts produce from this perspective of a annual cycle that's very consistent and is more complicated or multifaceted than just go hard into the paint forever.
[00:07:25.710] - Chris
There's so many. Nature gives us so many incredibly vivid analogies I think we can learn from. One of my buddies, he's a forester.
[00:07:37.760] - Brandon
Oh, yeah.
[00:07:38.720] - Chris
He works for a forest land management group that is one of the wealthiest and biggest in the country. In fact, probably most of the people on this call will know about the 1031 Exchange.
[00:07:50.700] - Brandon
Oh, sure.
[00:07:51.580] - Chris
This forestry company, the founder, the patriarch of it, he actually was the guy who developed the 1031 Exchange, the law, got it written in the law because they were these huge landowners, and they needed this mechanism for this tax mechanism. And so he pitched it to Congress, and it became, now, one of the most preeminent investment mechanisms of all time. But anyway, so this guy works for this big land management company, and he was just talking to me. It was very interesting. Just how they think about managing the land and the natural cycles of the land. That's right. And the thinning of their forests and how important, intentional, and scientific it is for them to maintain, to not overharvest, but how important it is to routinely harvest and prune out the less healthy trees. And so there's all these different rhythms of life that I think nature shows us in its strength. Really healthy elements in nature have these moments of rest, moments of dying, and allowing certain aspects them to die off so that then the surviving elements feed off of the nutrients of the dying, and there's just this really beautiful cycle. But you know what comes to my mind?
[00:09:10.090] - Chris
I was just in a conversation, literally an hour ago with this executive at a very big restore in our country. In our country, because I also spoke to somebody in Canada earlier, so I had to qualify that. Yeah, hey. In the United States of America. Anyway, I was really surprised to learn that internally, their target is 10% growth. And I thought, that's not very aggressive.
[00:09:33.350] - Brandon
Yeah, sure.
[00:09:34.280] - Chris
Right? I mean, we're living in a world where a lot of restoration companies are like 30%, 50%. We doubled last year. This is the thing. And he said, here's the thing. He said, Here's the He said, If we build a culture and a system and accountability within our company to consistently grow 10% every year, we're going to win. He said, but here's the other thing that we found is we're going to have years where we grow 30% because the systems in place that we have to grow 10% consistently every year, we're going to have large loss experience. We're going to have hurricanes that happen that give us the way you and I talk about angel losses. It's like we don't build our business around angel losses, but they come. When you build your business for the day-to-day, month-over-month performance, the angel losses come and they make everybody happy. It was just interesting to hear him say that out loud. It ties in probably a lot of people I've read Good to Great by Jim Collins. And Collins talks about this in their research to companies. It's not the ones that grow 4,000 % in a year that win over time.
[00:10:41.390] - Chris
These crazy success stories like the Ubers. Uber was like this. It's like from zero to gazillion. And then there was all kinds of chaos. And then it dropped way back down. There was almost bankruptcy at one point. They almost got bought. And there's this craziness. But the really truly great companies, maybe Uber will eventually prove everybody wrong long term. But over this 20-year study that Collins and his peers did, it was the folks that were doing the five-yard, 20-mile march. That's right. I think I just confused two different analogies. But it It was like, it wasn't the companies focused on touch downs. It was the companies that were focused on a first down, every play, marching down the field. I think it speaks to what you're talking about, which is as entrepreneurs, there's something inside of us that desperately wants the countdown today. We're willing to set ourselves on fire to get that countdown today. But I think over time, and I think what this gentleman that I was speaking to, what they've found in their company is we can get more out of ourselves and out of our people by building around this cadence of disciplined, steady, forward progress.
[00:11:58.950] - Chris
We're going to have some outside There's just wins along the way. For sure. But there's something super important about not spending too much of ourselves too fast.
[00:12:08.100] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:12:08.750] - Chris
It's like, how do we build a business? I mean, you and I wrestle with this. Oh, yeah. It's like, how How far do we want to go? Yeah. How many fronts do we want to tack on at once? Yeah. What are we willing to sacrifice? Really? How much of our health are we willing to sacrifice? How much of the connection and depth do we want to in our personal relationships in order to yield fruit today? Because it's like there is no free ride. There isn't.
[00:12:38.660] - Brandon
It's like the system really is designed for consistency.
[00:12:41.730] - Chris
Yeah, you can't game the system.
[00:12:43.250] - Brandon
Yeah, but we try.
[00:12:44.590] - Chris
But we try. And I think the problem is that the way most of us view success, and I'm guilty of this too, is in dollars, in dollars in dollars in possessions. Dollars, possessions, and beauty. It's like we judge other people by the outward appearance of their achievements. That's right. Not knowing the quality of relationships, friendships that they've been able to retain. You and I've seen it. We get behind the curtain of a lot of entrepreneurs' lives and businesses, and we see there are trade offs, and you cannot dodge them. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:20.200] - Brandon
Yeah, I think that's true. I think that we see that play out, not to overly lean on this whole nature thing, but I think we see it play out in nature. When humans, for example, begin to attempt to skirt the cycle and overpull, to overfarm, overproduce, we begin to create long term damage to the infrastructure to the systems that made it sustainable as a resource in the first place. We don't need to split hairs about global warming and whatever people's perspectives are. But if you just look at a field, ask any farmer, if they were to continue to try produce a bumper crop from the same field year after year after year after year and not give that rest, not put back, not to reinvest or develop resources from that location, long term damage happens to the Earth. I think that in our businesses, it's a similar cycle when we're not following a natural cadence of getting quiet and reinvesting, developing. Maybe this It is. So just for the sake of clarity, I am not saying that you're going to go dormant for a quarter in the year. Don't go off the course here. What we're saying is, or what I guess what I'm trying to wrestle with is this idea of what does this cycle look like in real life as a business owner, as a leader?
[00:14:49.560] - Brandon
What is that resting or that reinvesting, the pouring back into in order to have those resources available for that next growth curve or push? What What does that look like, feel like? Here's some of the places this has been showing up that I think are far more relevant and impactful than I've given credit to. As a consultant, I've potentially undervalued and then not led my client relationship very well in it. Here's an example. I was thinking about, what are these little pauses? What is this reinvestment, the hyper, quote, hibernation look like in our business cycles? I thought, okay, well, one, what about end of year What about development of the strategic plan for the following cycle? It causes us, if we do it right, it causes us to get away, to unplug from the day-to-day operations, to turn off distractions, and We're going to begin critically thinking at a high level about our organization.
[00:15:49.200] - Chris
That's a pause.
[00:15:50.740] - Brandon
In business life cycle, I think that's something that we could point to as a relevant pause, a reinvestment, a putting the resources resources back into the field so that we can expect fruit in the following spring or summer production. I'm thinking, okay, well, what about our strategic planning phases? Then I started wrestling with that. What about quarterly reviews where we stop again and we unplug from the tyranny of the urgent and we do a look back over the previous 90 days and we ask ourselves, did we do what we said? Is the soil ready? Are we making forward progress? Are we creating the fruit that we anticipated by our actions? I think that is also an opportunity for us just to push pause, to separate ourselves from the tyranny of the urgent and look. It's not going to be, you take the winner off, but it's this principle of stopping the actions, the hurried frantic action, evaluate. Where are the resources? How's the soil? Is it ready for another push? Did we do the things that we needed to do. I think your trimming, your letting die analogy is amazing, man, because, again, let's just hang in the pocket.
[00:17:08.850] - Brandon
Where would this show up? I think in our strategic planning, in our quarterly reviews, where we're asking ourselves, The whole keep, what is it? Stop, keep, and add. That's part of that equation. It's this idea of, okay, we did these things last quarter. What have them really helped propel the business forward? Then us being honest and saying, we're going to cut that off because we want our energy and our resources to go to the stuff that works, that creates fruit. If you think about the vineyard, if grapes were left to their own demise, they would just be a bush.
[00:17:45.080] - Chris
And they'd be tiny grapes.
[00:17:46.200] - Brandon
And they'd be tiny grapes. And there'd just be limbs and pods of fruit all over, and they would be misshaped and not healthy. But you look what they do. They trim everything except for these two primary runs. Then the fruit only comes off of those two primary runs per Bush. And because of that, all the energy and the nutrients goes right to just these very specific and proactive intended fruit producers. And I think that's what we're talking about with our business. It could even be things like how we build rest into our weekly cadence of behavior.
[00:18:24.450] - Chris
Liftify. Com/bloodlight. You've heard Brandon and I talk a bunch of times about the importance of Google reviews. Maybe you even heard our episode with Zack Garrett, the CEO and founder. Recency, consistency, two of the most important things when it comes to maximizing the benefit from your Google reviews. Why not use an outside partner? Liftify is targeting 20 a 25% conversion, right? So if you do a thousand jobs a year, you ought to be adding right now 200 to 250 reviews a year, every single year. If you're not doing that, you owe it to yourself to get a free demo from liftify. Com. See their system, see how it works, see how affordable it is. I promise you, you'll thank us. Liftify. Com/bloodlight.
[00:19:07.200] - Brandon
We spend a lot of money and a lot of attention trying to get that first call. And one of the things that we do once it happens is, sometimes we leave it to chance. Who picks up the phone? How do they respond? How do they walk that client into a relationship with us? Well, one of the benefits of partnering with a team like answerforce. Com is we can systemize that, we can make it more consistent. We can also have backup for when our teams need that help. Somebody goes on vacation, somebody's out sick. We get a storm search, we get cat event. All sorts of things can have an impact on how we receive that client. But the most important thing is they need to know that they've chosen the right team. And so answerforce. Com can support you, be a bolt on partner to help you consistently produce an awesome onboarding experience with that first call with your client. So answerforce. Com/bloodlife.
[00:19:58.410] - Chris
That's great. See CNR magazine, we're friends with all the folks at CNR. Michelle and her team, they do a great job of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting all the important information from our industry. You want to stay up on all the M&A activity and what the latest best practices are for selling your company successfully. She's got that. Great articles about all the four quadrants of our business. Cnr is constantly pushing out great material and leveraging great writers and subject matter experts in our industry. It is the water-cooler of our industry. If you're not subscribed, go to cnrmagazine. Com. Follow them on LinkedIn. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn. Trust us, if you're trying to stay on top of everything happening in the industry, your best destination is cnrmagazine. Com.
[00:20:43.140] - Brandon
You guys, many of you have already heard about Actionable Insights and the training and the technical expertise that they bring to the industry. But how many of you are already leveraging the Actionable Insights profile for Xactimate? That's the game changer. It's essentially an AI a tool that's walking alongside of you as you write your estimate, bringing things to your attention that should be added, that could be considered. All of them items that increase our profitability, increase the effectiveness and the consistency of that scope, and It can do anything from helping a new team member assimilate some estimating best practices. It also helps the grizzled vets add back that few % that we've just forgot over time. So actionableinsights, getinsights. Org forward/ floodlight, and take a look at what the actionable Insight's Xactimate profile could be doing for you and your team. One of the things I've been wrestling with a little bit, and I've been pretty open about it, is I'm trying to redevelop my own spiritual practices. What does that look like for me in my life and my family, my sphere of influence? One of the things I've been wrestling with a little bit is this idea of really understanding and taking a Sabbath.
[00:21:56.170] - Brandon
If you're not, it's not Christian or whatever your background, it's not the point. The whole principle behind the Sabbath is to stop for a moment, to have part of a day or a period of time every week where you're doing that, almost going into a hibernation.
[00:22:13.580] - Chris
Rebuild a allow the tyranny of the urgent to be pushed off for a moment of time so that you can be internal, rest, reflective.
[00:22:23.770] - Brandon
It's the same idea. If I was very good as a leader building that moment, that idea of Sabbath, and to a weekly ritual, how much more productive, powerful, positively contributing am I to my entity, to my teams, to my organization? Because I've come back that week with a fuller cup. I have more to give. It's like these things, I'm trying to understand how we build these breathing patterns into the way that we lead and carry ourselves so that we have the highest opportunity of every time we're engaging, it's producing the most fruit it possibly Man, right? Yeah.
[00:23:01.510] - Chris
It makes me just this idea of Sabbath, it reminds me of some show I watched on Netflix about Hasidic Jews, really observant, super religious ones. That concept of Sabbath is so fundamental to the rhythm of their community. Yeah. It's what we would see is very extreme to where for that 24-hour period, I think it's sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Then they have a feast, I think, on Saturday nights, I think, is how works, but they do no work. To the extent that they aren't even allowed to turn on a light switch. Wow. It's very extreme. Like actual Hasidic shoes, their observation of that rest is no work. You don't take the trash out. You don't cook. It's just very, very restrictive, I think, in our Western view. Sure. But I think it speaks to how important it actually is and how frenzied most of us actually are. When you When you put yourself up against that standard, it was like, do I have even a four-hour period in my week where I'm actually resting? Do I? Certainly not against that standard. How healthy and worthwhile would it be for me to have that full rest?
[00:24:21.310] - Chris
What would that mean for the relationships in my life if that were a discipline or a commitment that my family and I observed and prioritized? Why would that mean? Even if it was 9: 00 AM to noon on Saturdays, we did nothing except communicate and be together or read or something. What would that feel like? Because I think for most of us, maybe some people listen as like, really? I do that every Saturday or Sunday. I know I haven't, and it was never part of the rhythm of my family. Even what we thought of as taking a light day or a rest day or our day at church, like Sunday is growing up. It was frenzied.
[00:25:04.290] - Brandon
Yeah, for sure.
[00:25:05.410] - Chris
Because we go to church. My dad was playing the piano. My mom was singing in the choir. I was. Then our church had evening service as well. We go out to lunch, and then we go home and we had to hurry and clean up the house and do laundry, and then we're back to church in the evening. It's like, oh, my goodness, what happened in this day of rest? Was this a day of rest?
[00:25:23.330] - Brandon
Yeah, exactly. I think part of what you're referencing is the intentionality. This is not necessarily replacing our hurriedness with a ton of forced entertainment or the movies or whatever. The idea is this intention of rest building on, adding value, giving you the resources that you will draw on later when the work begins again to fuel, to produce. I think that's what I have made mistakes with, is that it's like I run the risk personally of feeling like when I'm not actively doing, I'm not creating value. It's such a mindset screw because it's not true. It would be like me buying into the mentality that when my gas tank is empty, I just need to drive faster and that that's going to fix my problem. There's nothing in my brain that says, Oh, that makes sense. But that's how we treat our systems and ourselves, our bodies, in reflection of or in context with work, with building, with developing. I just think there's just this awesome reminder for us to try to identify, okay, well, if I can't go faster, harder, farther on an empty tank of fuel, how is that relevant to my business and my energy as a leader.
[00:26:47.490] - Brandon
What can I begin to do to develop a much more intentional cycle where I'm getting the opportunity to put back in so that I can draw out in a productive proactive, proactive, consistent way with my team and the teams that I'm responsible for? I'm on a... This sounds silly, but I'm on this whole strategic planning kick. I don't mean for the first time ever, I'm finding value in it. It's more like I'm becoming more and more bullish on the idea of regardless of where a client thinks they are or says or communicates they are, I think there's this fundamental responsibility that I have, for instance, as a consultant, to really sit in the pocket with my client and ask hard questions, maybe is a decent phrase, but just point towards, let's unpack the vision that you do have for the business. Let's review your core values again. Let's dig in and begin understanding the difference between an exercise that somebody has been taught to do versus how we leverage that time and that commitment to that planning process so that it fundamentally shapes and changes the way we make decisions and the way that we lead our organization.
[00:28:06.810] - Brandon
Again, staying in this rhythm idea, this cadence of development idea, I think it's so fundamental for businesses that if they haven't created a real clear vision for their organization, they haven't really clearly identified and described the culture that they're going to build in their organization, or they They haven't legitimately unpacked and wrestled with their core values to the point where their definition and how they shape the organization is so clear that we don't have multiple interpretations sessions. It's this idea of doing the work of a strategic planning session, but it's moving beyond that and ensuring that those things actually become the backdrop for when we weigh a decision we have to make or we equip our downline leaders to become more independent because they understand the core value that's driving their decision, their hiring decision, their disciplinary decisions. And I think to me, that corresponds directly to this cadence of sometimes we have to slow down and or even come close to a stop, right, in order for us to propel growth and produce fruit.
[00:29:23.960] - Chris
The other thing that's coming up for me, man, is I think it's really important that white space in our lives.
[00:29:32.290] - Brandon
Thinking time, right?
[00:29:33.430] - Chris
Is it really important? Yeah, thinking time and just margin and room to move in. When I think about all the various clients that we have worked with and are working with right now, when you and I have gone out to do a site visit, there's a tangible feeling and difference between the companies that are really healthy and the ones that are really frenetic and chaotic and really struggling to find traction or profitability, because a lot of the companies we end up seeing, they're growing like crazy. But their profit and/or turnover is really problematic. It's interesting when we go on site to these healthy companies, there's a real relaxed element to it where the owners that we're meeting with and the key leaders, nobody's running. Nobody's, Oops, I got to leave the meeting to go take this call. It's really important.
[00:30:32.530] - Brandon
There's less of it. Rare. Rare.
[00:30:34.530] - Chris
It is relatively rare. When we go out to dinner with them, which is a common practice for us, they're engaged. They're not constantly checking their phone, leaving the table coming back, leaving the table coming back. All of these things are much more common in these companies that we encounter that are struggling in some of those key ways we were talking about. May be growing. May have big fleets. May just all the things. A lot of the great markers of success have them, but internally, there's a lot of chaos, a lot of turnover and things like that. There's something about the calm, collected, diligent nature of these businesses that there's room in the day. It's not bouncing from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next all day, every day. That I think is important. I actually forgot about something that Kara and I have been doing. We have a retreat, and it occurred to me. This is like one of the only times in my life where I've forced myself to really rest from a lot of my normal cadences and communicate, in particular, my phone and laptop, is this last year, we attended a retreat, and it's a three-day retreat, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
[00:31:48.630] - Chris
It happens about every two or three months. We went on this retreat, and it occurred to me, it's out in the coastal range of the Oregon Mountains, and it's just far enough out of town that there's almost no cell reception. It's not quite a mandate, but basically, everybody turns their phones off. For like 36 hours, I didn't look at my phone.
[00:32:12.150] - Brandon
That's a long time.
[00:32:13.310] - Chris
It's a really long time. It just popped in my head. I'm like, Wait, we have to do this. We went to this retreat, and it was so restorative for her and I. They were talking about when the next retreat was going to be, and we're like, We're doing this every time they offer it. Because it is. It's a Friday. It's a Friday evening through a Sunday afternoon. Soon. It's like, we're just going to do this. Thankfully, our kids are at an age now where we can do that without a huge amount of hardship and babysitting coordination and all that stuff.
[00:32:39.050] - Brandon
This isn't every week, anyways.
[00:32:40.580] - Chris
No, it's about every 2-3 months. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, once a quarter. Yeah. Once a quarter for three days. Super realistic. I realized, and I'm just like, I realized, too, in between our sessions and different things, activities, that this particular place is on 140 acres. Kara and I, I didn't I didn't think to grab my phone. We would just go walk on this road through the woods. We'd talk and we'd think. I was like, wow. We wouldn't think of how long we had. It was It was like, it was just like, there's something about white space that is like open space that is so powerful. Again, back to the companies that we work with. Right now, one of our... Some friends of you and I that we used to operate with. They recommended, they sold their company to a new owner, and they told that owner, you need to work with floodlight. You should work with them. They'll help you scale up and do the things you want to do. A lot of industry experience, blah, blah, blah. So this guy calls me up. He's like, Hey, I was told I should talk to you about consulting.
[00:33:47.210] - Chris
Well, if this person is listening, they'll know exactly who I'm talking about. It's okay. I've been chasing them. We have a process for onboarding clients because we're interviewing the potential clients as much as they're interviewing us in order for us to be effective. It's a two-way street. And every single time I've reached out to this guy to schedule the next step, I was just really busy. I got this company and this new one I just acquired, and da, da, da, da, and And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I do know. And it's very difficult to think strategically and to build any consistent pattern of growth and execute on strategy when we are so frenetic and so always on the run, it's very difficult for our people to follow us, and it's very difficult for us to execute in any consistent manner. And honestly, it's really given me pause. I'm not sure that this is going to be a great client for us. And that will be a great consultant for them because they're going to come in with all the expectations of what a consultant is or does. What am I paying for? Roi. How fast?
[00:34:53.590] - Chris
And if this is the dynamic of, Hey, we had a meeting, and, Oh, you had something come Not good. Not good. And not good for him. It's hard to see that because with all the experience you and I've had, it's like, yeah, that doesn't usually end well. It doesn't produce the results people want. And again, I think what's so deceptive is the reason why a lot of owners act that way. They always have their hair on fire, they're known for it, is because it can produce results. Grinding? Oh, yeah. It's real? Oh, yeah. Yeah. The whole early Vaneer Chuck, not today Vaneer Chuck, but early Vaneer Chuck, and some of these other Cardone guys and whatever. It's like, can you produce results? Yes, but it is interesting to look at those type of figures. Their message has changed in the last 10 years. It's true. From grind your face off to...
[00:35:44.770] - Brandon
Maybe there's more to it.
[00:35:45.760] - Chris
Yeah, maybe there's more to this thing, right? Yeah. And of course, there is. Because I think what all of those guys and gals have ultimately figured out is that while they were left with a big pile of money, they also had a lot of unintended consequences that they experienced as a byproduct of organizing themselves that way. I certainly have. Those periods of my life where it was just grind, grind, grind, whatever, whatever, fast as possible, there was fallout. I wasn't always willing to see it or acknowledge it, but I can clearly look back now and see where I made some trade offs. I think the older you get, the more you realize those trade offs are rarely worth it.
[00:36:27.300] - Brandon
It reminds me a little bit of this the difference between constantly in a state of failing forward and intentionally moving forward. Don't get me wrong, there's a healthy amount of any success story of failing forward. Of course. But I think we can also over indexed to the point that failing forward, we believe, is the only path forward. I think the reality check for all of us is if we can get into a consistent pattern, a cycle, where where we're re-energizing, refueling, getting the rest, reinvesting in to the soil, that then the growth intentionality that comes, that proceeds that, I mean, that post that, unbelievably fruitful. That it creates an experience or an outcome where we're more proud of what ourselves and our teams just did. It's more filled with wisdom, intentionality There's not as much negative fallout. There's not as much sticky residue when you're intentionally saying, let's rest and reflect in order to take advantage of tomorrow. It's just building that in to the way that we manage ourselves and our business. Powerful.
[00:37:49.840] - Chris
Yeah, it's like the wine, the vineyard example you gave, right? It's like we take the time, we exercise the patience to prune away a lot of the vine so that all of the energy from the sun and the water and the nutrients can flow where it needs to flow.
[00:38:08.920] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:38:09.810] - Chris
I just think it's such a perfect analogy because I think it is really possible. Some of the most successful leaders that you and I really have grown to respect, where we've been able to see behind the curtain, so to speak, and know what really went into it. Yeah. They all get there.
[00:38:24.440] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:38:25.120] - Chris
They all are maturing into recognizing, okay, this is a both-and This is a rest and press. Rest and then press. You can't fight nature without the consequences. That's right. But going with nature, it's like a little Buddhist saying, right? That's right. It's like flow like water. Yeah. Go with the way nature has created us to go, which involves rest. It involves relationship, energy exchange.
[00:38:54.080] - Brandon
Love it, dude.
[00:38:54.920] - Chris
It's something we don't really learn until we learn it. I'm convinced some people that are listening to this, they're ready to hear that. But just like you and I at different intervals, we needed to hear it, and then it's like, Oh, okay, this is the direction to go.
[00:39:08.390] - Brandon
That makes more sense. Yeah. I think it is.
[00:39:11.770] - Chris
Okay. Cool. Well, that was a good chat. Yeah.
[00:39:14.120] - Brandon
Way to go. Hanging out with us, guys.
[00:39:15.650] - Chris
See you on the next one. Floodlightgrp. Com.
[00:39:17.330] - Brandon
Oh, that's right. No. Go, please.
[00:39:18.750] - Chris
If you want a partner, you appreciate maybe where we're at in our own evolution as entrepreneurs and leaders. You're like, Man, I want to connect with a partner that's thinking this way. I could use more of this. Well, that's part of what you'll get working with the floodlight consultant. Floodlightgrp. Com. Check it out. Reach out. Love it. Okay.
[00:39:37.540] - Brandon
See you on the next one, guys. Thanks. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots.
[00:39:44.450] - Chris
If you're enjoying the show, if 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..