I bring Hal back to revisit why this podcast was started in the first place and make sure we are still doing it right. After we catch up, we got some unexpected places regarding setting people's expectations...
Every wonder how far you should go in being your true self? How bold is too bold? How does expectations play into this? Check out the conversation that starts at 21:12. Somehow we find ourselves talking about the problem of having a customer who doesn't make the final decisions on the purchase. This is a surprisingly common problem. 41:45. Building is a leadership team has a lot to do with expectations. How do you send the right message to the team about what it is to truly lead? 52:37.
GET IN TOUCH:
MARK LEARY:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
HAL BOWMAN:
https://halbowman.com/
Production credit:
Engineering / Post-Production: Leo Medley
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
You're Doing It Wrong - Hal Bowman
Wednesday, May 19, 2020
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
teachers, kids, day, thought, podcast, people, find, conversation, story, problem, put, great, man, emotional, business, listen, tools, experience, educators, challenge
SPEAKERS
Hal, Mark
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling. Cool.
Hal 00:01
We are live.
Mark 00:03
This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Anderson Leary and my name is Mark, and I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. And so I want to help entrepreneurial leaders feel more in control of their business. And so today, we're here again with my friend, how Bowman who helped start this. Do you know why you're here? Man? You know why I wanted to bring you back?
Hal 00:23
I'm hoping because it was good.
Mark 00:25
We'll see. That's kind of the case.
Hal 00:28
So the whole either that or sucked, and you wanna give me a second chance? Well, I
Mark 00:32
don't know. So So this whole arc, the part this This podcast is like not, I don't know what we're gonna talk about today. Exactly. But the reason I wanted to do this was because three or four episodes posted at the time, I have a guest, who I think is going to be great. We record what I think is one of the best podcasts so far at that point. And it's two hours, the longest one we've done. And he texts me in the morning and says, Hey, you know, it didn't occur to me to listen to your podcast before I was on. And he said, I listened to the first one. And it was great. And I was like, Oh, shit, then maybe I should listen to it. So I had to realize I had to overcome my fear.
Hal 01:21
Was that me? The first one. Yeah,
Mark 01:22
I was you interesting. Yeah. Okay. And so I thought, well, now I gotta, I gotta look in the mirror. So I I didn't have the guts until that point. And so I was doing this completely on gut feel completely on the belief that there was something in there and an absolute inability to go find out if this was really the case. So he said, No, it's really good. And I thought, well, damn, now I gotta go check it out. So I listened to it. And it was good. Yeah, I thought, I think there's two of us. I just
Hal 01:49
listened to but here's how I know. It's good. cuz I've done this a lot. In a way I know. It's good is because I forgot we're podcasting. Yeah, like, I'm a big being in the moment. And I forgot we were recording. We're just hanging out. You're like, Oh, my God, it's over. We're pressing stop. Apparently, we were recording. Yummy. Right.
Mark 02:06
So I listened to it. And I thought, well, why? Why was it good? Why was it why was interesting. And I thought, well, we had a chemistry. Yeah. And we were fun. Least we think so. And I got fearful that that was the only good one. Because it was just you me interesting. Yeah. And so then Matt continued to listen to these. And Matt will call him, Matt, because that's his name. And Matt said, it's so mask. Actually, as of now Matt's podcast is not live yet. It's imposed and ready to produce. And I'll be very curious to see what people say about it. I really enjoyed it. So So maximum that give me the feedback along the way. And he's listening to others and saying, you know, they're different. But I still like them. Yeah. And so all this to say that I want to reach out to you. I said, Man, we got to do this again. And the reason is that I want to make sure we go back and reset, because I still don't know what the hell I'm doing. I have no idea. I'm totally going on my gut, and trying to pursue something meaningful for people. And I was afraid that if I didn't touch base with the guy and the chemistry that started this off that I would lose my way a little bit. So I wanted to kind of touch base didn't do that. And here we are,
Hal 03:24
dude, I think that you know what I mean, I think the podcasting thing, the ones I listened to, and ones I like, including my own is like I like it because of the gut. Like it's all like I like the ones are all about the gut, the gut feel there's some that are really scripted, and really edited, and, you know, really precise, and I can see there's, there's a way they do every episode. That's just not for me, because I'm not sure the magic is just not going to find the magic moment in the script for me. Well, I agree. And so here's the humbling formula that I think is the magic, but I don't know that it explains it, how it works. And that is that I believe that the mistake is to try to be smart.
Mark 04:02
I don't think I can do that on demand. And I what I believe is the right ingredient is my listeners, my friends and the people who listen to this. They're smart, they can get the wisdom from the story, even if the story sucks, or isn't or is a bad outcome or is accidental. And so my job is to find people who have something cool in them, and to help bring it out and be entertaining enough that people want to listen and feel like it's worth it to listen for their own wisdom and their own experiences. Yeah,
Hal 04:36
dude, I'm gonna agree that your secret ingredient is never going to be smart. All right, all right. That's no man. But you know, here's the thing, man. Obviously, you're smart. We've, you've accomplished a lot. There's a lot happening here. I mean, good luck. We're sitting in your office. The the secret ingredient of you is Yeah, let's just put there's a ton of people that are smart. Who cares? I think the secret ingredient for you is your deep sincere curiosity. I think that's what it is for you.
Mark 05:05
Well, that. So one of the questions somebody asked me recently, it's like, why are you doing this? And, and I was pausing for a minute about the answer. And I had to really because this didn't happen overnight, like when I asked you if I should do this last time you said, Yeah, idiot, I told you, you should do that a year ago. And I was always an idiot. And no, it was much worse. So this is a two years, two years in the making to be here. And it's and I forgotten how we got here. And I by best answer was, well, because I couldn't, not there. I can't, I can't not. And what what objective Are you trying to achieve? And I'm I don't know, yet. I can't, I just can't turn this off right now. So we're gonna go find this out together. And so I think the feedback I've gotten so far is it people seem to say, they love it. They can't stop listening to it. They're making time to listen to the listen to all of them. And like the first couple people, I was like, yeah, that's 10 hours of your life, you can't get back, right? And you're telling me you want more of it. And so it was humbling. And the fear of success sort of started taking over, like, I can start to see a pretty big runway for something pretty big. Yeah. And
Hal 06:10
it's interesting what the the role it plays in people's lives. And you know, I'll be on the road doing my thing. And I'll have a person from the audience come up and say, ask me a question. A very specific question about something they heard on the podcast, and I have no idea what they're talking about.
Mark 06:23
Yeah. You know,
Hal 06:25
I think I think what I was talking about was a lady comes up. And the last one, she says, Hey, I need to know. How's Veronica? Like? What? Who? Veronica? Veronica? is where you said, Monica. She was on your pocket? Oh, Veronica. Yeah. She's great. And then I remembered in in that interview in our podcast, she told a lot of really heavy things over childhood. And this lady is sincerely invested in wanting to know house, Veronica, and then I'll go ahead, miss this thing matters. Yeah.
Mark 06:56
So so some explanation to that, because I had a similar experience. So I listened to our first podcast. And what I realized is I was hearing a lot of that for the first time. Like I was in it. Yeah. And because of the attention to the it's an intense, it's an intense moment, like this experience is 30% more intense than not podcasting. Because I don't know why Actually, I have no idea why but it is. And so the level of attention is higher level intentionality is higher. And so when I listened to it, there was stuff that I really didn't get to catch. The first time I was laughing at jokes that I told it was unexpected, like what that guy was about to say, and it was me. And so I get that, that you that there's a lot that happens in a short amount of time. And that's why I think part of the magic is the listener. They are the people who are making this into something like that's they go, they haven't experienced, it connects with your experience they haven't experienced connects with something somebody else said. And so I'm totally intuitive. I have to ask gut feel questions that have no idea or why they're important. And there's 1000 people who go, oh, man, that was amazing. Yeah. And I didn't even hear it. But here's,
Hal 08:05
here's here's why it's I think it's a little bit more intensive and experience and just a casual conversation. Because subconsciously, even though I forgot about it already, but you keep bringing them up that people are gonna listen to this. Yeah. Knowing that like that's in my subconscious. So that makes me more intentional of this conversation. I don't have any intention of what the topic might be, or my answers, but I there's something knowing that somebody might hear this, which makes me focus more. And then, you know, whilst we're sitting across from each other eye to eye, and we're wearing headphones, and it eliminates any other thought and distraction and any other sounds. So it forces you to be more in the moment than if we're sitting at Starbucks. With a whole bunch of people walking around distractions. I'm thinking about other stuff, paying attention to you. Of course, I can multitask, you know,
Mark 08:45
yeah, but here, there's
Hal 08:46
nothing else in my life, except you and me and mics and headphones and your zoom recorder. Right, right. Yeah, dude, I let me tell you about this. Um, the gut questioning thing is that this is my story. When people I was asked to be on a podcast. I'm not sure if I ever told you about this. I think I did. Oh, it was on the first one. But a guy asked me to be on this podcast. He's got tons of listeners, I'm like, Sure, I'd love to. And he says, great. I'm gonna send you over the questions. Right? I'm gonna email you the questions. And I say, Hey, listen, man, I really don't need the questions. And he says, I want you to be prepared to answer I said, Listen, I prepared for your podcast like 10 years ago. Right? Like, you just asked me the questions, man, I don't I'm not going to first of all, I'll tell you, I'll prepare. I'm not going to prepare. Send the questions, I'll tell you. But the same thing is gonna happen is not sending the questions, which is me just answering questions. And so he sends the questions and I don't read them. And but I thought, let me hear what this podcast is about. So I listen to first I just pick an episode randomly. And he has a lady on there. I can't remember why she was on there who she was. Because his all it matters. He's he's going he's he's into his first question that now I know it's scripted. And it says I was a little scripted, because he's reading the question that's different. And it gets to the point where, at what point she wanted to be a teacher. And she's telling this story, she's always had an interest in science and says, I was so interested in science is one night, I broke in the area 51. I went under the fence, I crawled in the middle of the night under my friend. And when I was in there, that's when I bumped into the guy who is now my husband, who also broke in the area 51 that same night? And he goes, wow. And then he asked question number two, right? Yeah. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? We can spend three hours on breaking an area. Like that's the story. And like, I think that like that speaks volumes as to why that the gut curiosity, and intuition approach is way better, because I think I think you missed the gold. It's like, you're panning for gold. And you're not gonna find the nugget, if you have the script.
Mark 10:58
Yeah, so that's my formula so far. And it's terrifying, because it's, I can't explain why it works. And I can't even prove or predict that it will continue to work. So like the best guests so far, are just basically like this person. I'd love talking to them. Yeah. And I've got a guest coming up in a couple of weeks. And it was like, I think the person standing next to her said, Oh, you'd be great. And I was like, that's enough. He probably knows that. That's the whole that's the good. That's like, yeah, I'll see it see in a couple weeks. And and, and so she's like, Are you sure? And like, no, not sure if this is gonna be great. But I'm pretty confident. And you know, I know there's a story. And the story will be valuable in ways that I cannot predict. I have no idea what I don't actually even know what we're going to talk about. But I have very high confidence that the story is going to come up and it's going to resonate, and people are going to be that was great. And it taught me something I didn't expect to learn.
Hal 11:47
Yeah, everybody has a story. There's a guy love. I can't think of his name right now. But he's things on CBS. Hartman,
Mark 11:57
I think is that, is that on TV? Well, it's
Hal 11:59
on the interwebs. Now, mostly, but he's the Steve Hartman. He's the one that goes across America and finds these amazing stories about people living their life in Evansville, Indiana, and whatever, and has this unbelievable, beautiful story. And, and it's so it's, it's proof that everybody walk around every pair of eyes you look into, there's something unbelievably interesting, fascinating, shockingly surprising story that they have that they live through. Yeah. And here's, for me, what's really interesting is I don't think most people realize how unbelievable it is, because it's their story. It's just part of their life.
Mark 12:39
Well, that's all we're doing. And that's, that's the whole premise of this damn podcast is that. And this is actually a clarifying for me, because the whole premise has been in when you when you read the book cover, and you read the chapters of how to be an entrepreneur, how to be a successful business person, or just in life, and in any anything in within 100 mile radius of what I just said. And it doesn't work, you get stuck, if you're just reading the labels of. But that's not life. That's not what that's not where we start with the success happens in the content, and you can't get the content in in 30 seconds, sound bites and scripted conversations, you know, 15 minute packets, I don't believe I think there are tips and tricks there. But the whole point of this is what's the actual story. Like why did this actually matter? And little nuance like, you know, getting it just a little bit, right? There's a difference between success and failure and the teams I work with. Like, I think there's a there's a discipline, to work with a leadership team to manage time. Like, we got to get done by this time, and I'm gonna move you along. And I like to do that when it makes sense. But sometimes my gut says, we're very close to something very meaningful. We're trying to figure out the purpose, we're trying to figure out why you do this, what is it that makes you work 70 hours a week to run this business, and we're talking about writing insurance policies right now. And I'm not buying it. And there's something and then somebody sudden, will something to say, you know, what, you've always been a teacher at heart. And that's why this place is like it is because you just teach people and that's the hope and in some of the rooms like, Oh, shit, right, it, you know, like, we're doing tax or we're doing whatever, and no notes about teaching. And in those moments, and I just don't, the formulas, not how you get there, you gotta like, search around in the dark, not knowing what you're looking for. And then you stub your toe on it, and like, Oh, that's it,
Hal 14:22
oh my god. That's why we're doing this. We're trying to create a legacy, we're trying to do something and it's suddenly somebody else's platitude is your purpose for for existing? You know, it's so fascinating because we're dealing with these, these animals, these human animals, they're just driven by emotion. And it's layers and layers and layers upon layers of emotion and experiences and, and how they, you know, associate different emotions with different experiences and what triggers back and forth. It's hard to find it's hard to dig down deep to find whatever that really is that purpose for someone
Mark 14:55
why it's accidental. And so there's two types of thinking and then I'm trying to put this in context that will make sense to people who haven't read the book that I'm thinking of. So I believe it was maybe Dan Pink's, when that kind of brought this first concept up, but it was certainly in the sleep literature, I read that talking about their times a day when we do different types of thinking. And most people do the best, clearest thinking in the morning. And many people, most people have the least clear thinking in the afternoon after their law, which they're basically non usable thinking in the middle. So but then that, but the trick that made this meaningful to me was that the problems we solve in the morning by default, for most people, not everybody, most people are linear production oriented thoughts in very clear headed, very logical. The problems we can solve in the afternoon, when we can't, we are distracted, we are random. We are linear, logical production just drops off. But we are in the business of finding random connections that are unexpected, or we are distracted, the next thought is not related to the last thought. And that's when you solve highly innovative unexpected problems and this purpose thing and this simplicity and all these really, these real big revelations are that ladder type, you don't linear work your way to revelations about purpose and meaning. And so why was I saying that?
Hal 16:19
Yeah, I don't know. But I can tell you this, that when I do my creative stuff, I used to do it in the morning or during the afternoon.
Mark 16:29
Yeah, quick. Okay. So creativity, most people are going to be better in the afternoon. Yeah, but late risers, many of them have their best creativity in the morning and their linear activities in the evening switch flip flops for some of those people. But they also have to be on their own circadian rhythm, maybe getting up a little later going to bed.
Hal 16:49
So I so I don't know anybody anything about this, I can just know from my personal experiences, here's how it goes down. When I'm creating new content, let's say I need to come up with some sort of a custom presentation. And here's what I do, I carry around a stack of three by five cards, I have some of my man purse right there. And I have an idea. And on the line side, I put some details about the idea on the blank side, I put the main concept of the idea, then I just have a stack of cards. Typically, this happens in the afternoon, like he said, but when it's time to be productive, just naturally what I do is I'll take all these cards, all these three by five cards, I'll stand on a chair, lay them out on the floor, and then I'll stand on a chair and look at them all. This is in the morning now. And and then I start shuffling around moving around. This goes with this one. This goes with this one and this and I think that's that. That's the linear story I'm putting together because I'm about to present this stuff someone which which card is going to be getting which cards you want to mental which cut where's my closer over here? How am I going to tie it back and Seinfeld this thing back to the front side. So it all comes full circle at the end. But randomly in the afternoons when I write the cards, I have hundreds of them that I might use 20 of in the mornings when I line them up. It's fascinating. Look at me. I should have wrote that book.
Mark 17:57
He still got a chance. So what's your favorite podcast right now?
Hal 18:06
You know, man? Um, what did I just deepen on this one? I can't I'm gonna look it up. It's a bank, a bank robber guy. Yeah, the story about a bank robber. His story? Well, I mean, he's telling the story. It's a series. And this gentleman, it was a he. He's incredibly intelligent, incredibly articulate. And he just happened to rob a ton of banks. It's called the score bank robber diaries.
Mark 18:34
Nice.
Hal 18:35
One of the most effective communicators I've ever heard in my life. And one of the most self aware psychopaths
Mark 18:41
ever. Oh, and sounds very safe.
Hal 18:46
And he's out No, but he he served time to the whole thing. But he takes you through his childhood, and really has analyzed how he got to where he is, again, everybody has a story. And he has come up with a way to communicate what happened to him and his childhood and get him to this place where he just thought it was fine to go in and terrorize people and take the money out of the bank. So it's Yeah, it's the story of him robbing banks, but it's really the story of coming to terms with what he did. And his guilt and shame.
Mark 19:18
I love that kind of thing. So I don't know. So I've gotten a lot of recommendations on podcasts that that sound great. Very few of them are connecting with me though. But very tough customer on podcast. And I and I've ended which is a weird thing to kind of reconcile there's millions of podcasts,
Hal 19:36
not 100,000. Actually, not yet a million. Okay. Getting there
Mark 19:39
pretty quickly, I think between you and I wouldn't close a gap Pretty soon, but a couple of different podcast channels, but I think the format you can consume things in. You can get exactly what you want in exactly the form. You want it. Yeah, if you want it a little faster, a little slower. And I was thinking so I don't know psychopaths out of prison, you can get that. And so one of my favorite podcasts is called, where should we begin? Are you familiar with it? No, Astaire parral. She's a relationship counselor, and one of the most astute and gifted facilitators I've ever heard. And so they're like about an hour long. And it's her and a couple. In various circumstances, it's usually a married couple of some kind, or some type of relationship. And they're all over the place a very interesting various, and she just facilitates a conversation between the two people. And then we'll cut in the commentary after the fact about what she was thinking. And it's, it's just amazing. I mean, I just can't recommend it highly enough. It's a lot about people, people, communication, people, problems, the communication, facilitation, all that. And of course, we've got a relationship situation situation, it's good, it's good experience. She also has a new one called, where should we begin or not? As I said, that's the existing one, a new one is called house work. And so it's facilitation. It's like relationship facilitation in the workplace. And so, thinking about so a couple nights ago, I'm with friends and peers who do what I do. And one of them has a podcast and is joking around it does. There's a podcast, like it's a 30 minute edited. I don't know how scripted it is. I gotta confess, I have not listened to it yet. And I will. But it's, I'm trying to get to the point of this story. So he, so he makes a joke. The next one is about entrepreneurial strippers. And this is a very audacious guy who doesn't really worry about offending people. And he's like, No, I'm just kidding. And I, and they were just the thing about the joke was like, Well, why are you just kidding? Like, why? Why wouldn't you do that podcast. And I was just kind of struck by the fear of going somewhere in this. And like, this is podcast territory, you can do anything you want. And, and I just almost in disbelief, because the reason I tell the story is that I happen to know at that point that I had listened to the second one of housework. And she interviews to entrepreneurial strippers, right. And it's a phenomenal high value podcast that I think anybody could listen to, and get a lot out of, and it's very astute, and there's smart, smart people on this. And I don't know, it was just, I was just very interesting to this is your territory to be yourself? Like, why would you sanitize it? Like, why would you do that? Because somebody who needs you the real, the real deal, the real you for sure.
Hal 22:52
I agree. That being said, I tone it down a mine because of my clientele. You know, I can't, you know, when I when I get hired to go to a school, and then they're gonna write that check, they're gonna need School Board approval? And what if some school board member says, Well, if he forgot me, let me Google this guy. Okay, and listen to an episode, there's no way that right now check if I'm, if I'm completely 100% authentic in terms of language and ideas and thoughts and beliefs. Because on some level, I still have to keep it, you know, in terms of I can't be on either extreme end of the spectrum. In in my world, I got to keep it somewhere. I can get close. Yeah, I can get it pretty wide. But I still have to stay in the middle.
Mark 23:36
Do you feel 100% authentic? Or do you feel like you're a little bit?
Hal 23:41
Of course not. I feel 100% authentic? Because I can't I can't see what I really think. You know, oftentimes, I just won't get hired.
Mark 23:50
Well see, I guess, I i've consumed some of your content. I've seen you live and I've listened to podcasts. I've been on the podcast. And I know you. And I guess I gotta confess. I that makes logical sense. But I'm still surprised. Yeah. I'm surprised that how Bowman was able to do that. Because I've never known an album and who would ever have said, Oh, yeah, I turned it down a little bit. Like I would have much more expected like, I don't even know how to. I don't have a switch.
Hal 24:15
Here's the thing. Even though I'm toned down, I still don't get hired a lot because of who I am. And what I do and what I say. Are you okay with that? Or Yeah, because I think it man, if that offends you? Please don't hire me.
Mark 24:30
Like it ain't gonna go well. So it's interesting. I didn't I thought we might even go to this was like over the last week or two. I've been in Well, actually two specific events. One was with a relatively well known leadership coach, who is known for growing businesses very successfully. They might have a book on this table, and throughout the day, he dropped the F bomb a lot. Yeah. And I've seen him do it before and it's It really paints the picture of you know, this person's edginess. Yeah but I think this time it was more because when we left this event a guy who's known he coaches very successful companies has been doing for a long time and people know him and and pack the room to come here and and I heard a lot of people say that was not okay that was too many f bombs like you just didn't need to do that and and and I really felt that he had turned the corner a little bit potentially So then I'm still kind of digesting this you know I'm not for everybody thing you know it's like if he if he only needs three clients out of the 1000 you know in news people are really want that edge you know it should he turned the volume up Is it is it I mean, because then you compare it to like a Gary Vee podcast I you know, live you know, he's dropping f bomb like bike by the ton. Yep. I heard somebody else similar kind of thing. And then I'm at another conference just a couple days ago, same kind of thing. You know, it's a room of people who know each other and the culture is built just the F bomb is flowing and flowing and flowing. And I don't know I just a weird I've not reconciled because there are people who are just sort of like that's them. And other people are like they didn't need to do that. Well, you
Hal 26:12
know what I think the difference in Gary Vee everybody knows you get into because he's congruent all the way through the way he walks away. He talks where he dresses who he's been from the very beginning. I think the guy you're talking about is something different. He doesn't look like that guy. Yeah, but you're describing like it because I don't know who that is. I think I've seen his picture. I'm aware of him. I've never seen him talk. I never seen him speak. I'm shocked. I think because it but if I didn't know who Gary Vee was, and somebody told me Oh, my God, like, f bomb this f bomb that I got? Well, of course Look at him. Of course he does. He's wearing a hoodie at a gala. You know,
Mark 26:47
but I think there's something to that formula, the less is more like the Gary Vee is owns the like, Don't ever care what anybody else thinks. Right? That's his part of his brand. And so he's he's leaning into that and godly, you know, it's it's exploding for him for sure. He owns that. And then I wonder, like this other guy, you know, is that his demographic? He's targeting people who are a little more on the edge like they don't?
Hal 27:10
Yeah, maybe take over. I don't know, if they here's the other thing, man years ago, there's a book that came out. I can't remember what it was called. But it was one of the first books about social media. The guy had three names like Michael Scott, or Scott, Michael, somebody or other? I don't know. And it might come to me by the end of this, but you can put in the show notes.
Mark 27:26
Are you talking about David meerman? Scott, that guy? Yeah. All right.
Hal 27:30
So his book, and I wouldn't saw him speak, I think you were probably there. And his book, The whole thing was all about that Long gone are the days where you have, you're trying to get everybody where if you go into a phone book, you're going to be a automotive special, or whatever, you know, and you're trying to put a billboard up that draws everybody trying to write a radio ad is going to draw the most people today, it really is all about who's who can paint the most perfectly authentic picture of themselves, and just get the people that need you, you not somebody else, but you because there are in his bid, this is back then this is how it was 10 years ago, people are looking for you, they just can't find you. There's enough people more than you would ever need. In terms of customers, you have the specific solutions that they're looking they're desperately looking for the solutions that you have, they just can't find you. Yeah. And I believe that and so when I don't get hired, which happens a lot, simply because, you know, in my world that you know, it's there is this, there's a look, there's, you know, apples on shoelaces and puffy paint, you know, patches, you know, and then they see teaching a rock star and I don't even notice suit, man, I don't wear a tie. You know, it's there's a little bit edge to the whole vibe and the look and the logo, and just the experience of it all. It's a lot coming at you a lot. And that's not for everybody. And if they have any doubt it's for them. Please don't hire me.
Mark 29:01
So I mean, I hate to think this so pragmatically because I think when you see a Gary Vee, he's like, all out, right? You know, you just like there's no restraint. But what you're describing, is there is some awareness, you got to know how far you can push it. And you I think, I'm not even sure I'm exploring this idea. Like, would you be more successful if you took the safeties off? Or is you have you maximized your your value by staying in in the lines
Hal 29:29
that you I don't know, I think about this a lot. Like you know, so for my brand, the whole teaching a rockstar brand has a logo, it looks like a biker thing. You know, my colors are dark and you know, I'm not, you know, doing bright primary colors and with a schoolhouse and a and a ruler for the Ellen and Apple for the a, you know what I mean? Yeah, so, you know, when I put my thing together that was important to me, and I told in the design of I want something unlike anybody's ever seen when they think about professional development for educators. I want to be completely different. That's kind of why we came up with the thing that and my look in the hair at the time and the whole bit, teaching a rock star was born. I know lots of people don't show up. I've been told a lot of times, they had to drag me to this. This is the best thing I've ever seen in my life. But I want you to know, they had to drag me here. There's no way I would have gone to this if they didn't make me. And I loved it. And I think they're turned off by I think they think it's gimmicky. I think they think it's just over the top. It's not valuable. I know principals that refuse to pay for it to send teachers because they don't get it. I know. I mean, I thought about changing the name, just to get them there. And once I get them to people, business, people tell me that all time, just do whatever it takes to get them there. Once you have them. They didn't then then you can give them what they need.
Mark 30:49
You know, I know that sounds like the law of averages and common denominator, all things to everybody. So I doesn't feel like that's the way to go building the brand around what's true and authentic does. And I see it work all the time. But it is interesting is is it the target market thing like you have to understand who your best buyers are. And it's very confusing to me to try to understand your market how that works. Mm hmm.
Hal 31:15
Yeah, me too. I'm stumped. But I've been doing for a decade. I'm stumped by it still. But what I'm doing works. I mean, I can always I always want more, of course. But it's working.
Mark 31:26
So I so when I, what I would do with a client who was bringing to me the problem that you just described, we would start to say like, well, what was it that that they thought was so awesome? And can we prove that earlier in the conversation as opposed to strictly emotional packaging? Because Because I was imagining like, why would somebody not want to come and I can imagine somebody being more, we only do evidence based programming, if I can use it.
Hal 32:00
Even though I got all even though the research is done. It's all proven. I've papers written about it. You know, PhD, a&m wrote the whole thing, you know, analyzed it, it works to answer your question. So we have teaching arrastra.com. And I also own another one I've never used by just I thought, what if I put a whole did the same thing, just packaged a different just to see what happens. So I own change a kid's life calm? And what if I renamed this whole program to change a kid's life? What would happen? And the subtitle would be, you know, evidence based, whatever, you know, evidence,
Mark 32:38
you see the thing, I instantly start to want to vomit because I'm like, man, now you're in the room with just everybody else. It looks the same, and there's no way you're gonna no one's gonna remember you. Like, there's no way I can support that.
Hal 32:50
Right? But just to try, what if we're both wrong?
Mark 32:54
Do it, do it? Do it, do it. here's,
Hal 32:56
here's what I know. I recently hired a guy who sponsored Facebook ads.
Mark 33:00
We're not wrong, though. You can try to get one but and I
Hal 33:03
hired us to do some sponsored Facebook ads. And he split test everything. Okay? He's really good at it. And I'm thinking why is he split testing this? I could tell you right now, which one's better? Oh, yeah, I know, we're gonna go wrong every time. Yeah. 100%. Wrong. Every, not by a little by a lot. I'm talking like 6535 per, like, 65% clicks came from the one I didn't like, 35% like way, way wrong. And so like, of course, like, I second guess myself, Well, you know, after that,
Mark 33:34
yeah. So I mean, I was bowled a second ago, saying we're not wrong. I, there's only one rule I ever have in my sessions is that we do more of what works and less of what doesn't, that's it. So, you know, we make hypotheses and make plans and suggestions and recommendations, we go to work and, you know, like, you know, Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And when when we experienced that we have to adapt to that. So that's really true. I do that a lot. I do make a lot of assumptions that don't work when I gotta try it and correct. And that's a leadership lesson that people need to learn that leadership and accountability is not about knowing what the right answer is. It's committing to the plan, and in and in reacting to what actually happens with honesty, and adjusting the plan and owning it. So yeah, absolutely. That did not work that was on me, and you're changing the plan.
Hal 34:16
You know what man, I've had my two perfect examples for that is the first time I ever sat down, you know, I had this business and we exploded immediately. Well, I struggled for like six months, and it was, you know, hemorrhaging money, and it was horrible. And then all of a sudden, the thing to the point where I couldn't control it, I had no skills going into it, no experience. So it was it was hemorrhaging money. And then it was successful. Make Yes, overnight, literally overnight. I mean, depositing checks, you know, a month more than I was making in a year teaching school. Yeah. And so I decided to sit down write a business plan. As I said, you gotta you gotta get you got to get a plan together. Yeah. And we spent two days writing a business plan and walking out of the office with this dude, and we're gonna head down Are cars and he goes, Oh, one last thing. I go, what's that he goes, the last two days we spent together last 20 hours we spent together right in his business plan. Just so you know, you know, we did that five year thing. Like him? Yeah, I guess in five years, your business is gonna look nothing like the plan we just put together. The point is to have a plan and to commit to it. And then of course, we're gonna tweak it. And I'm like, What? it like, yeah, that alone?
Mark 35:22
Yeah, no, I teach that a lot you have to have and I really got the language for this from Jordan Peterson. You know, the, the there's a million things going on in a given moment. And what do you look at. And if you don't know what to look at, you don't know what's important. And if you don't know what's important, you don't know what to learn from. And so having those aims having that focus, it's like we've agreed, this is what we're working on. it narrows the experiences to relevant and irrelevant, and now you know what to learn how to get better, and you can and if you're aiming at the wrong thing, you can now figure that out, because you went down the path of you steps. But if you're kind of going nowhere, you don't know which way to turn your you don't you're not learning how to improve your, your aiming and your forecasting and your goals.
Hal 36:03
Yeah, you know, my personal experience of working with schools, in trying to shift culture and academic success of these organizations. Is this what I found is this, oftentimes, the most successful schools are those schools that were the first to give up on stuff. Like they put an initiation initiative in place, and it didn't work out what did they gave up and went on to something else, where the vast majority of schools are average performing a low performing, you know, what they do they do it harder, they do it more of it, they do more than do it louder, they do it bigger, even though it still doesn't work. And now No one's happy. Everybody's frustrated, like, why are we still doing this? What do you mean, we're gonna do it twice as much, it doesn't work. But for some reason, it's like they've made a commitment. And oftentimes, people education aren't, they just don't fail. They're successful, everything to do. And they've learned over the years a way to do be successful academically is you just do more of it. Like you study more, you work harder. And they think to shift in culture. And in organizations, the same thing, when we put an initiative in place, when I tell them, Listen, this works a lot of times, not for everybody, it might be a great fit, it might be a horrible fit, I don't know, your school, I'm here for one day. And we put some metrics in place. And some of them, you know, are subjective. Because how does it feel when you walk into camp? Like if, if it's not working, let's shut it down and move on to plan B, Plan B might be the best thing ever? We don't know. And I think it's being self aware and honest. And, you know, stepping back and taking a look at what's happening. And like you said, figuring out like what's important, are those is that there? is it happening? If not, that's fine, who cares? Let's do something else.
Mark 37:34
So I'm kind of going back to this. Because I believe in the concept so much this this this branding audacity thing, the differentiation with that same exact mindset of what's working, what's not. I'm kind of, you know, the audacity the boldness thing, I want to know what you think is working in boldness and what wasn't working and what might not be? What would you change in your boldness, of being the rock star guy?
Hal 38:00
Dude, I don't know. Because I tell you this right now, when I know if I change the singer to change a kid's life or whatever. And the first video I make is probably not gonna be like, like I just said about your boy, we're congruent with the title, like when they see me talking to the guy or doing my thing. Well, that's exactly right. What in the hell?
Mark 38:16
So? Yeah, no. So that's, that makes the entire point that I think I didn't have words for, it doesn't matter what works. What matters is what is and if I, you know, I'm, I know, I'm kind of contradicting to some extent what I just said a minute ago, but it is it is about understanding the relationship between what works that actually brings the two together? What's the relationship between what works and what are you? Like, what are you what animal are you? Do you have stripes? Are you are you strong, fast? Well, you have to embrace it, you cannot pretend to be something different. And it is a relationship between exactly that what is the relation between Who are you which cannot change easily and probably should not change? And what is working and how do you optimize for the outcome you're trying to create?
Hal 38:59
Yeah, you know, you know, listening to talk about it, I think, you know, if I was to step back and be attempt to be self aware, in looking at my weaknesses, I'm probably really good at getting what it is out there. here's the here's the name of it, here's the logo, here's what's going to happen during the day. And that's not enough for people to make a decision they need to know more about who I am. You know, what, what it is, I mean, it's the same as you know, is so much you can only describe these things so much. It sounds like everything else that's out there, but the who behind it. That's the important part. Yeah. And I think for those people that are leery no offense of sending teachers there Yeah, you know, modeling is gonna be worth our money is this thing research based is it is evidentiary, all that stuff, if they if they had a clear picture about who I am and what and what I personally bring to That day and that experience for our educators, they probably been more likely,
Mark 40:04
well, there's layers to this. So the people make emotional decisions, and they justify it intellectually, we know this for sure. And not only that, when you get dig deeper into this, I mean, Simon Sinek talks about this a lot, that there's the part of the brain that makes the emotional decisions, doesn't even have language. And I know we're getting pretty, pretty esoteric, pretty fast. But just think about that, like if the place if the part of your brain that is actually controlling, and helping you make decisions, has no words to communicate with you, the consumer, the owner and holder of that decider box, which is your emotional limbic brain, then you have to go to the logical side, you're where the language exists, you would only think that only the language part is there, because you're not going to hear in invoice form from your emotional side. So everybody does that, right. So and where I see that being relevant is that you got somebody who showed up, because of an emotional trigger, sent them the wrong direction. And then they got there, then they got a new emotional status trigger. So those are out of alignment. But But then the logic part of that is how people map their way to, toward or away from that emotional decision. And so the job of the marketer is, to some extent, create the emotional space. Like, I feel it, like I want to feel be successful. I love Gary Vee, because he's a hard worker, and he's achieved success. And he speaks to me in a way that I get. And then logically I built here, I can tell you a story in word form as to why he's awesome. Now, that's all just packaging. Yeah, all the words are so the marketer has to be able to connect the dots. And that's what we're trying to part of what we're trying to do connect the emotional side with like, how do you do you need to connect evidence based with Rockstar?
Hal 41:55
In my mind, not for a teacher? No. But for the person is gonna pay?
Mark 41:58
Yeah. Okay, well, that's a whole other issue. So understanding the person who pays
Hal 42:04
right so five, two customers, one customer, I market to teachers, and they go, Oh, my God, this is going to be amazing day. Yeah, I want to go. It's a day away from school, I can clear my thoughts I can get away from the kids, I can get re centered, I get refueled. reinspired reconnected with my why and who I need to be for my kids. I'm going to walk away with a truck load of strategies, a shit ton of stuff, I can do better in my classroom to make a difference in the lives of those kids. That that I got that. But then they have to take this to the principal's is, hey, I want to go to this thing. Do we have any funds left in the budget for professional development? Because it's gonna cost 189 Plus, we got to get a sub for my class, and I might, you know, there's gonna be meals, I'm like to stay overnight. So then he that he or she, the principal's gonna want to say, Well, let me say like, Yeah, it looks like a fun thing. But what are we really doing
Mark 42:53
here? So you have a really big challenge. I see this challenge a lot. So I see this in businesses that have known multiple parties, healthcare, none better, right? So healthcare has a patient, that's who you're serving, right? Or is it? Because who gets the patient connected with your drug, your home health care service, your surgical center? Or the doctor? Okay? Well, that's who your customers are, oh, who pays you owe the insurance company? or out of pocket? Depending on the type of service? Right? You have three constituencies? And what do they care about? Like, who knows? Like you have to find out? And so the way I simplify the conversation for people, it's like, we got to first own the mind and heart of the person whose decision gets you paid? And that is, I actually say that out loud. I'm not even sure I know the answer that question for you. Because the decisions like it's, it's, it's almost like the patient in a lot of cases doesn't actually make that decision. That patient is like, I want the very best care. But my doctor says I'm going with you. And so I'm going with you most of the time. So you it's a disproportionate decision lands and the referring doctor, in that case, in your world, what how does it go? Like whose decision ends up getting you paid?
Hal 44:08
This is layered. Because there's a whole lot of so the teacher so it's a teacher driven sale. So the teacher either wants to go or they don't. So I have to present it in such a way. And by the way, like I'm like in terms of self awareness. I know what's happened to these teachers that show up they're already amazing because they go to this stuff. And they're already fans cuz I even heard of me, they know me, or they just love the idea of what I'm doing. And they want to be a part of that. So these days are amazing. So anyway, the teacher wants to go now they gotta get they got to get somebody to pay for this thing. This is where the principal comes in, who I haven't talked to. So they're gonna be my so i think i need to do a better job of making those teachers my little sales people so they give them tools. Yeah. And maybe multiple tools. What kind of principle do you have? Yeah, you know, if they're that nurture if it's an element Or a school teacher then became a principal and she's nurturing and loving and hugs kids and all that stuff you know all that all that Sal stuff that smote social emotional learning that's gonna you know be her trigger it's oh my god this looks amazing. I want to go to this you know, or is it you know somebody that stays behind the desk you know is working on the computer all day you know they might need to see you know that the check all the boxes checked what they're going to do the itinerary for the day we're going to cover all this stuff that we need covered so our attendance rates are up or achievements up schools are standardized test scores are up so it who knows and I don't know what happened that day at school. Like when the day they went to the principal if you know what I mean. Yeah, cuz leadership in schools is that that's that's firemen work. There's a putting out fires all day long. It's really hard to get ahead of it. is you don't know what to you got an angry parent. out in the lobby, there's a food fight. There's kids smoking or vaping in the bathroom kid got caught with porn on the phone. Like it's all this and they're trying to handle this in real time. And somebody wants to go to a conference you need hang on to that. That's, that's not a fire. Like a fire is burning. Yeah. And so all that's going on? You know, that being said, I don't know, the relationship between the principal and the teacher. Maybe that principal doesn't want that teacher coming back?
Mark 46:21
Yeah, so I, for a lot of reasons, right? For all good and bad reasons. Yeah. So I've struggled with that exact model a lot. Like how do you empower an individual who's not? You know, who it might be your customer might be your advocate, who is supremely badly positioned to advocate for you. And, and but you realize you're dependent upon them to do that. Yeah. And it is sometimes like, it could be a patient, it could be an individual. Anybody in an organization like yeah, I mean, teams that I work with people, where I meet somebody in the organization who badly wants what we do. And then they've got to go sell it to their boss, or the owner of the company. And I'm like, that's the hardest thing in the world to do. Because it does. Yeah.
Hal 47:02
Especially idea what's going on that that that owner of the company might be putting this thing up for sale? You don't I mean, you Yeah, they might be tapping out Who knows?
Mark 47:11
or threatened or there might be the problem themselves or any other factors? Or just, you know, yeah, there's lots of reasons that's then
Hal 47:17
what else that person came to the boss with? Oh, my God.
Mark 47:19
So in my world, I definitely focus on like, that passage doesn't work that well. So it's more it's like a pay, say a prayer like, I'm, I'm sorry that you guys could benefit from what I can help you with. But there's no way there's no there's no path. There's you cannot get there from here. In the absence of a conversation with a willing person without pain. Yeah, it owner. So then, so I, I focused my conversations right there, and I don't spend a lot of time I help people, I help them. Here's the tools, here's what you can do. Here's I can enable you. But I totally digress about from the fact that like, yeah, this will be great. Let's, you know, though, they'll get on board, they won't get on board. These trip, because they're involved like in your world, they got to write a check, but they don't have to show up, right. But my team, my team, not only does my team that keep that keep our person they got to show up, they got to do the hardest work of all. And if they're not willing to do the hardest accountability work, be a leader become their best. And if they're not willing to do that hard work to improve themselves change habits. Yeah, it's a total non starter. Dude, your
Hal 48:23
thing is so much more difficult than mine. Mine is hard years exponentially more hard, because you're asking for time, and emotional commitment on everybody in terms of a leadership team, with all different personalities. I just need one person write a damn check. Yeah, you know, and but you know, in my world where you know that the thing that might fall more in line with what you do is when I go to a school, and try to shift school culture in a single day, this be the one event that I do, and that is where I work with the leadership team of a school. And you know, I'm at the point where Listen, man, if you guys don't want to commit to this thing, just let me know up front because I've been disappointed so many times where I've gone and given everything I've gotten prepared and all this research and and works and then I leave and they don't do anything with it.
Mark 49:06
Yeah. Is there Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I stick around for that show. Right? So you're like, I'm out of here. And it's just insanity to watch them sort of wither. But me like I'm coming back. And and if and if it's like lip service, it's it's I'm dying. I'm dying on the vine with them. Yeah. And so I really push hard. Like, this is a two year journey. And if, if there's any part of you, that says I'm not so sure, it's like, you know what, we'll do it off. Don't do it. That's not me like this is real. If your dream is big enough and inspiring enough to change your known or unknown bad habits and behaviors, and make some changes to access that dream to get the life and business you want. Let's do this. But if you're kind of on the fence and you don't want to change and you're living a good lifestyle, life and you want a little bit better Without a lot of effort, not not not not worrying about, not what we're going to do,
Hal 50:05
you know, I probably need to do a better job of being upfront with my customers like that. Really communicating expectations. In such a way that tongue Look, this is not going to work without effort after I leave. Yeah, my whole goal here is to fill the cup as much as I possibly can. And then right at the end, we're going to tip it over. But you have to keep the flow going, you know, once we will get to the tipping point. But after I leave, that's when the work starts. Yeah. And you know, there's a session when I'm at a school for a full day, there's a session three, where that's where I work with the leadership team and some handpick influential educators. Because what I found when we do some initiatives on campus to really shift culture, it's more important to come from the teachers rather than the top leaders of invited rather than principal's office, because that's like your mom telling you what to do. You know, it's like your dad yelling at you, here's what we're gonna do. So we want from the teachers, that kind of like a grassroots initiative, we're going to do some things and they're going to lead it and then other teachers are going to jump on board, because when it's coming from your your peers next door, that's when we see some real dramatic and immediate, significant changes happening. Now, the so I call this session secretly, I call it the youth church camp syndrome prevention session. What happens is when kids go to church camp, they're down for JC they're, they're loving JC, right up until about Wednesday, when they're hanging out with their friends of war, and then all that things out the window, man, that whole weekend they spent, yeah, it's gone, man. That's what we're trying to do. Because this thing is gonna feel amazing. It's going to be emotional, you're going to love it, you're going to get so fired up. But it's someone needs to drive it after I'm gone and keep pushing it, or it's gonna fade away by Wednesday.
Mark 51:58
Yeah, so what I what I've discovered about those kind of problems, or almost any problem, is it the problem I'm dealing with today, did not get created yesterday. It got created like three years ago. Yeah. And so there's two ways to deal with that. One is you have to do both. And one is to say, like, Well, sorry that that happened. But we got to fix it regardless. And so there's that reparation, remedial work, you know, you got to, okay, it's broken, and we got to shim it back together. And that and tape, it will be that we're gonna do the best, then the other part is like, what is the behavior that we can do today, that makes that prompt go away, and stay away. And so part of that in this exact problem is, when I say to somebody, we're going to build a leadership team. We are going to teach you how to swim. This is swimming lessons. If you don't like to get wet, you're going to hate this. So this bat hard decisions are coming. And if you're not ready to do that, don't start that and what what I'm doing in that is there's there's some people who are gonna say, maybe you're right. But it's not all of the people who if I hadn't said that would have been surprised on the day they got wet. And so when the when people don't see it coming there, they're there, they stall, they get it, oh my god, I didn't realize this, I'm not ready for it and prepare for this. So part of what I'm doing is giving them the kind of warning shot. And so some people are like, really not ready. And other people are like, Okay, I get it into the back of my mind. And so then down the line, I'm like, remember what I said, Yeah, today's the day, you're gonna, you're gonna get wet and then and then and then they have the ability to push themselves off the edge. Whereas before, they would just be panicked. So giving them that warning shot in advance and letting them do some of that pre work. And so then they can go sell it, and then they can go do the work and start having some conversations that might take months to to get ready for those hard decisions, like firing somebody or changing culture during the announcements or firing their brother firing their son, oh, my God, how many conversations that I had about a child or a brother or sister. And so if you figure out like the day before, you might have to have a termination conversation with a with a relative. You just do not ready for that. You got to digest that for 369 months. And so yeah, so
Hal 54:21
it's interesting. You said, the problems I'm dealing with didn't happen today happened three years ago. You know, how many years like in my world working with teachers? It took me, I don't even know how long to gain that wisdom. Because in my events, the teacher will come up at the break. You know, they try to ask questions while I'm speaking. But they can raise their hand all you want. It's my time. And but they they come up after the break. And they'll say, Well, I got this one kid. Let me tell you about this kid. The goal of this story he wants to do years ago, let's give him some advice.
54:55
Yeah,
Hal 54:56
yeah, I said like you want to do now. I don't Know you, you might be the problem. I don't know the kid. I don't know who else is in that room? I don't know, well, like there's layer, I'd have to be in there for a while to figure out what's going on. You know, I can tell you some experiences I've had that might make sense. You know, like we would didn't. But I can't tell you what to do.
Mark 55:20
I don't know, I
Hal 55:21
don't know anything. You might be lying right now, you might be making it sound like the kids fault. When it's your fault. It might be sound like it's your fault. When it's a kid's fault. I don't know.
Mark 55:31
You know, so much of what we're talking about. There's a theme in this whole conversation. And I think it has to do with the relationship between authenticity, expectation setting. And, you know, fair warning, and in all of what we said, so this idea of, I'm actually trying to struggle to connect to that last thought, because you're the powerlessness of fixing a problem, like how many dimensions are there? How can you? How can you help somebody all along the way? It's very context driven. It's not decision based. It's not, oh, you should kick that kid out of the class. Or you should write this note. And people love those little quick hit tips and tricks, you know, you know, sample thing, here's, here's the words, that's helpful. But that's not systemic. No, I mean, that's a small win to get somebody excited to go to the next step of this process. But there's a there's a whole environment, your mindset has to be different. And you end in from the moment you're telling somebody in the world you have a contribution to make. That's setting expectations. How is this going to go? Are you the right person for this? Are you going to be ready on the right day, and it's all so complex and context driven, your brand matters, your purpose matters, your core values matter? And in the conversation started? Well, some of this was like language, how does language fit into that and being bold, because I think people get, especially coaches, especially these people that I spend a lot of time around, they know they have to make an impact, I think foul language to make to draw it back to the F bomb is the easiest way to seem bold. Like I'm going to disrupt you. Yeah. And I and dropping the F bomb. We'll do that every time. Right. But I think it's low hanging fruit. And I don't and I don't really have a problem with drop dropping the F bomb. But I do have a problem with is when people start talking about people dropping the F bomb, they're not listening anymore, right? And what you need to do is disrupt people where they need to change and you need to set expectations about like, here's how it's going to be different. How is your thinking going to be different down the line? To make an impact?
Hal 57:32
Yeah. So like the Tony Robbins thing when his thing came out? I'm not your guru. Yeah, I loved it. People were shocked.
Mark 57:39
I didn't know it cuz, oh, my God, I've been to his thing. He cusses well, so he claims. I don't have the data, I just realized I may overstate the data, he argues that there is a psychological brain reaction reason for doing it, you must do it to get cut to people's psyche. I don't know anything more about it than that.
Hal 57:55
It's It's uh, you know, it's the roots. It's, it's, it's scratching the record is what it is, you know, that whatever their thing is playing over and over. That's why have you ever seen work one on one in consultations, it'll throw water in somebody's face. Just to break the pattern of what he can see what their theories he can see they're locked into that, that stereo going to, you know, over and over the repetition of the message and tell him something, it just disrupts everything in the moment. And then they'll deliver the money. It's powerful. I get it. You know, what you're talking about man is saying that's why your principles matter. And you know, your mission matters. And I think the challenge is thinking about the organizations with with with whom I work. I think they're really good at talking about the what, here's what we're going to do, and here's why we're doing it, here's how we're doing it. But they struggle in that's who they are. That's how they're living their lives. Each and every day, not just in professionally, but also personally. And in like, it's so many ingredients in that recipe. That's where the complex that is complete, you know, there's a school district that called me recently we've been going back and forth on the phone, and I'm torn what to do. They have real problems, multiple schools. One of the schools they want me to work and just go in for a day had last week there's two guns on campus. There they averaged between 710 fights a day. All of them recorded all of them posted online. And some of my home school kids
59:25
Oh, gotcha
Hal 59:26
Yeah, kids are putting them on you know the gram and didn't know where to hide this stuff. Yeah, no, it's in some aren't even fight. Some are just full on assaults coming up on a kid when he's not even looking and just beating a kid senseless. This is going on and I mean, just crazy. craziness, chaos on campus. We need you to come in. We need you to help us with this.
59:48
Okay.
Hal 59:50
No. And so one of my Listen, let me temper your expectations here. I'll be I really believe I can be an important ingredient in the recipe. It's the recipe that matters. There's a lot of ingredients in this recipe. I believe I can be one of those ingredients. But it really comes down to like, yeah, like I guarantee they have great goals. I'm sure they have a great mission. I'm sure they have what a plan in place. But is that who they really are collectively as a as an entire school family of teachers and educators and administrators and counselors and cafeteria workers and bus drivers? Is everybody on board together? In terms of culture that school? I doubt it?
Mark 1:00:32
Well, it's even worse. And because I was gonna say that's not easy to do for anybody. And what and what I mean by that is, Who are you? What do you really want, I see entrepreneurs all the time, who had a successful life up until day to day, whatever day that is, whatever age doesn't matter if it's a 20s 30s 40s doesn't matter, you look about all their goals have from their childhood, in most cases, have been checked off, like years ago, like they got the money, they got the house, they got the wife, they got the job, whatever. And now what are they they're striving and they're turning the crank, we got to do this, like and what do you want? Oh, man, I want to be the best this I want to be known for that. And I'm like, well, Who told you that? The court you get that? Where'd you get that idea? Like, I know, you were busy because I had it happened to me too. I had like, I checked all the boxes. And so I was just still going check picking up goals along the way. So I pick them up my friends, my entrepreneurial buddies, you know, like, Oh, that's a nice car. What's a nice house? Oh, that's a nice vacation. Oh, and that's a ranch who doesn't need a ranch? And so I'm collecting all these goals. And I think I'm striving for something. It's me and no one challenged it, by the way, does it? You know, Does any of that matter? And now I do that with people. I challenge people. I said, Take that all away. Where'd you get that? Who you thinking of like, whose house were you at? When you're like, Damn, you're right, you know, that's not me at all. And so that's hard enough to do for an individual in a school, like who wrote that plan. Like which administrator like you actually are not, you're not only picking it up, it was given to you. It's totally inauthentic. Right? In a way,
Hal 1:02:01
here's the formula is when I show up at a school district to work with the district, I always look at there, they all have the same mission, they all have the same vision. There's a formula. It says, here's what we're going to do. And here's how we're going to do it. We're going to create high performing kids of exceptional character. And here's, you know, here's why. Because we believe in a world where, you know, it's based on human beings. And the hue that how, by high, you know, we're going to have a rigorous and relevant lessons build relationship with the kids, because we believe in society and our role. And as a result, we're going to be an amazing school district. That's the recipe, what they want. Well, how they're going to do it, why they're doing it, Eagles who are going to be in my mind, man, it's completely backwards. Right, right. You don't I mean, and that is why it's because it fails every time. That recipe fails in every organization, not just in a macro, but also in a micro personally, even personally, if you think about it, you know, on January 1, what are you gonna do, man? You know, what are you going to do? What I'm going to do is I'm going to get in shape. How are you going to do it? Well, you know, I'm gonna join Planet Fitness. That's how I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go every day. Why? Because I want to look good, naked, man. That's why, and then who you're going to be? I'm going to be, I'm going to be a fit human being that's proud of themselves.
Mark 1:03:28
I'll be funny be a good person.
Hal 1:03:29
Right? And then how long does that last? January 4, maybe? Yeah. And, hey, I'm gonna start a business. Really? What are you going to do? Well, if you're a teacher, what you're going to do is going to join a network marketing group? And then what? Well, then how are you going to do it? Well, you know, I want to smell I'm going to sell some smelly candles, and oils that smell really good. It'll change your life. Well, and then why because I want to make money that represents my effort and who, and then who you're going to be I want to be successful. And that doesn't then end up with a garage full of smelling candles, you know, I mean, if it fails every time and it fails in education to when they put that recipe rather than becoming who we're going to be first. That this is that is the critical component, when we're always focused on that, who, here's the problem, we focus on the what and education. What we want, what we need to do is Oh, it always becomes bigger, always. And we need to do more. That's what happens every year. So that what teachers are really good at when that increases in size. What do they go to first how how we're going to do it, and they're going to come up with a plan of what we're going to do well, here's how we're going to do it. And here's what and they forget the why and they forget the who Yeah,
Mark 1:04:43
well, it's this have to be thing, right. So, if you never heard this, you know, it's the idea that, you know, if I had more time, I would do more of the right stuff and then I will be happy. Some Very, so some are some analog to that. And they say, Well, why don't you be happy, and then you will do happy things, and then you will have to be there, then you will have a happy life or something, you'll have more friends, whatever. And there's a lot of truth to that, where I think I've gotten stuck is there is an expectation based on other people's goals, other people's ideals of what that be is like, if you want to be a good person, be a good person first. And I think where I've kind of gotten sideways is that I've tried to inject too many other people's expectations of that be. And I think what I'm hearing and this is the kind of the light goes on, for me, it's like it's Don't try to make that be too good. Like, you might not know what good is, but do make that be real, like you must go in an inward journey, like, Who are you actually, and maybe we'll assume that when we find it, it will be good. And I guess there there is an improvement component. Like if you want to be a more giving person, you should just become a more get big. Become a more giving person. I'm not sure if that's the right first step. I think that maybe is the second step. Like maybe you should know where you are, before you worry about getting to a new place.
Hal 1:06:21
Yeah. You know, I think the confusion lies in my work when I work with kids and teachers too. is there's this. You see all these the books and memes and everything, all the information on the inside? You know, you can't give away that what you do not have?
1:06:38
Yes,
Hal 1:06:39
I think that's completely wrong. Really? Yeah, I think you become what you give away. That's to say, I was talking to a group of kids the other day, we were using, you know, everybody wants to become more of something more courageous, more confident, more appreciated, have more pride more loved. So, you know, when when you encourage enough people, then you become courageous, like, you can't become courageous by reading a book on courage, it just is not gonna work, man, you can't go buy courage off the shelf at Walmart. Like, there's one way to do it. And that is, you know, to instill this courage and other people encourage, you know, what I said, teach us mentoring program, and was all seniors and we would mentor children in elementary and junior high. And I knew what was coming, because I've done this for so many years. And after we do this for a full year, we waved goodbye after spending, you know, 36 weeks, and then these seniors in high school giving and pouring into the lives of these little kids that they have on all these different schools, spend an hour every day doing it. And at the very last week, we're waving goodbye to him. And for the last time and all these kids are crying, oh, my seniors are crying, a little kids are driving away the bus are waving goodbye. And then we sit in our room at four hours after school and talk about that year. And I just wait for someone to realize it. And I just facilitate conversation until some kids as they have this realization how Yeah, they made a difference in a kid's life. But what really has improved exponentially more than that is the quality of their own lives, because all that they've given to that kid. And then I would say, Well, tell me what you gave to your kid. And they would talk about that. And I said, Well, that would tell me what that looks like in your life. And they go oh my god, I cannot but like I can
Mark 1:08:22
example.
Hal 1:08:24
appreciating whatever you have right now, because a kid isn't in charge of what they have right now. They can't A lot of times, they just don't have the power to change it right now. But it's hard to bring what we want them to understand that lesson. We want them to understand that to build the foundation for your life, whatever you have to appreciate, find a way to appreciate whatever you have right now. So you can bring more in, it's really hard to bring more stuff in your life. Whatever you want, if you don't appreciate, find something you can appreciate right now. Then appreciating the people around you and appreciating just the little things in life.
Mark 1:08:54
Well, so I'm trying to reconcile and conflicted because I think that there's a couple things in play there. Those kids didn't show up accidentally, I'm assuming, like the kids in the mentorship program, like how they get their
Hal 1:09:04
both their most my kids applied, okay, at the senior
Mark 1:09:07
level, okay. So they had something in them. We pre screened for people who could be
Hal 1:09:13
giving an interest. But first of all, let me tell you, it was the thing to do. So I would have five 600 applications. Okay. And I gotta get it down to 60 or 70. And I'll and here's the way I did it is I'm looking for heart, man. I'm looking for good people. I don't care what the grades are good athletes would do it. And then it hasn't risky picks, I pick a whole bunch of kids that I need to be in it. And then I pick a handful of kids that need to be in it. They need it.
Mark 1:09:44
When they pick it up from being led around by the group, the pack mentality shows him the way so I mean, there's a lot of chicken to the egg. Mm. I think it's a beautiful story. I don't take anything away from that. It's super powerful, and I'm just trying to you know, figure out this guy give what you have, because I've heard this, you know, that's how to be giving is give what you've got lots of if you've got it give it, if you don't have it, you shouldn't try to give it away. Because I, I do believe there is a problem trying to be and be like someone else, someone has lots of time to give, and you have no time to give and you tried giving away time it's an it's an endless repeating failure, it's Sisyphean, it's like you're rolling the raw rock up the hill and it keeps rolling you over, like I need to get more time I have no time. And so but I have money, I give money. And vice versa, like whatever you've got, if you've got patients get patients. And so I do think there's something to that formula. But I also at the same time understand what you're saying that if you don't think you've got it, admin, maybe this comes down to some things are universal. Because you could argue that love is some form of love is, it's all in all of us. I guess. And even as I say this, I mean, you know, people who are damaged, and they really have a very hard time being loving, and there's a fear. I don't even know I'm saying at this point, like, I just want to believe that you can do that. But I don't I don't see based on the life experience that it's so cookie cutter. I think part of this is understanding again, what do more of what works and do less of what doesn't. And I do think there is a prescriptive approach to sort of that kind of be giving be better be more this and I'm like, I don't think that's always worked for me.
Hal 1:11:24
I would agree. And in addition to that, as an educator, and what I'm doing with these are kids, by the way, human beings is worse than human beings, their kids. You know, I'm just playing the odds, what gives me the most odds of being successful? Yeah. And yeah, there's gonna be exceptions to that rule every time for sure. And I can find exceptions to it all for individual qualities of character. That didn't work for one kid but work great for another kid. But for me, and to putting it in perspective for for working with 17 year old children can their children like yeah, some of them have beards and they have tattoos and to use adult language adult experiences and have a very adult packaging on the outside? That's a child it's a 17 year old child. I mean, the frontal lobe still has another decade to go for the guys. Yeah, so based on that I'm working on mine Yeah, based on that. Like I I believe in what I'm selling to those kids and it because I believe is going to work at some point in your life anyway. And that is you know, you're going to become that what you give away most appreciating other people is going to make you more appreciative
Mark 1:12:42
Well yeah, I guess it's
Hal 1:12:45
well is gonna make you more confident it's Yeah, whatever you teach you become
Mark 1:12:48
a master of it. You don't learn until you teach me right you learn better at holding alone there's truth to that because what you realize actually right I see the see the mental tricky play on herself and and
Hal 1:12:59
yeah, man there's gonna be some kid is traumatize some kid has been molested, and some kids have mm beaten. And yeah, there's all kinds of thing in the past that is there's going to need a deeper therapy or something I don't know. But for the majority, I'm just trying to get as many wins as I can.
Mark 1:13:19
Well, yeah, so you realize you don't know, you don't realize you don't know something until you try to explain it to somebody. And that is, that's a very important part of this. And I do think people take simple, easy advice that they're not following themselves. And if you can put them in a position to actually learn it in depth, they might discover where they're stuck, or create a habit for they're not even looking well. Because I think there's a lot of truth to that statement, actually. So much of life is again back to this concept of like, it's it's the heading on the chapter. First be giving cool got it first be generous, you know, and be loving. Cool. I'll write that down. Do you know how to do that? Like, did anybody show you how to do that? Do you have any idea how to do that? Oh, yeah. We'll go teach somebody how to do it. Then you realize, Oh, that is okay. Wait a minute. Yeah, I thought, huh, how do how does one show generosity? What types? How many different ways? Can you be generous? Like, that's a question. Like, what what is generosity? Like, I think, I don't think people know the answer that question. Most of the time. They have one version of that. And if it's not the one that they can provide,
1:14:31
they're stuck.
Hal 1:14:33
It could be and you know, the other challenge or if it's not one of the ones that can provide, for example, dude, it's a double challenge for for my work with educators working with teachers. That is what does that look like? We can tell you what to do all the time. And I can inspire them to do it. But then but the some of might leave like, Alright, so what it like specifically, what do I do? Yeah, yeah, there's that and in addition to that, there is this human Need I tried to help educators overcome to see the results? I got to see that I got it to see that I see evidence that it works. And that's not the way it works with kids man like with this is this is thing this the result that we want, like every teacher signed up to make a difference in a kid's life. They want to be the one to get thanks about 30 years from now. Yeah, this is oh my gosh, I'll never forget Mr. Leary. He was amazing, man. Do you know what I really learned in that classroom? It's this, like, kids aren't going to have that realization now because their kids, but what we're doing is we're just planting enough seeds. And what I'm helping I'm trying I'm hoping that I can help teachers overcome is the need to see actual direct evidence right now. And just trust and have faith because we've all had the experience of some kid finding you a target. Oh, my God, Mr. Lee, I can't believe it. I'll never forget, I got in. Like what you remember, I never forget the date. And they go on with the details that you never imagined they would remember, you don't even remember. And they do. Like, oh my gosh, it actually worked. We forget that. Because in real time teaching is such an emotional thing. You know, you spend all this time and creative effort and emotional effort and intellectual effort to draw this stuff some knowledge into a kid's noggin. And then and then you make you know, for sure it was successful. And everybody learned it. And they have you realize, Oh, my God, knowing he knows I'm talking about right now after I spent 45 minutes, not to mention the two hours last night prepared. And so it's it's hard man. And so here's the way I look at it, is when I was growing up, we used to go to Florida a lot because my grandparents lived there. And my grandparents had some toys for us to play with. And one toy, nobody was gonna know what it is listening. Unless you're old like me, so I'm a half century a little more. And so this game was it was a camel is a plastic camel. And the camel had wheels on the feet. Between the two humps as a two humper was a hinge. And in a basket, hang a basket, both sides. And it came with little pieces a
1:17:05
little sticks cat Yeah,
Hal 1:17:06
so you put the camel on the table between you and your opponent has wheels on the feet hinge between the two house basket, their side, your side, you both have the pile of sticks. So you put the sticks and you take turns you put your stick in the basket I put my stake. And then and so as the weight the wheel wheels start to spread outwards away from the center, the hinge starts to open up and you're trying not to break the camel's back right now you have to think no way we played an outfit, we would start breaking apart the sticks, because you put the big ones in first the way this thing down. And then when it's your turn, you go you'd break you'd break break up a little piece of the stick less weight. And so it goes on and down. At the very end, we're down to little tiny splinters of a piece of steak. And it is the tiniest one that breaks the camel's back. And that is how I think about kids. Right now all I'm doing is putting the biggest and most amount of straw and sticks in this basket as I possibly can. Occasionally, that kid's gonna have a breakthrough. More times than not, not so much. But all I know, years from now, it's gonna be the tiniest thing that helps us get have a breakthrough in their life. But if it wasn't for me, piling up the basket for years for that kid, that would have never happened. I don't need to see it, I know it's gonna happen.
Mark 1:18:21
Well, that story combined with several things, we said, Really paint this picture of Don't try to change who you are, you're just going to confuse people. And you're going to leave the opportunity to make a long term impact on the table, to the extent that you are the same human being your entire life and the more you understand that you have a better shot and making a long term impact that is off your watch in somebody else's court or maybe on yours because you stay on your path. And it's that that absolute, I think, impact meaning so much of what I'm doing with a company and individual is helping them some find some connection for meaning. And meaning is largely timeless, always human and long term. And it's the patient's game. And I do think that it all comes back to that very beginning of the conversation to you know, pragmatic pragmatism of like, are your customers buying who you are, like, it doesn't matter like you are who you are and you and that and you I do think you need to be pragmatic about how it interfaces and how do you interact with your youth to have that conversation but it has to be predicated because you're dealing with kids, you're doing business you're doing your family, you're dealing with your culture that if some people I work with are on a three year exit plan and they're trying to monetize trying to get some money out of the business right now and sometimes that's people who are at the edge of their their retirement and their Render business. But most of the people I talked to are somewhere longer than that. And even if it isn't longer than that, they're like, I hoped my life would be worth something and I would make an impact. And it all comes back down to what is the impact you're trying to make, and it come from you authentically. And I promise you, it's a bad idea to borrow somebody else's version of that.
Hal 1:20:19
Every time. Man, I've seen that for years, you know, where somebody start out in my field education, and they get in the classroom, there's no way you can prepare, some might be a teacher, you can go to classes, all you want a vegan student, but until you're teaching your kids student teaching doesn't even count. It's it's not really your kids. And they know it's temporary. You know, it's temporary. It's just weird. But until you so the challenge is that we have the same expectations of a first day teacher, as we do have a 30 year veteran, same exact expectations. And the first a teacher has they have no idea, no idea how to deliver the content effectively. They've never done it before, how to manage the classroom, how to get kids to buy in, just give them a sit down, let alone I mean, everything they have not had a turn out of turning grades how to take attendance and never done any of this before, man, it's overwhelming. And we don't have any really great mentoring programs in place at all. And
Mark 1:21:23
who should be an apprenticeship, right? You
Hal 1:21:24
should have Oh, my dude, I have lots of thoughts on that. Anyway. So So the challenge is all they knows they're struggling. They're flailing around in the water in the deep end, and they're about to go under. And they hear some teacher across the hall, shut up and sit down. And they look at their kids and they go shut up and sit down. And that's now their technique. Yeah. And that could have happened in by third period. No to me. Yeah. And 30 years later, shut off. It's still doing it, man. You're right. It's because you know, they're just trying to be some and so that's the hardest part for me. Not for every teacher but for some of them is for them to let go of all that silliness, all that nonsense of the dictatorship approach in the classroom, and just be who you've always wanted to be when you were in a third grade making your friends sit before you because you're holding class because you're gonna you're gonna play classroom and I'm the teacher today. Who you then like, how much did you love those, you know?
Mark 1:22:28
So it's, it's heartbreaking, right? Because this is a place where meaning is evident itself. You can right there look the kid right in the eye. In business in an industry, I get it back it was a job like and you know, you're making bolts, or glue or whatever. And through the centuries work was work in factories and in in Houston, like, you know, where, you know, so we look at West Coast companies, and it's all about fun and, and fulfillment like Well, that's a nice to have, you know, but down here in Houston, we work, you know, there's oil and bolts and
Hal 1:23:02
beanbags and ping pong tables,
Mark 1:23:03
yeah, you know, there's trucks and dirt. And I work with a lot of companies that that's, that's their world. And so it's a little bit slower to transform to the belief, the plausible belief that these people can actually find meaning in their work. And then might be human meaning that's been common against all with all throughout all humanity through all, all time that we want to have a lot of the same values in our work that we do in our family life, we want to be good leaders, we want to make set good examples for our kids, we want to make an impact. And so what you're saying of all that legacy, like this is how we learned it, that's where it is everywhere, like it worked in the past, because that was the level of excellence like not very high, like nobody had a great way. And that was the standard. So all you had to do was 1% better. But now, every year, there's somebody else across the street a little more competitive a little bit better. And you know what their people like working over there. And the leaders are really like making an impact. And I'm working with companies who do sell bolts and make wrenches and they and they care about people and they're doing it a better way. And it's very fulfilling for them. And now they can be seen. And now they can get the competition that is more threatened by a company who can do the same thing they can but with more passion. So why is that? Why is teaching so far behind? It seems like maybe I'm making an assumption here, but it sounds like teachers are worse.
Hal 1:24:24
I would say Yeah. It's a really hard job. 50% of teachers will watch out in the first five years 50% don't make it five. It's really, really hard. And I really believe it's that those formative years upfront, that matter most we're failing our teachers. Now listen, we lose a lot of people. I don't care. Thank goodness, they're gone. For sure.
Mark 1:24:48
That works right. So I know that
1:24:49
for everybody. So
Mark 1:24:50
that's unfortunate reality when you know it's not you It's me, it doesn't matter to you pragmatically, more of what works less of what doesn't and if it doesn't work, get them out. I'd like to save them all. I like have prevented it. But like that's not real.
Hal 1:25:02
But they're not teachers. You know, I had a friend of mine asked me to go to a school, and he had a few teachers that were struggling. And I told him Yeah, man, I'll spend the day It's on me. I'll go watch him teach two hours each. And I'll say, I'll see you at the end of the day. And I was back in his office inside of an hour went watched all three came back. They're not teachers. They're just not that you can't fix that. They're not teachers in their heart. That's not who they are. They're going to be great. That one is going to be great at some perfume in the Galleria, I guarantee she's going to kill it there. You've got your solid insurance agent. She's gonna be amazing. No one's gonna saw a ton of real estate. Let's go get them out, man. Yeah, you know, it's not dragged us on. And that's the fact they're just not teachers, I can tell they don't love the kids. Here's the thing, man. If I walk into a teat, I'm not sure you can be a bad teacher, and you'll love the kids. I don't know if I've ever seen it. I think just because you love them. You're so passionate about the work that alone, you're gonna be okay, you're gonna be fine, then we're gonna make it great. I'm not sure I can make a bad teacher great. I'm not I don't know, if I can make him really good. I can bring him to acceptable. I don't think I want that for my kids in a classroom, though.
Mark 1:26:07
Well, I couldn't, I I would no way to challenge that. So what I do, I do three things. I teach content, I teach tools, I gotta learn tools, like that can be beat into me to some extent for sure. Then I facilitate conversation among leadership team members who are pre programmed to not communicate. And so I that's me, like, I can learn techniques. But there's a very deep passion in me that is, I can pull more out of them, I can find it, I can use my own sensitivity, my own fears, my own feelings, that allows me to connect with people. And that is not something you get out of the book. And coaching is part of that, too. Coaching is really about reflecting back to people, things that cannot see for themselves. Which there again, I don't think I mean, I there's techniques, but I I don't think you can beat that into somebody,
Hal 1:26:56
like just the heart and the intuition, the emotion and the ability to connect that think you have it or you don't man,
Mark 1:27:04
or you have the seed that can grow and be nurtured in the absence of the seed. Because I do think it's a journey. Yeah, I do think that like, like, I can kind of get it. But like, I'm different. Like, like the people I worked with three years ago, they'll tell you like, I'm different. And so and they told me that like you're doing what you were meant to do. This is your life, you're doing the right thing. And they tell me now like, wow, it's different now. So I do the journeys real.
Hal 1:27:33
You know, that's it for educators to like, if they're meant to do this work if they're, it's it's their life's journey, and they found it. Oh, my gosh, Matthew, it's so obvious to see. I think the challenge is we don't we don't support them enough. Here's what happens traditionally in education is somebody comes into the business. And this is what happens. And then we have a couple of weeks before the kids come we're doing back to school staff development, professional development things, we're getting our rooms ready, all that. And we meet in the auditorium or in the cafetorium. What do we have a library for a couple hours every day and we remind Hey, look, Michelle is a first year teachers give it up for Michelle Yay. And we help her decorate a room and we bring her snacks. Here's a cupcake, Michelle, because we want her to gain weight. So she'd be like the rest of us. And so we get her excited. And and you know what, and then the kids come and reality sets in, and everybody forgets about Michelle. And here's what happens when Michelle Michelle now closes her door, because she's embarrassed that her kids are louder than everybody else's. And she's sure not sure what to do. And then she would want people peeking in. So she'll go get some construction paper and she'll cut out the exact dimension of that skinny window with the chicken wire in it that's on the door. Don't take that on there. So people can't see it because she doesn't want people to know. And the challenge is man, like if you're if you're in sales, and you want to be a better salesperson and your commission only, you're gonna go find the best salespeople on the Hangout. Let's go to lunch man. Like, yeah, cuz I really want to make a mission like you, man, I want to sell more air conditioners and everybody else I want to be like you. But in teaching, it's very different. Because we know this is my theory, by the way. Michelle knows that she's failing those kids. It's the only thing she's ever wanted to do. And the emotional pain is so bad. It's it's almost better to hide and not tell anybody. But ask for help and ask for help. In addition to that, Michelle is so overwhelmed. She doesn't even know what to ask. Yeah, she doesn't even she doesn't have the language yet. The vocabulary to even how to describe what's happening is also it's it's all of it. Well, Michelle, where do you need help everywhere? Even I can't get my kid over the door. You know, like she she's so overweight. And so that's why I tell teachers, when you have the first year teacher on your hall, don't say Hey, are you okay? Because you always gonna say yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Everything's good. It's great. Yeah. Need help. No, no, no, no, no, no, I got it covered. You just step in there and you can see the problem and you start to help Hey Michelle, listen, you see those two boys right there? You really got to split them up. But more on the front row, right corner, one on the back row left corner. That's today's tip. Yeah. And then come back tomorrow. Hey, listen, you really got to put the objective on the board right below the date you want to look at it dude, you're gonna find every it's a system, you have consistent things you're going to do every day, they need some consistency must go in there and frickin help. Don't ask her what she needs help with, just even know how to answer it. And, but what we do is we set the teacher up with a mentor is gonna they're gonna have lunch together once every couple of weeks. They need so much more than that. It's a daily commitment. They need a class like instructional strategy mentor. They need a professional professional development mentor. They need a personal somebody, they can go and cry, because they're embarrassed because the principal came to walk through a class and everyone's crazy. You know, she needs so much help on so different many different levels. A time management mentor, somebody tell her to go home at 430?
Mark 1:31:03
Yeah, yeah. How much money are you? Should you spend on your own? Yeah. On your own supplies? Right? This is
Hal 1:31:10
Yeah. Wow. She, she needs it for years. At least three, preferably five. And at year three, she needs to start helping another teacher because she can identify with a first year teacher more than anybody else.
Mark 1:31:24
Well, this Okay, so this is gonna sound so out of them. In my world, there's there are things designed for this exact problem. In fact, Gina Whitman was talking just yesterday, days, travel a lot about how EOS was started. And the lightning bolt moment for him was creating the idea of he had been assembling tools for a long time. And he's no, no, it's, it's a system. It's an operating system. And no one had ever thought of that term, the entrepreneurial operating system, a system of tools to communicate and get clear and do all the things that no one had a system for before. And he brought it all together, he brought three critical disciplines together, the tools that people were using to create vision in their business, he had been studying them using them for a while. And then there was an another set of tools from a different guy, in fact, that had a lot of the things for creating accountability, which was different. It's a different set of tools to create accountability than it is to create vision. And then there was another set of tools for creating healthy teams. And so he put all this together and became this operating system. And that's, that's like, that's what I do I help people implement the entrepreneurial operating system. And I take it for granted. To some extent. Yeah, sorta, I mean, I do see how it changes people's lives. And people haven't seen that as much as you would think you would think that this has been around for a long time. But it's it has been 10 years ish. And it is life changing for those exact reasons it is about I don't know where to put the date. You know, I don't know what. And so like, well, what if it's not? Like the magic is not that like, but you can't work the magic until you figure that out? Does that make sense? Yes. Like the magic is the human being the magic is the gift. The magic is the passion, but it's locked inside to them. Trying to separate those kids is locked inside and trying to find the key. And why don't teachers have the teacher operating system? Why don't they have a set of tools to teach them how to do that stuff? Why don't you do that?
Hal 1:33:36
Listen, man, I can do so much asking a lot of me now. Here's, you know, you know what it is? I think, man, it's so hard to explain. I think when you have a roomful 3233 34 different personalities, completely different. couple kids don't speak English, some really severe emotional, you know, challenged kids really emotional challenges we have just learning disabilities, kids that can read kids that can't read, you know, I mean, kids with so many influences coming in through social media, I'm talking elementary kids to now they got cell phones, too, you know, and it is, it's so overwhelming for an educator to find time and bandwidth to seek out those that information, let alone apply it. Well, that's right. And it goes the other challenge
Mark 1:34:35
will see that you should do it, you should put it in one place and whittle it down to the essentials, the stuff they all all need.
Hal 1:34:41
And so here's other challenges. This is helping them understand that everything I'm going to tell you is just like we're talking before, it gives you the best opportunity for a win. It's not going to work every time. That's hard to get across, especially to the personality of an educator who's so used to being 100% successful that's why they became a teacher most often. They're awesome at school. They Loved it. That's the other challenge we haven't even talked about. They became a teacher because they loved school and they were really good at it. And they show up in the classroom, they go to people sitting in the front row, just like her. The other 33 you want to be they want to be outside. Yeah, climate tree and breaking a rock. And this is what are we doing here? This is so stupid. They got to just like them engaged? Raise your hands. Yes, please. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. The rest of them are like, Oh, my God, can we go up? You know? It's so it's really hard. And so it's you know what it is, man. It's I mean, there's so many challenges funny to talk about. It's trying to connect with the reality of a normal kid. A normal kid doesn't want to be in that room. A normal kid think this is stupid. What are we doing here? That's a normal kid. Yeah. And so all just so many challenges. So here, why am I in my workshop? I give out tons of tools. I give out tons of strategies. And you see you saw like a first I think I did a couple hours in front of you out of the six. I think it did two with that. That's cool. I don't tell anybody what to do. I don't say here's step one. Here's step two, step three. Yeah. Because why? Because? Well, I'll tell you, because they're going to try it. And maybe maybe First of all, most teachers are going to think, well, he doesn't have he doesn't have genre in his class. I'll tell you that right now. Because that would never work with genre. So because in their mind, they're thinking that would never work with genre. Maybe from them, it wouldn't maybe for me, it would maybe vice versa. That discounts every other kid in the class. Yeah. And in addition to that, let's say they do try it. And it doesn't work. That discounts everything else I talked about that day. That guy's an idiot. I tried that one thing didn't work. Now nothing works in their mind. If they do try whatever I'd say would step one, step two, step three, they do start step one, oh my god, it did work. That was amazing. Step two, and step three work to make it work today for that kid, and they go to work tomorrow with that same hit because it's different. Yeah, so
Mark 1:36:56
so I get you. So here's, here's what Gino did with that problem. He didn't release the tools until he had done it many times himself. So he boldly went to his friends and peers and entrepreneurial people saying, like, I got a set of tools. And it's gonna rock your world. And let's do this. And they trusted him to implement it. And luckily, it worked. And he blew the doors off. And years later, they still with lots of repetitions. We're like on the precipice of trying to figure out well, is this only something that Gino can implement these tools seem to be giving people their freedom in their world, getting them exactly what they want in their business, and it's blowing minds. It's probably just you know, right, it's not the tools. So then they had to iterate the model and get somebody else in the mix. It was a different personality. And that was Don tinian. And so Don started implementing this, and oh, my gosh, exact same results, different people. And then that worked forward to the point where they ultimately had a decision to make, which was we've have we taken these tools down. With enough reps, we know what people won't break, we know what makes the biggest impact we know to how to teach them how to use it and get good positive impact. And we're gonna find more people who can help people do this was a tandem approach of like, release the tools, here's they are use them. And if you have good luck with them, great. And if you don't let it let us know what will help you. But that's that was a 15 year journey to today where there's almost 1000 companies running on the entrepreneurial operating system. And so that I said, tell that story, because it is built around that problem. It's built to work in all those situations. It's built and packaged in a way that like there must be some belief, don't try it if you don't believe it. But there's 1000s and 1000s of reps of this is this is what works. This is how to solve the problems that you actually have in your world. But maybe it starts with you, you trying to teach people how to do that.
Hal 1:38:45
You know, man, I think also we're talking about a specific conversation is about a very young, inexperienced first year teacher. I think that's a very different world than a teacher. Could be Listen, I know a lot of 10 time first year teachers. Well, they've they've done their first year 10 times in a row. Yeah, well,
Mark 1:39:07
that happens. It absolutely happens. The business world too. Yeah.
Hal 1:39:10
And with but here it is, man. It's a very different world with an experienced teacher. And that is this. You know what I have found the tools almost don't matter when there's an experienced teacher. And they're and they're already good. If we can get them really clear on what they want for their kids as a result of those kids spend their lives with them. Like you have to remember these teachers have the most influential adult in the kid's life. Most times. Most kids do not have a childhood that looks like two parents. Both of them engaged, run them around a soccer practice getting them a tutor going to piano lessons. That's not the normal childhood. The normal child has, you know, a single parent or no parent that's more than 50%. Now, rather than a two parent home, the most childhood, the kid doesn't have support. There's too much parents are distracted with social media. They're going to work all that's going on that one adult and consistently in it. kid's life. Most likely teacher, the teacher, they spend exponentially more time in direct interaction with a kid, the research has proven that the parent the teacher does. So if we have if we're really clear on what we want for our kids, we're the most important adult and that kids, you have to assume that first of all, you can't think you can't first you can't pick and choose, oh, this kid has two parents. I know. They're awesome. This kid has a youth minister who's amazing. I know that kids on baseball, that you can't do that, because you're gonna miss them. Because kids will forever be a better actor than you are a teacher. And they're gonna pretend that everything's great at home. And then what you're gonna find out that house with a beautiful home and a picket fence, and they have drove an alley and there's a labral snoodle that'll run them back and forth. Whatever designer, you don't know what really goes on in that house. It alright time for sure. horrific. But the kid knows how to play the part they've been taught. And deciding what you really want for that kid, as a result of the nine months that kid is in your classroom is critical. Then getting clear about why why these kids why this school?
Mark 1:41:04
So I his career, I get them. Yeah, who do I need to be? Who do you need? Yeah. And then you don't get to earn the right to ask that question. If you're trying to figure out where the key goes. And if you don't know
Hal 1:41:15
what, right, that's what I'm saying. I mean, this isn't for an experienced teacher. If we get the what the why, and the who I need to be in place. The how kind of happens. It's almost as if
Mark 1:41:27
it's, I hear you, I'm convinced that we're just that we're weeding out great teachers with stupid obstacles make no sense. Yeah. I think that onboarding process, the tool set that I would recommend and implore you to build or find or I don't know, maybe it's named builders Make sense? Maybe there somebody's got it. Maybe you could, because you got the voice, right. Maybe you could get it out there. How do you get that on ramp to be less harsh towards those people who actually have the gift? Give them a shot, and make it thriving and thriving faster? Because I'll bet I promise you, there are people who are selling real estate badly. Yeah. Because they should be good, great teachers, and they made the choice sooner to sell real estate for the same reason, the exact opposite scenario you described earlier, their share teachers guarantee the opposite thing.
Hal 1:42:12
Yeah, man, there's so many variables, you know, what is the you know, like, for me to come up with a program? Let's say I did, I built an EOS thing for schools, I'd have to have a principal that buys in to support that teacher, you know, it's it. I mean, yeah, we have to take it, it really almost can't be in the hands of the first or teacher there to overwhelm.
Mark 1:42:32
Know, the pitch case there is like, wouldn't you like to be able to take a bunch of green teachers and keep them around? Wouldn't it be nice if they weren't getting eaten by their kids? If you could, if you could do that, and you could be a principal who could actually thrive with out a bunch of gifted teachers? How valuable to that principle? Would that be?
Hal 1:42:50
Right? Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Mark 1:42:55
It's settled. Man, I know you got to get out of here.
Hal 1:43:02
Okay, the world brother. With you? Yeah,
Mark 1:43:04
for sure. So man, I gotta say that, before we started this conversation, like visionary entrepreneurs, visionary leaders. People like me, have highs and lows. Right? So some of you get excited, like we're going in it and some days just like it's not that great. Yeah. Before we started this, I was having kind of one of those down days. That man we're gonna see what happens on this podcast like is it is like Mr. Negative, you're gonna like show up. And as soon as we started recording, it was it was lights on wonderful. You were a gift. I love our conversation. I was so plugged in. I'm really appreciative of all you've shared and what we talked about today, I would do this all day. I know. I get a piece of bad but you know what?
Hal 1:43:44
conversations worth holding?
Mark 1:43:46
Well, good, man. So how do people get ahold of you? If they want to find you?
Hal 1:43:50
Hey, man, go to how bowman.com HLBOW ma n on all the social media platforms? It's at how bohman Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all that stuff? And YouTube Pinterest. And I don't do that. What do you what do you guys do in the business world with LinkedIn? Yeah, don't do that. And my huge following is over on Facebook. We're about lost 60,000 or so followers album and on Facebook, and we can talk schools teachers, and and you know what, man, there's so much. We I call it edupreneurs Ariel, but there's so much in alignment between entrepreneurs and educators, the teachers kind of teachers I love that didn't really creative stuff, getting out kicking a box out down the street and getting out of it. And, you know, I love these conversations and do you know, I haven't read those books, but I read even he gave me one of them, you know, but I do. Um, you know, a lot of the ideas I find really come from the business perspective and entrepreneur perspective. That's really what it is. Yeah, yeah. It's
Mark 1:44:46
an entrepreneurial world now, which to me is putting people in charge of their own destiny. It's grabbing it together with what you got, which is so ironic when you think of more civilized now it isn't. It's more like no, you're more on your own than you'd ever been before and more effective. And people who realize that remake great lives for themselves. Yeah.
Hal 1:45:04
Thanks, brother. Appreciate thank you so much