1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,440 an hour away and we're going to go visit them. That'll be about it. 2 00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:08,480 Decompress. Yeah. Yeah, man. That's, that's, that's exciting. 3 00:00:08,500 --> 00:00:11,240 And that's the adrenaline of entrepreneurship right there. 4 00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:17,520 Mellow out and decompress. Yeah, I get that. Awesome, man. 5 00:00:18,080 --> 00:00:21,160 So one of the, one of the things I heard you say in the, 6 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:23,720 that episode I was listening to, let me find the beginning, 7 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:25,440 it was the unlock your true value. 8 00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:29,280 You were talking about being your best self, which I'm a, 9 00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:30,920 I'm a big fan of that concept. 10 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:35,600 You talked about impacting as many lives as possible as well. Where does that, 11 00:00:35,620 --> 00:00:36,680 where did that drive come from? 12 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:43,320 Man, that is a great question. I think that I ended up, 13 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:44,920 um, 14 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:49,760 I was an only child and very much an introvert my entire 15 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:54,640 life and knew that I wanted to do something big and was meant for more. 16 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:58,960 And as I started to progress in my career, I started thinking about, okay, 17 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:02,880 I, I've been able to learn how to do all of these things. 18 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:05,480 Can I help others do that? 19 00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:09,600 And once I started to learn how to help others do that, 20 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,360 I realized how powerful and fulfilling it is and 21 00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:19,720 decided that I wanted to try to positively impact as many lives as possible. 22 00:01:19,720 --> 00:01:23,800 And so now that that's really my mission and purpose is to try to help build 23 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:26,840 and develop and positively influence as many people as possible. 24 00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:30,480 Awesome. What, what are, um, 25 00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:36,480 three of the most overlooked tools, um, used to help positively impact people? 26 00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:43,440 Well, I think social media is one that is probably, 27 00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:48,400 we'll say misused a little bit. Uh, I think that it is very, 28 00:01:48,400 --> 00:01:53,400 it is very, it can be addicting and it's very dangerous if you're not intentional 29 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:56,720 about how you use social media, 30 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:00,720 because the way the algorithms are designed, they are, well, 31 00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:03,160 they are built to lock you into the platform. 32 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:06,040 And they do that by tugging on our lizard brain and, 33 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:08,640 and putting things in front of us that are, 34 00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:12,520 will make us emotional because we just stay focused and locked into the 35 00:02:12,520 --> 00:02:15,960 platform. And so you constantly have to be cognizant of that. 36 00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:20,440 And you have to be intentional about anytime something like that does pop up in 37 00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:23,560 your feed to block it, unfollow it, 38 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:27,200 remove it and make sure that when you go to the platform, 39 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:31,920 that you are there to consume the right type of content and 40 00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:34,640 information to make yourself better. 41 00:02:35,640 --> 00:02:40,480 The other challenge is a lot of that content isn't always as engaging. 42 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:45,520 So it doesn't get pushed out in front of as many people as you would like. 43 00:02:45,520 --> 00:02:47,760 And so there's this constant push and pull, 44 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:49,360 but I think social media is, 45 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:52,720 is a very powerful tool that is often overlooked. 46 00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:55,760 It can be extremely beneficial, especially when, 47 00:02:55,760 --> 00:03:00,240 especially whenever it comes to impact at scale, because it's free. 48 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:03,120 Well said. In fact, I got, 49 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:08,080 I got a friend who said, Jackson, I'm tired of Facebook. 50 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:13,080 The only thing I ever see on Facebook is boobs. And oh my gosh, 51 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:16,120 I felt bad for him. I was, you know, he, he hopefully admits that. Right. 52 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:17,160 And I'm like, dude, I was like, 53 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:19,320 I want you to look at my Facebook feed and see what you see. 54 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:23,240 And he sees entrepreneur ad, entrepreneur ad, entrepreneur ad, 55 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:25,960 babies, you know, family stuff. 56 00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:31,040 And I'm like, it's feeding you what you consume, what you, 57 00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:33,640 that's exactly right. 58 00:03:33,640 --> 00:03:37,320 That's one tool. What's another, what's another, give me, give me two more. 59 00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:41,400 What's two more tools to help us drive impact in the world. 60 00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:44,600 I think media is, is the biggest one. 61 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:48,600 And we could do different subsets of like social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, 62 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:49,440 things like that. 63 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:53,720 Medium is the biggest one to help us impact at scale. 64 00:03:55,720 --> 00:03:58,600 Media. So when you, you're talking about medium.com. 65 00:03:59,320 --> 00:04:02,440 No, no, no. The different mediums media. 66 00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:04,440 So you can have social media. 67 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:07,480 You have to argue about that later, but no, no, no. 68 00:04:07,480 --> 00:04:11,480 The.com. You know, YouTube is another one. I mean, I think there's, there's 69 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:13,560 YouTube and podcasts and social media. 70 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:17,720 I think if we just want to answer the three, those are all extremely powerful 71 00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:22,040 if used intentionally and, and you know what you're doing and how to navigate 72 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:25,960 through them, but to your point, most people are not cognizant of. 73 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:32,680 How those tools operate and work and are not aware that the platform is just 74 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:34,360 feeding you what you consume. 75 00:04:34,360 --> 00:04:39,080 And are not aware that the platform is just feeding them more of whatever 76 00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:40,440 keeps them locked in. 77 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:43,080 Absolutely. And where did you get this logo? 78 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:45,400 This wolf logo that's super cool behind you. 79 00:04:45,400 --> 00:04:47,160 How the heck did you get that? 80 00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:48,520 I started just kind of. 81 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:53,000 All right. Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame. 82 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:53,960 I'm your show host. 83 00:04:53,960 --> 00:04:58,120 We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are 84 00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:08,600 building fantastic visions out there. 85 00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:10,040 Hey, what's up vision pros. 86 00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:12,120 Welcome into another episode of vision pros live. 87 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:16,120 I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of first-class business. 88 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:18,760 And I'm excited to have Sean Barnes on today. 89 00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:21,560 Sean Barnes and I, we're going to be talking about leadership development, 90 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:22,840 culture and coaching. 91 00:05:22,840 --> 00:05:27,880 He's had, he has a unique privilege of having started his own business and 92 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:31,480 transferring slowly into the entrepreneurship realm. 93 00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:35,720 Now I say slowly, he didn't spend 30 years making that transition. 94 00:05:36,280 --> 00:05:39,480 But so many people feel like you got to just like wham bam. 95 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:40,200 Thank you, ma'am. 96 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:41,000 Get started. 97 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:44,360 There are so many different ways you can go about the process of making that 98 00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:45,400 transition. 99 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:48,360 I really enjoyed listening to his podcast as well. 100 00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:52,040 So we might be talking about some of the challenges and opportunities that 101 00:05:52,040 --> 00:05:54,600 exist in the podcast development world. 102 00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:57,000 The way of the wolf is the podcast name. 103 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:00,280 So by the way, it's like, I know some people are like, why would you talk 104 00:06:00,280 --> 00:06:01,560 about that as a podcast host? 105 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:03,960 Why would you drive people to other channels? 106 00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:07,400 Well, like it's okay that Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kim will get along. 107 00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:10,200 Just saying, it's okay to bring build friendships. 108 00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:14,040 One of my favorite examples of that when I was paying attention to strategy was 109 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:17,800 when Darren Hardy came out with the book, the compound effect and the forward was 110 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:19,000 written by Tony Robbins. 111 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,680 And I was like, huh, I bet Tony didn't pay for that. 112 00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:26,840 Not for Darren Hardy, but Darren Hardy was excited and Tony was excited 113 00:06:26,840 --> 00:06:31,240 because they share audiences that are so similar and the collaboration that would 114 00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:33,880 exist to bring them more to the center of attention. 115 00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:35,880 Hey, we really do support each other. 116 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:37,080 Phenomenal opportunities. 117 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:40,760 If you live with a scarcity mindset as a visionary, if you're scared to share 118 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:44,120 your vision with others or put it out there, maybe consider the quality of 119 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:47,640 people that you have in your life and consider trying to find people who are 120 00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:51,080 more abundant like the Tony Robbins and Darren Hardys of the world. 121 00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:54,200 So with that said, before I bring Sean on, I always want to give a shout out to 122 00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:58,200 the sponsors because these are absolutely phenomenal resources that we 123 00:06:58,200 --> 00:06:59,560 support and love. 124 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:04,040 Patrick Creighton has launched this program called Laid Back Languages and 125 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:07,080 he can help people learn languages super fast. 126 00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:08,760 I'm very impressed with Patrick. 127 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:10,200 I speak Spanish fluently. 128 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:12,280 A lot of my team only speaks Spanish. 129 00:07:12,280 --> 00:07:15,480 It gives me a competitive edge in the market to be able to do that. 130 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:19,560 One thing y'all may not know about me is I actually learned Spanish and became 131 00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:23,240 fluent in four and a half months, pretty much from scratch. 132 00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:27,560 I mean, I was in Spanish in high school, but I sat next to Jesus and he helped me 133 00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:28,120 on everything. 134 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:31,000 I didn't understand conjugation, all that. 135 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:35,160 What that's done for me from opening up the possibilities and the ability to 136 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:39,720 hire my own time zone in different countries, too, it's a massive blessing. 137 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:44,440 And in a world that's becoming more integrated and we have more opportunities 138 00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:48,920 throughout, it's not a bad idea to work with somebody on your language learning 139 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:50,680 opportunities as well. 140 00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:52,280 I'm not some super genius. 141 00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:57,000 I used the dictionary, read the heck out of all those words and just worked my 142 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:00,040 little tail off for four and a half months and learned some secrets. 143 00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:01,080 Why is that important? 144 00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:04,520 Because Patrick follows a lot of the same principles I followed to learn that 145 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:04,840 fast. 146 00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:08,200 Deteo Publishing is the other sponsor that I want to talk about. 147 00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:11,800 Deteo Publishing, most of you have a book within you. 148 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:15,080 You have a desire to publish or you have content you're trying to get out there. 149 00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:16,680 And they say content's king. 150 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:18,040 Content's trash. 151 00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:19,560 Great content is king. 152 00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:21,720 You've got to have something that's written well. 153 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:26,680 Once working with a company that wanted to make sure their blogs were all 900 154 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:28,520 words deep because that's what Google recommended. 155 00:08:28,520 --> 00:08:30,520 Google doesn't care how long your content is. 156 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:32,680 It cares about how valuable your content is. 157 00:08:32,680 --> 00:08:34,280 The algorithm's smarter than that. 158 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:38,040 It knows to recognize what people love, like about the content, what they're 159 00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:38,920 sharing. 160 00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:43,800 And Ashley Deteo is the best research and development person I've ever met. 161 00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:48,760 She's so good at producing content, both in terms of really sophisticated 162 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:50,760 content, such as on like finances. 163 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:54,280 She even wrote the book on world schooling. 164 00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:58,600 She wrote a book called Wallace the Westie for children about a little girl 165 00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:01,000 receiving a puppy for Christmas last year. 166 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,480 She is one of my absolute favorite entrepreneurs to work with. 167 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:05,320 She's one of my favorite people of all time. 168 00:09:05,320 --> 00:09:06,520 I got a big family. 169 00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:10,200 Ashley's on the front end of my favorite people, even with the family size that I 170 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:10,680 have. 171 00:09:10,680 --> 00:09:12,920 So I just can't speak highly enough of her. 172 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:15,880 And if you're an entrepreneur trying to produce content or trying to get a book 173 00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:18,680 published, she's a go to source that I highly recommend. 174 00:09:18,680 --> 00:09:20,280 Then there's the water project. 175 00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:24,120 I'll end on this fairly quickly today to get into Sean's what Sean's up to. 176 00:09:24,120 --> 00:09:28,280 But the water project, if you're in a position to be able to give back, please 177 00:09:28,280 --> 00:09:31,640 consider helping these children, these families gain access to clean drinking 178 00:09:31,640 --> 00:09:31,880 water. 179 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:35,560 There are millions of people who do not have that basic luxury going into the 180 00:09:35,560 --> 00:09:36,600 Christmas season. 181 00:09:36,600 --> 00:09:38,600 One of the best things we can do is give back. 182 00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:42,600 Sometimes the only way we can give is just sharing the word and hoping that 183 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:46,600 somebody hears what we're talking about and decides to contribute to it. 184 00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:50,600 Had that great experience the other day with Dax, who was on our show, Dax 185 00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:55,560 Stanley, happened to share this live and he went and he contributed while we were 186 00:09:55,560 --> 00:09:59,080 on the show and sent me the screenshot afterwards of having contributed. 187 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:01,960 Again, that just gets me jazzed and inspired to share more. 188 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:04,600 If there's a cause that you're aware of, maybe it's something your family's 189 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:07,800 going through and you would like to see us potentially give to that, just drop 190 00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:09,000 the link in the comments. 191 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:12,840 We always monitor the comment seat, who's asking questions, who's promoting 192 00:10:12,840 --> 00:10:13,800 things, et cetera. 193 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:17,720 And if your cause is something that we also believe in, we might bring it on to 194 00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:19,480 Vision Pros and talk about that too. 195 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:23,000 We got 8 billion people in the world to help and those of us who are in a 196 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,520 position to be able to do so, we have not only responsibility but an amazing 197 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:27,880 opportunity to do so. 198 00:10:27,880 --> 00:10:34,520 So without further ado, Sean Barnes, founder of WSS Solutions, the founder 199 00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:38,600 of WSS Solutions, podcast host of The Way of the Wolf, welcome to Vision Pros 200 00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:39,080 Live, man. 201 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:40,280 I'm so happy to have you here. 202 00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:41,880 I appreciate the opportunity, man. 203 00:10:41,880 --> 00:10:45,960 I'm really looking forward to diving into this conversation with you today. 204 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:47,320 It's going to be fun. 205 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:52,120 So I didn't dive into WSS Solutions and what you do there. 206 00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:57,640 To be honest with you and the audience, the mechanics of the operation don't 207 00:10:57,640 --> 00:10:59,800 inspire me of any operation. 208 00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:03,000 It's always the virtues I see in the founders. 209 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:04,440 That's my main focus. 210 00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:07,640 After having met you, I got to grill you a little bit. 211 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:09,240 I got to talk about what you're up to. 212 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:13,400 I was just very impressed with you as a human being and I was like, man, I got 213 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:14,440 to have this guy on the show. 214 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:15,880 What's WSS Solutions? 215 00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:16,520 Let's hit that first. 216 00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:17,720 What do you do professionally? 217 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:18,360 Yeah. 218 00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:21,800 So it stands for Wolf Strategic Systems and Solutions. 219 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:25,800 So whenever you look at WSS and The Way of the Wolf, there's definitely a wolf 220 00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:31,480 theme and a lot of that just comes from whenever you see wolf packs, there's 221 00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:35,800 always the alpha who's the leader, taking care of the pack and always looking out 222 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:36,600 for them. 223 00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:39,640 And that is just something that has just resonated with me. 224 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:42,360 And wolves are extremely beautiful creatures. 225 00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:43,560 They're self-sufficient. 226 00:11:43,560 --> 00:11:46,200 I mean, very, very impressive animals. 227 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:51,960 So whenever I discovered that I have this passion of leadership, it was, I'm 228 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:54,760 going to say six to seven years ago. 229 00:11:54,760 --> 00:11:58,680 Before that, I had a career in information technology. 230 00:11:58,680 --> 00:12:00,360 I was that individual contributor. 231 00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:01,640 Which is shocking. 232 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:05,000 I'm just going to say that is just, you do not fit. 233 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:10,920 If I have to stereotype, something about the size of your cannons, I mean, arms, 234 00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:13,080 that says not IT. 235 00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:19,400 Did you get that comment often when they, are you the IT guy? 236 00:12:19,400 --> 00:12:19,960 Yeah. 237 00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:21,080 Yeah, for sure. 238 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:22,520 And so here's the thing. 239 00:12:22,520 --> 00:12:26,920 So the majority of my career, I was that introverted IT nerd to myself, 240 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:32,200 keyboard warrior, hold up in my office and love data center architecture, 241 00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:35,880 WAN design, all of that nerdy geeky stuff. 242 00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:41,880 And I was able to accomplish a decent level of success in my career. 243 00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:47,320 I made it to the IT director level at a publicly traded oil and gas company. 244 00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:50,760 I've actually gone through a few IPOs at oil and gas companies. 245 00:12:50,760 --> 00:12:59,320 And in my mid thirties, I kind of started grappling because I grew up with not a lot of money 246 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:07,800 and not really a stable father figure in the home and very quiet, shy and reserved. 247 00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:09,880 But I knew I wanted to do big things. 248 00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:13,480 And in hindsight, it was almost like I had this chip on my shoulder. 249 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:15,240 Like I was going to accomplish big things. 250 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:19,320 And by most standards, I was able to accomplish pretty big things. 251 00:13:19,320 --> 00:13:23,720 I had a nice salary and home and cars and, and big director title. 252 00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:30,600 But by my mid thirties, I just wasn't fulfilled, which is very confusing for me. 253 00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:32,360 And I grappled with it for a little bit. 254 00:13:32,360 --> 00:13:38,440 And ultimately I came to realize that I wasn't being challenged and I just needed 255 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:42,600 something to really push me and challenge me. 256 00:13:43,320 --> 00:13:47,880 And the first four years that I was at the, this particular company, we had had four 257 00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:52,200 VPs of HR come and go, just the revolving door. 258 00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:54,680 And I was the director of IT at the time. 259 00:13:55,560 --> 00:14:01,480 And after the fourth one departed, I actually raised my hand and said, could I lead HR? 260 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:04,280 And I reported the CEO at the time and she kind of scratched you. 261 00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:06,360 It's like, what? 262 00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:08,840 It doesn't make any sense. 263 00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:11,320 And actually I have to commend her. 264 00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:16,040 She was phenomenal in terms of how she handled that conversation. 265 00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:18,440 She sat back, she listened intently. 266 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:23,880 And I said, you know, I kind of talked through my ideas and why I felt I could step up and 267 00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:24,920 manage the HR team. 268 00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:30,760 And at the end of it, she leaned in and she said, Sean, it's people like you that make 269 00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:32,200 this company so great. 270 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:36,920 It's people like you that are going to continue to make this company so great. 271 00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:39,480 And I was like, okay, all right, cool. 272 00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,960 That being said, we appreciate everything you're doing. 273 00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:46,200 We appreciate everything you're doing. 274 00:14:46,200 --> 00:14:49,160 We're going to hire an HR professional that knows what they're doing. 275 00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:51,640 That's so common. 276 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:53,560 Oh, just twist it. 277 00:14:53,560 --> 00:14:54,520 I was like, yes, ma'am. 278 00:14:55,240 --> 00:14:55,880 Understood. 279 00:14:55,880 --> 00:14:57,320 That logic checks out. 280 00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:05,000 So the next day she sent me an email and once again, thanking me for my time and all of 281 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:05,560 that. 282 00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:09,960 And the last sentence, it said, if you'd like to discuss this further, my door is always 283 00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:10,280 open. 284 00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:13,640 And I thought, so you're telling me there's a chance, right? 285 00:15:14,760 --> 00:15:17,080 So a few days later, knock on her door. 286 00:15:17,080 --> 00:15:18,200 Hey, me again. 287 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:24,680 And I went back in with even more intentionality and I didn't hold back. 288 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:31,720 I shared what I had observed with all of the previous HR leaders and said they were 289 00:15:31,720 --> 00:15:37,240 great people, but we had developed a pattern of hiring HR managers and putting them in 290 00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:40,600 VP level roles. 291 00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:43,160 And I said, I don't know payroll processes. 292 00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,080 I don't know employment law. 293 00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:48,440 I can learn those things, but what I do know is structure. 294 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:54,120 I know how to improve processes and I know how to bring teams together to operate as 295 00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:55,400 a cohesive unit. 296 00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:56,200 Right. 297 00:15:57,560 --> 00:16:03,240 And so a few days go by and they offered me the role of director of HR at the time. 298 00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:09,000 And I stepped in and it was like drinking from a fire hose. 299 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:13,800 Now, thankfully, we had already started building a really strong IT team and they were 300 00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:19,080 pretty self-sufficient, which gave me the bandwidth that I needed to be able to step 301 00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:25,080 in to an entirely new functional domain and start learning how to lead human resources. 302 00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:32,840 And in that process of learning human resources, understanding employment law, 303 00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:37,080 building teams and navigating very challenging conversations. 304 00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:41,320 And I say challenging in that I stepped in, there were seven HR managers that reported 305 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:46,680 to me, six of them wholeheartedly believed they were going to be the next HR director. 306 00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:47,000 Right. 307 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:51,720 Then I had to have conversations of why is he guy now my boss? 308 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:59,720 So not an easy conversation to have, but it helped me develop skills around crucial 309 00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:03,960 conversations, phenomenal book, by the way, crucial conversations, if you've never read 310 00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:04,120 it. 311 00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:13,240 So I started learning and in the after the first year, the, well, initially, whenever 312 00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:15,960 I went in, I said, can you give me six months to a year? 313 00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:17,560 Let me create this foundation. 314 00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:19,720 After that year, I will step back. 315 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:23,560 We'll bring in a seasoned HR executive that can launch off of that foundation. 316 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:28,200 Well, after the first year, everything was running so phenomenally well. 317 00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:29,720 They said, you're going to keep HR. 318 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:33,720 So great experience getting out of my comfort zone. 319 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:40,440 It was not easy at all, but in that process, and then all subsequent years, I have come 320 00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:47,320 to this realization of leadership development, coaching, mentoring, guiding people. 321 00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:52,360 It is my purpose in life, which is why I started the podcast, which is why I started WSS 322 00:17:52,360 --> 00:17:58,120 Solutions is because I want to positively impact the generational legacy of everybody 323 00:17:58,120 --> 00:17:59,160 that I get to work with. 324 00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:04,040 So what, and then let me go ahead and fast forward a little bit. 325 00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:09,240 So IT and HR, and then three and a half years ago, they also gave me safety and transportation. 326 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:12,680 They had me start ESG and a PMO office. 327 00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:16,600 So a lot of different functional domains when the time came. 328 00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:19,400 Pretty much. 329 00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:19,560 Yeah. 330 00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:23,400 What that's called, you're given the domain and the space to be able to do it. 331 00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:26,600 You earned that trust. 332 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:32,200 Not the trust should have to be earned actually, when you are working with people who are of 333 00:18:32,200 --> 00:18:36,360 high caliber, but you did earn it and you went through, you paid your dues on it. 334 00:18:36,360 --> 00:18:41,000 And now like they would be stupid to not give you that opportunity to then replicate the 335 00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:42,600 process in other departments. 336 00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:43,400 Exactly. 337 00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:49,880 And so the opportunities that I had to learn how to jump into all these different functional 338 00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:55,320 domains, the opportunities that I was given to learn more about the operations of the 339 00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:59,400 business, the financials of the business, being part of the IPO process. 340 00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:03,000 It was just such an incredible experience. 341 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:04,760 I was with them for a little bit over a decade. 342 00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:12,200 And ultimately I had gotten to a point to where I'd kind of reached the pinnacle of what I 343 00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:18,360 could accomplish at that organization and decided that I wanted to have an even greater impact on 344 00:19:18,360 --> 00:19:22,600 more than just one company with the teams that I was fortunate to lead. 345 00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:25,560 And so I stepped off and started WSS Solutions. 346 00:19:25,560 --> 00:19:27,800 And we have two pretty much primary verticals. 347 00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:31,000 We do consulting and then the leadership development side of it. 348 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:33,800 And the consulting is IT and HR, operational excellence. 349 00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:40,520 But the reason I wanted to focus on these two verticals was because they're very complementary 350 00:19:40,520 --> 00:19:47,480 of one another. Over the years, we would engage a consulting firm to help us with an ERP 351 00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:52,600 implementation, HRS implementation, or integration of an acquisition. 352 00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:56,280 And then also we had engaged leadership development firms. 353 00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:01,720 I'm passionate about both and thought, can we do both? 354 00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:07,000 And in all of my market research, there's a lot of companies that do leadership development, 355 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:12,280 obviously a lot of management consulting companies, but very few do both and actually 356 00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:18,520 blend those together. And I thought if we get in the door and start focusing on an ERP implementation 357 00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:25,640 or an integration, it gives us exposure to all the people in the leadership team where we can see 358 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:29,880 firsthand the strengths and weaknesses of the leaders in the organization. 359 00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:35,560 And then the coaching can come in and start coaching and mentoring them with a tailored 360 00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:41,880 program that works exactly for their needs, as opposed to most firms coming in and just casting 361 00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:48,520 a wide net and teaching all things leadership and maybe half of it sticking. We build an approach. 362 00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:49,160 You're generous. 363 00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:57,000 I don't know bunches about industry stats, man. 96% of businesses fell within 10 years, 364 00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:03,560 4% survive. And when you've created, you know, there's a reason why people don't want to live 365 00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:09,480 in modular homes, right? A modular home, a stack of Legos that can be ripped to shreds by any 366 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:14,440 hurricane, you know, or any tornado. Yeah, we've got businesses that don't even have the 367 00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:19,000 infrastructure of a well-built modular home. They're like modular. They're not even using Legos. 368 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,480 They're using all sorts of crap to put stuff together. There's almost no infrastructure. 369 00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:29,560 And so when you have leadership separate from the building of culture or the building of 370 00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:33,720 operations and infrastructure, yeah, I know exactly what's going to happen. You're not 371 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:38,840 getting my money and I'm not investing in you. No way. Exactly. And there's still a lot of 372 00:21:38,840 --> 00:21:44,600 businesses that grow and I'm not going to say thrive, but make a lot of money, even though 373 00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:51,400 they don't have that infrastructure in place. And I think that if they had the infrastructure in place, 374 00:21:52,120 --> 00:21:57,560 where could they be? Right. So therein lies the opportunity, right? And then therein lies 375 00:21:57,560 --> 00:22:02,440 the opportunity to not villainize the process. We're humans, right? We're building it perfectly. 376 00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:08,120 And so the formula may be broken, you know, and I like, I heard Brendan Burchard say it. He said, 377 00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:13,560 you know, it's the people are not the problem. It's the processes, right? We can separate the two, 378 00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:18,520 not judge the person, but fix the process that the person's trying to use. And you can create 379 00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:22,920 some great results. And I agree with that concept as well. I would like to interject that whenever 380 00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:29,080 I have conversations and sit on panels and speak and stuff like that, I talk to a lot of business 381 00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:34,760 leaders and they'll talk to me about, Oh, I've got these supply chain issues. I've got these 382 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:43,080 IT issues. I've got talent management issues. And yes, issues in business are the reality of 383 00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:48,520 the world that we face it. Right? That's fair. Everybody knows that. I actually will distill 384 00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:55,560 it down to one problem. You have a people problem. If you had the right technology team in place, 385 00:22:55,560 --> 00:23:02,120 you wouldn't have IT issues. If you had the right sales staff in place, you might not have 386 00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:07,720 issues selling your product. If you had the right people. I 100% agree with the angle, 387 00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:15,160 the context of that, because people have their, their, uh, inherent value, um, of which they are. 388 00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:19,720 And at the same time, we have to be willing to mold and we also have to get the right people in 389 00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:25,480 place. But if we get the right people in place and we don't have the processes, um, in order to 390 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:31,160 guide and help them, there's not enough Sean Barnes in the world who will figure that part out. Um, 391 00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:36,040 and then succeed. We end up, we end up roasting or setting people up for failure that otherwise 392 00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:41,000 could have been awesome in the role. And that's, you know, I was president of a, of a particular 393 00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:46,120 company and the COO pulled me aside one day after like a couple of weeks of seeing my system. And 394 00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:51,960 he's like, Jackson, he's like, I don't know what I'm doing. And there I've been COO for 12 years, 395 00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:56,760 you know, in a different company, but I inherited that department from somebody who had been building 396 00:23:56,760 --> 00:24:01,640 it for 20 years. I don't know how to build the stuff from scratch. Like I need your help, 397 00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:06,520 you know? And so nurturing him, I'm so glad he was willing to admit that to me. That gave us an 398 00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:12,600 opportunity to start working on it together. Um, versus him trying to pretend that it was great. 399 00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:17,080 It was a great realization that if he was given the right infrastructure, he could succeed in that. 400 00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:22,600 So we switched his role to something where he could be successful. Um, he's still in the same 401 00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:27,000 amount of money, um, because he was still just as valuable. Now he's more valuable to the company. 402 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:32,760 Um, but he relinquished the title because he wasn't qualified to build that from scratch. Um, right. 403 00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:37,960 So I love exactly what you're saying. Speaking of that, let's dive into the first question. What's 404 00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:49,240 your vision for those that you serve? Yeah. Great question. Ultimately, my, my mission and or vision 405 00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:55,320 is to positively impact the generational legacy of everybody that we work with. That was a very broad 406 00:24:55,320 --> 00:25:04,040 and big statement to make, but it is. And, and part of me, the data side of my brain is like, 407 00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:08,520 okay, cool. How do you quantify that impact? Well, I'm still wrapping my head around that. 408 00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:13,560 I don't want to put a static number on it. Like, okay, a thousand lives, a hundred thousand lives. 409 00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:20,680 Right. Ultimately my, whenever I think about what we're doing with WSS and the podcast and some of 410 00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:26,920 the other big ideas that I have, it's all in the name of helping others become the best versions 411 00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:33,000 of themselves. And a lot of my content is very career focused and leadership focused. But when 412 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:39,400 we think leadership, a lot of times we think about business, but we can be leaders in our own 413 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:46,280 personal lives. We have to bring our best version of ourselves to all aspects of our life, which is 414 00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:51,480 why sometimes on the show I'll have people that come on and talk about meditation and mindfulness. 415 00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:56,520 We talk about fitness, we talk about nutrition, because all of these things play a part in who 416 00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:03,160 we are so that we can bring our best self to the forefront and help others. I believe we both 417 00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:08,520 believe it's correct me if I'm wrong on this, but all of those elements make a far grander impact 418 00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:13,480 than we're often willing to give credit for. I love Steve, I think it was Steve Jobs quote. And 419 00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:20,600 I think he said, we want to make a dent in the universe. He said that, right? And that's not 420 00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:25,400 that we're going to affect a hundred lives, a thousand lives. This goes to what most people 421 00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:33,320 he said that. And my thought was, I do that daily. Yeah, I love it. I actually use that. I didn't 422 00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:38,120 know that it originated from Steve Jobs, but yeah, I want to put my dent in the universe. I want to 423 00:26:38,120 --> 00:26:44,040 help others learn how to put their dent in the universe. And that's a lot of, one of the things 424 00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:50,760 that I run into quite a bit is people are so lost nowadays, especially kids. I say kids, you know, 425 00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:55,640 coming out of high school and college, they're trying to figure out, I know I was lost for a 426 00:26:55,640 --> 00:27:00,600 very long time. And it wasn't until my mid to late thirties that I kind of finally figured out what 427 00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:08,520 my purse, my purpose and mission is, but helping people find that path. And then once they find 428 00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:17,640 that path, helping them get there faster. That is, it's, it's a skill that takes time to develop. 429 00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:22,760 And I think it comes through experience and then learning how to actually impart that knowledge 430 00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:29,000 on, on others. Yep. And, and for me, a lot of that is just helping people value and understand 431 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,480 the impact of the good that they do. You know, we hear about it. Some people are very dismissive 432 00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:39,640 of the idea that, you know, just saying hello to a stranger, you know, might make that fantastic 433 00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:45,480 impact on their day and make them feel welcome. We, we, we undermine that we overlook it. We don't 434 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:49,000 pause. That's why when you say making the generational impact, one, you're one of the 435 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:54,520 few people who talks about it and make space for it for you who are listening right now, pause the 436 00:27:54,520 --> 00:28:00,120 noise, right? Pause our episode, think through what Sean just said, right? What does that mean 437 00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:05,400 to you and your heart? I imagine it probably aligns in pretty similar fashion to what Sean 438 00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:10,280 is looking at when he's meditating as well. And those things are not something that we can, 439 00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:15,880 we can just speak through and totally get it's there's a deeper level connection with that. 440 00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:21,880 Same thing is true for all the little daily ways we can go about creating good in people's lives. 441 00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:26,120 Just cause the world says your impact is, is minimal or doesn't matter, does not actually 442 00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:30,200 quantify the value of what you do as a visionary. What's your vision for yourself, Sean? 443 00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:37,960 Oh, well, I mean, I think it's, it's probably aligned with what I was just sharing a moment ago. 444 00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:44,840 It's, I want to be the best version of myself in order to do that. I have to push myself out of 445 00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:51,320 my comfort zone, not just from a physical fitness perspective, but mentally, as much as I 446 00:28:51,320 --> 00:29:00,520 despise reading, I feel so much better. And whenever I take the time to read and whenever I read it, 447 00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,880 part of the reason I, I'm not going to say despise, that's probably not the right word. 448 00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,240 I like that you said it, at least you're being honest. You're exploring the emotions on it. 449 00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,680 And people are like, Oh, he said despise. That means he permanently feels like, no, that's 450 00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:16,920 Yeah. But it's a slow process for me because whenever I read, I usually read books that, 451 00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:22,440 um, not so much story narrative driven, but informational, educational leadership, 452 00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:27,000 that, you know, things like that. But whenever I'm reading, I've got a highlighter, I've got a pen, 453 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:31,000 I've got sticky notes, I'm going through and taking time. And it takes me a very long time 454 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:35,640 to get through a book, but I'm doing everything I can to extract as much knowledge as I can 455 00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:39,720 from that book. Exactly. You know, I've had guests that come on my show and they're like, 456 00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:44,840 well, I read, you know, 150 bucks books this year. Cool. How many of them, how much of that 457 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:50,840 knowledge did you actually retain? And the next step is how much of that knowledge did you actually 458 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:58,520 share or impart on others? Right? So the process of reading it, it takes a little while, but 459 00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:08,920 I know that in this world of instant gratification, things worthwhile, just take time. 460 00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:13,320 And to kind of go back to impacting the generational legacy, you think of all of the 461 00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:19,640 people in the world that have accomplished really big things, and then consider the timelines that 462 00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:27,640 they think in. When people start talking in decades, in generations, that's big stuff. 463 00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:34,680 And most people, this device right here that we have in our hands, in the world has been 464 00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:40,760 constructed in a way of instant gratification. And so anything that takes a little bit too long, 465 00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:45,560 people just lose sight of and they're like, oh, that's too much work. I don't want to do that. 466 00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:50,920 And that layers into entrepreneurship and stuff like that. Sorry, go ahead. 467 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:57,720 Oh, it's sad. It's sad for them. It's an opportunity to, there's an opportunity there to 468 00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:04,120 slow down, look at things, you know, from a new angle. Does it make it? I would contest to those 469 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:11,160 who read fast, they may have a different type of discovery and they may be able to grasp concepts 470 00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:19,800 at higher levels that I would need to touch the surface on. And to your point though, with 471 00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:25,000 reading it at the stage I'm at in business, I need to be very intentional about what it is that I'm 472 00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:32,120 diving deep into. Tribal leadership, I've read 50 pages of, I read it all in one, two sittings, 473 00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:38,760 took like 20 pages of notes on a 50 page portion of the book. And then I began to talk about it 474 00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:44,840 with all my mentors, with some of my prospects and some of my interviews like this. And I've, 475 00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:51,080 and I took a four month break from the book. I will go back as an amazing book, but the depth 476 00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,800 of knowledge that it's giving me and the amount that I need to do to implement what I learned on 477 00:31:55,800 --> 00:32:03,160 that is so profound that that book's taking far more time from me than most that I've read. But 478 00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:08,760 that's, I mean, you know, same thing. I think a lot of entrepreneurs have the blessing of being 479 00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:16,120 that type of diligent student and learner as a visionary. If you're on the starting point of that 480 00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:20,760 path and you don't like to read books or you don't feel that go all to that, listen to the audio. 481 00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:25,800 You know, I use audible a lot for what I do as well. Let's dive into a dark subject, Sean. What 482 00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:32,920 is your worst leadership experience ever? This can be your own. This can be one that somebody else 483 00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:37,480 had. This could be one you saw in a movie. Well, let's really get into the depths of darkness on 484 00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:42,360 this. What's that worst leadership experience look like? Oh man. So this is going to be an 485 00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:48,920 interesting story. I had at one of the companies that I worked for, oh man, there's a lot. Okay, 486 00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:56,280 I had a boss years ago. I reported in through the finance function at that point in time. This is 487 00:32:56,280 --> 00:33:04,520 probably 15 years ago and reported the vice president of finance. And I was dead set that 488 00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:13,880 he despised me more than anything in this world. I've always been intrinsically driven and focused 489 00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:22,520 on being a high achiever and always delivering above expectations. Nothing I ever did was good 490 00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:27,560 enough. We go in and have group team meetings and I would have pages and pages of notes and I'd go 491 00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:31,080 through all this stuff that our team was doing and everything that we were doing, all the project 492 00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:37,640 deadlines we met, and well, why don't you have this? Well, what's wrong? Why don't you have that? 493 00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:42,200 And then it would pass over to our applications manager and he would say, well, I'm going to 494 00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,360 report this to our applications manager and he would have three bullets that he had jotted down 495 00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:52,040 with a pen and paper while I was talking. And then it was just like, oh my God, Steve, you're amazing. 496 00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:59,880 And I would get just ripped to shreds on a regular basis. This is the aggressive, 497 00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:07,160 yelling, angry, micromanaging boss. To give you a sense, at that point in time, I had about a four 498 00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:12,360 and a half million dollar budget. There was one evening, 9.30 at night, still stuck at the office 499 00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:18,600 on this spreadsheet that had hundreds of rows and columns and everything. He came over one of my 500 00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:24,520 cells with 36 cents off and he came over and ripped into me on a four and a half million dollar budget. 501 00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:29,480 Like there were times, and I'm embarrassed to admit this, there were times when I would go home 502 00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:38,520 and actually cry thinking, my God, there's nothing that I can do here. Now in looking back, after I 503 00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:45,320 got out of that situation, I came to develop an appreciation for the things that I learned 504 00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:54,600 from having him as a boss. I learned how to put budgets together. I learned how to understand data. 505 00:34:54,600 --> 00:35:01,960 I learned a lot about Excel, data manipulation, cleanup, structure, things like that. And I also 506 00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:11,160 learned how to never treat anyone on my team. So while as challenging as that situation was, 507 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:18,840 there's always a silver lining. It doesn't matter how difficult the situations are with your boss. 508 00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:25,880 It doesn't matter how much you despise them. There is a silver lining. We have to find it. 509 00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:33,240 Sometimes that's tough. Now, interesting point, six years ago, I happened to run into him. I did a 510 00:35:33,240 --> 00:35:39,400 little bit of freelance consulting on the side and he was a consultant for the same company. 511 00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:44,760 And after having a conversation with the president of that consulting company, he said, yeah, I was 512 00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:50,760 actually having a conversation with him. And he shared with me how much you always impressed him. 513 00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:58,440 How crazy is that? My perspective was this man despised me with every fiber of his being 514 00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:04,600 and would send me home in tears. And years later, he's sharing with the president of a consulting 515 00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:11,640 firm how much I impressed him. So it's crazy how our perspective and how we can get in our own minds 516 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:17,720 and how important it is for us to always seek that silver lining and understand that our perception 517 00:36:17,720 --> 00:36:21,720 is not absolute reality. And we have to be aware of that. 518 00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:29,960 Mic drop, man. If your mic can fall, I'd love to see it happen. We'll keep going though, 519 00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:37,240 because that's just too beautiful, too well said. I hope those of you who've, 520 00:36:37,240 --> 00:36:42,840 I hope those of you who are in a current relationship that's toxic or that is struggling 521 00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:50,360 as you find your way out or creating separation for either safety or health, that you have the 522 00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:56,600 capacity later to breathe and think through, okay, I'm drawing a healthy boundary here. I'm not going 523 00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:01,720 to be like this to others. I'm not going to allow people to be like that to me in a way that 524 00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:07,240 affects, that tears me down. And at the same time, I'm going to look at what did I learn from this 525 00:37:07,240 --> 00:37:12,040 experience? What are the good things I got out of this? I've seen it in my own life. Appreciate you 526 00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:16,120 for sharing that. Brought some things to the surface that I can meditate on later. What's the 527 00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:23,000 best leadership experience? What does that look like? What's your favorite experience, the one 528 00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:27,800 that just feels like Mighty Ducks or feels like remember the Titans, et cetera? 529 00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,800 Man, these are good questions. Surprisingly, I haven't really thought a whole lot about these. 530 00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:40,440 I'm flashing back to a mentor and now friend of mine. He at the time was our director of IT. 531 00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:49,000 I was responsible for global infrastructure and had a team of about 20 engineers. We had a 532 00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:56,920 SAN outage at one of our data centers. Myself and my lead engineer, we were in the data center. 533 00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:04,520 We were doing a routine firmware upgrade that went horribly, horribly wrong. Ended up taking 534 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:11,160 down our SAN. For those of you that don't know, it's a certain type of server that stores a lot 535 00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:20,360 of data. When that server went down, the entire corporation globally, I think 3,600 employees, 536 00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:29,080 could not do anything. I know this is what is my best leadership experience. I know that sounds 537 00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:34,600 really bad to start off with. Myself and my lead engineer, Austin, we were in the data center 538 00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:39,320 working with a lot of data. We were working with a lot of data. We were working with a lot of data. 539 00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:47,160 We were in the data center working with Dell Ecologic Engineers for 36 hours straight. 540 00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:54,840 Didn't go home, didn't sleep, had food brought in. It was horrendous. Some weird things start to 541 00:38:54,840 --> 00:39:02,200 happen once you're awake for 42 to 45 hours straight. We could get into sidebar conversations. 542 00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:08,760 Now, very challenging. Ultimately, we got everything back online. That outage, rough estimates, 543 00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:20,440 cost the corporation to $2.5 million. Very, very stressful time for me. Now, during that entire time, 544 00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:31,320 my only engagement with the business was to our director. His name is Stacy, was with him. 545 00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:38,600 Now, you can imagine how many executives in a publicly traded oil and gas company were freaking 546 00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:44,840 out that nobody could do anything. Why it was the best leadership experience was because I felt 547 00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:55,560 zero pressure from the people in the business. He shielded me and Austin from all of that pressure. 548 00:39:55,560 --> 00:40:00,840 I was already stressed out enough thinking, I don't have a job. I'm going to get the server 549 00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:06,840 online, but I will not have a job after this is all said and done. After it was all said and done, 550 00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:13,880 Austin and I both went home. We got some rest, got some sleep. We came back in, sat down sweating 551 00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:22,520 bullets. Stacy said, talk me through it. We talked him through it. He said, how would we prevent this 552 00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:28,440 from happening again in the future? I said, well, we probably should have done this. He said, think 553 00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:36,520 bigger. I said, okay, we need to do this and this. He said, if you had to architect an environment 554 00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:40,200 where this would never be an issue again, what would it look like? I said, it would look like 555 00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:45,160 a lot of money, Stacy. He said, what would it look like? Draw it for me. We drew it up on the board. 556 00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:50,680 We built this environment and I'm thinking, this is ridiculous because everything was redundant, 557 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:56,360 redundancies upon redundancies, layer upon layer. I'm thinking just the dollar signs just adding up. 558 00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:03,320 He finally said, stop worrying about the money. Show me what it looks like. We did. We spent 559 00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:10,040 probably six hours in the conference room drawing it out. After it was said and done, he took a 560 00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:17,240 picture of it and he said, okay, y'all go home. We went home, came back. The next day, we had 561 00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:24,680 a $4 million AFE queued up and said, go make it happen. I was given nine months to build 562 00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:32,840 an entirely new data center environment with my team. He shielded us from all of that pressure. 563 00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:40,200 He used it as an opportunity to get exactly what we needed to build something phenomenal. Now, 564 00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:47,400 this was an example of what real leadership looks like. People are going to make mistakes. 565 00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:56,680 Servers are going to go down. That is expected. Real leadership involves protecting your team 566 00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:02,200 and setting them up for future success and ensuring they have all the tools necessary 567 00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:07,640 to achieve the things that they're capable of achieving. In that moment, I didn't think I was 568 00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:14,680 capable of achieving anything. I thought my career was over, but he saw something in me and he 569 00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:20,520 trusted me and he took a chance on me. I will never forget that. 570 00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:25,400 There are so many underlying lessons, again, to meditate on the depth of the story that you just 571 00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:31,400 shared. I'll do some quick open meditation on it. Number one, one of the things that I catch in just 572 00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:40,680 the instant realizations is that was a $2 million to $2.5 million loss. The solution that's come up 573 00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:47,000 with is $4 million and nine months. How much did you lose? I think it was $2.5 million. 574 00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:54,360 $4 million and nine months. However, if you look at the flip side of this, what if you and 575 00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:59,800 Austin had cracked under the pressure of the experience to begin with? If that had happened, 576 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:05,640 it would not have been a $2 million loss or a 2.5. It could have been, who knows, north of three, 577 00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:13,080 four, five, 10 million. By putting that redundancy in place, he's not only making sure that the 578 00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:17,640 systems are improving and they're being protected from, oh yeah, we'll just have Austin and Sean 579 00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:24,840 come in and fix it next time. They might not be willing to the next time either. There's all sorts 580 00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:30,520 of, again, there's so many different disciplines, lessons I understand. What came to my mind as 581 00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:36,840 you're telling this story too is there's 0.3 seconds left in the clock in a basketball game 582 00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:44,520 and your team's down by one. You got fouled and you're going to the free throw line. In the world 583 00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:50,280 of business, what I see happen time and time again from leaders and again, not championship 584 00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:55,400 level behaviors is the coach from the sideline going, hey, you know if you miss that, we're going 585 00:43:55,400 --> 00:44:03,560 to lose, right? Hey, you know this is all coming down to you. Everybody in the stands is counting 586 00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:08,120 on you and if you don't do this, we're not going to make the history books for the right reason. 587 00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:13,800 It's never that loud, right? It's not from the sidelines. It's an entrepreneur who's in your ear 588 00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:20,120 or that director who's saying, or it's that assistant coach, right? The assistant director 589 00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:24,440 is supposed to be part of the team and it's like, hey, if he misses that, we're screwed. 590 00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:31,800 Does he really have the capability to make that? The other team's player does a better job of 591 00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:40,840 making these than he does. That is so common in the business world. What Stacey did to give you 592 00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:46,600 that space to shield and protect you while you are basically playing heart surgeon for the operation 593 00:44:47,720 --> 00:44:56,840 and in it. It's phenomenal. That's really cool. All right. Let's move into one other massive 594 00:44:56,840 --> 00:45:01,880 question. We're a little bit behind today. I want to make sure to respect your time, Sean. 595 00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,120 How are you doing on time? Do you have a few minutes? I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. 596 00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:09,400 Okay. Definitely with the busyness of holidays and all that too, I don't want to overstep my 597 00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:15,960 balance on this, but I'm loving this. We're going to go deep. If this was the last opportunity you 598 00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:21,400 had to share a powerful lesson with people, right? In this case, visionaries, what powerful lesson 599 00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:29,240 would you share with visionaries that they can learn from your experience? Lead with kindness 600 00:45:29,240 --> 00:45:36,600 and candor. That can be extremely challenging whenever the pressures of business, the pressures 601 00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:45,560 of the world come crashing down on us. Our role as leaders, once again, is to shield our team 602 00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:52,600 from that pressure. We are responsible for stopping pressure at our level to ensure that our teams 603 00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:58,040 can do the things that they need to do and the things that they are capable of doing. You 604 00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:06,920 applying pressure on them is not going to help them solve the problem any faster. Now, I will 605 00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:13,160 add a caveat to that. When it comes to developing people on your team as a leader, there are times 606 00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:20,680 when we need to bleed off some of that pressure and let them feel and experience that pressure, 607 00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:27,800 but making sure that it's not too much that they crack under all of that pressure. That is an art 608 00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:33,480 as a leader to know the people on your team, what they're capable of, what they're not capable of, 609 00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:41,720 and pushing them to constantly be better. As people start to reach and approach their limits, 610 00:46:41,720 --> 00:46:50,040 they're going to start to break down and crack in certain different ways. When you see that happening, 611 00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:54,120 you have to relieve the pressure, let them finish up whatever it is they're working on. 612 00:46:54,680 --> 00:47:02,440 After the fact, you regroup with them, have a conversation, and say, Jason, I noticed whenever 613 00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:08,120 this was happening, this is how you responded. How can we stop that from happening again in the 614 00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:14,600 future? Are there skills that we can build and develop to help ensure that that doesn't happen 615 00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:18,760 in the future? Have you ever read the book, Multipliers, by Liz Wiseman? 616 00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:23,160 I haven't, but it's going on the list along with virtual conversations. 617 00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:29,080 It's a phenomenal, phenomenal book. I know this is going to be a little bit of a long-winded 618 00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:35,560 response, so if you need to cut me off, please feel free to do so. The book, they started doing 619 00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:40,440 a study because they wanted to figure out what determines a great leader versus a bad leader, 620 00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:45,560 or a poor leader, undeveloped leader, whatever term you want to use. They started interviewing 621 00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:54,440 people. Their metric was, what percentage output did this leader get from you versus this leader? 622 00:47:55,000 --> 00:48:00,360 People are like, oh, yeah, I was phoned in, I was only half in, all that. Then other people would 623 00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:06,280 say, well, this leader got 110, 120% out of me. At first, they just threw that out as erroneous 624 00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:11,640 data because 100% is as much as you can do. Now, when they started digging into it, 625 00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:19,720 what they came to realize is these leaders were stretching people beyond their limits, beyond 626 00:48:19,720 --> 00:48:27,000 that 100%. When you stretch, it's like developing any muscle. You push it, you build it, and it 627 00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:36,440 becomes better. What was Sean's 100% then became, and I stretched up to 110% of my capacity, 628 00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:43,480 that 110%, once I got familiar with it and comfortable with it, became my new 100%. 629 00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:52,040 When you think about leaders, we need to think of ourselves as force multipliers. We are here to 630 00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:56,920 extract the most out of people, to build and develop them in a way so that they can perform at 631 00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:04,920 their absolute best. That is our role as leaders in business, as leaders in life. We need to encourage 632 00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:10,520 and motivate and inspire people to become the absolute best versions of themselves and show 633 00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:17,080 them and guide them how to get there. I love that. I love that you and I come, 634 00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:21,480 I don't want to say at two different angles because the circumstances are going to adjust 635 00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:28,520 the temperament with which we come in and do things. My natural tendency is to nurture and heal, 636 00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:39,000 though. We have a market that in large parts, the digital world is moving so far towards stretching 637 00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:44,280 towards moving people outside of their comfort zone that it's become a forced situation. 638 00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:50,040 I wear this rubber band. I don't wear it for looks, by the way. It's just a rubber band. 639 00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:58,440 It's fashionable. It is to get to the golf course. I use it more often than not in this particular 640 00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:02,840 analogy and statement. Vision pros who are listening, if I stretch this rubber band on my 641 00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:10,920 wrist and I'm certainly exercising, putting it at an uncomfortable strain for itself, 642 00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:13,480 what happens if I stretch this rubber band too far, though? 643 00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:17,640 Break. That's right. Some people say it'll snap, 644 00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:22,680 it'll hurt. We've got other limiting beliefs to work on if the rubber band snapping you 645 00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:29,160 traumatizes you. Okay, let's go on to what you said, though. It will break if we push people 646 00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:35,800 too far to their comfort zone or if the entrepreneur decides to be manipulated into that. 647 00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:41,960 Again, there's so many people who sell with this. Your best results are outside of your comfort zone 648 00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:46,600 and that's why you should be working with us. We haven't provided any proof as to why you should 649 00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:53,160 work with us, but you should feel that internal pressure and allow me to manipulate you into that. 650 00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:57,800 If we break entrepreneurs and we break people in the process of stretching them, 651 00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:04,680 much like pulling a muscle or worse, dislocating something or worse, breaking our bodies, 652 00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:11,960 experiencing death, no, it wasn't a good idea to stretch that far. It comes back to what you 653 00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:16,920 talked about earlier of balance. That's what I appreciate is I tend to overnurture helicopter 654 00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:21,960 a little bit and say, hey, I see you trying to reach your toes. Let me do that for you. 655 00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:29,960 That's not helpful either. We want to help people. I love that your focus, you said again on the 656 00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:37,960 podcast, you work on becoming your best self. If I work on becoming my best self, we inspire others 657 00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:43,160 to become their best self and we help each other remain accountable to those processes, then 658 00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:49,160 leadership development is taking place. A culture is being cultivated where everybody is now 659 00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:54,120 performing at their best and the coaching process becomes something that is healthy 660 00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:58,680 and beneficial to all while being appreciated by all. I love what you stand for, Sean. This 661 00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:04,200 has been an awesome interview. Appreciate that. Thank you. Absolutely, man. Vision pros who are 662 00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:09,880 out there. If you have a vision you'd like to share. Even if you're in the developing stages 663 00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:13,960 and you don't have these million dollar experiences, budget experiences that Sean's 664 00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:18,840 talking about, you're on a project. It could be passionate. It could be about parenting. 665 00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:23,480 We just had CJ Scarlett on it. It could be about saving the forests. It could be about 666 00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:30,040 entrepreneurship and leadership again. We have such a lack of true principally driven leadership 667 00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:35,720 in the world that it's so important for us to gather more leaders onto this stage and hear 668 00:52:35,720 --> 00:52:39,960 different paradigms and perspectives. That's why we do what we do. We'd love to have you on the show. 669 00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:44,360 If you have questions for Sean, of course you can reach out to him directly. We'll have the links in 670 00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:49,320 the show notes to get access to the resources he's mentioned, the resources he puts out into the world. 671 00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:54,200 I'd highly recommend subscribing to his show. I will absolutely be subscribing to The Way of the 672 00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:59,160 Wolf after we get off this conversation. In addition to that, we'll have the books mentioned on there 673 00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:04,680 too, Crucial Conversations, Multipliers. Both sound like excellent reading materials, tribal leadership. 674 00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:10,280 We really appreciate always being able to give more. If you have advice for us on how to improve 675 00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:15,640 both our shows as well, we can tell Sean's the type of leader who's looking forward to that as well. 676 00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:20,280 So without further ado, everybody have a fantastic rest of your day and thank you so much for joining 677 00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:26,200 us on Vision Pros Live. Sean, we'll see you soon. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy 678 00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:31,960 that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes 679 00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:35,640 continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more 680 00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:39,880 engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving 681 00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:56,360 us your time and attention. Have an excellent...