Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Innovate and Overcome. I'm Richard Canfield and today we're diving into the real stories behind extraordinary success right here on NOW Media Television.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome back to Innovate and Overcome. I'm your host, Richard Canfield. Joining us today is Ryan Herpin. He's the co founder and the managing partner of Impact Strategies Consulting. Now he's also the host of an incredible show here on NOW Media called the Bottom Line. Ryan helps companies streamline systems, boost profits and elevate leadership teams through practical high impact strategies. He works closely with executives to drive employee engagement. We're going to talk about that today. And long term growth, all while trying to keep work life balance in focus.
Now we're diving into strategies and mindset shifts today that could truly transform how you lead and grow. Ryan, thanks for being with us today. Let's dive right in.
Now, there's a problem that many of our viewers may recognize that the constant struggle between balancing the business life and the personal life. You know, there's a feeling of being constantly overwhelmed and there's a huge risk of missing out on those really critical, important family moments. So I'd love to hear from you. What are the signs that really indicate that an entrepreneur is heading towards burnout?
[00:01:18] Speaker C: You know, that's a really good question and it's one that I feel like a lot of us overlook. I would say one of the biggest red flags is when your wins start to feel like losses. You're closing deals, hitting targets, but instead of feeling energized, you feel numb and even resentful. Other signs would include, you know, the typical things, right? Fatigue, irritability, mental fog, and even a sense of detachment from your business and family. You know, I think I could summarize it. Pretty simple.
When your passion starts to turn into pressure, burnout is usually right around the corner. And the signs aren't always so obvious.
It really takes the people around you to help point that out before it gets too bad.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Fascinating. And so you talk a little bit about creating sustainable rhythm, something that's able to support both the professional side and the personal lives. I like the idea that something sustainable sounds good. And rhythm, of course, being a music fan, I always like that as well. So walk us through. What exactly does that mean in your language and how would you explain that to a business owner?
[00:02:29] Speaker C: You know, we've always a lot of people talk about balance, balance, balance, balance. How do you balance life, work, all these things?
It starts by understanding that balance doesn't mean equal time. It means intentional time. And for me it goes deeper than that. Like you said, rhythm. I use a very specific rhythm framework and to break it down, it's focus, flex and fuel. Focus time is for deep work. That's high value tasks. Right. Flex time allows for that creativity and the adaptability.
And then the fuel time is my non negotiable time with family, faith, health and what truly recharges me. So you got to put those things in your calendar like client meetings or, or business deals, whatever it is. Because if you don't schedule your life, your business is going to automatically.
So you've got to be able to have those, that, that structure in your day to day to, to make sure it's rhythm and not a needless effort and trying to find equal time for everything. Some days the business is going to need you more, some days the family is going to need you. So it's that rhythm. But I will add one thing to that, that that framework, communication.
Communication is absolutely key for the family. If you don't have clear communication, you're setting yourself up for food.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: I really appreciate that and I think that is a critical tip now, communication, especially around the family. You talked about fuel time. I love the connection there. It's around the things that are essentially going to fuel there, they're going to drive you. And a lot of that family time, faith, etc. A lot of Fs that we're using here in the context of managing our time in our life. So when you talk about prioritizing that fuel time and then linking the communication around, whether it's your spouse and family members, what's an example of where you found success doing that, where you can really get that intentional time? It might not be maybe the same volume of time, but it's very clear and concise.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: For me, the best strategies I've found to really make that work is you've got to understand where your priorities really lie, what is truly important.
So when I put something down in my calendar, I stick to it as if my life depends on it.
So for me, family has to come first. You know, I've never heard anybody say on their deathbed, I wish I would have worked more, wish I'd closed more deals, made more money. It's always I wish I would have spent more time. That's always what it is. So I like to think of it as I reverse engineer my week every weekend or Friday, Saturday.
I start by kind of scheduling those personal priorities. Dinner with the family, date night, very intentional time with my children.
Then I build the business around, reminds Me, why I work so hard in the first place. And that small shift changes everything. Because it's hard to feel burned out when your life outside of work is full of purpose. And having those clear cutoffs, those clear non negotiables, lines you do not cross, makes it a whole lot easier. So you don't feel a sense of self doubt, shame or guilt for not focusing on the business. When you set those non negotiables, it gives you the freedom to say, I'm going to compartmentalize this, push this aside and focus on this next thing.
We all have the same amount of time in a day. The only difference is how we spend it. If you're on autopilot, you're going to waste it. If you're very intentional, you're going to utilize it and appreciate it.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: That makes a ton of sense and I could see the power in doing that. And you know, sometimes there's challenges, unique challenges that come up, they're very time sensitive, critical of nature in a business environment.
And it can interrupt the flow of even that preciously locked in time that you've set aside. So what I think I hear, and correct me if I'm wrong, but once you've allotted that time and you've locked it in stone, if something were to interfere with it that suddenly takes a precedence, then there's a commitment level that's happened there in advance. And that commitment is, look, this time is precious and if I'm not able to commit to it at this stage, we have to reallocate that into a future endeavor to make sure that we're making up that core intentional fuel. Time is, is that kind of a way that you would approach it?
[00:06:41] Speaker C: Yes. Inevitably life is going to throw curveballs. Sometimes things pop up that have to take priority. It's just making sure, like I said before, communication, you've got to communicate with all parties involved. You know, I do not, I do not pull punches when it comes to business or family.
So if something has to take my time, has to take my attention, that's just what it is. Because truth is, most entrepreneurs, they get stuck working to live, really. Rather it's more, more living to work. That's a better way to put it. But it's breaking that cycle and just having that, that understanding that sometimes things do pop up, you're going to have no choice and you've got to handle it. But making sure you make up that time elsewhere, find more time to correct it. So like if I have to, unfortunately this has happened. I've had to blow off date night before.
I don't like doing that. But it was something that was a very big deal for my firm. So I had to prioritize it. And to make up for the wife, I made sure our date night was above and beyond to recapture that time, to essentially apologize in a way that I know would benefit us both and having that quality time. So it's the only way I've found to handle those curveballs is communicate and move forward with purpose. That's really about it.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah. I love the simplicity of the focus flex and fuel buckets that you've identified. It reminds me to deal. And I see an overlap with what the Strategic Coach organization talks about. They talk about free days, buffer days, and focus days. And they're 24 hour periods from midnight to midnight. And one of the key elements of a free day is that they're really about recharge. And there can be no, literally zero work activity in that time frame.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I would say that's extremely, extremely important to be able to section that out.
And I like the idea of having those days separated and controlled. It definitely makes sense. I do know that sometimes schedule wouldn't necessarily permit a full day to be able to focus on one thing, but I do like the concept. But I do see one consistent problem. Kind of as you've touched base on, people will try to take that intentional time off or to focus on refueling, yet they just can't refuel, or they don't refuel, or they have that time available and they instead fill it with something else that doesn't recharge them. That's where that burnout comes. If you're consistently filling your recharge time with more progress in one area over the other, you're going to induce burnout. That's just how that's going to work.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And I feel like some people will take that time that they think is free and they'll use it with as an example. They'll read maybe even a business book.
And then you'll get inspired. You'll have ideas. You want to go back and start attacking or implementing things, which is taking you completely away from the purpose of that time. And then furthermore, one thing that it's really helped me, I know, in this similar endeavor, is to have my assistant or a qualified person help to actually initiate blocking in those time frames and then help guard them for me. So empowering a teammate to be like, look, if we don't get this time, everything comes crashing down. So you need to be someone who's going to help to guard that precious time and also help me plan for it effectively.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I call it the gatekeeper method. You know, it's very helpful to have somebody that has your back and keeping you disciplined, lined out and focused where you need to be focused. The same reason why it's good to have like a business partner or consultants makes sense. Sometimes you become the accountability partner for the owner of a business. Sometimes you have to become their gatekeeper of their time way they handle things. It is valuable when it makes a lot of sense why we struggle to do that on our own sometimes. But that additional support I've seen make some massive differences and when applying it to myself, my own life, it has definitely benefited.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: So to kind of recap and summarize, we have moving from balance instead into rhythm as a way to approach your time allotment and getting really critically focused and clear on where the protected zones. I know, I believe in the Stephen Covey model. They talk about your big rocks. So that's that fuel things, the things that drive you and fuel you're passionate about. And so what are some of your final thoughts then on the time that you want to allot to making yourself more efficient and effective? Ryan.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: I would say a final thought on this is make sure you allot time to grow yourself, to focus on yourself and invest in yourself. You cannot be the best for anyone if you're not the best for yourself. First, very important. Don't miss it.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Absolutely love that. Well, we're talking about all these incredible things with Ryan here. We're going to have so much more to cover when we come back in just a moment. We're to going going to talk all about moving ourselves through that growth ceiling, scaling a business and getting breakthroughs that actually matter in your business and your structure. And I can't wait.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: We're just getting started. Stick around. More vision, more resilience and more innovation. Coming up next on Innovate and Overcome.
Welcome back, I'm Richard Canfield and this is Innovate and Overcome on NOW Media Television. Let's jump right back in.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: We are here joined with Ryan today talking about some incredible ideas, some mindsets and we're going to dive right into breaking through the growth ceiling. How are we going to scale scale effectively and do it in such a way where it matters now? It really starts, Ryan, with sometimes when we're in the business we feel like we've hit a plateau. There's a leveling off of growth.
It seems like the more work that we do doesn't necessarily lead to more progress. And things sometimes remain in a stagnant level. There's an object, you know, you don't necessarily even know it's happening until you have a chance to reflect on it. So when this happens, what would you say are some of the common obstacles that are preventing a typical business from being able to actually scale effectively?
[00:12:49] Speaker C: A lot of people are not going to like this answer, but if I'm being honest, the biggest obstacle is often the business owner themselves.
We hit a ceiling because we're trying to scale with hustle instead of systems.
Other culprits would include unclear roles, poor communication, poor delegation, bottlenecks of indecision.
Those are pretty common. But ultimately the business owner is the biggest hiccup, the biggest roadblock, and the biggest struggle for efficiency. We have a tendency as entrepreneurs to, to let go of responsibilities and not micromanage things. We've got to be able to trust in our teams and in our training. The goal is, I think of it like parenting, right? If you want to really overcome that obstacle, you've got to think of it as you're raising a child, not in a bad way, but in a way you're trying to set them up for long term success.
And my son, I look at my son as that's my replacement for the world. Little scary right now because he's three and he's kind of crazy. But really it's my job to educate him, to strengthen him, to grow him, to mold him, to do things without me. So it's the same thing with business. You've got to have that approach when it comes to your team so you can get out of your own way. Most of the bottlenecks are because of that, especially with delegation and communication. If you want to hold all the balls yourself, no problem, you'll do that forever. But you're never going to get to a position where you could scale and grow consistently efficiently.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: That's so interesting to hear you talk about bottlenecks. And coincidentally, last Friday I was at a quarterly group session with a bunch of entrepreneurs through Strategic Coach and I actually drew out an example of what I call the throughput multiplier. And it really has to do with the going from a bottleneck position where you're stonewalling ideas and progress and decisions and removing yourself as that obstacle so that you can create a multiplication effect through exactly what you identified, you know, having systems in place, etc. And I just think that's so tremendously powerful and common element that you're Discovering in the people that you love to serve.
So what is it that helps a leader in the business structure identify and start to identify some of these, Address these efficiencies, inefficiencies that are created through bottlenecks that you can discover. Sometimes when you're in the thick of it, you don't know what's even going on. You can't see the forest, the trees, sort of a situation.
So how do you jump in from a consulting standpoint and provide those strategic analysis to get people to be able to move through these log jams?
[00:15:30] Speaker C: I love the way you ask that question because it's a great way I talk about this is going from the weeds to 10,000ft, right? And I'm all about simplicity. I like the cardboard and crayon methods. The easier it can be, the higher likelihood the success is going to be.
I like to start by mapping out every input and output for the flow. Break down every process, sales, operation, fulfillment, and ask these questions. Where does the handoff breakdown?
What's getting delayed, duplicated or dropped? Then build out ownership, KPIs and systems around those tasks. Sometimes you're just one clear workflow away from scalable growth.
A lot of this stuff is so easily overlooked because we like to over complicate things.
Breaking it down in the simplest forms gives you the visibility to be at 10,000ft. That's the goal. Sometimes we have to jump in the weeds. You got to handle business, but as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you've got to get yourself to that heightened point of view so you can see the whole playing field. Like you said, you got to be able to see the forest beyond the trees. Same reason. Why does LeBron James need a basketball coach? It's not because the coach is better than him at basketball. It's because he can see the bigger issues beyond the one that LeBron James is staring at. So it's the same thing. Break it down, get back to the basics. Map out every input, output and find all the breakdowns. Then from there, it's going to be very clear what you have to do.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: I like how you summarize the input and outputs and kind of identifying it almost like the relay race. You've got the baton, someone's holding it. You have to make sure there's an efficient handoff to the next person or it's going to get dropped. If it gets dropped, you lose the race. And in business, that could be other manpower. It could be an unhappy client, it could be a production delay, it could be Any number of things that's happening in one of the chain elements of the business.
So it sounds to me like through those handoffs and a good questioning process, you're able to start to see and identify areas that just are. Aren't being managed or looked at properly. And it's like, wow, here's the challenge that we have. Let's take this challenge and turn that into the tackling fuel that's going to make us a better business.
[00:17:40] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a really good way to put that.
It's reframing the setback. It's kind of good way to phrase that.
Every problem is an opportunity for improvement, growth, and ultimately an easy way to put it for everyone to understand.
Every problem is an opportunity for more profit.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Love that. Now, you also mentioned a keyword that I took hold of, and that was ownership.
So there's a second layer to identify, and then you're addressing or strategizing a method to clean up that particular bottleneck, that breakdown. But there was a key element there about ownership on the task, the process, the procedure. Talk us through the importance there and how you're framing that in the discussions you're having with the leaders that you're meeting with in these various companies you serve.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: Not, I would err on the side of saying most everybody likes to avoid accountability. We're wired for survival, not thriving. So when it comes to ownership, sometimes that freaks us out because when things fall apart or the ones to blame run the spotlight. See, I. I like to try to address ownership from a different light.
I like being in the spotlight of maybe I messed up, maybe I made a mistake. Because there's. There's a beautiful gift in someone making a change and progressing because it can motivate and inspire those around.
You know, everyone fails, everyone falls, everyone makes mistakes. But taking extreme ownership, like good old Jocko Willink, he explains it well in his book, extreme ownership can do a lot. And owning your failures is more important than owning your wins. When it comes to a business, a group setting with other leaders, there's power in a leader showing they can make a mistake, bounce back, and owning that problem is an easy way to never make that mistake again.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Well, that makes total sense to me and also a great book, so I appreciate that. So, you know, there's a ton of buzz terms thrown around in corporate culture, and I think we tend to see these things even more so in a larger organization. The larger an organization gets, the bigger the buzzwords that we start to hear. And so one of them might be as an example, strategic planning. Well, that sounds really good, and those are two pretty awesome words that when you smash them together, sounds like you're accomplishing something really wonderful. But that isn't always the case. So let's just take a little bit of a deep dive into your view and understanding what strategic planning is. And how would you frame that up inside of a business structure when you're meeting with the team, meeting with the leaders, meeting with the entrepreneur, and talking about these growth plateaus that we're looking to cross over so we can get back into that constant motion on an upward trajectory.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: I would like to preface this with a little bit of a concept here. It's never the things that are the problem.
The people create the problem. The people are the solution as well. So when it comes to strategic planning, my view is it's the bridge between hustle and scale.
It's a shift from thinking how do I work harder? To how do I build smarter? Right. It forces you to define your target and really reverse engineer that path altogether and align your team and resources accordingly. A good plan doesn't just clarify what to do, it clarifies what, what to stop doing, if that makes sense. Right. So within any kind of business structure, any kind of business model, it. It boils down to having everyone in the mix. Everyone wants to feel important. They want to feel like their, their input, their thoughts, their beliefs, all of it adds value to the business. So strategic planning, in a lot of cases, especially manufacturing, when I've worked with it, it just get everyone in the same room, give them the same problem, the same goal, and give them all an opportunity to share their perspective. And you'll see, strategic planning sometimes is battling out thoughts, finding the path of least resistance. And a lot of the time we over complicate it. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. But get out of the mindset of working harder and start thinking, of working smarter. Bring in your resources. You don't have to know everything. You've got people around you that can help, they have perspective. Utilizing.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Perspective is a powerful word. I appreciate the utilization of that. And really, it's not so much as someone having the right answer, so much as we're getting a wide array of answers and responses. And then we can take that and use that to formulate the strategy based on what everyone is already thinking. And hence we're going to create a plan that we can implement. Is that kind of the way I should interpret?
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I would say another way to look at that as well is, you know, when it comes to perspective, a Lot of the time it's not about being right, it's about contributing.
Everyone has a different view, a different thought on things and it being willing to accept that, to see that, to hear that can completely change the morale of a business as well as your ability to work with others. The the solutions to any problems are not at Walmart. You don't go down the street and buy the sol know the team that's facing the problems will come up with a solution. Given enough time and enough perspective, the solution will be there. It's just having the faith and trust to do that and facilitating that communication.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Facilitating connections that matter, bringing teams together, creating collaborative environments in such a way where you're getting the strategies you need, you're hearing from all voices, everyone feels included and you're able to also data mine some of the best opportunities and decisions that you didn't even know existed because they were outside of your own brain. What a powerful way of looking at strategic planning. Absolutely love that. Now when we come back in our next segment, we're going to talk more about the incredible ways that we can see game changing opportunities created in the business and start focusing on profits, but profits that actually matter and can't wait.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: We're just getting started. Stick around. More vision, more resilience and more innovation coming up next on Innovate and Overcome.
Welcome back, I'm Richard Canfield and this is Innovate and Overcome on NOW Media Television. Let's jump right back in.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: We are joined with Ryan Herpin. Today we're talking all about incredible ways that we can improve our profitability and of course have a focus on the things that make us do that. Well, one of those key elements is of course, people. It's hard to have profitability if you don't have the right people on the bus. So we want to talk a little bit about building a resilient team and having the right kind of leadership strategies so that you can have well engaged employees. Let's talk a little bit about employee engagement and the risk of that high turnover. I mean, let's face it, businesses, we use technology and systems, but they really thrive on people. And there's a lot of investment to find people, to train people and then most importantly to retain those people.
So what would you say is the real cost, Ryan, of poor engagement and high turnover in today's climate?
[00:25:05] Speaker C: Oh man, it's, there's so many different things that contribute to the high turnover rate, retention. And from what I'm finding recently, it's all a pure cultural shift. When you look at the next generations and even how the previous generations are impacted by what's trending, what's changing, the exposure to technology, the overuse of dopamine addiction from things like our phones, it all plays into the way people interact, the way people think, the perspective that's there.
Ultimately, when I look at how to address this, culture is, is going to develop no matter what you do. And it's up to the entrepreneur, the, the business owner to create that culture. If you don't create it, they will. That can be a big problem. But the cost of retention is a lot of the time just interaction, commitment, communication. I like to think of it as investing in your people. I don't believe the business makes the people. I think the business can grow the people, but I think the people are actually what make the business.
So with that belief system I have, you have to come at it from a very open heart angle. And that's my job as a leader, is to give you everything you need to succeed, to motivate you, inspire you, give you direction and build you into a self motivated machine that pursues your dreams and at the same time you're achieving goals for us and the team.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: I love that and it actually connects close to home for me because my, my partner Jason Lowe, who is the owner of Ascendant Financial and we co own the wealth on Main street podcast. You know, one of the core values that we have is build the people, the people build the business.
And a little bit different lingo, but fundamentally the exact same thing. And that is really critical because if you have the right people on the bus, you're going to create amazing results.
And if you have the right people, they're going to want to attract other people as well. And so talking about culture again, we got corporate buzzwords here that show up, but culture does matter. And it's something that's intangible but palpable. Especially when you're walking amongst a group of people inside of an office setting or a warehouse or a manufacturing facility and they're on the shop floor, there's something, you can tell, it's in the air. That's kind of what you're talking about. There's.
[00:27:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, there's atmosphere. Changes everything. I mean, think of it like this. You can take an oak seed, place it on a windowsill, leave it there for 10, 20, 50 years and it'll never grow. You'd never know that a potentially 50, 100 foot tall tree is in that small seed.
Whereas you take that seed, you Place it in some dirt, provide some sunlight, some water.
Now that seed's potential can be actualized and it can grow to be that big beautiful tree. Plants, life, air, all these things. It's the same thing with people in the atmosphere they're in completely changes the results, the feelings, the attitudes, the aptitudes. It changes everything.
So culture creates atmosphere, atmosphere creates culture. It's a double edged sword and there is strategy to making that work and to make it effective and efficient. But it always boils down to leadership. Leadership is what dictates culture and atmosphere. Now it's sometimes we get mixed up and confused and we like to make it a little bit too friendly and not enough of a business relationship. We don't want every employee to be super best friends.
That comes with a lot of risk.
But there needs to be clear, concise boundaries and then create a good atmosphere, camaraderie, you know, and obvious acknowledgeable investment into each other, into your employees, goals and dreams. It's all intentionality and genuine interest that that creates a very powerful culture that provides a great atmosphere. And then when you bring new people on, they're jumping into a good, positive culture with the right kind of atmosphere conducive to success.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Well, from a mindset of retention, I see how that plays out and makes a ton of sense. And also from again attracting new talent, new people into the organization.
Previously we talked a little bit about that stagnation, that plateau level that a business goes through. What's the dovetail interconnection between culture and atmosphere and that plateau effect? Sometimes it's the systems, the breakdowns, the drop batons that we talked about earlier. But do you see often in the businesses you serve where there's also an overlap between, when there's been a shift or a change in that culture?
[00:29:54] Speaker C: So this is kind of crazy because atmospheric culture is always a moving target. It's different in every place you go, every industry, every business. You know, whether it be a school, a church, doesn't matter what it is. The atmosphere and culture is always going to differ. There's going to be subtle, small things that can change it. And I think the overlap as far as the common denominator that I see really boils down to consistent invested interest.
So I, a business partner of mine in the past, I had to remind him, hey, you run this company, people care about what you think. You probably should walk the shop once a month at least shake some hands, show you're there, maybe smoke a cigarette outside with some of the employees. I don't know, but you got to do something to keep yourself relevant, present and keep them on board with the fact that they are following you whether they like it or not. Give them someone worth following.
Right. The leadership changes all of it. You know, we could echo this a million times, but the, the, the bridge between any business, any atmosphere, is leadership style and true genuine interest in your people.
Don't look at people on your team as tools at your disposal. That's the wrong way to look at it. You know, like we agree, you know, the people create the business.
So your job is to give the people the right tools, the right atmosphere, everything they need. And they're going to create that business to a successful entity. That's, that's what's going to happen. But if you don't dictate and drive the ship of building that culture, it's not going to happen.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Well, we're talking a lot about leadership and that critical value and importance of leadership. You extreme leadership, even to a degree.
Now leadership development, again, we're talking about some of these tossed around corporate buzz strategy words.
Let's talk about a real example of that because you know, people will hire consultants or whoever to come in and help them do these things because they're not sure how to do it on their own. Which is why you need a coach and an external person to step in. It's really helpful to have the value and the visual connection between someone who's outside of your business structure to provide the context that maybe you can't see because you're too busy, you know, kind of stuck in the weeds of what's going on in the day to day opportunities and relationship between the different people.
So when you talk about leadership develop and true leadership development, how can that be used to transform a team's performance?
[00:32:22] Speaker C: The My mentor taught me something very, very early on in our relationship and this is not so much a tangent as it is a lead into this.
How would you say you can measure a leader? How do you know a leader successful?
A lot of people wouldn't really know an answer to this question.
What was given to me was their ability to produce more leaders.
So leadership style, the style that makes the most sense, the one that is most conducive to an automated system, to a leadership culture that is powerful and caring and genuine. Is your objective as a leader is to create leaders that are better than you. You want the people you train, the people you influence, the people you guide and coach to be better than you at the things they do. That is the goal you Want to make yourself obsolete.
Sounds kind of counterintuitive, but a philosophy of mine that's worked throughout my career and it works for all of my clients.
Work yourself out of the job.
If you're the leader, your job is to not have to do anything.
It's to create the people, the leaders that can do it and do it better than you. Talk about being proud. It's just like I said, with children, same thing. My approach is all the same way of, it's like raising children. My goal is for my son to be better than me. Therefore it's my goal for my team to be better than me, my clients to be better than me, their teams to be better than them. It's the same concept. It's. That is the only style of leadership I've ever found that is consistently effective. It is the self sacrificing aspect of kill your ego, kill your pride. Your goal is for them to be better than you.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Well, using the kids as an example, which again I, I really appreciate that there's a, a defined timeline with kids where we've, we've got them.
They learn how to walk, they learn how to start communicating, they eventually learn how to read, they starting to learn math, they go through these stages and elements. Eventually they learn how to drive. Eventually they get their first job. Eventually they transition to where they're no longer living under your roof. So there's a, there's a pretty definitive kind of timeline on average for that. So when you think about that foreshadowing effect of, hey, one day you're going to be on your own, one day you're going to be looking after these things. Is there an element to that foreshadowing that you can leverage with leaders and the people that they're serving to try to raise them up?
[00:34:48] Speaker C: Most definitely. It's the reality of the inevitable.
No matter what, life is going to change. We can't be in the same place forever. We're not trees, we move, we change. That's what we do.
Using that concept, not just as a parent, but as a business leader, can be detrimental to the change of a business. Understanding that some point, my goal, my focus, my desire for you is to be able to do this without me, do this on your own to where you don't need me. Right? We want to, like I said, work ourself out of the position, become obsolete because then we have the freedom and ability to move on to the next thing. If you're good at producing leaders that are efficient and effective, you will always be Needed.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Well, we like to be needed. And as a leader, you don't want to be ousted out of your business. You want to phase yourself out, maybe so you don't have to be there, but you want to make sure that it's always running. With that in mind, we're going to talk more about profits and how those profits can be protected by the right people on the bus when we come back after this next important break.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: We're just getting started. Stick around. More vision, more resilience and more innovation. Coming up next on Innovate and Overcome.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Welcome back.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: I'm Richard Canfield, and this is Innovate and Overcome on now Media Television Vision. Let's jump right back in.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: Ryan. We're having a ton of fun here today. Now, we can all agree that profits are great. No profits. Well, you're probably not going to stay in business very long without them. So we want to make sure they're there and they're there consistently.
But what is the risk, would you say, of a business focusing solely on profits without having a clear sense of purpose as to why they're even doing it in the first place?
[00:36:34] Speaker C: This, it goes hand in hand. Business profit, you know, without purpose eventually feels empty. And, and just outside of that, you know, when your business exists only to make money, it becomes a grind. But when your business reflects your values, you're not just earning, you're impacting. Purpose makes the hard days worth it and the good days even better.
You know, to, to move without purpose is you're shooting in the dark. You know, whether or not you're going to feel fulfillment or whether at the end of your life you're going to feel like it was, it was worth something. Right? So I was very blessed early on in my career to understand no profit, no gain, no growth is worth it. If I'm not moving with purpose, if I'm not moving at the thing that I believe fulfills me. So if you really want sustainable profit, make sure it ties to your core values and purpose in some sort of way. Otherwise you're going to lose the feeling of it. It's just going to turn into a job and not this big beautiful thing you were hoping.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Well, I'm sure there's people tuning in who have experienced that emptiness and grind, the loss of the way. I appreciate earning versus impact, and I think that really connects with a lot of people in the modern age, especially newer business owners. We have a millennial group. We have a younger generation coming up and this type of an environment not so much around Sustainability of energy, but sustainability of profit. Where you're building a business that actually matters, you're doing something, solving a problem that's really there, that's going to help people. Most business structures are created because we have something to solve. We have a problem that we want to help people with and we want to do it in our unique way because someone else isn't doing it our way or what have you and to be able to offer a better mousetrap than what someone else is already doing.
So what's the connection between alignment of your operation with that clear purpose? Because there are certain things that if it's not done appropriately from a leadership level, it can wane. The people involved in the business don't understand. They're not connected to that mission or those values. And then you start to see that again. That shift in culture that we talked about before.
[00:38:43] Speaker C: There's a lot of ways to go about this. You've got to start with the first and most important part. You've got to understand and actualize and be able to articulate your reason why, your purpose or doing it in the first place. Right?
Reason why, A good reason why. Good purpose is the difference between someone having a job and having a career. When you've got someone that's just there for a paycheck, but they don't know the reason why for the company, they don't buy into that. You're not going to get the same output, investment and drive as you would for somebody who believes in what they're doing. So it always has to start with really, really understand the vision. Really be able to articulate what it is the purpose of doing. This is for my business. You know, as a consultant, I want to make a positive impact on the world, world. So all of my actions align with that. For helping your team be more efficient and effective.
Here's another strategy that I've implemented a lot. Create quarterly meetings, just like you would. Board meetings. Quarterly meetings for all levels of the business. Directors, managers, supervisors, leads, employees, doesn't matter. Get everybody in a room, you know, and tailor the information to be appropriate for each category, each group.
But get everybody on the same page. Let them know what they're striving for. Let them know what they're doing, what they're working towards. Let them know your reason why and let them see your passion for your reason why.
They will automatically either take on some of that passion themselves, start to believe in what they're doing and move differently, or you're going to find out really quickly they're not the right person for your team.
So you've got to start there, make it clear what your purpose and passion is and your reason why, then communicate it to everybody in a very appropriate way and give them the opportunity to buy in. It's kind of hard to want to dig a hole for 10 years if you don't know digging that hole could save a civilization, right? It's a pretty crazy way to say it, but it still paints the picture.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Well, speaking of painted pictures, there's a great exercise, the painted picture vision exercise. And you might have a mission statement and a vision and some, some core values on your website. A lot of times what happens is people create those and then they forget what they are or they don't let new employees know, or they don't connect what's written on the website to how it actually shows up and matters and give them a real world example or a story to connect with how it might show up in the business structure. Whereas if you do do those things, then people start to see, oh, okay, I get it. I see how this aspect of integrity, what that means when we say it and how it shows up in our business, given this example. There's a direct impact there. You know, in our organization we've done a painted picture vision exercise. We usually do them in three year increments where we're making it so specific and so clear and so vivid as a visualization and we're always talking about it. As a result, that's already occurred. We're in the celebration of this incredible journey we've been on over three years. And it allows everyone in our organization to start to align with some of the incredible initiatives and the innovations that we're trying to create over that time frame. Going through an exercise like that or something similar, what have you seen as being the impact when you, when that happens in a business structure?
[00:41:52] Speaker C: I mean, honestly, it creates emotional buy in. You know, a team aligned with a bigger mission doesn't just work for a paycheck. They work for that pride aspect as well. It's purpose driven business. You know, it attracts loyal customers, resilient employees and that lasting impact. And it, let's be honest, when purpose, when purpose drives the mission, profit tends to just follow as a byproduct. Right? So what I see, and this is kind of the way that I've tailored my business to be the pursuit of purpose and fulfillment.
That's our target, that's our goal. Our goal is to earn the best testimonies because the profit, the money is a byproduct of serving our purpose and earning those testimonies. If your focus is the money, you're not going to find it. It's going to escape you or it's going to leave you empty.
The focus has got to be that impact. So, you know, really looking at it, the long term morale of a team is really based upon. Is the reason why strong enough and is it communicated well enough.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: The testimonies? I think that's so interesting. You know, again, just speaking from my own experience with our organization at Ascendant Financial across Canada at least, we have well over a thousand five star Google reviews. And one of the things that we encourage our teammates to do is at any point in time isolate one of those, go and read through some of those. You know, take, take a few minutes, take 30 minutes in the week and go and check in on some of those. If you're ever feeling uncertain about something, go and see what our clients are telling others about, about the services that we provide. And in all of those things, what's a common element is the word team? Hey, this organization, they're such a great team. The whole team came out to help me to do A, B and C. And that element, when you have that sort of ongoing history and data to reflect upon, we can use the tackling fuel from our past experiences and the way that we've served others to help bring us forward into a future. Even if that's a new team member coming aboard and learning, okay, what is this business all about? Well, if they can go and google that business and see all those testimonies and those reviews, they can get a really good insight into what their work life culture might be like.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a really good way to put that actually when you look at the, you know, I kind of want to have a little bit of a side note here because what you're talking about right now and the way you're framing this is so overlooked in business it makes me sad.
You know, culture, leadership, integrity, everything really applies. It almost you can think of it like this. There's no way to look at this personal brand, like an executive brand. You know, all of that creates the culture, the environment. But you know, I'm curious actually with, with what we're discussing, where are some areas that you've applied this?
I'm curious to get your perspective on this because I'm always looking to grow and learn and I like to see how we're aligned with things.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: Well, you know, in the past, having gone through some of These exercises around developing a vision and a mission statement, there's a feeling of almost disconnectedness even with going through the exercise. I think for some people I know I felt that in the past.
My partner Jason, when he goes through this, it's an area that he really likes to put time on. The painted picture vision exercise is a lot more clarifying because it's building that forward looking view vision and then creating a story around it and the things that you can see happening and trying to get other people to see that. But there's a reality, there's things that are tactile and implemented, there's real results there. And the more you can describe it and have that visual image now working backwards, you can say, okay, what are the core elements that connect to what that mission is and our vision is? And it's not just a three year vision, it's a much bigger vision. But here's a three year implement of it that's more specific. And I feel like that can really connect people and ground them because not everyone has the ability to see 10 years down the road.
Entrepreneurs are designed to start to see that and look for those future elements. But a lot of other individuals, sometimes they're just looking at what is tomorrow, what does the next hour have, what's after the weekend, what am I doing on Monday. And so when we can give them this shorter timeframe visual and get them really connected around something ultra specific, then there's a rallying point that can be developed around that. At least that's what I've experienced in communicating with members of our team. The types of things that I'm hearing from them on the ground.
[00:46:17] Speaker C: It sounds like you're almost writing a story and everyone's involved, everyone's included, they all have the opportunity to see it unfold, where it's beginning, where it's planning to go. It's like everyone's orchestrating the story together.
And that I think is a big. I like the way you're putting this because this has given me some kind of fuel to think about too and, and think about the different dynamics I'm dealing with with clients. But it's painting a big picture together.
Everyone buys in, everyone contributes, and everyone has a positive impact.
I think there's a lot of power in the long term growth for a.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Business because of that and it makes for a great recruiting tool. As you bring other people onto the business. They already, they might be in the middle of that three year vision, but they already know where you're going and where you're headed now with that in mind, speaking of where you're going and headed, there's so many places for people that you want to serve, where they can go and where they're headed. Ryan where can they learn more about you so that they can be in a position to take on amazing consulting service and start to revolutionize how they create profits with purpose?
[00:47:17] Speaker C: Easy way to find me is through the website. You can contact me the team.
LinkedIn's an easy way to find us as well, but the the website's pretty simple, straightforward. We wanted to keep everything simple as our, you know, the way we operate, but that's a good way to get a hold of us. Consultations are free and we love to provide any kind of help that we can.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: Amazing. The beautiful thing is people get to choose if they want to take on service and you get to choose who you serve. That's the way business is. It's a phenomenal way to earn a living and to help a lot of people at the same point in time and make an impact. Ryan, thanks for being with us and sharing so much golden nuggets with our audience today.
For those of you tuning in, of course, stay tuned for next week where we continue to unpack the major challenges business are facing and how they're innovating into a powerful tomorrow.
