EntreLeadership - #267: Leading Through Tragedy with Gary Kelly

Episode Date: May 25, 2018

We’re wrapping up our special bonus content from EntreLeadership Summit with a powerful lesson from Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly on leading his team through the airline’s recent tragedy in April. He offers tremendous insight on the importance of communication and teamwork—and it’s a testimony you’ll likely never forget. Next, a few members of Ramsey Solutions operating board of directors answer questions from our attendees, with topics ranging from core values to the origin of Summit itself. We’ll also hear from Will Moyers, CEO of Vallus Energy Consulting, who came to Summit to celebrate the EntreLeadership-driven transformation of his now debt-free business. And last but not least, Sarah Sloyan, EntreLeadership Vice President, joins us to recap some of her favorite moments from an incredible three days in San Antonio. entreleadership.com/podcast EntreLeadership Summit 2019 Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from San Antonio, Texas, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our final episode from San Antonio, Texas Summit, 2018, so much content to bring to you. So we're going to give you a portion of my conversation on stage with Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest Airlines. And then our Ramsey Solutions Operating Board.

Most of the board was here in San Antonio, and we got on stage and sat down and took questions from our attendees. Really great stuff about how Ramsey Solutions operates. And then Vice President of Entree Leadership, Sarah Sloan, will join me as we wrap up San Antonio Summit. And we look forward to San Diego Summit. You'll also hear from a first time summit attendee, Will Moyers. All that coming to you. So let's get right to it. You know Gary Kelly well as the CEO of Southwest Airlines.

You can hear a bit of our conversations we talked to. How did they plan for and then move through recent tragedy? How are they and those affected handling it and so much more? Here is a bit of my conversation from the stage at Summit with Gary Kelly. I think everybody in here knows that tragedy struck. Southwest Airlines not too very long ago. And there's a couple components to that story that I want to focus on. One, the female pilot who was on that plane, just obviously she's been lauded as she should be so skilled. And she just stepped up in that moment. That comes down to training and a quality higher so that

when that happens, the tragedy is mitigated, if you will. So I first want to talk about her and just the leadership and when that moment happened, how she's doing and how proud you were of how she handled it because she certainly is a heroine. You know, she's doing great. She's doing great. She's a retired lieutenant commander in the Navy. She was a fighter pilot, F-18 pilot, and we have a five-person crew, as you all may know.

There's two pilots, and there's three flight attendants. And if I were to close my eyes and handpick the best five people I could, I don't know how I could do any better than what we had on that. It was just the right people at the right place at the right time. So I'm very proud of all of them. But Tammy Joe is from New Mexico. but she ultimately landed here in the San Antonio area. So she actually lives out in Bernie, of all things.

So she has a connection here locally. But she's doing terrific, and I'm very, very proud of her. And, you know, our first officer was actually flying the airplane when the engine failed. And so he deserves a tremendous amount of credit as well. And then Tammy was doing the communication with. with the FAA air traffic control declaring an emergency looking for an alternative airport to land. And then at some point, you know, they transitioned to flying from Darren to Tammy Joe. And you're right.

They were trained. They know what to do when we have an engine out. They perform magnificently. And this is under, as you all understand, intense scrutiny from the National Transportation Safety Board, who's doing the investigation. they've told me personally what a magnificent job that they've done, working with the FAA, and of course we all know the outcome

that that airplane was landed safely in a tough situation. So I couldn't be more proud of all of them. But the flight attendants were back in the back where the flat attendants deserve a tremendous amount of credit as well for maintaining their poise and their calm and their training also kicked into gear. And it's just a reminder that while there's all, a lot of personality and we all enjoy getting peanuts and drinks that they're there for everyone's

safety and again they perform magnificently. Which leads me to the aftermath and again I've read many articles. The airline handled it so well. But again, you had trained for that? I'm sure you have prepared for that many, many years ago who knows decades and decades of just revisiting what happens if, what happens if. just curious as a leader when that happens, there's the personal side of you and all your leaders and the crew and all the employees that just have to be devastated. And yet, you've got to step up and you've got to handle it on the professional side. Take us through what you and your leadership team, how you had prepared for it, how you communicate in a moment like that, and then

just keep on going. Well, and it's very humbling to be in a group like this because everyone here as a leader. Everyone here has their challenges. I would say a couple of things. Number one, I've been at Southwest for a long time, as you all know. I was chief financial officer for 15 years. I've been CEO now for 14. So it just helps to have a few miles underneath you. Sort of early on and you face a crisis and you don't feel like it was handled perfectly. Just don't beat yourself up too much is the first bit of advice. We've learned along the way. I can assure you all that we were better prepared in 2018 than we were in 1998 than we were in 1988. And I think what I try to do is just make sure that I and our team and our company is getting

better every year. There will always be gaps from where we want to be. But just make sure that we're getting better and better. Yes, we're trained. Yes, we are practiced. and it's no fun to rehearse, but we have a duty. And we have a duty to our people. We have a duty to our communities.

We certainly have a duty to our customers. And if something happens, then the primary duty at that point becomes the people that are impacted directly and the families that are impacted directly. So, you know, that's where our focus is. Our focus is on the Reardon family, who suffered the tragic loss of Jennifer. And then it was not a good experience

for the other 143 customers on that flight. So we're continuing to do what we feel that we need to do to support them. We have a couple of real heroes at Southwest who were dedicated to being on-site in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to take care of the Reardon family. And that's something you can train for, but really, really difficult to do.

The family's been so gracious in accepting the help and support in, you know, what is just a horrible time. But I think every leader here knows that people are depending on you. And you've just got to be prepared and do your best. And then, you know, in addition to taking care of our customers, we've got to protect our company. We've got to protect our company and keep the wheels on, so to speak. And, you know, fortunately, we have so many talented people. And it just brings to light how good our 60,000 people are. Because there's a lot of work that has ensued since April the 17th, and they just handled all of that.

magnificently. But yeah, it's a day that we never want to have happened, and certainly we're determined that it never happens again. Whether it be crisis or good times or just constantly updated, you know, again, I think it's fun to look at a company as large as Southwest Airlines and learn things. Communication is huge, whether it be a company of six or a company of 60,000 team members. What would you share about what works well in how you communicate from the top, all the way down, across the country, all those locations. Again, whether it be good times, bad times, but certainly, you know, communication has had to be huge recently.

How do you do it? What's the process like? When I think about leadership, I have a couple of passions. One that we've talked a little bit about teamwork and I have a real passion for teamwork. I want people to collaborate. And then the next, it's sort of teamwork, comma, communication. If you don't talk to each other,

how can you possibly be a team? So communication becomes so critical. I think one of the things, again, that I've enjoyed in looking at the videotape over time. I feel like at a time, our teamwork at the senior level wasn't as good as it could be, number one, number two, and the communication wasn't as good as it could be. So we have a lot of employees. We have a lot of functions. We have a lot of function heads.

And there might be a communication coming from one function that says one thing and another thing coming from another function. So I think being coordinated is really important. The bigger the company is, the harder that becomes. And we don't want to be bureaucratic. We need to be light on our feet. So all of that is kind of tricky. But I think every leader at Southwest knows that communication is important. I think that everybody knows what our purpose is.

I think they know what our vision is. I think they know what our business model is. and fortunately it doesn't change every year. And I'll bet you all 60,000 employees know the basics of all of those things. And I think those things are important, but that's where communication starts. First of all, you have to know what you want to say. And that's easier said than done, I think. So I think we spend an adequate amount of time on that, and then we simply try to execute.

I'll bet you that if we're guilty of anything, we communicate too much. I'm going to give you a final word, and I want you to just encourage these leaders, whatever's on your head and heart. And they're here to grow this week. And our theme, as you know, is draw a line in the sand. So I want you to just finish out our time together by encouraging these men and women. Well, I just want to congratulate everybody. I mean, you're here because you're very gifted. And hopefully everyone here feels like you have wonderful opportunities ahead.

You know, the neat thing about where we are at Southwest now is it's just a really exciting future. But I guess the thing I was going to relate, Ken, is that there have been times since I've been CEO that I wondered if it was ever going to get better with rising fuel prices and recession and just one thing after another. And you just have to be resilient. And you just have to believe in what you're doing. Believe in your people. Believe in yourself. And just stick with it. All right, moving on.

I told you that our Ramsey Solutions Operating Board took questions from attention. these, and I always love to moderate these because these are the nitty-gritty questions, the day-to-day stuff, and we give our playbook away. Here is a bit of that Q&A panel. This is your time to ask questions, okay? And I'm going to have the board introduce themselves, and we'll start all the way down, Jen Severson. Tell them who you are and how long you've been here and what you lead. Okay, I'm Jen Severson, and I am the chief marketing officer, and so I lead our marketers, our creative team, Ramsey Care, and our PR and publicity teams. And I've been with the company nine years.

Good afternoon. Mark Floyd. I'm the CFO. I've been around about almost 10 years now, snicking up on that. And I lead clearly finance and accounting and HR and legal and inventory and all that sounds a lot more than it is because there's just a couple of people there in some of those cases. But anyway. Hey, I'm Daniel Ramsey. I am the vice president of the consumer side of financial peace University, which includes the sales online and the product development, as well as every dollar. And I've been at the company full time for four years. I'm Brian Williams. I'm the executive vice president of the business to church division, which includes financial peace university, momentum,

and counselor training. Hi, I'm Jack Galloway. I've been here 18 years, and I'm the executive vice president over five of our business units. All right, James, let's start right down here in front. Hi, so my name is Matt Tibbitts, and I know that you guys have some awesome core values. Saw your wall last year, the core values. What do you do as your routine, whether it be weekly, quarterly, annually, to enforce those core values, to bring them to life and encourage them, and then discourage when you're seeing people not act to the core values. How do you do that in a routine? One of the things that we do is we realized a long time ago that our leadership team cannot be the ones to take our core values. and instill them into our culture.

Our team's too big. We're hiring over 200 people this year alone. And so what we started doing that works, and really is the only way to infuse core values into your culture, is to let the team know that they're the owners of the culture. They're the champions of the core values. And so if someone is sitting in a meeting and someone does something that's just in conflict with our core values,

instead of them coming and telling me somebody did it, I just want them to stand up for our culture and our core values right there in that meeting and say, hey, we don't do it that way here. Or that's not, that goes against our core values. And when we take that ownership and give it to the team members, then they're able to take. And once you've been at our place for about a week, you're really not new anymore because there's probably three people that have come in behind you

that are brand new. and they're looking to you to show them how our culture works and how to use it every day. Another thing that we do is Dave pretty regularly teaches on our core values, like the origin of the value and how it's played out over the years, the why behind the value. And he probably does a teaching on that in our staff meeting. Maybe it's once a month. It's fairly frequent.

And then the other thing I'd say we do is we actually use the core values to make decisions. when they need to come into play. And so our core values are very active. They're really a part of how we do business. I've made a decision to follow Jesus even in my business, which is tough because I'm a lawyer. So what I really want to know, because I know Dave is unabashedly Christian,

and I want to know, are y'all a ministry or are you a business or both? and how do you make it work? Yes. Non-profit is an IRS designation, not a biblical designation. A nonprofit that doesn't make a profit is what's called closed. It's an accounting function. Nonprofits have to take in more than they have go out. They're not any more non-profit than I am.

And so what is a ministry then? A ministry is something you're doing as a royal ambassador, the scripture says, for the Lord, you're serving people, giving people a cool drink of water in the name of God, in the name of Jesus, and they're thirsty. And so, yes, we're absolutely a ministry. Technically, legally, we are organized as a for-profit organization, but that has nothing to do with biblical standpoint on it. We're here to serve people.

But we serve all people. We're not mad at anybody. I mean, if you don't align with that, that's okay. I mean, I've got several good friends that are in. engaged with us in different ways that are Muslim. Lots of Jewish folks are engaged with us. Lots of people who are atheists or whatever agnostics. I'm getting a lot of those these days, and I love that.

I love that interaction. It's fun. There's lots of ways to enter transformational paradigm, and we just want to help people. And so we're not going to tell you what you've got to be, but you don't get to tell us what we're going to be. And if you're going to like it, it's okay. I'm not mad about it, but you don't get to tell me. You know, generally speaking, if you just kind of have that a person,

where you're not trying to thump somebody or I'm not trying to call somebody out for being a cult or not being a cult or somebody for this or that. We're going to behave in a way in our organization that's consistent with our value system all the time. And that value system is born in Scripture with us. And so it, but this idea that somewhere we got this idea that only ministry happens on Sunday or with non-profits. And that's kind of absurd, really. I think when I need my heat and air fixed or my hot water heater goes out and you fix my hot water heater so that I can take a shower, my wife says that's a ministry. Because I stink if I don't get a shower ever so often, you know?

That's a ministry. And if you approach that as a ministry, it changes how you do the business. If you hadn't read Rabbi Lapin's book, Thou Shall Prosper, it does a good job of putting words to how to take your work and your ministry and see them as one thing. And really, I feel like it put words to what we had been doing for the 20 years before he wrote that book. And so we're big fans of his and friends with him. I wondered if I could get your thoughts and perspectives on the concept of thinking and acting like an owner. And I wonder if you buy into the idea that there's a continuum there. And what I'm wondering about is it fair for me to expect one of my employees to have the same commitment that I do as a result of,

of starting the business, having my assets tied to the success of the business, and your thoughts on whether or not I can expect that same level of commitment and thinking and acting like an owner from one of my employees? I do. I expect that same level of commitment. We call it fierce ownership. And if you don't fight for this place like you own it, if you don't stand up when somebody calls us negative, if you're not willing to fight and scrap and argue with somebody internally

to get excellence into the marketplace, get your... your butt out of my building. I need people in here that care. If you don't care deeply, I don't want you on my team. Life is too short to work with half-butt people that don't give a rip because there's some kind of spectrum. There's no spectrum. The spectrum is you're either working here or you're not, and you're going to be on board because we're playing for the Super Bowl. I don't care who owns the team. We're going to win the freaking Super Bowl. And if you're not all in for that, then you're on the wrong team. And that tone is set early in the interview process and is recanted frequently through our organization.

Like when Mark says, and we're all self-employed right after he does that whole profit thing, we're all self-employed. And if you don't act self-employed, you're violating one of our core values. And we love you. And as Alan said, you just have to be somewhere else. I've been with the team for 12 years. And I started as a fairly entry-level graphic designer for the radio show. And I can tell you, without a doubt, for 12 years, I've walked into the front doors of that

building with the thought of, I'm going to treat it like it's mine, because that's what was instilled. And there's not been a day where you just mail it in because we've got work to do. And as you grow in leadership, you have to instill that in your team. We have the benefit of having one of the best motivational speakers in our generation as our CEO and the person that stands on stage. So, yeah, we get a little push from Dave every once in a while. But the reality is you've got to find your style and you've got to pour into your team and lay claim to what's important and then they will carry that forward.

Yeah, and just to build on that, we are so mission-driven. And the entire team is hearing and seeing the folks that we impact every single day and keeping the focus on the mission allows everybody to really own it personally. One of my favorite things we do is during our staff meetings, Dave will often take fan mail up and read in front of the company. And some of it's negative, which is hilarious because people write some crazy stuff. And then some of it is just incredibly heart-wrenching, tear-jurking stuff that really realigns what we're all about. And we talk about, like, hey, if this doesn't pull out your heart, maybe it's time to move on. We look for that and we try to inspire that into our team.

Good afternoon. My name is Pam Selesane with Youth Empowerment. services leadership. Where did the summit event ideal come from? Well, maybe go a little further back beyond summit as entree leadership when I started in 2000 and we were in a different building. There were 15 to 20 of us. And they began to have real vision for where our company was going to go over the next three or four years. And he said, hey, if we hire 20 more people, we doubled the size of our company. If we don't know what our culture is, we're going to hire people and it's just going to sort of dissolve. And so on Tuesday afternoons, he would give us 30 minutes of company time and 30 minutes

of, we would stay late for 30 minutes and he would print on paper, this is how we do accounting and why. This is how we do sales and why. This is how we hire people and why. This is how we do fire. And we went through all that. It didn't have a name. It was just, this is what we do. This is who we are as a business. And we begin to do that. And if you wanted to be a leader, it wasn't mandatory just to be team member, but if you want to be a leader, you need to go through this class, if you will, and understand these principles. And we started doing that, and we did it at time and time again. And then people would say, hey, my wife is a real estate agent. She'd love to sit in on this. My dad's a pastor. He'd love to sit in on this. And we looked up one day and we were on the fourth floor

of our building. And there were more people in the audience of that little internal class that did not work at our place than team members that did. And we started to go, a hunger, there's a need in the marketplace for us to teach people how to do business and be profitable and grow and be good to people. And there's a need there. We gave it the name, Entree Leadership. We wrote the book there. We started doing our first small classes. And to get all the way to summit, the class itself has probably gone through six iterations of size, price, location, time involved. We do it in small groups. We do it in large resort groups. And Summit was really the final one of those, the best iteration of all those, where we said,

this is about the perfect time. Let's begin to bring in some of our own speakers besides Dave. There was a time when Dave was 100% the speaker of the events, and we began to bring in Christy and Hogan and some of the others. And then really bringing in outside speakers was a big shift. That was a big step to start to add any outside speakers to our event, because this was how we do business. But we begin to find friends in the business, Seth Godin and different people that we say,

these are people that have the same heart we do. And we trust them to teach our people how to do something they're really awesome at. And today, that's evolved into Summit with the lineup that you see and the time frame that you see. And we've always done our events with a high level of energy, a high level of trying to wow our attendees. But I really feel like not just Summit, but this event is the best that I've ever seen, the best we've ever done. Moving on next, Will Morris. What a delightful young guy he is. We've learned about Will this week with an unbelievable letter of thanks and appreciation for what this broadcast has allowed him to do. Always love and we get these thank you notes. But the reality is we end up thanking people like Will because they verify that our work is indeed making a difference. And we love serving leaders like you. So when we got a chance to meet Will, we said,

Hey, let's hang out for a bit and hear a bit of your story to encourage others like you. So we asked him if he would swing by our studio booth and sit down with Will the producer and share some of his story. Here it is. My name is Will Moyers and first day of Summit. I got back to my hotel room and started reflecting on some of the pieces. And listening to Dave do the opening session, I'm sitting there with a manager that I brought with me. And as he started unpacking some of the core concepts, this time was different hearing him. I read the book, listen to the podcast, listened to all the videos and all access.

But this time, he wasn't just telling his history. He was telling my history. My company is Valis Energy Consulting, and you know how no one likes to have a high energy bill. They don't like to get that power bill open it and have that shock of a big number. And whenever you do get that shock, you're wondering where your money went. So my company, we come in and test houses so that people can figure out where to save the money, what improvements to make, so they can save the money, live more comfortably, and enjoy their house. I started thinking back to when I started the journey, and our company, it's now a 12-year-old company.

I've been with it 11 years. I started ground level, entry level. My father-in-law who founded the company, he lost passion. He just disconnected from the company and started looking at other things. and we kind of started drifting in what was this cool kind of rag tag. We built this from nothing company. Just started to feel like we were disconnected and not going anywhere. And that started showing up in problems with customers and internal drama and culture.

And it was becoming a mess. And I knew that if we didn't have some leadership quickly, that things were going to fall apart. So it was about this time I started to really hone in on personal growth. And I said, you know, if I'm going to be this guy, I'm going to have to grow. I don't have the skills. I don't have the training. I don't know what I'm doing. And I'd better find someone who does.

And I got a hold of the Entre Leadership podcast. And there was just something to it and concept after concept and author after author and book after book and questions. And it was fundamental. And as I'm going through the summit and I'm unpacking all of this, I realized just how much that meant. Because I know there are people sitting in seats here that were in the same place I was four or five years ago. And good grief, the stuff that we've conquered. We had a toxic culture. There wasn't an ounce of trust on that team.

We had considerable debt. We had a financial process that was not going to get us to the next step. we had bootstrapped and spit grit and duct tape was the style. And we got our way to about a million in revenue with spit grit and duct tape. But what gets you there won't get you to the next level. I don't even recognize the company today compared to where we were a year ago, much less two years ago, much less three years ago. We've crushed our first year on our five-year summit plan.

We grew last year by $350,000 in sales. By the way, debt-free company. We are a debt-free company, and the first thing I did was buy tickets to summit. It was great to see what that's done for our company, and the fact that because we're debt-free, because we've got the right pieces, we've got the right kind of people, that I don't have the same fear points with doing things like profit-sharing, which we're crushing now. It's taken what's already a growing, wonderful culture that has all the toxicity removed and ramping it up another notch, taking it to another level.

I never would have conceived of being possible if I would have followed the normal tactical business advice that's out there that everybody else is trained on. It seems that most people underestimate the impact of having concise, clear, operational. core values. We nailed our core values down to exactly the type of company that we were aspiring to be. Most of the rubbing each other raw that was going on was a fundamental trust issue, where we were operating on a different set of values, and it's almost impossible to trust someone's decision-making when you're not there seeing it if you don't know in your heart of hearts that they operate on the same set of values, and they're making decisions for the same reasons. We made a couple more decisions

to transition people out lovingly and brought the right people in and the culture has just taken off. I walk in and rather than people squeaking in the door at the last possible second punching a clock, jumping in a truck and leaving our office, we're a service-based business so much of our employee engagement happens

outside the purview of our office where I'm not seeing it. I'm coming in and guys are there 15, 20 minutes early hanging out talking, talking about work, talking about the business at hand, talking about our goals as a company, before they've clocked in, before they're ready for their day. It's amazing to see the fruit that that's bearing. And the culture is just night and day different, but it took a long time. It was not one of those switches that you flip or a new skill that you go learn and you implement the next day. It's a day in,

day out. You're growing a company. You're not building something overnight. You've got to water the seed and it takes a while. You're taking over a company from your in-laws. The hard part about doing these things on your own, especially in a family business, is you feel like you're all alone. And coming to an entree leadership event, the expectation is I'm going to see people like me that have the same struggle, that understand the same battle. It's a huge difference from just day-to-day life, grinding it out, trying to convince people to buy into the culture, and then the expectation of showing up to an event where other people are going through those battles, and they're building the same type of culture off the same playbook, and it's just energizing.

So, yeah, this is the celebration, and it's the relief of, hey, the light at the end of the tunnel is opening up, and we can see more of the sky. Now the sky's the limit. Now it's time to get here, see what other people are doing, be a part of the environment, be a part of the tribe, and realize the dream. My expectations, having been a remote member of the tribe, and realize the dream. My expectations, having been a remote member of the tribe for a while now were not that I was going to come here and have some life-changing epiphany. Although, and there have been some amazing points, my expectation coming to summit was I was going to get to be around people like me. It's been tough. It's been tough family-wise, just to, sorry, get a little chipped up. Making this trip is more about the tribe,

being around other people that are on the same path and are trying to accomplish the same goals. It's wind in your sales. It's all the difference in the world. Big thanks to Will Moyers for sharing his heart with us and with you. Folks, this is why we do live events like Summit, and we certainly would love for you to consider a life-changing event like Summit. We'd love to have you with us. We're already 70% sold out from the people who've been sitting here with us the last three days.

Of course, Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, and Chrissy Wright will be there from our team. Pat Lynchione coming back. Marcus Buckingham joining us for the first time. Dr. Henry Cloud coming back and Simon Sennick coming back. And we just announced today two other great additions. Peyton Manning, the All-World Hall of Fame, soon to be. First Ballot, Hall of Fame quarterback. Peyton Manning is going to be joining us.

And then Carrie Lawrence, she's the first female F-14 fighter pilot. So I've already got top gun music in my head bouncing around, and that's going to be in sunny San Diego, California. Now, here's the deal. We're 70% sold out. It's getting bigger and bigger and hotter and hotter. And folks are still head to the airport or checking out of their hotel as we speak, and they're going to buy tickets. So it's going to move quick. This isn't hype.

So here's the deal. We want to give you an opportunity. If you register before Tuesday, May, 20th, at 3 p.m. So whenever you're listening to this, look at your calendar where you're at, Tuesday, May 29th, 3 p.m. is the deadline. If you register before that deadline, you're going to save 300 bucks. So that's a really good deal. And here's how you register Entreeleadership.com slash Summit 2019. So Entreeleadership.com slash summit 2019. Or we have the link for you in this episode show notes. You want to move quick. It's going to be unbelievable out in sunny

San Diego. All right up next, I always love when our vice president of Entree leadership comes by. Sarah Sloyan just gave us a great, great wrap up of the week from her point of view, our team's point of view, and our attendees point of view. You're going to love this. Here is my conversation, Sarah Sloyan. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to our Summit 2018 live stage. We just wrapped up in the big ballroom to my right. What a fantastic couple of days it has been. As always, I'm Ken Coleman, and this is Sarah Sloan, our vice president of Entree Leadership, so let me start by saying, yeah, there you go. There you go. Yeah, she's very popular here in the hall. Let me start by saying welcome to the set, and congratulations

on another successful summit. Thank you. This has been so fun. This is our favorite week of the year. It's like camp. We get to see all of our favorite people, and we get to take it. that's amazing content. So we've loved it. All right, I'm going to put you on the spot, okay? And you can give me the politically correct executive answer, okay? So I'm going to set you up each day. Tell me your favorite part of each day. Okay, I know this is going to be hard for you. I know. I'm trying to remember back. It feels like we've been here for 10 years. Day one. Day one. What was your favorite? You know, I loved how Alan Malali gave us permission to simplify things. I think a lot of times as leaders, we feel this pressure to be the smartest and we feel like

we have to do all these things. And what I realized is we overcomplicate things when really we just have to know, hey, what's the plan? And what's each piece of the plan? And is that red, yellow, green? Is it on track or not? And if it's off track, what do we need to do to get it back on track? So I thought that was just awesome to kind of receive that permission to not overcomplicate things. Good. I like that. All right. Day two. Okay. I always love Donald Miller's pieces. I loved all of it. The idea of making your client the hero is so it hits me. You know, I'm all about super serving our people. And I think the more that we can realize we are the guide, we're there to help people. We're not the hero of this story. I think that's the way we should all do business.

Day three was jam-packed. Oh, my word. I don't know how you pick. I don't know how you're doing any of this, by the way. Okay, we did this lunch with Condoleezza. First of all, I loved her remarks. I loved your interview. Yeah, she was great. But then the Platinum lunch, I just thought she was so approachable and wonderful and impressive. She just was really inspiring for me.

Yeah, Condoleezza. Hard to beat that. As you've been out talking to our attendees, this is a great group of people. To set the scene for people at home, actually, what's the percentage of people that are here that here last year or the year before. I mean, it's unbelievable. A lot of alumni come to us. Yes. Yes. It wasn't quite half. I would guess it's between 30 and 40 percent were returners. Which is extraordinary. I loved that. When you did the activity this morning where we had everyone stand up if they were here for all four years, three years, two years, one year.

It really did blow my mind how many people were here for the first time. It was like Christmas. It was like having people there. Yeah, it was just amazing. Because how do you explain this a to people who had never been. So I was giddy for them to get to experiences for the first time. And then as you're out there talking with these people, there's something special, and I'm not sure I'm able to define it, but there's something special with the community here of these people. Is it the camaraderie of coming to an event,

or is it, hey, we understand what you're going through, and there's that. Like, people are locking arms when they come to this event. Yeah, totally. I think they look at that crowd, and they say, wow, 2,300 people that are going through the same things that I am, I'm not alone in this. You know, we all deal with the same questioning, can I do this?

Am I good enough? Am I doing the right thing? Okay, I've got this people issue. Is this the right move to make? Right. And I think there is something to having overlapping values. You know, I think that we all want to do business the right way and to care for our clients. And I think that makes it pretty special, too.

they're not in it for them. It's not just about this money. It's not like we have all these people here and they're just trying to grow their money. They want to become better leaders because they want to serve their teams better and they want to serve their clients better. I got to say, Sarah, you and your team have done a magnificent job as always. I want to say big thanks to all the guys. Jim Bab, Justin, Becky, Will, the crew, everybody that put this together. Courtney, I'm not going to thank Brendan, the technology guy because he didn't like my glasses. But for the rest of the team, they've been so great. especially our live events team. A live event team is amazing. Are they not world class? Yeah, they're so great. We dream up all this crazy stuff. Yeah. And then they make it look like this. It's amazing. We bust 2300 people to a ranch 30 plus miles away. And had four longhorns. Did you take a photo with a longhorn? I didn't. I like it. I shot a video. Did you post? Oh, that's right. We should post my video. We have to post your video. Okay, so here's the deal. For those of you out there, your entree fans, we're going to post a video of me getting some leadership lessons on the ranch.

to miss it because I am a city slicker. What? If nothing else, they have to see your chaps. Yeah, if you'd like to see me in chaps, you can watch the video. Okay, hey, we're tired, it's been incredible. You all are so amazing for tuning in. I'm going to keep the sunglasses on just to bother Brennan and the rest of you are going to sign off. Sarah Slend, you and your team.

See you in San Diego. See you in sunny San Diego. Well, hard to believe that summit is over. So much work goes into it and then it is just a. roller coaster ride of leadership goodness. And that means our special episodes from Summit are done, but we're going to keep bringing great content every Monday, so we'd love for you to subscribe, share, share, share.

On behalf of Will the producer, Eric Cheslovich, Chris Wright, and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.