EntreLeadership - 100th Episode Celebration With Dave Ramsey

Episode Date: June 20, 2015

Dave stops by for a special conversation for our podcast’s 100th episode. And we’re highlighting the top answers from our favorite guests of the past year. Goal Tracker Tool entreleadership.com/podcast   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are coming to you from the Music City, and this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, and four leaders. As always, we're thrilled to have you with us. We're very excited here at Entree Leadership, because today's episode is our 100th episode. Very exciting. Milestones Matter.

And so, in order to celebrate this properly, we wanted to, get some perspective for ourselves and for you, the listeners. And so in this episode, we feature a special conversation with Dave Ramsey, the founder of Ramsey Solutions, the man who created the term, Entree Leadership, which became a number one New York Times bestselling book. He sat down in the studio with Daniel Tarty, our grand Puba, of all things, Antre Leadership. Fun conversation to hear these two guys talk about the past, the present, and the future of Entree Leadership, because we exist completely to serve you men and women who are the

entrepreneurial engines of our economy. So we appreciate you so much. Also in this episode, you'll hear from Clayt Mask from InfusionSoft. And then we do something kind of fun. Eric, the producer and I decided to look back over the last year, our first year here doing Entree Leadership podcast. And we thought, what were our favorite five questions? And this is kind of fun. I'll tell you more about that. But this is great content, a rewind, if you will, a Snickers bar for your day. It's going to be great stuff. You don't want to miss that. Also, a couple of fun giveaways, complete free giveaways for you today. Our first one, this is really cool.

This is called the goal tracker, the Entree Leadership Goal Tracker. Now, the team has come up with this because Dave is constantly teaching our almost 500 team members now about the importance of goals. If you've been to an Entree leadership event or you're involved in all access, you know we are constantly talking about goals. But the more important thing is not just to have a goal, but you've got to write it down. We know this from research. We know this just because it works. When we write our goals down, it increases our odds for great success, just by writing them down and looking at them, and it becomes a habit. And so the team has created this Entree Leadership goal tracker for you to put your goals in and create some self-accountability and to truly track your progress.

And here's the best part. It's free. Did I mention it? It's free. Here's all you have to do. Get out your phone and text the word. tracker, T-R-A-C-K-E-R, text the word tracker to 33-4-4-4-3-4-4. Right now, just text the word tracker to 33-444 and our team will get you the Entree Leadership Goal Tracker free of charge.

What a great way as we sit here in the middle of the year. 2015 is not done yet. This is a wonderful resource and it's free. Please take advantage of it. Well, how many of you've ever created a word or phrase that actually stuck? You know what I'm talking about? Now, I'm not talking about a cocktail party where you throw something stupid out and everybody makes fun of you for a couple hours. Or you create a word with your kids and it's kind of silly. The family makes fun of you. I'm talking about like a word that actually means something.

Well, Dave Ramsey created the term, the word, entree leadership, which is now a brand that's helping millions of businessmen and women all around the country. And so it's rare that we get Dave here on the podcast. So Daniel Tarty, our vice president of Entree Leadership, joined me in the studio to tell the story of how it all got started. And so we look at the past, the present and the future of this great brand. Listen in as David Daniel Tarty joined me to talk about Entree leadership. Well, it's a special treat to be in the studio with Dave and Daniel here. And I think it's cool that when we celebrate a 100th episode, that's a milestone. Yet it's always good when you hit a milestone to kind of go back and look at that first marker.

when we let off. And so it's always good, Dave, to have you on the podcast and remind our listeners that you really still have the heart of an entrepreneur. We're still starting things all the time here. But everything Ramsey Solutions is we sit here today. It started on a card table in your living room. And that's really cool and really encouraging to the men and women who are listening here today.

So take us back to that moment, the living room, where you put that card table up, as it were, and said, this needs to be done. You know, I heard a guy say, as long as houses have garages and, America, there will always be small businesses. That's great. You know, the idea that as long as, as long as we have an idea and a little bit of a room to work on it. And so, yeah, I mean, I was starting, obviously, to do one-on-one counseling in those days, one-on-one financial coaching for people that were struggling. And, you know, soon we moved it out of the house and into a little 800-square-foot office in the bottom of an office building. It was a nice office building, but we took the cellar with no

windows because that way they would allow us to rent it month to month. I didn't have to sign a five at least I wasn't sure this was going to work. So I didn't want to be in debt. You know, in that sense, that's how our company, known as Ramsey Solutions today, started in those days. And then, you know, what happened is as we've gone along, we had to grow. And we had, you know, a lot of people needing help with this money stuff. And so we started teaching leaders internally to grow the leaders into what we wanted them to be to be able to finish our sentences. so that when I turned my back and walk away,

I knew they were doing things on the same principles that I was doing them with different personality styles, different ages and maturity levels and that kind of stuff and even expertise, but still on the same principles. And so we had to transfer some concepts of some tactical things, some strategic things, and some principles, some values to people. And so we began teaching a little class internally,

and that's how Entree leadership was born. I remember when I started here, I don't know if I've ever told you this, Dave. I don't think I planned on being here more than a year. I came in. There was an opportunity, and I didn't have a vision for my career at that point. And it was when I first started attending Entree Leadership, that class you're talking about internally, that it really hit me. This is a special place.

Here's a guy teaching his principles, a path for success within the organization if you want to lead someday. And I thought that I did. And for me, that's really when the lights went on. How many people were here in those days? There must have been 50, 60. How many years ago was that? You started when we were in this building. This was 11 years ago.

Oh, wow. You started in this building. There's 59 and we moved into this building. Wow. So, and there's 500 now. And counting, I hear. Yeah. Yeah.

You see in staff meeting. Oh, my gosh. So this is cool. If you haven't, for some reason, read Entree Leadership. It's number one New York Times best-selling book. But one of the best parts of that book is just reading the part where Dave kind of writes out how we came up with this term, Entree Leadership. And it's not just a business-de-leadership.

division. It's not just a book. It's not just all access and really a term that has become an anthem for a lot of men and women who are leading businesses. It is a unique term. I want you both to kind of weigh in on that. Dave, we'll start with you. Antre leadership. At what point did you say this is why I'm calling it that. You are very specific about words you choose. Yeah, sometimes. And other times I've done a really bad job. I named sections of our company divisions. And then I was shocked that they were divided. So, you know, you have to be real careful with words. It's so, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, You know, our, our customer care team was originally called the phone room because they had phones. But at least you were leading with clarity, right? Everybody knew what they were doing. Primitive albeit. So, yeah, Ontario leadership was an attempt to not do those things. It was like, I just, because leadership to me always means management class in college, which was taught by some tenured professor had never made payroll.

And, you know, there's a part of my emotions that feels that when I hear leadership. I know what leadership is intellectually. I believe in leadership. I just came out of a meeting where I was just talking with our leadership team about an area that needs leadership, an area that if we could put a new leader in it, that a strong leader, it would change everything. So leadership, Maxwell says everything rises and falls on leadership. I get that. But when someone says leadership, the first thing happens in my little four-year-old boy emotions is I returned to management class that was boring.

It was like a fingernail down a chalkboard. So I didn't want to just call this stuff leadership. And I knew I didn't want it to just be entrepreneurs because, You know, that's like trying to nail jello to a tree. You have a whole building full of entrepreneurs. Although you want the entrepreneurial spirit to run through the place, and you want a few valid, absolute entrepreneurs in the place. They're the truth tellers.

They're the ones that say things like the emperor has no clothes. And they don't care if it makes the emperor mad. And so they're the ones that are in there moving things around because they care so deeply. Daniel Tarty is one of those. You've got to have that entrepreneur in there, but you also then polish that with the aspect of the diplomacy, the nobility of the leader, a real leader. And so I want that leader inspired by the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur polished by the leader.

And so we put the words together. That's really what it was. And it's a cool word. But, you know, you worry about any brand where you have to explain what it means. Well, but we care so deeply from everything we do, from the live events where Dave and Chris and Christy are out there speaking all around the country. And then, of course, All Access, which is an unbelievable online learning community is how I would describe it. Daniel, talk about how it's flowed down from Dave over the years and the team you manage. What is it that drives entree leadership every day?

Yeah. Well, I got to tell you that that word for me initially was just a brand. It was just something Dave assigned as a tag to this body of content. And my early days here, I was, I was green. I was much more on the entrepreneur side and thought I was a leader, thought I could lead, but really was just a gunslinger, a sales guy who wouldn't take no for an answer. And it wasn't until several years ago, as I was saying, taking on more responsibility and leading people that I realized this leadership thing is about

caring for people and actually slowing down long enough to realize these are human beings with emotions and fears and they need a coach, they need somebody that can care for them with compassion and serve them. That's when I, for me personally, was like, man, this entrepreneur style has got to polish. I've got to grow. I can't just get results and then look back and see a wake of bodies that I've left behind me that I've got to go clean up. And Dave's mentored me in that and through the years of learning from him. I think that's probably a struggle for most entrepreneurs. They're good at getting results.

And then as they start to scale and they realize they need a team to work with, they can't just depend on their personal ability to go and get results. But at the same time, like Dave saying, if you're just leading, you know, you're probably not kicking down enough doors. I saw a quote the other day that said, if you're stuck, it's probably because you're playing by the rules. And every entrepreneur goes, well, yeah, we reinvent the rules. We rewrite the rules. but at some point bringing people into the equation ultimately is really the heart and the soul of what this whole thing is all about and treating people well. I've seen Dave do this for so many years where it didn't make sense financially.

It didn't make sense strategically, but it made sense for people and taking care of the team. And so that's what it's meant for me is I've watched Dave lead this organization and you can't put a price on that. You can't buy that. You can't manufacture that. you can't come up with a formula for that. It's doing the right thing and taking care of people, even when it's really hard. You know, I get a front row seat when I get to go host these events with Dave and Chris and Christy and get to do these podcast interviews and see the emails that come in from listeners. And I'm curious for both of you here, you know, to share the heart behind all

of this is really to give ourselves away, to help others multiply their work and what they're doing. That's really the reward. Is it not when you meet people, Dave, or at an entree leadership, event and they keep coming back because somewhere along the way they connected with us and something we helped them do took them to another level. The most satisfying thing any human does is to give themselves away. And it's a paradox. We don't feel that. The same thing with money and generosity. It's the weirdest thing that giving money away may be the most fun you ever have with money. But to serve, and you know, particularly in this brand, because for me, I am an entrepreneur. I am an entree leader. I did start this on a card table on my living room. This is our playbook of how we came into the free enterprise system.

I do think this is the greatest country in the world. I do honestly believe that anybody can be a millionaire. I've done it twice. I'm so dumb. It took me two times to get it to stick. So I think that you can have an idea. And in this culture, you know, you've got all these technologies and tools and things you can get a hold of that are free now. And if you can't take an idea to market now, you're just not an entrepreneur. You just, I mean, really, this is the time to, do it. And so I've got just this huge heart and this whole organization of ours, especially the Entree leadership team, has a huge heart for that small business person that's bootstrapping something. Or they've gotten at that level of 50 team members and it's starting to drive them

nuts and they don't know what to do. I remember that in the drama and the betrayal and the putting up with crazy people that you thought you hired that, well, you thought you hired a normal person. You find out later they just need to be in a rubber room, you know. And you just, the stuff that we go through in business, I've got a heart for that because I've done it. I mean, I am it. Every day I was just in a meeting, you know, and I'll be in a meeting after this. And so doing stuff here. And so I just believe in small business people. I like them.

They're the kind of people I like hanging out with. I believe in people that lead within large organizations that are strong leaders that have that entrepreneurial spirit within a big organization. That's just my kind of folk. That's who I like hanging out with. That's who my friends are in my off time is people that do that as well. So, you know, this Entree Leadership brand. is more than just a business opportunity.

And so we assigned a brand to it and we have a marketing strategy. And, oh, bull. No, this is people's guts, man. I mean, it's their tears, their dreams, their nightmares. And we love dealing with them. You just said somewhere in that around 50 people and I don't know what to do. And I know that you're very humble. But I think outside looking in, many people look at our success and your constant ambition and confidence and solutions that you're coming up with.

And the idea of Dave Ramsey not knowing what to do is almost intriguing because we're just winning all the time outside looking in. And most business owners we talk with are isolated and tell us all the time, I don't know what to do. I'm stuck. I don't know if I'm going to make it. And, you know, we've been there, but we've gotten through that. So what for you has been the breakthrough? What has been the constant source of hope and confidence that this thing is going to work and get you out of bed every day, even when it's hard, even when you don't know what to do? you. It's probably a little bit too authentic or real to say you either have to go do that

or you got to quit. I mean, what are your options? You fight through, you know, you're climbing up the mountain. What are you going to do? Let go and fall off and die. I mean, you know, what am I going to do, quit and go get a job? Crap, no, you know. So, you know, that's not, That was just, it's like desperation. It is your other, you know, it is a driving force. Losing sucks so bad that it's not an option. People quit all the time in business. I know.

Why has that never been an option for you? Because of what it would mean. The option when you quit is you're not really quitting. You have to do something else. And the other thing is just not as appealing, even though this is a stinky moment, even though I'm in the middle of crap or whatever I'm dealing with right there, betrayal or, you know, people hurt you, those kinds of things. That's real. They leave marks on you when you're doing this stuff. And even you're dealing with that. What's the alternative?

The alternative is go do what? That may not be healthy, but it's just real. I don't really have any other option. I think if I might, Dave, you correct me if I'm wrong, we've done each other a while. I think Dave's analogy of if I let go, I fall off the mountain and die is very, very real because this is his calling. So the concept of just quitting and losing is not just all of it for Dave and a lot of men who are listening today, you know your call to do it. And if you quit, Danny, you die inside. So I think the physical death is certainly a great analogy there. Because if you quit, who are you? And so it's tough, but you got to stay with it. Is that true, Dave? I mean, for you, you can't see yourself doing anything else. But the other thing is, wherever you are,

you're not going to know what to do. Right. That's right. All the time. That's right. There's no place you can go that you get away from hurt or you get away from disillusion or you get away from rejection or you get away from confusion or feeling inept or feeling incompetent. I keep talking about this meeting I just came out of. I had five or six of our top leaders in the room because I'm looking at this business case of changing some stuff around. And there's a really good argument on both sides of this business case.

And it's two positive things, really. It wasn't a negative and a positive. It would be easy decision. But I had to put some of our top people in the room and I'm going, guys, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do because I don't know what to do. So we sat in there and talked it through, and I don't think anybody in there slam their fist on the table and said they knew they were right. But we finally did kind of come to a consensus on what to do, which was not do it. But, you know, it's just you don't always know what to do.

So what do you tell a small business guy, small business lady who's out there right now that doesn't have that team that they can pull into a room because so many entrepreneurs are isolated. And we believe many of them are actually doing better than they think they are. Many of them have the raw materials. They're actually more successful inside than they're giving themselves credit for. But when the fear kicks in and that internal dialogue starts to kind of back them out of making the best decision and they don't have the team to pull together, the counsel, the advisors. What do you tell that person? Because you've been there. You have to put together a band of brothers or band of sisters.

I mean, you've got to have three or four people that are outside of your deal that don't sign their check that you have coffee with or have a Bible study with or five people or six people. And they need to be people that are relatively successful. This is not somebody. I mean, this is somebody that has the same kind of a bent. you know, that doesn't say, oh, you need to quit, you know, because you don't want, you know, you don't want e-or in their, in your coffee group, right? So, but, but you need people that you can bounce stuff off of. And, you know, and I think you're right. We've experienced this here emotionally with the leaders that have been here a long time, you know, the amount of money we spend on X, let's say, a computer server.

We may make a $200,000 decision today on a computer server in 15,000. minutes and then find ourselves arguing for an hour over some $3,000 thing. And all that is is when we're arguing over the $3,000 thing, our emotions have not kept up with. We've not matured as fast as the business has grown. We are better at that moment than we think we are. We wouldn't spend time for room with $3,000 otherwise because we can make a big decision fast, but this one thing over here touches those old buttons back in the day and you go back

and you get down in the dirt. If the business isn't dying, if it's growing, you literally are always better than your emotions feel like you are. And you probably have not emotionally caught up to how good you are. You said the other day in a meeting, our emotions have a hard time keeping up with all these zeros. Yeah. That's exactly what you're saying.

Yeah, it's weird. I mean, because, you know, we had a day, you know, $2,000 by Friday kept us open. And $2,000, you know, well, it was gone while I said that. Yeah. It's just, you know, I mean, it's just, my gosh. It's a different world. Well, there's always buckets going up and buckets going down. Yeah.

Depending on what you're focusing on when you get out of bed or what's on fire the most of that day could really impact your emotions. It's hard to get your head around the right things. Talk about your Eagles group. When you said a band of brothers early on, you had a group that you kind of initiated and started that's become kind of legendary around here. Yeah, we just do so much that is ministry to mentor and help others through what we do for a living, whether it's financial peace and whether it's entree leadership or whatever. I'm always teaching and lifting and guiding. And I didn't need a group where I need to do that again. I do that already. What I needed was a group of guys that I could, in my case, guys, that I could bounce ideas off of at a very high plane, business-wise, spiritual-wise, marriage, parenting.

And so I put together a group of guys that weren't, they were already eagles. They were already flying. And eagles don't flock. And so you have to gather them, you know. It's hard to get them in one place. But these were men that were top in their field, a business, top in their field of ministry, whatever. We had a couple of senior pastors in the group that were of large churches. We had a couple of very accomplished authors, a couple of home builders that were building lots and lots of homes. I mean, they weren't doing one house a year thing, that kind of thing. And so we put just quality guys in there. And we had some turnover over the years.

But about the last six years, we didn't have hardly any turnover. It pretty well knitted and stayed together. But that group was together for 14 years. met every Wednesday morning. And was it always somebody I talked to about a business thing? Oh, no, no, no. Sometimes it's just some guys hanging out. But that's the guys that during that period of time my life would have carried my casket.

You know, that's the period of time I did carry one of them's casket. I didn't preach at his funeral. One of them passed away. And that's the guys. That's your guys. That's your band of brothers. And for more than just business, but also for business. And so I got this thing where somebody's, you know, I'm just so angry I can't see because of something that was done inside the business.

And I got to have a place down. load that other than my wife. My wife does get tired of hearing some of that. She needs to hear some positive too. And those guys, I go, yeah, man, I face that same exact thing. You need to just fire their butt, you know? And I'm going, well, that's what I was thinking, but I don't want to do it while I'm mad. No, you don't need to do it while you're mad.

You need calm down, but that one needs to go. You know, and you just get some verification of what you think you know is right. But if you're out there by yourself, you don't know. And you're just, they're not attached to anything, and you're just drifting. Well, there are things that are not appropriate to take to your team. Sometimes the team is the problem. You need to process that. Sometimes your spouse doesn't understand the landscape.

Sometimes you're the problem. Sometimes you can't, that's right. And I've had, my guys tell me that. You know, you're just being a freaking ego. You need to stop that. That is a big part of the equation. And, you know, what we're doing with All Access, and I'm turning this into a product pitch, but the real genesis of all access was to get rid of that loneliness and to give

people a place to come for information, to plug into the mastermind groups. And that's the genius of that program in Daniel's brainchild. But what he kept seeing was that need. And it's evolved into a product line. Well, I've got to tell you're successful. It's been an experiment. We put a lot of features in there, video content and e-coaching and these different things, not exactly knowing what would be the favorite feature, if you will,

but we just got a survey back from kind of a customer feedback thing we did this week. And heads and tails, or heads and shoulders above everything else was this mastermind group concept, where you're plugged in with seven or eight other business owners and have a conference call once a month. and effectively what the value proposition of the Eagles group you had transferred to men and women in the trenches every day doing this together. Because you got to have humans that have been there, done that. And some of them are wrong when they give you advice. I mean, you could have Job's friend on there, you know? I mean, you could get bad advice.

And you know that when you're asking for advice. But you're not sitting with this, you know, who's your mentor. I have one mentor. That scares crud out of me. It's okay if you found one, but Jesus is about the only one's up for as far as I'm concerned. And the rest of it, the rest of them are fallen people, so I need a consensus of more than one. The concept of mastermind group or the concept of a band of brothers or concept of a group of guys in a Bible study that have business acumen to speak into your business and tell you when you're better than you are. And for that matter, to celebrate when you hit the dadgum field goal from 53 yards and nobody else.

But nobody's as excited as you when you do that. And who you're going to tell? Your brother-in-law who's a failure? And he ain't going to like it. He's got his spirit animals. Eeyore, you know, so you can't do that. You've got to have a group of guys that are winning, and so they want to celebrate with winners.

And they celebrate in a way they get it. Like other kickers around the league, they root for other kickers when they kick a last second field because they know what it feels like. And that's the community aspect. Okay, this was fun. Real quick, I want to just get a quick glance into the future, Daniel, Dave, if you will, because we are moving forward. We're very excited about what

we're doing, and we think of an all-access. It's those kinds of dreams that become reality that help others, that really power us. So as we look forward, Briefly, Daniel, what are we going to see coming down the pike? Well, Ken, there's 27 million businesses in the U.S. And of those, 21 million have less than 500 employees. Wow.

That's where the work is at. That's where business is happening every day. We believe small business is the backbone of this economy. And we're world class with our events. And we have great content. But we have a huge opportunity and passion to go out and get to all 21 million of those. And it won't be all of them. But until we get to all of them, we're not stopping.

Everything we can do with our events and our content, but certainly this All Access online program gives us the opportunity to get to people that couldn't make it to a live event or that we're never coming to their town, you know, just the logistics on Dave's time and our other personalities. But Entreeleadership.com and All Access is becoming quickly the community for small business owners to hang out to get into mastermind groups to encourage each other. And it's not just all about us. They have great ideas that they're contributing as well. And so if you're looking for a place to connect and to have that lifeline, there's a lot of great resources out there. Check out your local church. Check out your local groups. But All Access is the place that we really see as carrying the Entree leadership brand forward and doing it in a way that empower small business owners to grow themselves, their teams, their profits, using practical wisdom from entree leadership, but also from each other.

And let me just mention this very quickly. There's no risk. Dave, Daniel, the team have set it up. We want you to try it. If it doesn't fit, you're out whenever you want to get out. But why wouldn't you give it a shot? It really is an unbelievable community. I get to talk to these people at live events, Dave, and they all just love it.

It's like this greenhouse. Well, it's what they were asking for. After we did a book, we did the events, we've done the master series. We, you know, come into the city. Okay, but then you leave and you leave me here by myself, Dave. You got me all jacked up. And so, you know, it's the follow-up thing. And I want to circle back for something.

This is our 100th episode. Yeah. I think it might be interesting for folks to stop and think about this podcast. the podcast has become one of the top podcasts in all of America and is most weeks the top leadership podcast in America because of the people we've been able to attract onto it as guests and the information and the content and the quality. Of course, it's completely free.

But here's what's interesting to me. I sat down here and looked at it and I saw 100 episodes. You know why we started doing this? To promote the Entree Leadership book, to make it go number one on the times. It was a marketing thing. Right. And we thought,

Let's get a bunch of podcast listeners and they'll buy the Entree Leadership book. And it's interesting that the tale has wagged the dog. And that the book is, you know, it was number one on the Times and it's continued to be a bestseller. It's done very well. I'm proud of the book. But the podcast has become bigger than the book in a very real sense because it's continued to stay right there at the top. I mean, Entree Leadership is not number one this time on this week on the New York Times. It's a three-year-old book or four-year-old book or whatever it is.

But it continues to be a good book and continues to sell. because it's got its own following and that kind of thing. But the podcast is much bigger. And it was supposed to be the thing that lifted the book. So what has happened is, is the content that you guys have brought forth on this podcast is so appealing that my friends listen to it. You know, the guys that I run with. Because, I mean, when you start putting the Seth Godin's and the Jim Collins of the world

and the Malcolm Gladwells of the world on this thing, it's been a who's who of leadership on here. and it's pretty stinking incredible. So I'm proud of you guys. You've done a great job with this. Well, it's great fun. And I must say, as a segue on that, we have some great names coming to you. We're not going to stop there.

We've got our foot on the gas. Some wonderful conversations already in the books. And it's going to be a great year. And this leads me to a very special announcement because we want to keep going forward. Drum roll, please. Daniel Tarty, do the honors, please. What is coming up? Well, we've been hearing from listeners for years.

Can we get more of this? Can we get more content? And the reality is you can only find so many of these Malcolm Gladwells and Jim Collins. And we want to keep the quality up. We don't just want to go to every day just because we could produce it. But then it starts to water down the potency of the content. We want this to be rich. And then if we can turn up the frequency, then that's great.

But with Ken being here and the reviews of your talent and hosting this thing and our ability to continue to bring in incredible world-class speakers, we're now a destination. You know, now, we had to go find people early on, but now people are coming to us knocking on the door. Can we get on your podcast? And so we're excited to announce we're going to go to once a week. Hello. Once a week, people.

In your inbox, that's either two places, really, actually. You go to entreleadership.com and get the podcast there, and we have all kinds of show notes and bonus video material. And then on iTunes as well. It's just going to show up. We're so excited about this. Yeah, and I know you are. And I know we've already got a lot of conversations in the can. And you're not going to tell them about any of them?

Yeah, sure. I mean, well, you know what? No, I'm not. I'll tell you why. Cliffinger. Yeah, because we always tease it each episode, so I don't want to get too far out in front of it, but it's going to be fun. And I'm going to tell you, it's not just the quality of guests, but it's the conversations

from John Falcons taking people's emails, and we're giving real answers on the podcast. So we're beginning to take your questions, and we're going to answer them right there with a coach that you get at all access. It's going to be a lot of fun, man. So it's great fun. we've got to get out of here. It's always fun we get Dave to stop by. Thank you, Dave. This is a big deal, Dave. You don't get to come by it. You're on the air. Yeah, it's really fun. I'm grateful for the opportunity. And I got to say this, we say it at the end of every podcast. But to you who are listening, don't ever forget, we're doing this for you. And we can't do it if you're not listening. So we're very appreciative of our audience.

Absolutely. They're the best. Well, it is always fun when we hop on the phone and talk to Clayt Mask from Infusion Soft. Great practical wisdom for you that meets you right where you're are in your business. Clay, great to have you, man. How you doing? Great. Great to be with you, Ken. Appreciate it. Well, here we go. Next topic for this podcast is, and this is a big question. Can't wait to hear the answer. Here it is. Why are some small business owners scared of automation? Yeah. Well, you know, Ken, it's because small business is personal. That's what distinguishes the life and small business from being in a big company. And a lot of business owners are concerned

that if they put automation in place, they'll lose the personal touch that differentiates them in their business. And so they feel like they don't want to get out of step. They don't want to have things break down in the business if they put automation in place. But that's really a big mistake. When you personalize your automation and you can do that with the right systems, you really are able to stay in touch and keep that real competitive advantage, but do it at a much greater scale with much more efficiency in your business.

And so I try to encourage people when I hear that concern that, no, hey, there's ways to do this in very personal fashion and help keep that great edge that you maintain as a small business owner. This is a great example of what InfusionSoft does. You love to turn the light bulbs on for businesses around the country. What's so special about helping with these type of projects? It's just so fun to watch entrepreneurs achieve success. You know, what we do is we help them get organized, grow sales, and save time so they can have a success. business and a successful life, which you think would be fairly easy when you go into business for yourself, it's actually really, really tough, and we love helping them do it. Yes, you do and you do it well.

Hey, folks, we really want you to engage. Learn more. Kick the tires. Clayt and his team know what they're doing. You can learn more. Infusionsoft.com slash entre. That's infusionsoft.com slash entree. Clay, you're always adding value to us as well as our listeners. We appreciate you, man. We'll talk again soon. Thanks so much, Ken. Take care. So to celebrate the 100th episode, we thought it would be fun. Eric the producer and I were talking about, what could we do to highlight the 100th episode? And boy, we could go through the archives of every episode and pull nuggets from every interview. But we thought since he and I have been here together for a year, and it has been a great privilege to work together to serve you men and women with this podcast.

Well, we thought, I get the question all the time when we're out at these live events. People say, who are your favorite interviews of all time? That's a fun conversation for me, but we thought we'd give you a variation. So Eric and I made our list of our favorite five questions, not favorite five interviews, but favorite five questions from the past year. So here is our list, Simon Seneca, which was my first interview, Mike Rowe, Dan Pink, John Maxwell, and Dave's conversation with Mark Cuban. Five questions, five answers, a Snickers bar, if you will, to celebrate some of the best

conversations that we have had over the last year. Check it out. I think one of the just unbelievably powerful statements in this book, Leaders Eat Last, why some teams pull together and others don't. Place off this idea we've been talking about the stakes being higher, if you will, when we're talking about life and death in military leadership, but the truth transfer to business and beyond. And that is this statement. You wrote this. When people have to manage dangers from inside the organization, the organization becomes less able to face dangers from outside. And that's a simple statement, but I think profoundly powerful. Help leaders understand that truth. Sure. So when I talk about feeling safe at work, I don't mean the absence of danger. I mean the absence of danger

internally. So for example, you take a military unit that's in a Ford operating base. Of course, there's significant danger. But the danger is on the outside. They don't fear each other. In fact, they know they can trust each other to watch each other's backs, you know? Even people they don't necessarily like. They know that when danger threatens, they will work together. That's what makes it work so well. That analogy transfers to the modern world perfectly well. There's our competition that's threatening to steal our customers or frustrate our growth.

There's the ups and downs of a stock market. There's the instability of an economy. All of these things are a constant. We have no control of them, and these are dangers of threaten us from the outside. So the question is, do we face dangers on the inside? do we fear each other. Any organization where it's a general practice for people to send CYA emails is an organization where people fear

each other. Any organization where it's common practice for employees to keep folders on their good work or on the irresponsibility of others so that if anything were to bite them that they would have this folder to protect themselves, these are demonstrations of people taking action, spending time and energy to protect themselves from each other. and every minute we spend doing that to protect ourselves from each other is a minute we've taken away outside dangers or missing the opportunities outside in other words the more we protect ourselves from each other the more we weaken the organization

scene play out and there's a guy gate agent basically and so i said something i said why do you have to treat us like that why can't you treat us like human being and the gate agent said to me quote if i don't follow the rules i could get in trouble or lose my job all she revealed to me was that she fears her own company. She fears her leadership. The reason we love flying Southwest is not because they have some mystical ability to hire great people. It's because the people who work there don't fear their leaders. They don't fear each other. The result is we get treated better.

That's right. So when someone is preoccupied with their own safety from their own organization, guess who suffers? Us. When someone does no longer fear each other, then the person who benefits, the group of venezis is not. only the customer, but the amount of idea exchange and energy exchange and innovation, all, you know, people are much more willing to share ideas and share learning with people

they trust. If we don't trust each other, we hoard all the information. Our value comes from. We use that as our security so we can't get laid off because we know more than everybody else, to the detriment of the company. I talk about this all the time. I had a mentor when I was in my early 20s, Mike, tell me that the sweet spot in life is the intersection of your greatest strength and your greatest passion. And I love how you're really drawing this out for us, that our passion comes with us, but it is our great strength that we've got to mine into.

And to that, and let me ask you, I think it would be fun to hear. What would you define, because you're very, very talented, and as a result, you've been successful, but what would you define as your greatest strength? I would guess learning a trait. People are always surprised. People's jaws drop. Yeah.

They had no idea out of debating. That's right. We find themselves. That's right. That's right. Now, in my view. This is so good. And, Dan, you have a great perspective because you've done this research, and you understand

leaders, you speak to leaders, you've been in leadership, you've worked for leaders at a high level. And I want to camp out here for a moment, because you said a moment ago, whether we're selling an idea or a product or whatever. And I want to talk about selling vision, because I think for leaders who may not consider themselves great salespeople, they can miss, I think, a terrific nugget of which, you here that you just unpacked for us. And that's the idea of mimicking and really understanding our team's perspective, the other leaders that we lead with, because casting vision is so

vital. How can leaders take this idea and make themselves more attune and become better vision casters? Yeah, I think it's a really good point. Obviously, there's a lot of evidence of narratives, and then we're going to look back on the other side. So I think that having that storytelling capacity, that understanding that human beings see the world, point-deck is really important. I think a lot of people know that. If I can be a little bit more tech,

is a huge amount of research now showing that you want to persuade somebody, explaining why they're doing it in the first place, is unbelievably powerful. And one of the things that I've seen in leadership, and it could be leadership in any dimension, It could be a coach, is that they tend to fixate on, here's how we're going to do it. Here's how we're going to increase our sales this quarter.

Here's how we're going to best our competition. Here's how you do an eligible problem. And they give short shrift to the concept of why are we doing this in the first place? Why does it matter? And I'm convinced, if you look at the research, simply having an explanation of why you're doing something is incredibly powerful. And that, and why is connected to vision? Because if a leader doesn't know people are doing what they're doing, that, to me, is evidence that that leader has no vision. And it can be even more tactically prescriptive for a moment.

One of the best things that leaders can do is this week have two fewer conversations about how and two more about why. And I really think that that simple, simple technique can make them more effective leaders. John, I love questions. Curiosity is a hobby of mine. And it's something we're all ingrained with. You know, we come into this world, hardwired, just asking thousands of questions a day as little ones. And then over time, if we're not intentional about asking questions, life has a way of beating the curiosity out of us. And I want the young leaders or the inexperienced leaders who are listening into this conversation to hear from you on maybe a few vital questions. early on in their journey, whatever that may be, here are some great questions that you need to be asking on a regular basis

at this season of your life. What would you say those are? I ask them, talking to a great leader and falling in. I want to see. I want to, this helps me check out their attitude. It helps me check humility they might have. You know, just, I'm not so interested in what your failure was. So I want to know how they had.

but I want to know how they. Another thing I want to know when I talk, you know that I should know. Phenom allows me to find people that I would not normally find it. Once you ask somebody who you should know that they know, almost inevitably they'll help you get to that person. They'll move out the bear. We've got entrepreneurs and leaders that have been running businesses a long time or short time. They're old, they're young, they're successful, or they're just starting.

What one thing do you want them to take away from this podcast? You've got to grind. You know, you've got to do the work. that starting a business doesn't mean you have more control of your life. It probably means you have less control of your life. That you don't own this company. Your customers own the company. That there are no shortcuts.

Everybody thinks you start a business. You're on the grave train and only amazing things are going to happen. When in reality, it's far more work. In reality, you can never let go. in reality, if you're not dreaming about it every single night, you're probably not as committed to the business as you need to be. And so you've got to be willing to take the time to be an expert on whatever it is that idea conveys, whatever type of business that's going to be and to be the smartest person in a room when it comes to that idea, before you even begin to start that business.

You know, my message always is there's no shortcuts. You've got to grind. Well, we hope you enjoyed that. That was always fun. And by the way, that's a great exercise. to go back and to reread your favorite books, maybe find the favorite passages from your book. It's always a great exercise to kind of get that readers digest regurgitation, if you will, of personal growth.

All right, so we gave you the goal tracker, the Entree Leadership goal tracker. Second thing we wanted to do again to celebrate our 100th episode, we created 100 posters to commemorate this 100th episode of the Entree Leadership podcast. That's 100 posters. Here's what we want you to do. go search Entree Leadership on Facebook. Entree leadership on Facebook, you'll come to our page, and we'd love for you to leave a comment on the post about this episode,

and you are entered to win. Get to the page, you'll see the post on this episode, put a comment in there, and please make it nice, because if it's nasty, I'm going to tell the good folks on our team. Nasty means no. Well, folks, that's going to do it for this historic episode. I want to remind you we are super excited because we go, weekly, starting with our next episode. That's right, Entre Leadership podcast comes to you on a weekly

basis. We are so thrilled that you have been loyal, you have been kind, and we want to continue to serve you. So, hey, tell your friends about it, share the podcast. And as always, email us your comments and questions, podcast at entreleadership.com. You can track us on Twitter at Entreeleadership at Ken Coleman. Well, on behalf of our producer, Eric Anthony, and the entire and trade leadership team. Thank you so very much for listening. We will talk with you again very soon.