Shannon Waller is a passionate expert on entrepreneurial teams. With Strategic Coach® since 1991, she’s the creator of The Entrepreneurial Team® Program, a parallel program for team members of Coach clients that focuses on fostering a winning Entrepreneurial Attitude in its participants. A key decision-maker at Strategic Coach and a recognized entrepreneurial team expert, Shannon is a sought-after speaker, presenter, and coach. She’s a Kolbe Certified* Consultant, and the 2015 recipient of the Kolbe Professional Award for individual leadership in building conative excellence. She also co-authored the bestselling book, "Unique Ability® 2.0: Discovery", is the author of "The Team Success Handbook", and most recently, wrote "Multiplication By Subtraction".
Nothing burns out an entrepreneur faster than trying to do everything and trying to be the best at everything. In today's podcast, my friend Shannon Waller enlightens us all on the concept of "Who, not How". You are the most valuable person in your company and as such, you need to find your unique ability and surround yourself with people who will support you. This is more than just about delegation - it's finding the best people to take care of the things that you're not good at so you can focus on the one or two things that you were put on this planet to do.
3:54 - The concept of "Who, not How"
9:26 - What exactly is an entrepreneurial team
15:35 - If it works, do more of it. And if it doesn't work, do less of it.
21:28 - Your eyes only see, your ears only hear what your brain is looking for
23:13 - Do we see team members as investments or costs?
28:32 - Each stage of the investments you make should give you leverage for your next step
36: 22 - The difference between "Who, not How?"
40:27 - When does it become necessary to find a Who?
50:54 - The world does not teach you to be unique. The world teaches you to be competent at everything and really good at a couple of things.
59:05 - Focus on those one or two things that you were put in this planet to do
1:05:48 - When we get drained by the things that we're not good at, we also lose all fuel sources for things we are really good at
1:13:55 - You are the most valuable person in your company.
1:20:01 - People's unique ability doesn't change. They just narrow down, fine-tune and hone it.
1:29:17 - Command and control leadership is out - we now live in a talent-driven community
1:35:30 - Shannon's passionate plea to entrepreneurs right now
"Get to know yourself and know what you're good at. This will help you figure out who you need to surround yourself with."
GET IN TOUCH:
MARK LEARY:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
SHANNON WALLER:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonwaller/
https://texasinjectionmolding.com/
https://yourteamsuccess.com/
Production credit:
Engineering / Post-Production: Jim McCarthy
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
You're Doing It Wrong - Shannon Waller
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
entrepreneurs, hire, good, great, coach, unique, ability, people, create, point, put, problem, mindset, books, thinking, talk, bigger, contribution, strategic coach, feel
SPEAKERS
Shannon, Mark
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson, Leary and my name is Mark, I have a passion, you should feel in control of your life. And so what I do is I help you get control of your business. And part of how I do that is by letting you listen in on a conversation between two people who have a passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world, talking about a subject you probably already know something about. But this time we're digging down getting into the details, and really unlocking those questions and answers that kind of had you stuck in the past. So you can break through the ceiling and really get access to a better business and ultimately, that better life. And so before we dive in real quick, I just want to remind everybody, please do subscribe, leave feedback, leave comments, any feedback you can give us positive or negative is so wonderful to get that. That that correction, validation feedback, it's wonderful. And we're grateful for all of that. So without further ado, my guest today is just a perfect subject for what I just said in terms of the passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world. Shannon Waller has been with Strategic Coach, a phenomenal organization has been with them for since 1991. And she is a thought leader in this world and certainly creator of the entrepreneurial team program, the author of multiple books, including co authoring unique ability 2.0, which is a book that everybody I've ever talked to who's used it has attributed tremendous improvement and tremendous value from going through the exercise of that is the author of the team success handbook. And most recently wrote multiplication by subtraction. So welcome, my esteemed and wonderful and fun guest Shannon Waller. How are you? I'm awesome. Thank you, Mike. I love that introduction. And I'm really excited about this conversation. We both want to be a hero to the same audience. And so I'm jazzed to be talking with you. So what have you been up to? And I know the answer to the question. So that is normally as unscripted. But I know what you've been up to. And I want to hear all about it.
Shannon 02:04
Oh, my goodness. Well, I go tripping up to a lot of things. We've been up to doing everything virtual just as we are right now. Which has been really exciting. But probably the biggest news in our world right now is we have a mass market market book published, which is called who not how. And that's written by Benjamin Hardy, obviously in collaboration with Dan Sullivan. And that's been a big flippin deal. So we're pretty, we're pretty jazzed about that. And it's, it's great because it actually encapsulate or captures a really key concept in Strategic Coach, which does, it's really How do you stay focused on your unique ability? Do you get trapped in the how of doing things that you don't want to do? Especially when you have a bigger, better goal? Or do you find a who for it, and when you find the whose you're actually freed up to do what you're best at and most loved to do? So that's kind of, that's what we've been up to.
Mark 02:57
That's what I'm really gonna dig into. I mean, we'll talk about a lot of different things, I'm sure. But this concept of who not how I heard Dan speak about this subject, a year ago, maybe, I mean, he was at the EOS collaborative exchange for it for all of it for all the implementers. And so, this this concept of who not how to really kind of it was we planted a seed about what does that exactly mean? And I've looked at it a lot with my teams. And as it turns out, it's a pretty profound concept that, that really changes certainly, for me changed how I viewed decisions, frustrations, and stuck spots in terms of in terms of growing the company, feeling free feeling like we're getting the quality we needed. And I've really been trying to get that across to my clients who are also feeling stuck. So what does it mean? What's the sort of summary on who not how,
Shannon 03:54
so who, not how, and I, first of all, need to give a shout out to Dan Sullivan on his podcast with Dean Jackson. So Dean Jackson is actually the one who coined the term. And this was on their podcast, which was then called the joy of procrastination, which pletely paradoxical is now called Cloud Landy Oh, by the way, because Dean is this incredible thinker, marketing guru, and he sort of but it was so they were on the on the procrastination podcast, as I want to tell you the origin story behind this. And he said, You know, one of the main reasons why procrastinate is I was thinking about today's podcast, is that is, you know what, I have this thing that I want to accomplish, I don't think about, you know, what I normally do is I think about how do I do it? And then I immediately hit a wall. I get stuck. He said, and he figured out instead, if I figure out who knows the how, who can I work with, then all of a sudden I'm unstuck and then I'm making progress towards my goal. Dan goes, Oh, who not how. And that's really where this whole thing came from. It's kinda like an accident. Yeah, it's one of those, you know, chocolate in the peanut butter.
05:05
Yeah,
Shannon 05:06
this is really good. So yeah, the who not how idea just is exactly that is, you know, and entrepreneurs, by definition are aspirational. You're not going to need this concept if you don't want to grow. Okay, so it's only four aspirational, ambitious people begin, what
Mark 05:22
is that concept? Yeah. Because I think there are, I think it's worth the call that decision out, I want to grow. Because I think it helps people make sense of, why should I bother with x? Why should I do this exercise? Why should I be in this program? Why should I meditate? Why should I whatever. And it came to me with in a conversation with a guy who teaches meditation and self awareness and incident, the power of observation is the required ingredient for this. And I was like, Well, wait a minute, it's not necessarily. So our lives are governed by habits and repetitive patterns. And we're starting to get access to that data. You know, we know between James clear, and BJ Fogg and Charles duhigg, we got a lot of data on what habits are about and it's most of our lives are habitual. So here's the question is, are we getting what we want. And if we're getting what we want, the habits are doing the work, don't think don't try, it's automatic at this stage. If you're want something more, or it's something different, then you only have one required obligation. And that is to observe and figure out if there's something that's working in this knot and start to do this work. And so the whole question starts with, am I am I getting everything I want. And so then probably you don't need to change and don't even think about it, because it's going to be a lot of work to change. If you have decided that you want to grow dude, be different, get more out of your life contribute more than you have this whole set of Yes, that's, that's why you're doing these things that not everybody else is doing. If someone else is saying that stupid, that might be because they don't have the filter of mindset that they want more. Okay, back to what you're saying.
Shannon 07:11
100%. And I think that's something to appreciate. Because entrepreneurs get very, very, very frustrated, like really frustrated, because certain
Mark 07:20
things aren't moving fast enough, because they get a visionary entrepreneurs in particular.
Shannon 07:25
Yes, which we know both know, lots and lots. Yes, which is who we love, also. And that's why it's so fun, cuz we both want to be a hero to the same person, our same same type of person, but so yet people whose goal is to have things be steady and complacent and the same. First of all, it's not your audience, nor is it mine. But there's a there's a cost to that you can get frustrated. And, you know, just again, as I said, impatient, and all the things that go along with that, as someone who's often impatient, very familiar with that. And so, so we have these things that we want to accomplish. We're ambitious, we're aspirational. And if you know, one of the things just to talk to what you just mentioned, Mark, is that we are observing, and we're like, oh, but if it stays the same, I'm gonna get bored. One of the expressions I've always used a coach is a board entrepreneur is a very dangerous creature. We know, firefighters, yeah, they go from being firefighters to arsonists. not such a good thing, way better to be motivated and excited by a bigger a bigger goal. But when you get we have that bigger goal of our pictures, like imagine a head and then to the right, imagine a star, right? That's the bigger better goal. But as soon as you invent, you know, vision, okay, how and so many entrepreneurs are rugged individuals, right? They're used to doing it themselves, you know, brute force method, hard work, slogging, that's what they're, you know, accustomed to, or mentally at least. But that's why Dean's, you know, description is so amazing is because that's very de energizing that process. But when you think of who you're like, oh, someone else has already figured this out. I don't have to go through that steep learning curve. I need to find someone else who actually, it's their passion. If I knew it already, I'd be doing it. Right. So I need to find someone else who already has put in the time and effort and has the capability and the expertise. That's very energizing. And that's really where team building comes in. So I'm I'm passionate about entrepreneurship. This is this is my contribution to the entrepreneurial world, or at least one of them. And, you know, this was an entrepreneur team.
Mark 09:26
So yeah, wasn't
Shannon 09:29
define it in one sentence. That's, its
Mark 09:31
actual, you got two words, you know, take a couple sentences. You really because there's two words that have a lot of meaning, but I think they change when you put the two words together.
Shannon 09:40
Excellent. You're completely right. So there's a standard definition of team I mean, most of us work in teamwork in our families, through school in in, you know, regular business corporations, bureaucracies. People are very familiar with teamwork, that level of teamwork. I am, I am not that interested in. People are doing what they're good at, and they're competent. At I'm looking for something much higher. For me on trail, teamwork is incredibly results driven. It's not status driven, it's about contribution, not status. It's about
Mark 10:10
Patrick lencioni, there was, you know, the results, part of the pyramid, you know, it's about the great results are the greater good, not the selfish results. So that's the big difference in his definition.
Shannon 10:19
Well, and I would, I would totally agree, and I'm a huge fan, I read everything. But Patrick lencioni, I love him. Because he's just really captures things in a powerful way. And and you know, one of Dan's laws of lifetime growth is to always make your contribution bigger than your status. Yet, in most corporations, they're set up for personal status, not for that bigger things that you know, the bigger result that we're all created together. And there's some other thinkers I could bring into tribal leadership, large corporations
Mark 10:48
tend to have a fear based culture because you're more likely to suffer negative consequences than a positive reward for a contribution. So that's why that's the case, you're just playing defense, you're like, you got to make sure you're, you're strong enough reputation wise, very pragmatically, as opposed to trusting that the strong company will take care of the strong contributors.
Shannon 11:10
Mm hmm. And that's really where successful apparel companies with longevity come in. Because they have a no defense, you know, we call it no defense budget, a coach, that's one of our core values is that people can play offense, they don't have to worry about playing defense. And so one is entrepreneur is much more results driven, much more you know, about all for one kind of deal. It's much faster. It's in it really the teamwork is focused on people doing their unique and excellent abilities, not their excellent competent or incompetent abilities. So that's another another distinction we make in terms of in terms of how larger corporations and smaller ones work. And when I say smaller, they're not all small. But there's a mindset that's incredibly different. So entrepreneurial teams, to my mind work at a much higher, much faster level, they get results in a different way. And they look a little mysterious to people who are used to climbing the ladder. Because it's much more collaborative, it's far less structure. I have lists of things that differentiate them. But not every team is one that is, you know, in it, to win it to use that phrase, and not so ego driven and not so fear based, much more abundance, minded and moves fast, which is one of my favorite things about them. So yeah, thanks for thanks for having me drill down on that I haven't had to define that as tightly for a while. Well, I
Mark 12:29
think it's one of those things that you probably can get, you know, you know what it is, and the people who are learning it, have it. But you can just it's two words, you get to hear it. And I don't know what that means we move on. So it's very important to understand, as a listener, that, you know, there are flavors to the teams, I have a team to help the team and it's just an entrepreneurial company. And do I have entrepreneurial teams, and I haven't been somebody who's sat in on many different Stipe types of teams, I'm sure you have as well. It's a spectrum of collaboration. And speed is very wide. And so it's not to say that a company that's or team that's not as fast is a bad team just needs to be aligned with what the organization can do wants to do, and the culture of the organization, work with us very, very fast thinking. It's very hard to sort of manufacture that I think when you say like, you want to become a fast team, and everybody's contributing, everybody's talking over each other in a way that everybody can still somehow understand what they're saying, like, you know what I'm talking about, like, everybody's sort of talking. And somehow everybody gets it. Like, I don't know how to recreate that. I just know that I can circle like, that's awesome. When you can do that don't break that. That's really powerful. Right?
Shannon 13:41
Well, and by the way, there are some very bureaucratic entrepreneurs out there. Right? So they're very much like, my way very top down, you know, that's not also what so there's a mindset on the behalf of the entrepreneur. There's also a mindset that's needed in terms of the team member. And sometimes when someone just makes the shift from a more structured environment into an entrepreneurial one, they're like, this is weird. You know, the language of business is the same. We all got cash flow clients, you name it, but the way it functions the way it operates, and there's much more autonomy much more room for contribution, moreover, failure often as well. So
Mark 14:16
you stepped over that is not a joke, right? It's how many entrepreneurs say like, you need to feel, you know, feel comfortable failing. When the failure comes, it's war. It's like, Okay, I'm not I heard what you said, how you treat me when?
Shannon 14:34
Yeah, you're like, you got to walk your talk on that one. Well, and so I have a whole entrepreneur attitude exercise I created because I was trying to coach people who had come had that other mindset, the more what they were used to what they were trained in, working for entrepreneurs and going What the heck just happened. I just, I just entered the Twilight Zone and and no, alternate universe. And so when I kind of explain people to each other, they're like, oh, Now I get it. And then some people really, you know, thrive in this environment and other people don't. And they need to go work for a more structured type of organization, which is great. I'm very happy to exist. It's just No, it's not for me, but we're exactly where we're supposed to be.
Mark 15:14
So we're kind of painting this picture of, you know, bureaucracy and entrepreneurial, zeal kind of, it's a qualitative difference and for you, and to some extent, for me, it is I want that that fast pace, but the way that I, in my session room I, with my clients, like I got all these tools, but I only have one rule. And here's the rule. If it works, do more of it. And if it doesn't work, do less of it. And so not that rule. We really had, it's like, if there's a bureaucratic feel, you know, tell me why that's bad. If you've got an answer, let's fix that. If there's no answer, if it's working, if we've got a culture that's aligned to that we're really are making our best contribution. And this is how we're comfortable in all the best ways. Like, that's your way. And that's how we're going to bring people in the organization, you want that who can thrive in that it can help you meet your mission. And we're going to tell people who want to be in a different space at a different speed, that that's not the place for them. And that leads to happiness for everyone.
Shannon 16:17
It totally does. And that's what we want. We want people to be in the right place. And in it, it's interesting, because I'm all for systems. I really, I like systems that work. I don't want people having to walk in being a hero every day, Dan, and I did a fun podcast on this, you don't want someone at the electric company having to be a hero. Something really Bad's happen, if that's the case. So there's a lot of things in a business that need to run. But, you know, back to who not how this is about how do we make things better? You know, how do we do certain things you want to run smoothly. And that should give you a platform to innovate, because if we're not innovating at some point, we will fall behind the marketplace will proceed past us. And so freeing yourself self up to be able to innovate, and then putting the new team around you that will help you know make sure this new idea is walking and talking before you give it back to your systems people because they're only they're only wanting to they're only want to function with the ideas that are tested. Thank you very much. They have enough on their plate already. Who not how it really sets you up to, to make sure that you are not exhausting yourself, but also reaching out and finding the incredible talent that our world has much more easily available to us than even 20 years ago, you know, with our 8 billion people that are now digitally connected, you know, it's way easier? Well, there's a lot more talent, not always easier to get to out there. But how are you? Are you tapping into all the amazing who is that are out there, all of a sudden, when when when you think about all the time, you're like, Oh, my goals are far more possible and doable more easily than ever before. So that's why I think it's so exciting for aspirational and ambitious entrepreneur, it's kind of the easier, faster, easier, cheaper, bigger path to your goals,
Mark 17:59
which is why it works. Well, it is conceptually, and it is actually. But let's talk about where the mind is doubtful, particularly for people who have been, I was told at one point, and I'm still not exactly sure the accuracy is but I think bringing up the concept is at least thought provoking that some people are socialized with this concept of value coming from internal skills, like, the more knowledge I have, the better I am, the more of a craftsman, the more valuable I am. And everything I need to do to create value needs to start with me. And there's other people who are socialized to this belief that value comes from relationships, and that the better and more cultivated your network of relationships are, the higher sense of value you have. And I've had people certainly challenged that and a hybrid of that. And I believe in the end to be a truly successful entrepreneur, you have to have some sense of managing both. And that is a recipe of that. But I do think that it's worth having the conversation because they do kind of compete with each other. If you're like, how do I create value? And is it by bit getting better, getting smarter being being more mean, or looking outside myself and this whole who not how thing really goes directly to the relationship side, the people side of this. And I there's a couple of couple of spots that I think people get stuck. One could be in this, like, you know, I'm just used to being a technician first and then there's other people who are kind of stuck on budget and that and then that which kicks them back into play. It's like Well, I'd love to hire that amazing marketing person, but I can't afford them. So I've got to be the amazing marketing person. So so let's let's what is the thought process of who not how how should someone who's sort of like going what, what is what is who not how, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna plant the seed. How should someone start thinking differently today? And then in this kind of follow the thread about what those obstacles start to look like?
Shannon 19:53
Great, I will do that. And then I have a remind me to describe a model of what we call the fundamental relationship which comes integrates both of those two things, because that will be enough fun, a fun riff. So this is where again, thing to appreciate about most entrepreneurs that I've that I know and probably that you know, too is they're incredibly resourceful. And if anyone's a fan of Dr. Brad smart and top grading resourceful is the number one characteristic of a what's what he calls an A player. And his works been continued by his son, Jeff. And so it's great. So you've got seven hours a week and X dollars to spend on your marketing person who's the best person you can get at that pay grade. You know, you know, to do those seven hours a week, it's, you could probably think of someone. And it's kind of interesting, because my, we were talking about our daughters earlier, and my daughter is working for a startup and she's hiring people and and it's her first full time job, and she's gonna be managing them, which is crazy. Her name is Madison, by the way. And that's just I kind of asked her like your sketch some really talented people. So again, this is kind of like their side hustle. And I've got seven I'm like, you don't have much budget because no startup startup helping other startups. Yeah. And she's getting these incredibly capable people. So most of it, frankly, it starts with the mindset. If you put a million obstacles in front of yourself, no, you will not ever find them. Dan has this great expression that's actually gonna say tattooed, it's not tattooed. It's a sign that walk into our strategic offices, if you could do that right now what you can't during lockdown, is it says your eyes only see your ears only hear what your brain is looking for. Yeah, so if you are looking for house, you're going to find all the house, if you're looking for who's you're going to find the hose. So the first thing to really appreciate is if you have the mindset that this actually is a possibility, then you will start to go, Oh, you know what I think so and so's cousin does that or that person I met last week at the store? Or, you know, I'm pretty sure. You know, my my sister's, you know, brother, my brother in law does, you know, there's someone that you know, I'm not always judging hiring relatives, by the way, but it is, it's kind of interesting, you will kill Like, who do I know, all of a sudden? That's a very difficult question to answer. And the brain cannot ignore a question. So just even having the mindset, I would say is number one. The other thing is there's a lot of people available. Now, I know people who get stuck, and I close friend and colleague of mine is helping someone else figure out exactly what the who looks like. And you know, with person has to be perfect. So they're going through a quite an iterative process to get that sorted. But he knows and by the way, this is this person has been in the program for three and a half years, he's finally putting his who not how team in place, and but he can figure out the investment to your point earlier, he can hire some he's gonna put a team of about three super capable people. So there's $1 figure with that. But he figured out how much more he can make in terms of what he can then produce. And it's in the order of millions.
22:57
Wow.
Shannon 22:59
Yeah. And so he's like, okay, the investment? What's the return? And this goes back to it's interesting, because you're asking great questions, which is how most of our entire Strategic Coach concept library got created? is do we do we think about team members or whose as investments or costs, right? If you have a cost mindset, that, you know, and by the way, what do we all try and do with costs, we try and reduce them, you're not a good business person, if you try and maximize your costs, that would be the road to unprofitability. None of us want to do that. But if we have the mindset of it's an investment, you're like, Okay, what's, what kind of return Can I get? And let me take a pretty simple example. And I can't take credit for this expression. I don't know who came up with it, but it's genius. So for a lot of entrepreneurs, they'll hire a, you know, head of marketing, they'll hire head of operations, they'll hire sales people, they'll hire million other team members before they will hire themselves and assistant. We call it I call it a strategic assistant, that's our chairman coach, okay. and was like, Well, you know, I can do this stuff. I'll make my travel arrangements, you know, I can manage email usually between nine and 11 at night, you know, but whatever. They do that and and finally, I heard the expression and so if you don't have an assistant, you are one.
24:14
Yeah. And it's one of those things
Shannon 24:16
where it's like, you're probably incredibly highly paid. And you probably do a really crappy job at that type of a task. And you know, some of us are the worst the highest paid worst possible assistance because we don't love those tasks. We're not good at that aren't you know, we both know Colby profiles, but you know, our Kobe's aren't suited to those type of tasks. And you can hire someone really, really good for a fraction of what you would you would pay. And you know, I know people who've added no at one person they hired for $45,000 made $450,000 more in one year.
Mark 24:53
So that that thinking is I want to pause on that because there's traps that I think people lead into goes down to that looks like it's going down that path but creates problems. And so are you familiar with Mike mccalla Wits? No. And he has a series of books and one of them is called profit first. And it's a really, really, it was really helpful to me in terms of how I manage my finances in terms of letting things leak out. But he talks about this concept that I'm sure someone's got a lot deeper science on than I have. But it was very enlightening for me. And it's what my terminology is constrained innovation versus unconstrained innovation and unconstrained innovation is like, if I've got limitless inputs, can I get more back on my dollars, and most visionaries are very comfortable with like, well, if I spend $1, and I get $1 20, back, that's a good investment. Right? Well, what happens in practicality is that, I do that over and over again. And my math might have been emotional math, it might not have been actual math. And when I when I do, when I get to the end of the road, somehow I didn't make any money. And so so this idea of everything as an investment starts to get labeled by people outside of a visionary entrepreneur is just kind of frivolous thinking. And it has a lot to do with like a math that goes with it. But it's it's natural, it's normal. It's from it's the 28, we talked about the visionary entrepreneur with 20 ideas before breakfast, one of them is amazing. 19 not quite ready. And that's, that's part of that thinking. mccalla was talks about, like, look here, if you if you kept your money, as you're going to spend, when you don't use any of this funny logic that if I exceed that, I'll get more even more back and it'll pay off in the future. You say, look, I only got 2000 bucks. You don't you don't say like, well, the 3000 bucks is gonna pay me 6000 bucks, you say like, I've only got 2000 bucks, which means I'll have to make some choices about where I spend my money. Which means if I spend 1000 here and 1000 there, I got zero dollars left. But I still got this problem. Mm hmm. What's amazing to your point is what we discover is sometimes you can solve the problem with zero dollars. Yeah, because this innovation is a visionary entrepreneur, you can do some crazy things, you can make simple things happen with this constrained innovation, approach that so I encourage people who say like, they can't have the budget, how am I going to hire this person? So look, you know, write the budget down to zero, and go solve it anyway? Who's a friend of yours? Who's the expert? Will they take some time? Do you need them on the payroll? Or do you need 30 minutes with them on the phone to solve this problem?
Shannon 27:22
Yes. Well, I actually think that constraint causes innovation. Much, much, much better. It's like, you know, this, you know, well, Peter Diamandis, you know, the whole XPrize and challenge, you know, it happens to be, you know, the XPrize contest that they have have incredible constraints, and ingenuity that comes out of it is spectacular. So, I don't know that actually, you get successful innovations without some constraints. And I haven't heard of this particular version, but I love it. And it makes total sense. And there's, there's I did a podcast with a friend of mine who actually does help people hire by coincidence, but he talks through his process of how he only had this much money wasn't zero dollars, but it wasn't very much when he was building his business. And I think it's not my team success podcast, but he talks about, okay, this much money in this many dollars. And then I he, the chairman, emotional math, I'm totally borrowing that if you don't mind. Brilliant.
28:20
laughing out loud.
Mark 28:21
I feel like I invented it. So
28:22
I think you did. Tell me Give me a credit.
Mark 28:25
The actual concept of like, you know, it's I know, it doesn't work out in your math. But in my emotional map, it makes perfect sense.
Shannon 28:32
Which I totally get. It's I'm laughing so hard, genius term. But he talks about and he's not, he's not that emotional math person. He talks about how each stage of the investment that he made, leveraged him to the next point. And so and I remember this, and just to tell you my own quick story. So this is funny, this is going back to the beginning. So I was a salesperson, a Strategic Coach. And I shared a part time person. So I had like a quarter of a human. Okay, that was devoted to my task. So my colleague, Susan wanted to hire somebody, again, I was little back then she went hire somebody else. And she said, Shannon, can you take over this person? Her name was a non non Kim, and by yourself and I was like, scared, I was biting my fingernails. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know how to work. I don't know. If I don't know if I have enough cash flow. I was like, Ah, you know, cuz she was kind of managing this person up until now. So this is my first team hire ever. So it took me about a week, week and a half. And I was like, Okay, I'll do it. This was complete what we call commitment and courage, part of our four C's. So I was like scared and you know, you're in the courage phases, something when your stomach feels pretty queasy, like, oh, gosh, what am I just committed myself to? But then then that creates capabilities really fast. So I took it on myself again. Now I had a whole part time person. And two weeks later, I said anon, how soon can you go full time. So the leverage that she provided me and when I got More of her incredible talent, she was just a phenomenal human being. And I'd already tested her. And you also when you hire someone, you only pay someone every two weeks. So it's like you get the chance to modify. It's not like you put money into penny stocks or something where you have no control. So you have control over this person in their activities and their communication. And so, you know, and then she was my first full time employee, and she was genius. And then I built my team up to five other people. So it I did, all I can tell you is it works. And a lot of I know a lot of people listening, you're like, Okay, that was a few years ago for me to Shannon. So but it's like, Who's the next Who? You know, what's the idea that you have where it's like, Okay, if I don't, I'm going to stay stuck with this idea. And six months from now, if I don't do anything about it, I'm going to be really annoyed, especially if the market goes and tells me that idea would have been really good about three months ago, you're still stuck with it. Because you haven't figured out the who you're going to be annoyed with yourself. And so it's just a matter of I love the idea of putting the you know, the price to zero, how can you do it? Because that will absolutely spur your brain and I know every you, you listening will go Yep, done that I had similar experience, I found this person like they gave me half hour their time, I one hour over here made a huge difference to the trajectory of my business. So you you've already had the experience of doing it and that those constraints are not bad. They're good. And
Mark 31:26
yeah, for sure. The zero dollar example is just an example of how sort of extreme it can be. But if that's not the whole story, I mean, Greg Crabtree, you know, Greg Crabtree, he, he's got a book about that. He was the first one I ever worked with, who talked about the salary cap, like, okay, let's talk about the NFL, the best team, the worst team, what's, you know, what's difference? And what's the similarity? The difference is one is performing at a super high level one is struggling to get out the door. What's the similarity? They got the same amount of money to work with? So it's, it's about how they make that happen. And so and so that's sort of resourcing as entrepreneurs anyway, how many days? or How many? How many hours do you have in the day compared to Steve Jobs? Oh, about 24. Same. So we have to innovate with within those constraints. And if we can act sooner, we can accept that, the faster we can put the innovation and the thinking and the pattern matching into that space, because that's really the only place that that magic happens. Second, I also have as you were describing the assistant, I realized that, you know, two pieces to this, that if you're looking for that next high value hire, which is probably pretty expensive. If you will hire an assistant, that's the lowest cost way of getting that high value higher, because that high value higher is you? Yes, it's very theoretical. Because that the next step, and you talk about the courage, you move into this real existential question, which for some people might not be, you know, probably is very comfortable to a point and a point. And that point ends with at some point is like, Am I the right guy, right person for that good? Okay, it's like, I'm about to hire me to do that job by in the form of hiring an assistant to take some things off my plate. Am I up to that, especially if it's something that's new, which probably as I'm thinking this through, it has a two sided? Question. One is like, Am I just scared? And I'm up to the challenge? And, or I need to get myself get myself up to the challenge? Or is this another? Who question Am I putting versus how, like, I'm trying to, I'm gonna Hi, I'm the guy who can fix anything. So I'm going to hire an assistant, give myself some time back, and I'll become the expert in whatever, which might be a how based mindset that could take us down a path of like, actually, that seems like a good idea, because I'm always the person who solves all the big problems, but in actuality, there's somebody who actually could do this way better way faster, and don't keep going back to the well of myself, because that's gonna run out of steam.
Shannon 34:05
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in that.
34:07
I know. I sorry, I do that.
Shannon 34:09
It's okay. Like, I was just I was just reading about Faulkner, when he wouldn't you know, the writer who just packs a lot into paragraphs and writes with that. But there's a couple points here. One is that, you know, just pick the last one first in terms of the how
34:25
there's a little bit of a
Shannon 34:28
there's, again, it goes back to mindset. But once you start to leverage yourself, you're like, Oh, this is kind of addictive. I really actually like this. I'd like being freed up. I don't forget being a visionary is in fact, your role. Is your role actually to do the house or to figure out all the house? Probably not. Your goal is to come up with the need in the marketplace. You know, we don't create stuff out of nothing we created because we there because of who we care about our audience. You know, there's a need out there that we see could be we could fulfill or help fulfill and then in that So that's our job, our job is to really, really, really know what our clientele the people that we care most about in terms of our marketplace, our audience needs, wants, desires, what they're struggling with. And then how can we come up with some solutions that would figure out what are what are the solutions I have? And how, what are the solutions? And then you have to figure out how am I going to get those done? Well, you're going to do it yourself. Or you can do it through other who's that's really the difference in perspective that we're talking about. But once you get onto this, who thing you're kind of hooked, because the game is like, oh, okay, I don't, because I've done my job. My job is to figure out what needs to happen, then you start to populate it with the right who is and by the way, this does end up selling a Dr. Seuss book after a while it's kind of fun. You want to go?
Mark 35:43
It can be it can be having Castello, or time she just
Shannon 35:46
totally Yeah, I think is is really key. And there's a certain amount of knowledge and stuff that you want to go back to your other points, like you do want to have your hands around it, you don't want to delegate like, oh, here's my idea, catch, and throw the you know, the ball far down the field and have no idea where it's going. So we've got a tool for that a coach called the impact filter. But really, it's it's, you know, figuring out this, you need to know enough of it to know exactly what the result is that you want. And then it's figuring out who wants to collaborate with you. How can you tap it in, tap into that? And frankly, there are a lot of people out there this is the difference between who not how and delegation. Is that who not how you're actually looking for someone who is superior, who is better at it than you are? passion for it. Right? So delegation, but one of our coaches was his name's Russell was really funny. And I was in the discussion that we were talking about this, you know, here's the interesting thing about who not how I say who not how to my clients, that I have been coaching on delegation for 20 years. They're like, Oh, delegating is so hard, because it looks like a how, right? It's kind of some of the obstacles you bring up. It's like, ah, people, they're paying payroll, I get this, all the all the obstacles to delegating. But then you put you say, who not how they're like, fantastic, I'm on it. And Russell's, like, really? No. But it's this whole other approach, when you actually look for someone who is has a passion and is skilled at it has the unique ability for it, rather than are kind of like, stop and start and difficulty and obstacle approach to it. It looks like making who not how just is so much more strategic. And ultimately, I think what what has people engage in tonight?
Mark 37:32
I think that's true. I think though, test me on this and challenge I'm thinking this for the first time. So I do think it is very synonymous with LMA leadership management and accountability type of thinking. In Eos. Not not there's more to it than that. So when I, my big epiphany around LMA, as a skill set was watching, watching the gardeners watching the people do my lawn, I just was struck by how different the skill set of mowing the lawn is. This gonna sound ridiculous, but it was a big epiphany for me. It's like, I get it when the lawn is so different than me in my house looking out the window at people mowing the lawn wondering, are these the right people? Do they? Or do they have my best interests at heart, it just didn't have to do they share the core values. And I was like, there is almost no relationship between the skill of pushing a mower and making a choice of who to hire. And, and I. And I think other people are sort of perceive a continuum. I'm a manager, and I'm a manager of technicians. And as I migrate to, you know, being a leader of them, it's it's related, it's like it's not related at all. And for you to really get into a true leadership management and accountability mindset, you kind of have to push all this hands on work out of the way and observe and build an entirely new skill set of how is this working? How does this How did the systems interact with each other? How did the people communicate? And it's just it's the observation power is so different. And it becomes this question of who not how thing is, do I have a problem? If so, what is it and in thinking of the who's side of this, as opposed to internalizing it and me changing myself internally. And so it is a little bit constrained from a standard leadership position. But when you take that same mindset back to the visionary or even integrator, for that matter, that it's you kind of have this same perspective that's opened up to the universe because it as a leader ship, as a leader of sales, you're probably trying to solve sales problems and a sales lane that there's you know, it's it's you can kind of understand the breadth of the of the topic. But if you're a visionary or even an integrator, like if the problems you're trying to encounter can kind of be anywhere, anything any time. And so, your to your point that it's so much more than delegation, when it's so much more than delegation if you if you have the potential conquering the universe, but potentially tackling any problem in the universe, it becomes a exponentially more powerful thing.
Shannon 40:08
It totally does. And I think it's, I think it really, you know, it's kind of those macro and micro concepts. I would love team members to think this way too. You know, and here's how to know when, when the where the edges, which is a little bit what you've been my interpretation referring to, when when do you find who? Like, why does it necessary, right, it's when your energy starts to fall off a cliff for that particular type of activity or task. So it's like, when you take it as far as you can be like, Okay, I'm done. And most of us have that point where we're like, Can I just stop down? Now, entrepreneurs have kind of right over that trip wire, enough time, so it's kind of depressed into the ground. But there is a point where, because it's because we're just used to the brute force, you know, get it done mode. But there is a point where like, oh, be good, really great. If someone else could help me, help me with this. And, and team members experiences, too. I was went for a walk this morning with one of my colleagues, we live close by, and socially distance, of course, and it was, you know, there's a part she has amazing ideas, but she's gonna she needs another who in the company to help her take it, the next step is she gonna pay that person, no party being paid, right. But she needs to have that same mindset so that she can get that innovation that would streamline our processes, you know, into place. So we it again, it goes back to it, definitely, from the visionary and integrator role, they need to look at it from that kind of big macro standpoint, and get the holistic view and the observing. Great, great way to describe that. But then everyone else also needs to go like, okay, who's my hope, you know, and there's always those go to people in the company? Well, they're the who's for a lot of people, you know, and then you've got your super straight, you know, super capable technician, that's really good at only one thing. And they're your one expert on that. That's your go to person for that one type of activity. So I think if we just have this lens through which to look at things will be a lot less a lot fewer silos a lot, a lot more leadership, pitchman accountability, to be honest, because we'll be doing our part, but we'll also be in much better collaboration, teamwork with others, that ultimately is what this is about. It's about collaboration, teamwork, and how can we maximize the capabilities and talents of the people we have available to us either internally or externally?
Mark 42:27
What Yeah, so that's, that's great clarification is, you know, we may, we may have access to these people, already, you may be paying them, maybe giving them something they want to do. We might already know them. They might not work we not. They might not take that much time to give you your answer. Like if you're gonna go to work. And you're like, Well, for me, this will be three weeks worth of work. And I love asking the question of so this problem ever been solved before? Never right? Never. Never? Yeah, never. It's like, we don't our employees aren't engaged. Yep. No one's ever solved that problem. Oh, yeah. This, this is solved. thousands if not millions of times over. And there's probably somebody who could off you know, it's like, on the way out door. Yeah, yeah, just do this. Give it like, as opposed to you just like poring through books and reading and trying? Yes. Yeah. I think the, I hear kind of a danger in this of like, you know, when do I go who not how, because I really heard this is like, always, like, your first question should when something hits your desk is like, who besides me should do this? To be I'm going to assume that I should basically never do anything. And if you're gonna have to convince me that I'm actually the right person. And if that's the case, then fine, I'll do it. But but to really build a scaled, powerful organization, as somebody who's humble, the presumption should be that there's somebody I need to go find that at the right price at the right time will be able to knock this out of the park in an appropriate way.
Shannon 44:06
Yes, yes. And yes. To all of those things. No, I think I think that's exactly it. And and, but it's also not assuming that we're not the person to do the house for a few things. Right there. So
Mark 44:18
let's go there. How do you size them because I think those people who are how biased like me, all you got to do is say like, yeah, this one's for you. And I'm distracted and I'm back to housing, I'm back to build my craft.
Shannon 44:32
Okay, so this goes back to your other key point that we need to unpack. So yeah, there are a few things there are a few things that this is your unique ability. Okay. So, so quick definition of unique ability, it is what you are have superior skill at all right? So there are some things you put in the time you build your craft. The difference between excellence and unique is that you also have a passion for it. You love it. And because of that, you can always see room to get better, right? Because you're like, oh my god No this now but then there, then the horizon goes further away like, but then there's this, which paradoxically can make you feel like you're not very good at something which is untrue. And it also gives you energy. You are fueled, at the end of the day, you might be physically tired. Like, you know, you could probably do two or three podcasts a day like, Man, that was fun. I need to get up, walk around and see nature again. But you know, it's
Mark 45:25
I love it. And at the end of the day, what happened to me it's like, it's six o'clock, and I'm like, I can't keep my eyes open. What happened? What am I okay, am I getting sick? It's like, No, I'm really confused. I'm always like, what happened? What's going on? I thought I got sleep last night. What's up? Since like, I had been energizing.
Shannon 45:42
So there's a part of you that's super like jazzed and energized. And you're like, on fire. And those are probably like, physically, you could be tapped out, right? You're like, Okay, I'm done. No more brainwaves. But that's unique ability is it uses you up in the best possible way. But you know, we have a fun model. And I'm, no one can see me gesturing here. But you know, the outer circle, all these things we try to do, and we're not very good at, that's what we call incompetent. So you put in the time and effort, you don't get the result. Don't get too hung up on the word, then there's things that wish were adequate, okay, which, frankly, is a gigantic amount of things. But other people are just as good. So there's competition, which I don't like to compete, I'd rather just win. Here's my personal philosophy. And then there's
Mark 46:27
two wars right there in the middle, just win. Okay.
Shannon 46:29
Yes, wait, I love it. You're and I think like, and then there's excellent. These are the things where we have put in the time, we have put in the effort, and we've reached some success. And it's interesting, because those are also the things you were probably super excited about three 510 years ago, but now you're like, Okay, what's new? Right? This is, this is your bigger, better goal. But now, and there's so now you've progressed, and you've grown, that's why the circle keeps getting smaller. There are a few things, a few activities a few. You know, for some people, by the way, their technical skill is relationships is one. One other thought I had when you were talking earlier, is that you're like, Okay, this is what I really want to focus on doing, you know, this is my major contribution and I and that I can go deep on and expand forever. But it's what I love to do and passionate about gives me energy, and I can always see room to get better. So though that's what you that's where you're the who does that make sense? That's where you're that's your how, you know, your ability to have conversations mark to put people at ease to reach out to folks to create really fascinating information that will people help people move their lives ahead. Not everyone could do that. Not everyone wants to do that. Not everyone's willing to put the time and effort and just build their talent if they have any to be able to do that. So that's one of your unique abilities. You know, I have mine, and I'm very confident in the areas where I'm strong and, and hopefully incredibly humble about everything else. So there's so many more things I'm bad at, than the few things I'm good at, thank goodness, I'm good at a few. But the rest of it, I'm like I need help. So there's so finding who's for things I know I'm not good at, I could put a lot of time and energy into it. Frankly, it's a really poor use of money and time.
Mark 48:11
So let's talk
48:12
about 90 minutes. And I'm
Mark 48:15
sorry, that's up on the other. I want to talk about unique ability in the context of how adaptable and how broadly people can seem successful. And what I mean specifically, is that I have observed through the years that people who approached themselves humbly and minimalistic Lee, they said, Look, I'm only good at one thing. You know, I don't like people and I like numbers and those people see, the track record for them is very high. They had no illusion that they could do things outside of their lane, and they become usually very successful. And even business leaders are like, you know, run technical businesses who are self described technologically clueless run killer technical businesses. Yeah, because they just automatic, they're like, Look, I have to delegate I couldn't possibly do that. And
49:10
up, up, because they have to.
Mark 49:13
Yeah, so then then the flip side of people who were like, Look, I I've kind of proven that I can kind of learn anything and give it you know, I have I have a mathematical mind and I these people, not that I would self identify with this. That become very adaptable to the point of what's the word I'm looking for. Self defeat, that I'm, I don't know, my own limits to the point of like, I find them in the worst possible way. Like I grind myself out in terms of energy and time. It's like Mark, you know, it looks successful. That's probably I because I really am careful about the subjects that it starts to sound like I think I'm so smart. But I'm really trying to say like, like it didn't work, guys. Like if you think it sounds like I'm selfish. graduated, I'm telling you, it doesn't work. And what I believe happens is, there's some sense of adaptability, some capability that leads me down the path to thinking I can be great at this. And then in the end, I'm spread too thin, and the quality isn't, well, doesn't even matter the quality, the result isn't, isn't what I want, I leave something stop short. And I see a lot of people, a lot of visionaries who kind of expect to get 100% out of themselves at all times, can conquer anything, and in lack this skill and reflex to enroll other people in the division freely, quickly, in a diverse way. So speak to the power of unique ability and how people should think about that, because that's real. that's a that's a Strategic Coach thing. It's a powerful thing. And I think it deserves some attention right now.
Shannon 50:45
Absolutely. Well, first of all, it, we we tend to grind it out when we're not confident that we have unique ability, and the world does not teach you to be unique. The world teaches you to be, you know, competent at everything and really good at a couple. That's what the world rewards, right? So you are, I want everyone to appreciate you to mark that you are going against gravity when you are figuring out your unique ability. It is not the normal conversation. Your teachers didn't go, oh my gosh, you did so well over here. Don't worry about math, don't worry about English. They're like, what happened over here? They're only focusing on what what did not go well. So this is this is a different conversation. So I would just lay the
Mark 51:27
blame kind of Marcus Buckingham kind of gallop
Shannon 51:31
strengths. Finder. Yeah. So you know, show me someone's Colby profile, which if Emma doesn't know, has kayo lbe, if you go to look it up, show me their Strengths Finder, and I could give you a pretty good assessment of what how they're gonna show up or how they could show up. Now, there's a lot more to it. So in terms of so that is it, there's a couple things. One is self awareness to me is absolutely essential in this process. And frankly, everyone will burn themselves out until they realize, Oh, I have a limit. Right? And entrepreneurs are not famous for finding limits early. Oh, no,
Mark 52:05
I wasn't my forte I was in my 40s, before I really had some hard conversations in therapy, that, that that really put the mirror up and said, Look, you are not actually Superman, but there actually is a limit somewhere and you're at it, and you need to make to make some different decisions right now. Because this is really creating problems for you and your family.
Shannon 52:27
The world will give you a course correction, your body will give you a course correction. You know, at some point, someone's going to take your head and slam it against some two by four concrete and go stop. Because you're doing yourself or others harm. And, and and people without those checks and balances, those are the out of control people. And we see them, you know, they certainly exist. So if you can get into awareness about and there's actually I want to talk about three parts of the mind, because I think this is such a good model for me when I'm coaching people. So if we think of it this way, you have the cognitive part of you. This is your intellect, your skills, your training, your bandwidth. It's also how you've educated yourself, what your Pat, we know what you've invested the time to learn. So it's your knowledge base. It's also your brain. And then there's your how you feel about things. And psychological term is called your affective part of you. And this is measured by profile, like cognitive as IQ tests, and LSAT and all those things. And then there's personality of which I've done a ton. But some of my favorite Strengths Finder disc, there's one called print, which is a cousin of enneagram. Just that helps you figure out how you're put together what you care about what you're passionate about what your preferences are, I love all of those. And then there's what Colby measures, which is something called cognitive, this is your will. So you've got can choose your head, you've got want, which is your heart. And then you've got well, which is kind of your gut. So this is an IT measure, it's an incredibly accurate measure of, of your mental energy, how it plays out. So you and I mark both are what's called a two on follow through. So this means we can check and jive and adapt in go a million different directions, because there was no plan in the first place. Yeah, no, we have a beginning time and end time. And after that we can go off roading the entire time and be completely happy. For someone who's much 10 more mental energy for follow through, they need to know the steps. They need to not skip any they want to go through the process. And then there's people kind of in the middle. So what Colby measures is how your mental energy plays out. It's incredibly accurate. It's the most brilliant tool for teamwork ever. But my point is well into yours is that your unique ability is when you really know yourself. Like it actually starts with what you care about. We're only going to learn and be super intelligent about those things that we care about. Right? So have you fed your brain? You know, have you tapped into what you care about? Or have you subsumed that to somebody else or someone else or some other structure? And then finally is what you're doing aligned with how you naturally strive and take action. It's Felicia So a healthy, happy, productive human being, in my understanding and assessment this far in my life is when the cognitive is aligned with the effective align with the collective. In other words, your head, heart, and gut, are all going in the same direction at the same time. But it takes some self awareness, it takes hitting that wall sometimes to be able to ascertain what that means. You know, it's what you do, how you do it, and for whom is you know, how we kind of figure out your unique ability statement and then activities. But it's critical and entrepreneurs don't really ever get happy until they figure that out. So you mentioned dw 2.0. Just Colin discovery is the full name of the book. And it's great because I My name is on the book, but I read it really because I helped with the first version.
Mark 55:52
second version, really capitalize on working for the first it's,
Shannon 55:55
it's Yeah, it totally does it. But Julia created this Julia Waller, my sister is an eight follow through, by the way, and put together this incredible process. And then notebook, it is like sitting down because she seemed to completely coach for Coach clients is like sitting down and walking you through that process, kind of as you alluded to it, it's amazing. It's like taking, it's like Julia sitting in a coffee shop with you going over this, you know, we use tools like Colby strengthsfinder, to help put language around what you already know about yourself. And it's amazing. And it gives you such freedom to a go deeper into things that you love to do and are best at, but also freedom from stuff that you have been trying so hard and expend so much energy and hitting that wall, you kind of have permission now to like, Oh, that's not why I was put here, that's not my purpose on the planet. My purpose is my unique ability to really have a powerful impact on people that I care about. Using my talents, you can describe them however you want. And and I can be free from having to do everything. That's a very long answer to your question, but or to your comment. But that's that's how I look at it. And so profiles are just shortcuts, as far as I'm concerned to help give you language around those things. It's stuff that you know, already, you can there's a long or the short version to figure it out. But those are the ones that are the most accurate and fastest that I'm that I'm familiar with. And by the way, there's zero financial connection between any of this. So I just have found the tools that I think are best. Yeah, work. Sure. But most quickly, yeah. So if you can align your head, your heart and your will, to take care of your your best audience, you're going to be productive and happy. And then you'll be very clear on where you don't want to give away stuff. And where you need to involve other who's the technicians you talked about have an advantage because they know that they're, they have unique abilities. I had a conversation, Dan talked about this too, the other day, we all have unique disabilities. Why would if we're gonna have unique abilities, you have things we shouldn't be doing? Why is that a weird thought? Yeah, there's one other piece of validation that might be convincing to some people. And I like you like finding interesting, cool people to talk to. And so I had a chance to interview Louis Schiff on his book business brilliant. And then he and his colleague who's Russ Alan Prince, he's brilliant at surveying, super, super brilliant dude. they surveyed all these people are ready for middle class up to ultra high net worth, human beings, which goes back 30 million and above. And so they asked the question, how many things are you good at? So this is kind of to our point. So people in the middle class, which is I think, was at that point was just under a million in net worth. They said, Oh, I'm really good at like, four or five things, you know, I'm really, really good at those things. And then they asked the ultra high net worth starting at 30 million and above, and they said, Oh, and the average is they was like, well, I really don't I'm only good at 1.9 things. 1.9
Mark 58:54
less than two, less than two.
Shannon 58:57
So. So it's like this whole like that. In some ways. I'm a generalist, but you really you actually want to specialize. You want to focus on those one or two things that you are put on the planet to do. That's your gift, that's your contribution, and then just be very attuned to teamwork, for everything else that needs to get done to make your ideas happen. Does that? Does that resonate? Does that make
Mark 59:20
sense? It resonates and? Well, one end of the spectrum, I think there's some people who did feel like they were seeking something they were good at, for whatever reason, life told them. They weren't good at many things. When they found something they were good at it. They held on to it. Those people generally don't struggle with this question that we're trying to wrestle with, that people felt capable were told they were capable. When we put expectations on them. Lots of shoulds lots of external validation required, creates this whole new set of noise of all the things that can be good people who feel talented or told they're talented, suddenly have fishing poles and every pond. And as you describe that, I'm thinking This may seem far afield, I think of talented, either artists, particularly artists, like if there's somebody who is a great actor, and you come to find out, they also can sing, or they were a tennis pro, or they are they have a business on the side, that a couple of things can kind of come from that you can kind of dismiss it as like, they're, they're leveraging their platform, or what I've discovered is these people actually legitimately talented at these things, and for a lot of reasons they have, they have multiple sets of talents. And what you what I observe is, whether they, I don't know whether they would answer the question low or high. But however, having you describe it, I think the I have heard enough people that if you if you look at people with it looks, looks like they've got four or five talents. If you ask them, they'll say one or two, because they've had to make harder and harder cuts. Because like, like my friend says, like, you know, if you're gonna play NFL ball, and you're gonna win, you're gonna be you're gonna be firing some really kick ass players.
Shannon 1:01:01
That's a great point. Yeah, my vine, I just thought it was like you want to say diversification for your, basically, for your portfolio? You know, in terms of us, you know, especially, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, you're playing a high level game. So true, you do have to fire some, some talented players. That's a great point. And but you have to hold yourself to that standard, too, if you don't feel like investing or you just, you know, if it's more fun, or for whatever other success criteria, you have to kind of dabble in lots of things fine. But don't expect to get some of the gains and some of the wins that are possible when you actually focus in on what your unique set of talents and skills and passions are. When you do that, you get a far better return. And to that point, and this is actually another way that Dan talks about it a coach, is that who who do we pay for? We pay large sums of money to watch athletes and entertainers, they are some of the most highly paid individuals on the planet. Okay, are we watching to pay to watch? are we paying to watch mediocre players? No, we are paying to watch highly we're paying to watch people work. They're not playing, they're working. And they've really developed and honed in on their skills. And they may have other interests, which I like to do on my leisure time. But I you know, they're in terms of what they're focused on doing. They really narrow it down. You know, and there's, you know, specialties within entertainment, sports and sports kind of as entertainment. You know, that I'm not even I'm a completely clueless about, you know, if you look at these specialties, what does it take to put together a football game? What does it take to put together a concert? Oh, my gosh, the number of specialties is phenomenal. Also great examples of collaboration, teamwork, but we are paying to watch your unique ability. We're not paying to watch excellent. We're not paying to watch competent. We're certainly not paying to watch incompetent, we are paying to watch unique ability. Why shouldn't that be you as an entrepreneur?
Mark 1:02:52
So here's how I'm this coming together? In my mind. There's because there's a contradiction I wanted to kind of resolve and that was hiring assistant is about hiring yourself. Okay. And then we're talking about how do we not take on more work? And here's, here's the summary. In my mind, the first thing you have to do is you have to hire yourself for your unique ability. That's your job, you need to you need to hire that guy. Yes, girl, whatever, into that position, and then pretend fire. Yeah, yourself. Yeah. And anybody else in your organization out of a place where they're not. And so it's there's like this one simple thing that you got to keep refining. And it's this back, it's like, in your accountability chart, you've got between 10 and 1000 people in the organization, you're trying to move people around. It's it's much more skills based than the people based in the end, it's like, you know, you've got to see, you're like, what are the things that I'm doing? What are the things like, Where can I do more of and, and, and hire people to take things off of my plate so I can do more of that, and fire yourself and fire anybody who's in a spot where they're not at their unique ability and get them into the spot where they are?
Shannon 1:04:02
I love that. Yeah. And most of us should be fired from certain things we've been doing for a very long time, because we're not very good at them. And we're way too highly paid for the results that we're delivering. So it's interesting, you're talking about hiring yourself, you're actually hiring activities that you're not the best at. Right. So yes, it might be hiring part of your role, but you're not actually hiring you. You have your own unique ability, and you're looking for your compliment. So I work with this incredibly talented, my colleague, Nicole. Yes, technically assistant is what we hired for but I call her my strategic support partner, and scheduling goddess. You know, she's scheduled to calm down. If I schedule I get stressed. You know, that's kind of how that work. But she has doubled if not tripled my productivity. In the six and a half years we've worked together. That's worth something. Yeah, right. So I bought it took that step that you talked about earlier. It was a little nerve wracking. I've always had always shared administrative support with other people before that. You know, says after and on, and she was my sales assistant. But you know, so it took a little bit like, Is it worth it? Oh my gosh, and then I double quote, you know, triple my productivity Yeah, that was worth it now I would never in a million years give that up. But it's it's amazing how much bigger my future got when I was properly supported and leveraged. And I think that's the other dynamic is when you are freed up from doing things that frankly drain your energy, you're not that great at that someone else would be better at it, there's a better who than you, then all of a sudden your future gets bigger, you are freed up to do those things that are much higher value, you're the most important team member in your organization. You know, you're, you're wasting some of your time and mental energy. And by the way, when we get drained by doing things we're not good at, we also lose all the fuel sources for things we are really good at, you know, entrepreneurs, you know, they start out doing mostly what they're good at. And as the more and more the business gets more successful, they take on more of all those other tasks. So they end up with like, 20% of the stuff they did when they were startup. Because, and then. And then they wonder why they're exhausted and tired and occasionally thinking about retiring or selling.
Mark 1:06:16
Oh, well, that's built into the the entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial mindset of the first of the hustle. Yeah, that is I in Michael Gerber speak, I had the entrepreneurial seizure, like I, I'm in it. Now I'm here. Now I know now I realize what a terrible idea. But I mean, it's too late. So you divest very quickly, because you have a goal in mind is more important than any of this inner interim intermediate suffering that you might go through in terms of how to figure it out things you don't want to do the books, you're gonna have to learn all that kind of stuff that has to happen. And it's no problem because you know, you're energized, invigorated, and you know, you don't even feel it. You're just running on adrenaline. And so that that's how it works. If you're not, there's no logical question in the first year of an entrepreneurial of a solopreneur. Certainly their life like do you like doing this? Like that's question could not be less relevant. In the first year. After a while you've grown, you've had some success, the question starts to become like, Well, how do I enroll people into this business? Now the questions critical, you have to start doing that, but most people fail to do that. They didn't switch the thinking into what what do I like to do? What do I love to do? Where's my best talent? It's more like what pain seems to need the most thing and what's most affordable right now, like, I can't afford a new me, but I can afford a you know, a bookkeeper. So let's get the bookkeeper. As opposed to thinking of it from this perspective of, actually, the analogy, in my mind is sort of like the hiring that I, you know, looking at myself as though I'm hiring from the competition, it's saying like, well, Marty, you know, I know you. And you have a talent for talking to people and bringing out the best in them. And I've got a job opening for you. And it's podcast host. And I'd like you to consider taking that job. I think it'd be great at it. And then Mark says, Well, yeah, I got a job. I don't really have time. It's like, Well, tell me about that job. Well, I checked my calendar a lot. checking email, followed up on things sending out invoices. Do you like that job? No, I don't really like that job. Yeah, so. So we say, maybe I'll have to quit that job. And maybe I can quit to get hired into the best job, I have to quit it. And then somebody has to backfill that which creates, you know, oftentimes a logistical challenge to the business owner, like, well, now I got a vacancy. I gotta fill it. Yeah, I want to deal with that. So it goes back to you know, that assistant concept, you know, didn't matter it, whatever, that whatever that most. If we're gonna move somebody into the unique ability, we're gonna move somebody else's unique ability into that vacancy. It's that simple.
Shannon 1:08:52
Yeah, I mean, why none of us really want to hire someone worse, which I think is how a lot of not necessarily with us, but you know, it looks like oh, someone's gonna do it less well than I am. That seems dumb. Right? When but that difference within who not? How is it's like, oh, you're I can hire someone who's better. You know?
Mark 1:09:10
Okay, so let's talk. That's an interesting concept. That's an interesting concept, because a lot of a lot of people profess that part of why visionaries get stuck is that expectation of perfection. And a lot of the advice is, lower your expectations a little bit perfection is actually not desirable. 80% is pretty kick ass. You know, they'll do it differently. They won't do it well, but even if they do it less well, it'd be better than you doing it because it's so low value relative what you'll be doing speak to that in terms of how does that balance out when you hire people at a higher level as opposed to giving up on perfection?
Shannon 1:09:47
Well, perfection is pretty much the death knell for innovation or delegation. So I don't think perfection is really good or useful in any realm of entrepreneurship, but particularly when it comes to hiring people, you want someone to be able to do it well, but I think where entrepreneurs get tripped up, and not only entrepreneurs, team leaders, too, is we think people have to do it the way we're doing it. And that's how we define perfection. So we're not very open if we would, if we were hired to hire a talented, capable person with a track record, it's okay, here's the deal. Here are the clients, you know, here's the result, I want you to get, you know, give them the success criteria per impact filter, then you find your best way to do that. That's it's slightly different conversation. So the trap that I think a lot of people, it's like, you have to do it my way, well, that's your best way, it's not my best way, it's not his best way, not her best way. So we have to be really careful about what our definition of perfection is. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, and this comes from six sigma coach, we call it the 80% approach. You know, if you do 180 percent, you know, if someone does it, and then there's 20% left that needs some TLC, and then someone else does another 80%, you're at 96%. And then if you had another 80%, you're at 99.2. That's good enough for what most of us are doing was it's brain surgery. So, so yeah, if someone does it, if it does, if someone does 80% of, you know, as well as you can, and it frees you up to do an even better job at a bigger high impact activity. Is that a win? Well, yeah. And the truth is, if you've hired a knick ability, they'll probably be even better than you were at one point. I mean, it's interesting. So Dan Sullivan, Bob Smith started Strategic Coach in 1988. first workshop program was in 1989. And Dan's first group was six people, you know, and and now we have 18. Coaches. That's a lot. Well, now in some of them, it's fine. Dan's a brilliant coach, like, phenomenal. He's my coach. I love it. Is here only really brilliant coach? No, he's not. They all do it uniquely, their own way and fun spot. One point to this story, is that one time you damaged at a trade show, and this guy comes up and says, just now I'm in Strategic Coach have been for over three years. He said, Adrian is my coach. Because I've been in a session with you. She's a much better coach than you are. Damn. But it's like, it's our dance, dance dance. He's really cool. He goes, great. I'm really glad to hear that because No, I don't think you understand she is a much better coach than you are.
Mark 1:12:31
He was like he wasn't trying to compliment like, it's great. Because work. Tells you take lessons from her, you can do much.
Shannon 1:12:41
By the way, Adrian is a brilliant coach at Adelphi. And so because why aren't you getting upset? Like, he was obviously trying to insult him? And then goes, imagine if you had come up to me and said, Adrian's a terrible coach, he said, I would have a much bigger problem with that with that comment, and the guy was like, Oh, so so they're all my point here. Dan's a brilliant coach. So in his ego was not on the line, which is another another good takeaway from this one. So you know, other people aren't coaches is every coach, right? For every client? No, occasionally, we mix them up, all of them deliver Strategic Coach, but they all bring their own experience and their own flavor, and their own pacing, and all that other aspect of it. They're all clients first, and entrepreneurs. So there are lots of different ways to get something done. And can Dan coach the same number of clients as our 18? coaches can? No he can't, he can't focus on our 10 X in our free zone, frontier workshops. So this is what the who not how concept allows you to do it allows you to build and to scale, and to go to the levels that you want to go to, you know, there's stuff in your company mark, like, I'm grateful, I don't have to do that anymore. That's really freed me up to do this. And I fired myself, love that term, you know, from doing those other activities, because frankly, that's not the highest and best use of me, and I'm the most valuable person in my company. And with that mindset, it actually it's it's liberating, you know, and and I think a lot of entrepreneurs get trapped, as I said earlier, but we can and we can free ourselves in now we call it who would up? Well, it's freeing yourself up. That's ultimately what you're talking about. But you're really clear on again, your unique ability, which is where you're the who, and then who do you need around you to support that that whole process. So it's, it's very people have already done it. There's something is instinctively I think true about this for a lot of people or intuitive if you want to use that word, we've already done it. This is actually now calling it out and naming it to be a strategy which I think is a way to help people do it faster and easier, is how I think of who not how.
Mark 1:14:46
So I'm reminded of I try to get this out to simply that when you're trying to get the most out of your life. People oftentimes you want to spend time around people who have already done that. be successful, you want to be successful hang out with successful people. But there's a there's a, there's a flaw in that paradigm. And that is, if you are not wealthy and you hang out with wealthy, wealthy people, and you act like how wealthy people act now, you will probably get broke. Yeah, really, really fast. And so the sweat, the switch has to be you have to act Lau how wealthy people would act if they were in your spot. And that's a very different way of thinking and why and how I want to call that out is in the who not how mindset is one end of the spectrum, it's the same kind of process, but feels very different. And the other end, and so if you are, you're talking about Dan and his who not how mindset, it's, it's a, it's an act of conviction to let go of big talents and the ego associated with it. And that's a very different flavor from a sense of obligation to do a lot of work and you're having to let go of like, No, it's okay. You know, I know no one likes to do this work. And kind of the early stages of who not how, you know, don't do the bookkeeping, don't do the emails, don't do the calendar, don't do these, you know, these $25 an hour tasks that somebody else can do. It's not any easier. But it's very different. In terms of how it manifests, I got to give up the bookkeeping invoicing, and the scheduling, I've got to give up the job that actually gave me this position that like I was, I was made famous as a coach. And now I'm really not my biggest contribution is not coach at all, maybe I at some point, turn that off. In fact, I'm the visionary of us worldwide. Mark O'Donnell, good friend of mine, an absolute killer killer. implementer been doing it for years, this killer implementer. I mean, he's an expert in all aspects of it. And and he had to make this big choice. He's like, you know, what, I actually think I want to run us worldwide more help these solve these problems more than what I've been doing. And so the entire platform that got him the opportunity is now an obstacle. And he's in the process of winding that entire practice down to nothing completely, not even not even one play. And so that's a tremendous act of faith and sort of firing, you know, that skill firing, like that was a great skill, it's not good enough for down to down to the one unique ability, that second one is pretty good. But if I spend any time energy on it, I'm sacrificing for the greater good.
Shannon 1:17:26
Well, it's interesting, we should chat with Mark about this, because mark will probably say it's the same unique ability applied to a different audience. Right. So his working being being an EOS implementer. Right. And, and, you know, he's now the visionary. So
Mark 1:17:41
that's a great question. That's a great, great point. So So yeah, there's separation there. There's it there's a separation between the job and the unique ability. I'm glad you call that out. So
Shannon 1:17:49
yes, makes sense. So but his perspective, his mindset, how he looks at solving problems for whom coaching people just what he's been doing phenomenal. lovemark and you know, but now he's looking at shifting audiences. Right, that's really what he's doing. And he was on a call with Dan and Kelly the other day, which was fun. And, you know, so that's a he's shifting his unique ability and narrowing it down. So it's like what was before was the structure is now scaffolding. He's got to take away the scaffolding to kind of get to the what's the next inner thing that he's building. But I he's not deviating from hope, from his unique ability. In fact, it's probably just making it more powerful amping it up, impacting more people, you know, his so we talk, one of the reasons why you want to pull yourself up is so you can have expanded freedom of time, expanded freedom of money, expanded freedom of relationship, but also expanded freedom of purpose. So again, it'd be fun to talk to mark about this, but I'll bet you that he's like, Okay, I'm actually fulfilling a higher level of my purpose right now, by working with EOS worldwide, instead of just the 20 clients that he was working with before.
Mark 1:19:01
It's really thought provoking what you just said, and I thank you for that clarification. Because I do think like, if you get more and more clear about your unique ability and your unique contributions, you do start to say like, well, how can that manifest, I can put it into these three buckets, these 10 buckets in because I'm good at it. It's not it's it's workable. But at some point, you run out of time and energy, and you start saying, well, I've got 10 buckets that all could consume, and I contribute my unique ability to what would happen if it were six? Like Like, what would happen? Yes, can somebody else handle for those buckets as least as well as I can, and I can now give more to those six, what happens it becomes three what happens it comes to in a bit so which two and then what happens to becomes one in terms of that laser focus of making the biggest impact, and that's hard work super hard work.
Shannon 1:19:48
It is involves letting go which is always slightly terrifying. And in the way that I you know, the other aspect of unique ability is it really comes down to the audience in my experience, people narrow down, and, and fine tune and hone their unique ability. It never it doesn't change. This is like it starts off being factory installed. So you don't want to pull your insides out. But you get a lot more nuanced about with whom you're working. And so the audience and we'd much prefer to use the theater analogy than any kind of management structure, language. So if you think about who you're often What does shift is your audience. So just a story from my life is that when I 25 years ago, I created the Strategic Coach team programs. And I was coaching assistants. Actually, that was my and that's why I needed Colby because I was coaching people very different than I am put together. So I had to understand them. And I will actually not coach anyone without knowing their Colby. That's where that rule started. And okay, so that So, yeah, no, because I tried it a few times didn't work. That's why. And so they're, they're called the Mo. And so then I started working with assistance. And then I started working with other team members. And then I started working with team leaders. And then I started working with entrepreneurs and their team leaders at the same time. Well, guess what, I don't coach the assistant program, and I don't coach team tools anymore. Yeah, right. So I have shifted my audience. And one of my favorite things to do is like a year long program with entrepreneurs and their leadership teams. And so it's just now is my unique ability different? No, it's a heck of a lot better trained than it was 25 years ago. But that's so I have now. Now it's more interesting and fun and challenging for me to work with people because I've, you know, 25 years ago, it was working with assistance. That was amazing. It was incredible opportunity. I loved every second of it. And then I'm like, okay, what's next? And then what's next, and then what's next. And so now I would actually be horrible. At coaching that group, they're no longer my audience, if that makes sense. Now, entrepreneurs in their, in their leadership teams, or their small companies, that's my, that's my jam. So but we have to keep challenging ourselves, or we get bored. And as I said, the beginning of born entrepreneurs, very, very dangerous creature, we start making messes. And so I love
Mark 1:22:01
that. But I wrote that down. a firefighter, a board, firefighter becomes an arsonist.
Shannon 1:22:07
Stories, there are stories about this. Yeah, yeah. And then they start other businesses, and they start doing wackadoo things because they're bored.
Mark 1:22:16
You also said like, you know, you wouldn't do that coaching now. Because be horrible at it. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you'd probably be even better now than you were then. But the new standard is so different, it would not feel fair to the people who could help the most.
Shannon 1:22:30
Yeah, I mean, I probably wouldn't be horrible, but what I be the best coach for them and for what their issues are no,
Mark 1:22:38
given what the other alternatives are, given what you know, given what
Shannon 1:22:41
I would be excellent, may be competent, but I can tell you, there's some other people in my organization who are way better at it than I am at this point. Here's the other thing. And this is a little bit because of how I'm constructed, I would keep changing it. I have Maximizer number one on Strengths Finder, I'm a nine quickstart don't feel a need to follow the plan, because with my plan anyway, so I can change it. So I would I would create inefficiencies, I would not get provide a consistent thing, cuz I'd be like, Oh, we could do this different. We could change this up. And I think this would be more fun. Fun being a success criteria in my world. And so I that's why it wouldn't be so good. Does that make sense? So you know, I would, I would keep messing with it. If it was my only Samsung doing stuff.
Mark 1:23:23
Yeah, that's a slightly different vector. And that is that we're saying that over time, things change. That's one part of this, you're trying to raise our game. And other other part is like, I'm good at creation to a point, like, I'm good at creation will say, I'm not great at maintenance, I'm not great at you know, and so because I will break it, and I can so put me in front of a new problem that I can fix. And then when that's fixed, put me in front of a new problem, because if you're in front of the old problem, I will actually break something that was working just fine.
Shannon 1:23:51
Precisely, it's like been there done that got 18 t shirts Next, you know, and that's and I think that's a real danger point for entrepreneurs, one of their biggest dangers is in becoming bored. And that's when they start with their own companies. That's when they start to mess with the team and teams, like can you just leave, please, because I was doing just fine before you walked in my office, you know, and that's when they go and start other things rather than actually stretching themselves or figuring out what the marketplace needs. That was that fundamental relationship? model. I just go through it quickly, certainly thinking but it's it starts with your unique ability and your teams, your companies, and then you create value for the for the small subset of the you know, I was gonna say universe but planetary population, for who you know, that's your target audience. You really understand what we call their DOS, their dangers, opportunities and strengths, what they worried about what they're excited about and what they're confident about. And when you do that, because this goes back to your innovation comment is you you provide leadership, relationship and creativity and leadership is providing direction where people are confused, they don't know what to do. relationship is providing confidence where people are feeling isolated. Especially right now. And then, you know, creativity is providing capabilities where people are feeling powerless because they don't know what to do. So when we can provide leadership and relationship and creativity for that target audience, so if we're not real specific on who that is, we're going to be trying to solve a lot of people's problems to try to be here to everybody that rarely works, what we get back in return is lots of different types of rewards, financial opportunities, key relationships, everything, you know, but we had, so innovation comes from a really tuned in to what our audience needs, wants, desires, solve their problems, that's where the innovation comes in, in the form of providing them with direction, competence and capabilities. So it may just quickly describing a model, but it's a neat way to think about things, but we're not randomly coming up with innovations, they're driven by our market. So we can be good at a technical person solving those who can good at relationship part of that, but ultimately, it needs to serve what their, what their needs are, if not our innovation, is it's not going to create value. You know, it's just, it's going to be an interesting idea, but it's not actually going to do anything for anyone.
Mark 1:26:07
Well, that's interesting, because one of the things I've learned, kind of believe, rather, I think, growing up, everybody, everybody has their ideas, like they got this all this invention, it's incredible, you know, it's gotta gotta have this thing. It was this, my use of some good, random examples of things that we need to do invent, everybody's gonna have that thing, though, that special USB powered, you know, you know, cup, you know, cleaner. I don't know, who knows, but that's not actually as it turns out, the missing ingredient. I mean, everybody has ideas. And, and every idea that's out there in the marketplace was thought of 100 times, and maybe even attempted 50 times before something hit. Ideas are not what we're lacking. It is not it is not that there's not a shortage at all, it is the ability to get it done and to to bring it to life. And, you know, listen well enough to to draw it out into manifestation, not just to think it up, like that is not super valuable at all.
Shannon 1:27:10
And you need an audience to test it on, you know, one of Dan's expressions, I'm sure you'll like it is test on check writers, you know, we could test it with our friends and neighbors, but test it on people, actually, would you be willing to write a check for that? And they'll go yes, or no, but if you did this, I might, you know, it's like, that's how that's how ideas become manifest is because you take it out of your brain, put it into a piece of paper, or however you like to communicate, and you test it on someone and you see whether or not, they're like, oh, that does solve my problem, or not sure what you were dreaming up last night, you know, or, and then you go back to the drawing board. But that's that's how things become manifest. And I think entrepreneurs are uniquely suited placed whatever product you want to put around it to do that, they actually see the connection between the idea and the reality and the people who would use it and pay for it. And that's the magic of entrepreneurs. And this is, you know, it's entrepreneurs who are going to where the economy comes from, you know, us getting more better at what we're supposed to be doing, identifying the things to be solved, and then putting teams around. That's, that's what drives the economy last time I checked, right? So this is the function that's incredibly important. And I think more than more than entrepreneurs really appreciate their unique capabilities. And the difference that makes them more all of what we've talked about makes sense.
Mark 1:28:31
Well, and I think we're entering a world where there's a whole metaphor in the gig economy is totally change things. And so, to your point, if there's one thing I hope people take away from this conversation is just the question of what exactly does who not How mean? And so you can go out throughout your day and your life asking the question, what does that mean? And I think it's as simple as like, Well, how do I get to the airport? Okay, well, maybe it's maybe I'm not the person to solve for that problem. Maybe my Uber driver is a fractional low cost way to do this. It fits my budget, my time my needs. And so if we work backwards from like, I can't afford a full time driver.
1:29:12
That's like,
Mark 1:29:13
I don't I don't driver sounds great. I can't have that. And that's exactly how Uber kind of came about, right. I think, if I understand the story correctly, they it was it was a luxury service that they were trying to create for it affordable, like essentially the fractional jet equivalent in cars. And then it turned into something completely different. But this you know, don't, don't, don't use old thinking to tell you the new thinking won't work. We know that it's a talent driven economy. The stakes are getting higher, the level of standard is going up. We like even you know, leadership, command and control leadership was the was great when it was the only thing going when people actually were grateful. To have a job and not and not be out on the street, because there were no opportunities elsewhere. You know, it was fine to be abused in the workplace. And just and just know that being told what to do, man you got paid? Well, that things evolved. And now there's somebody across the street says, Hey, you know, we're hiring in, we're doing fun stuff, and you're gonna make a big contribution, and you're gonna like working here so much, you're going to want to give us more than 40 hours not and when I'm going to ask, in fact, we might even tell you to work less. And once that is in play, the game changes command and control is no longer a thing. And now you have to inspire and inform and you've got to raise your game as a leader. Now, if you're gonna have a marketer, and you're on your team, being lame at it is no longer workable, is permission to play is you got to be marketing savvy, and how are you going to get access to the very best talent. And if you're thinking, well, I can't hire a full time person, I guess I'll just have to do it, that's gonna probably leave you a few steps behind your competition who found the right person at the right price and the right fraction. And so even things like working at home, I did a podcast and we recently re promoted this with higher my mom calm, and the whole thing was like, the I'm writing that down, like you are leaving it on the table, if you don't want these highly skilled professional women who are available part time, who are not, you know, they're capable there, and they want to work a little. And you need them a little. And you can buy them at that price, and they want to be bought at that price. And it's win for them a win for you. That if you're just like, well, if you're thinking integer, integer hiring, I can't do it. Your competition is gonna, gonna beat you. Oh, amen.
Shannon 1:31:43
Yes. And and by the way, there's a very fun driver story in who not how it was just really cool. And you know, that old model of command and control kind of worked when humans were replacing, you know, when we're working in factories, you know, we had to do things exactly the way they had to get done or something broke, kind of worked. Not great for humans better for technology. Well, now we're in a networked economy. Now, we're in the gig economy. And there's a ton of talent. And so one of the things I think, you know, before you just had to fit into a mold, and your unique ability, that this wasn't even a conversation that was even possible, except for the last 40 years or so, you know, it would have been like, who cares, I need to get paid and feed my family. Right? Like that was what was so this is we're in a new framework. So new models are required. And it's a unique ability world, it is a talent, why you have to know your talents, you have to know yourself, you have to know your strengths. You also have to know what you're bad at, frankly, and hopefully be humble about those. We all have to be tech savvy, just put all the supports in place for the things that we're not good at, and good at communicating and being in teamwork with people who are also complimentary. That's the world we're living in. So we're all living in a who not how world in the faster we transition our thinking out of that old like UK hobby into your thinking. And more into this, we're like we are freed up were more things are possible, we, it doesn't have to cost a fortune, lots of really cool baby steps to get there. But again, your eyes only see in your ears only hear what your brain is looking for. So you can start looking for who's sort of just how you're going to do the house. I think it's a pretty profound and an important shift for everyone to make. It's very, very exciting conversation.
Mark 1:33:20
It is. And I've realized over the last 30 minutes that there was gonna be no way for us to say like, okay, we're done. Because you and I can talk all day about this. There's a great deal of passion and enthusiasm. So I this is probably as good a spot as any to to wrap it up. Is there anything you want to add to this, that you feel incomplete?
Shannon 1:33:42
Now, just I got to talk about all sorts of different things related to this. And it is a whole way of thinking. Just I would say just check your mindset. That's kind of the only thought I want to leave people Where are you? What's your starting point and an educated yourself on who not how it's written by Benjamin Hardy, and he wrote it in a way that's very accessible with a ton of stories. So if you want to kind of immerse yourself in the thinking to test it out, it's a great way to do it.
Mark 1:34:06
Yeah, that's a great point. So I do think the book is probably a good idea for people who are struggling with that. Because I have been pondering it quite a while and I've encountered some objections people because I just kind of got it and it'd be in terms of on faith. And then I realized there were obstacles. And so I've worked through it, but a lot of people were just stuck. They're stuck in the in the organization, they're stuck in how to get out of their own way. And a lot of those problems are solved in in who piece of this and so I think that I highly recommend the book as a way to break through some of the thinking of like, know, the limits that are that your come telling, you know, right now, they're not actually they're there, there's budget doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to be, you know, a huge effort to make a big difference a lot of times so, so freeing up the thinking to just at least get to the default approach of you know, maybe the old machines Isn't the the old machine to make the new products? You know, if I got a new need, I got to put it in the right machine? Do I even have the right machine and that and it's not about retooling the old machine. It's, you know, there's there's another machine that can solve this problem I can use for five minutes. It's free. Yes. That's exactly right. It's right in your pocket. Yeah, so I'd love to end on this. The question I love to ask and that is, what is your passionate plea to entrepreneurs right now.
Shannon 1:35:30
Oh, my gosh. Number one, get, get to know yourself and really appreciate how you're the who put it that way. So just know yourself, be able to talk about yourself, know what you're good at, know what you're not good at. And that will make it so easy and so much clearer for figuring out who you know, who you need to surround yourself with. I think if there's one recipe for happiness, it's being you know, have that head heart and gut alignment that I was talking about. So that would be my passionate plea, you know, and, and free yourself up, you have a an incredibly important purpose in the world. And I would love to help free you up to get there least help the thinking process to help you do that. So but it starts with you really appreciating, you know, what you're uniquely here for what your unique ability is, and then again, and then that teamwork, so that would be my passionate plea.
Mark 1:36:18
I love that. And what I've the last several podcasts I've done, or many of them anyway, is a common theme around the importance of some form of inner work, look, working inward and not not just trying to get better at the craft and outward working, it's really, especially visionary entrepreneurs seem to find a lot of value in, in doing that introspection and maximizing their contribution in some way with some some of this oftentimes esoteric and difficult and slow going works. And being a painter requires patience. So I'll kind of add that, you know, we didn't talk a ton about Strategic Coach and its contribution. So anybody Listen to this. It's a fantastic organization that has, it's really about creating a system of tools, or making available a system of tools to help the entrepreneur get the most out of their individual life, much the way that EOS is a system of tools to help the business and leadership team operate at their best. And what I love about it is so many the tools are available in some form in either individually or in the books and there's things you can you can download, check out the website. And so we'll have that in the show notes. So yeah, little books. that's a that's a big thing, you know, books that you can read on an on an airplane flight that I don't know if anybody's doing much of that these days, but maybe it's Yeah, although some people for sure. The short books, the short books aspect is nice. I think it's you know, it makes it less intimidating to build a knock a book out quickly. So if somebody wanted, wanted to continue the conversation and get more information, where's the where's the simplest, easiest way to send people to learn about what you've been talking about?
Shannon 1:37:52
Awesome. Well, really, too. So Strategic Coach comm is the best place there. I have to say there are a ton of resources, videos, audios, you name it, all the things, plus a great store, which has all the little quarterly ambition books, including tools like the impact filter and the strategy circle as you as you mentioned, and then who not how calm is another place to to get more information specifically about who not how. And I just to, I mean, I bought the book about the Kindle, I also bought the audible and it's read by Benjamin, and but also with interviews interspersed with Dan and Ben, which is really fun. So I've always liked Audible, mostly because I don't sit still long enough to read much anymore. But then I've just fell in love when I when he kind of did something innovative with the format. So whatever way you're best to listen or learn. Highly recommend that. And that's just available on Amazon or your favorite place to buy books. So who not had comments or teacher, coach, calm, best places to go?
Mark 1:38:50
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We covered a ton of ground today. And I was excited. And I hope people get a fraction out of this of what I got out of it. It really helps clarify my thinking. I really enjoy your passion for the subject. And we're just being on the same page with that. It's been a real privilege. And thank you so much.
Shannon 1:39:09
Thank you, Mark. It's really so much fun to talk about something I am so passionate about. So thanks for the opportunity.
Mark 1:39:14
Awesome. Well, that's our time. And that's it for today. So don't forget to subscribe and share. And if anybody you know could really use this content, make sure you get in their hands, because it doesn't do any good if they don't get access to it. So share with your friends and people who might want to benefit from this and provide the feedback as always, and we will see you next time on you're doing it wrong with me. Mark Henderson.
1:39:37
This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary for more episodes and to subscribe. Go to leary.cc