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Tell me about your vision in starting Exit Momentum.

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So it's interesting, right?

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So I've been a real big part of creating this company.

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Cullen, who's our founder, began as an EOS implementer,

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if you're familiar with EOS, right?

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Geno Whitman's operating system.

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But it has some real limitations.

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Like we think EOS is a fine platform.

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It's just you are limited to teach only EOS principles

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and nothing else.

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And we thought that was a terrible idea with all

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of these amazing books.

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And have tons and tons and tons of fantastic concepts

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and ideas.

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So our operating system is taking all the best piece

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parts from all of those things, right?

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And so again, so when I came on board

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was about a month before Cullen switched out of the EOS world.

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And then since then, we have built this thing.

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And our vision for it is really very simple.

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And I can best describe it as every business hits

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a ceiling at some point.

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And that ceiling comes from a couple of different areas.

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It comes from capacity, but it comes

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from operational capacity or emotional capacity

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or physical capacity.

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It comes from a lot of different areas, right?

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But far too often it comes from an operational capacity.

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And the reason for that is an entrepreneur or business owner

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will start a business with this sort of what

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I like to call a guy in a truck mentality, right?

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Whether it's that kind of business or not,

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it's still one person.

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And then every now and then they got some other person, right?

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Now, all right, now we have a business.

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And they start growing and growing and growing and growing.

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And the mental aspects, the operational aspects

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of a business to get from zero to a million and a million

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to three million to 10 million are not the same things that

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get you to 30 and 60 and beyond.

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So these businesses will hit a ceiling.

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They just get stuck.

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In fact, some of them might even their revenue

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might increase annually by some modest amount.

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But somehow the net remains the same

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when they should be at this point

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beginning to capture some economy of scale.

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But they don't.

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And the reason is, as I like to say,

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they're trying to navigate the hallways of high school

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with a grade school mentality.

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And we all know that if you operate the hallways

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of high school with grade school mentality,

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you'll get your ass kicked.

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That's just kind of what happens.

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And the same thing can happen in business.

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So they're still trying to operate their business

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with some wonderful experts, tenacity and grit and hard work

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and getting after it and never take it.

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No, it's inadequate to get to a certain level.

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And I try to tell people, can you imagine running Amazon

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with, don't worry about it.

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We'll figure it out.

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Let's just work harder.

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Yes.

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Not going to work.

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And so unfortunately, that's where people get to.

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It's a very frustrating place for someone

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that has all of those amazing attributes that

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build successful businesses.

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And they can't figure out what the hell's wrong now.

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We keep doing more of the same and we're not getting better.

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Or we're not growing at the pace we want to.

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Or again, we're working harder for less.

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And so that's where we come in and show them a way to,

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we can't help a roofing company.

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We're not going to tell them anything about roofing

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that they don't know.

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We're not going to tell a group of attorneys

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how to be better litigators.

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That's just not what we do.

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What we do is to help them run a better business.

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Yeah.

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What defines a great leader to you?

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Yeah, it's always a great question.

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And I'll just say this.

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This idea of these natural born leaders,

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that's just a personality trait.

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It doesn't have anything to do with true leadership.

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There is this idea of charismatic leadership

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that will attract people.

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But that's not why people stay.

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It's not why they hang.

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It's not why they continue to follow.

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People, to be a great leader, in the most simplest terms,

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is just like this.

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If you help enough other people get what they want,

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they'll follow you anywhere.

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Absolutely.

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Absolutely.

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And you're right.

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It's thinking of others before yourself

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and just watching other people grow.

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And I love that you said that.

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And then I just have one last question for you.

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What is success to you?

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That's the whole goal of all business owners.

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People in general, success.

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Sure, well, let's be clear.

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Because I think people sometimes don't

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want to make this answer.

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But let's be clear how we keep scoring business.

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Yes.

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It's profit.

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Period.

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End of story.

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I don't want to hear any other bullshit about whatever it is.

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It's not, well, I just want to see other people successful.

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You want to make money.

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So let's be clear that that's how we measure.

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The scoreboard.

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It's like we play a football game.

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We don't guess who won.

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Well, I think they played better than them.

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No, no, no, listen.

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There's a score.

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We know who won the darn game.

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It's right up there on the thing.

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We have a method to measure success.

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Right?

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So in business, we are measuring success

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by profitability, the actual bottom line.

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And that's that.

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Now, if you want to say, well, what are we beyond that?

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Right?

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So great.

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We're a for-profit business.

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Well, yeah, you are something beyond that.

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It's one of the things we help clients do

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is come up with their purpose.

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What else?

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What is the other purpose of this thing other than make money?

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Sure, we got that.

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We know that.

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But what else?

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What is the grander purpose that we're

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trying to achieve inside this business?

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What grand problem do we solve?

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Yeah.

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Right?

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And that may be internally and externally.

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Right?

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So yeah, business may be dedicated to say,

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you know what?

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You think about this.

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There's a lot of businesses out there now

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that we're dedicated to hiring veterans when possible.

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We're dedicated to hiring women when possible.

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Right?

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We're dedicated to whatever it is.

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Right?

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So we're going to hire.

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There are some businesses in cities right now

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that we hire indigent people.

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This is who we're going to hire and try to save some lives.

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As part of our purpose is to not just make money,

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we also want to elevate some people inside of our community.

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So I think all those things are great.

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We work on, we help businesses get really clear.

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What is your purpose?

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Of course, it's making money.

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It's how we keep score.

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Atlas, I'd ignore that pretend like that's not the truth.

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But what else is it that you want to do?

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What problems do we solve?

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How do we add back to the place, right, to the place

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that we work and breathe and eat and live and raise children

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and have friends and all that stuff?

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And there are some ways.

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And when people get really clear about that,

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their execution gets to a higher level.

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And they get to use it as a filter for decision making.

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Absolutely.

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Right?

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And more and more and more, the younger the generation gets,

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they're like, I'm an old guy.

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I'll be 60 in October.

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So we were different.

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Like, how much are you paying me?

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Great.

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Now, people are making choices to work for companies

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because of what they do.

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Yes.

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Right?

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And they have moral concerns.

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I'm not working for a tobacco company.

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I'm not working for a sugar company.

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I'm not working for whatever it is.

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And that's their decision.

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I'm not passing judgment good or bad or indifferent

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about those decisions.

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I'm saying there are some talented individuals now

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in the marketplace, especially with the shrinking working

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class, right, as baby boomers retire.

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Others have chosen to make their living online and things.

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So the talent pool is shrinking.

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And those individuals are starting

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to make different decisions about, well,

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what's the greater good this company are working for?

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Like, what is their greater good?

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How are they serving?

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Because I want to work in that environment.

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So if you're not clear about that,

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and I hear people say, ah, shit, that stuff's not important.

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OK, fine.

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You just shrunk the labor pool.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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You just told a bunch of talented, maybe younger

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folks not the kind of place you want to work.

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That's fine.

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It's your decision.

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Whatever you want to do, you know what I mean?

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If you want to say, I'm only going

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to hire people born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, all right.

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That's your decision.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes

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continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.