Tell me about your vision in starting Exit Momentum.
So it's interesting, right?
So I've been a real big part of creating this company.
Cullen, who's our founder, began as an EOS implementer,
if you're familiar with EOS, right?
Geno Whitman's operating system.
But it has some real limitations.
Like we think EOS is a fine platform.
It's just you are limited to teach only EOS principles
and nothing else.
And we thought that was a terrible idea with all
of these amazing books.
And have tons and tons and tons of fantastic concepts
and ideas.
So our operating system is taking all the best piece
parts from all of those things, right?
And so again, so when I came on board
was about a month before Cullen switched out of the EOS world.
And then since then, we have built this thing.
And our vision for it is really very simple.
And I can best describe it as every business hits
a ceiling at some point.
And that ceiling comes from a couple of different areas.
It comes from capacity, but it comes
from operational capacity or emotional capacity
or physical capacity.
It comes from a lot of different areas, right?
But far too often it comes from an operational capacity.
And the reason for that is an entrepreneur or business owner
will start a business with this sort of what
I like to call a guy in a truck mentality, right?
Whether it's that kind of business or not,
it's still one person.
And then every now and then they got some other person, right?
Now, all right, now we have a business.
And they start growing and growing and growing and growing.
And the mental aspects, the operational aspects
of a business to get from zero to a million and a million
to three million to 10 million are not the same things that
get you to 30 and 60 and beyond.
So these businesses will hit a ceiling.
They just get stuck.
In fact, some of them might even their revenue
might increase annually by some modest amount.
But somehow the net remains the same
when they should be at this point
beginning to capture some economy of scale.
But they don't.
And the reason is, as I like to say,
they're trying to navigate the hallways of high school
with a grade school mentality.
And we all know that if you operate the hallways
of high school with grade school mentality,
you'll get your ass kicked.
That's just kind of what happens.
And the same thing can happen in business.
So they're still trying to operate their business
with some wonderful experts, tenacity and grit and hard work
and getting after it and never take it.
No, it's inadequate to get to a certain level.
And I try to tell people, can you imagine running Amazon
with, don't worry about it.
We'll figure it out.
Let's just work harder.
Yes.
Not going to work.
And so unfortunately, that's where people get to.
It's a very frustrating place for someone
that has all of those amazing attributes that
build successful businesses.
And they can't figure out what the hell's wrong now.
We keep doing more of the same and we're not getting better.
Or we're not growing at the pace we want to.
Or again, we're working harder for less.
And so that's where we come in and show them a way to,
we can't help a roofing company.
We're not going to tell them anything about roofing
that they don't know.
We're not going to tell a group of attorneys
how to be better litigators.
That's just not what we do.
What we do is to help them run a better business.
Yeah.
What defines a great leader to you?
Yeah, it's always a great question.
And I'll just say this.
This idea of these natural born leaders,
that's just a personality trait.
It doesn't have anything to do with true leadership.
There is this idea of charismatic leadership
that will attract people.
But that's not why people stay.
It's not why they hang.
It's not why they continue to follow.
People, to be a great leader, in the most simplest terms,
is just like this.
If you help enough other people get what they want,
they'll follow you anywhere.
Absolutely.
And you're right.
It's thinking of others before yourself
and just watching other people grow.
And I love that you said that.
And then I just have one last question for you.
What is success to you?
That's the whole goal of all business owners.
People in general, success.
Sure, well, let's be clear.
Because I think people sometimes don't
want to make this answer.
But let's be clear how we keep scoring business.
Yes.
It's profit.
Period.
End of story.
I don't want to hear any other bullshit about whatever it is.
It's not, well, I just want to see other people successful.
You want to make money.
So let's be clear that that's how we measure.
The scoreboard.
It's like we play a football game.
We don't guess who won.
Well, I think they played better than them.
No, no, no, listen.
There's a score.
We know who won the darn game.
It's right up there on the thing.
We have a method to measure success.
Right?
So in business, we are measuring success
by profitability, the actual bottom line.
And that's that.
Now, if you want to say, well, what are we beyond that?
Right?
So great.
We're a for-profit business.
Well, yeah, you are something beyond that.
It's one of the things we help clients do
is come up with their purpose.
What else?
What is the other purpose of this thing other than make money?
Sure, we got that.
We know that.
But what else?
What is the grander purpose that we're
trying to achieve inside this business?
What grand problem do we solve?
Yeah.
Right?
And that may be internally and externally.
Right?
So yeah, business may be dedicated to say,
you know what?
You think about this.
There's a lot of businesses out there now
that we're dedicated to hiring veterans when possible.
We're dedicated to hiring women when possible.
Right?
We're dedicated to whatever it is.
Right?
So we're going to hire.
There are some businesses in cities right now
that we hire indigent people.
This is who we're going to hire and try to save some lives.
As part of our purpose is to not just make money,
we also want to elevate some people inside of our community.
So I think all those things are great.
We work on, we help businesses get really clear.
What is your purpose?
Of course, it's making money.
It's how we keep score.
Atlas, I'd ignore that pretend like that's not the truth.
But what else is it that you want to do?
What problems do we solve?
How do we add back to the place, right, to the place
that we work and breathe and eat and live and raise children
and have friends and all that stuff?
And there are some ways.
And when people get really clear about that,
their execution gets to a higher level.
And they get to use it as a filter for decision making.
Absolutely.
Right?
And more and more and more, the younger the generation gets,
they're like, I'm an old guy.
I'll be 60 in October.
So we were different.
Like, how much are you paying me?
Great.
Now, people are making choices to work for companies
because of what they do.
Yes.
Right?
And they have moral concerns.
I'm not working for a tobacco company.
I'm not working for a sugar company.
I'm not working for whatever it is.
And that's their decision.
I'm not passing judgment good or bad or indifferent
about those decisions.
I'm saying there are some talented individuals now
in the marketplace, especially with the shrinking working
class, right, as baby boomers retire.
Others have chosen to make their living online and things.
So the talent pool is shrinking.
And those individuals are starting
to make different decisions about, well,
what's the greater good this company are working for?
Like, what is their greater good?
How are they serving?
Because I want to work in that environment.
So if you're not clear about that,
and I hear people say, ah, shit, that stuff's not important.
OK, fine.
You just shrunk the labor pool.
Yeah.
You just told a bunch of talented, maybe younger
folks not the kind of place you want to work.
That's fine.
It's your decision.
Whatever you want to do, you know what I mean?
If you want to say, I'm only going
to hire people born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, all right.
That's your decision.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.