EntreLeadership - #392: Paths to Success From How I Built This with Guy Raz

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Author and podcast host Guy Raz has interviewed thousands of leaders. Between working on his new book, How I Built This, and his day-to-day role hosting the popular NPR podcast of the same name, he’s heard the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to how some of the top names in business say they’ve gotten it right (or really wrong) in their leadership journey. Over time, Guy has found similar threads winding through their various paths to success. Join us to hear some of his key takeaways to building a successful business.   entreleadership.com/podcast How I Built This by Guy Raz How I Built This with Guy Raz episodes referenced: Tate's Bake Shop: Kathleen King Slack & Flickr: Stewart Butterfield Kate Spade: Kate & Andy Spade Starbucks: Howard Schultz Briogeo: Nancy Twine EntreLeadership's Business Health Assessment Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   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

You know, we all enjoy listening to the stories of how small businesses became household names. I think when I hear those stories, if you're like me, the question that it leaves us asking is, how do I do that? How can my small business get to that next level? Whether you really want to be a household name or maybe just your own version of what you dream about when you think about success, it takes ambition. Ambition is what drives small business owners forward. but the next level of business sometimes can seem out of reach. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast,

where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Daniel Tardy, and my guest today is Guy Raz. He's an award-winning journalist, the host of the popular podcast, How I Built This, and he's the author of the new book by the same title. You know, Guy and I, and what we do, we both get to talk with business owners who started small and then achieve success. They've all gotten to kind of this next level of business, and we get to interview them and ask them about their paths to success. Here's what we can tell you.

Each business owner has a different journey, but there's some common themes of what it takes to get to that next level. Entrepreneurs are not superheroes, right? They're no different than anybody else that you know. They are all Clark Kent's, right? The only difference between the people I interview and the people listening is that those Clark Kent's went into the phone booth and put the cape on, a cape that we all, I believe we all have access to, you know, and they took off. And they really pursued an idea that some people thought was crazy and some people thought was impossible. But they believed in it and they pursued it and persevered. And that's really the beginning of what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

You talk about this cape that we all have access to. What is that cape? It is a series of learned skills. So, you know, a lot of people will say to me, what are these entrepreneurs have in common? Why, you know, why did Kevin Sistram built Instagram? Or, you know, why did Kathleen King build Tate's cookies? And really what I have found is that they all have skills that they have learned, honed, and developed. It is a little bit like standing at the free throw line and shooting 100,000 baskets.

You know, the first 10,000 you are going to miss. The second 10,000, you're going to sink a few. By the time you get to the final 90,000, you're going to start to sink those free throws. And some of those qualities are things like the ability to withstand rejection. This is why so many people in sales and marketing become amazing entrepreneurs. Because if you're a salesman or salesman, you know that your life is about getting doors slammed in your face or phones slam down. Yeah, it's like you have to have thick skin. You have to have thick skin.

And if you can develop that, because I believe that this is a quality that all of us have the capacity to develop by just doing it and learning how to accept rejection, you can build a company. you can build a business. So clearly perseverance is really important. We talk all the time about just never quit. Like not quitting is half the battle. Yet I sense that as you've talked to these leaders and these founders, it's not just not quitting. Like you have to be practicing the right things.

And you said developing these skills. Because I know a lot of businesses, you know, 30 years they go on. They never quit, but they never really get the plane off the runway. No. And yet you've talked to ones who have gone from really nothing going for them to now they're a major national household brand. What are these skills that they're working on and developing? Well, you know, I really think that a lot of it begins with solving one problem at a time, right?

I mean, essentially a business is a series of problems because a business begins with somebody confronting a challenge. Maybe there is, there's something that they have to solve, but they can't find the product or the service to solve that problem. So the obvious answer is, well, I've got to come up with it, right? I mean, this is how the ring doorbell was invented. Jamie Siminoff had a problem. He had an office in the garage of his home, but he couldn't answer the door, the front door, and he was working out of his home by himself. And what happens is you have a problem and then you have to solve that problem, except that a business is just a series of problems that will never go away. There's a wonderful African proverb that you may know.

it's how do you eat an elephant? One small bite at a time. And it's a wonderful proverb because it applies to the idea of a business. How do you run a business or solve problems in a business? And it's one problem at a time. And in the beginning, these problems are enormous. And over time, they become more manageable. They're like lily pads that you can jump from one problem to the next and to the next and to the next.

And I really believe that the most successful entrepreneurs break it down. into small chunks over time until they are able to resolve problems in a very manageable way. And it builds momentum as they go. Yeah. Of all the founders that you've interviewed with how I built this, you know, we're talking about seeing a problem and then going to solve it. In the case of the ring doorbell, you know, he literally has this problem personally. He's going, this is drive me crazy. I'm going to be my first customer.

And that's kind of that inspiration, that entrepreneurial spark. You know, I've found this with all the businesses we work with. It's not very often that a great business starts with a founder who says, I bet I can make a lot of money if I just whatever, right? It's, I have a problem, and it's driving me crazy, and then a business is born. Right. One of my favorite stories is the story of Dyson, the vacuum cleaner. I mean, James Dyson, when I interviewed him, he was the, and is, the, I think, the 12th richest person in the United Kingdom and the third,

or fourth biggest landowner. But at the age of 42, he was broke. He had no money. He was living off of his wife's income. She was a part-time art instructor because he had this vision for a better vacuum cleaner. If you, I have a shopback, which I love my shop back, but when the bag of that shop back is full, it stops sucking anything in because vacuum cleaners require a bag. And he had this vision for creating a bagless vacuum clean. cleaner. It took him eight years, five and a half thousand prototypes working on this in his backyard. And people were telling him he was nuts. But he was single-mindedly focused on creating something that was going to make, you know, household cleaning better and more efficient. And he wasn't he wasn't thinking about becoming a billionaire. Obviously he did. But he was really thinking about just improving the vacuum cleaner. And that was what motivated him. It's like becoming a billionaire was a byproduct of,

of being obsessed with solving this problem. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and of course there are people who start businesses to make money, and there's nothing wrong with that. But what I find is that when you're motivated by a different sense of purpose, that's not just financial, but that's about, you know, making a part of our world better or more efficient or offering a product or a service

that's going to improve the way people live or make them happy. I mean, you know, I've done the story of Stacey's Peter Chips and 10. hates cookies and they're wonderful products. I mean, they didn't change the world, you know, quite like Virgin Atlantic did or Wikipedia did. But they did bring joy to people and do bring joy to people. And that's an incredibly powerful motivating factor when you're starting something out. Because if you know that it's not about what's going to end up in your wallet, but what's going to end up improving people's lives, it gives you that fuel to keep pushing forward.

Yes. I want you to say more about this idea of purpose. In fact, purpose is one of the six drivers that we teach in Entree leadership of a peak performing company. And if you don't have that purpose, you're just not going to make it. I think you said something interesting that it's not necessarily going to change the world. And there's this misnomer that somehow my thing has to be a world changer. You know, Steve Jobs told us to leave a dent in the universe. Well, I have an HVAT company with 20 employees in Kansas. How am I going to change the world? But we would say they still have to have purpose. And what I find for that HVAC company employer who's got 20 employees, you are impacting the lives of maybe 200 people. All of the people who depend on those employees. All of the college educations that job is going to pay for. All of the innovations those people are going to come up with on their own because their mom or dad was an employee of that company. Being an employer is inherent in that, you know, running a small business, inherent in what you do is a sense of purpose, especially if you have an employee or two or five or ten, because you are actually supporting an ecosystem. That's just incredibly powerful.

I mean, that is leaving a dent in the universe as far as I'm concerned. Right, no doubt. So the 100 founders that you've interviewed, did they all start with that sense of purpose? or is it something that maybe you develop and kind of stumble on along the way? You know, I think that the best businesses, and in the book I focus on about 100 founders, but over the course of my career, we've had deep dives with almost 500 founders and CEOs, really intensive interviews that have given us just an incredible wealth of data to start to connect the dots about what are the things they do right? What are the things they do wrong?

Because, by the way, the book is also a compendium of mistakes. and errors. But, you know, I think that the best companies and the most successful companies, big or small, whether it's a corner store, you know, selling groceries or a huge organization like Starbucks, they build mission, they bake it in from the beginning. So from the very beginning, before they're a big company, mission is baked into their identity because that's how you develop a culture that is about mission. So whether you are, you know, making peloton's and your mission is to make exercise accessible for everybody and to encourage people to be more healthy. Or you've got an HVAC company. You have to think about

your purpose and mission right from the beginning and really use that as a North Star when you're pursuing the idea and creating a culture around your idea. Right. I love that. I think you have to have that foundational piece of purpose. In fact, I've heard in some of these conversations you've had with founders where they started a company and then they kind of stumbled and realized, oh, this isn't really the thing. And they almost went scorched earth and said, we got to figure out our purpose. And then we're going to launch our company from the place of purpose and not so we can just have a company. I mean, 100%. I mean, this happens all the time with businesses, you know.

I mean, one of the great examples is that I talk about in the book is Slack, right? Slack, which we're all using in the pandemic age now. But, you know, originally Stuart Butterfield, his big dream was to start a gaming company. He was a big believer in these massive multiplayer online games, and he wanted to create the most beautiful online community of gamers. He found investors. He started this company called Glitch. They actually had a beautiful prototype that they put out. They had a business model.

They put it out into the world. It was a highly sophisticated online game in 2012 when it was launched. And it flopped. It totally failed. And Stewart had to shut down the company. He had to let people go. People came from across the country to join that company. And it was one of the hardest days of his life announcing to the team that they were done, you know, that the business was going to fold.

Well, a couple days later, as he was kind of sweeping out the office with the folks who remained there, they were talking. And some of Stewart's friends had known about this internal messaging system that they had developed a glitch for the programmers, the developers, the developers, the salespeople, the marketing people, to all communicate. And they asked if they could borrow it. And it was a whispering campaign around Silicon Valley. People had heard about this software that glitch had developed to develop the game. And it then occurred to Stewart and the three people left that that was the product. This messaging system that they had developed to build the game was the thing.

That was what they were meant to do. And that is how Slack was founded. They discovered it along the way. They discovered it along the way. That's so inspiring. You know, I have to imagine, Guy, that many of the founders that you've interviewed are often like a lot of the entre leadership, small business men and women that we work with, where they would almost call themselves an accidental leader.

They had this sense of purpose and a passion to solve a problem. And they look up one day and they go, oh, my gosh, there's 50 people looking at me to know something about leadership and how to run a – I'm a CEO. You know, I didn't expect to get here. I didn't go to get my MBA. I didn't go to school for this. And this idea of having to reinvent ourselves to stay up with the organization, what have you seen have been the challenges and maybe some of these inflection points in a business

where the bottleneck becomes the leader? The person who started it is now the lid. John Maxwell says sometimes we're the lid as the leader and we become the bottleneck and everything rises and falls on leadership. What are those inflection points and maybe some stories where you saw while this person figured out how to really reinvent themselves. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think that as you are forced to take on more leadership roles, I think most of us naturally kind of rise to that moment because I don't think that you have to have charisma to be a great leader. You don't have to be able to jump on stage like Steve Ballmer and pump your fist.

But it's something that even those who are uncharismatic. And by the way, many of the founders I've interviewed are naturally uncarishman. But their charisma comes as they really begin to develop their businesses and begin to see themselves as a leader. A big part of this is how we see ourselves. And I think that we all have this capacity, again, to reimagine who we are. You know, we are not fixed in a time and a place in our lives. You know, there's so much research about this. Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert has done so much research about how every roughly 10 years in our lifetime, we change.

I mean, our values may not change, you know, what we hold dear. And but our big parts of our personality change, big parts of the way we see ourselves change. I mean, even in my case, you know, I've started two businesses. But I began my career as a reporter, you know, 25 years ago. And initially, I didn't see myself as an entrepreneur. I didn't see myself as somebody who would lead teams. I really wanted to tell stories and pursue that. And I think that is a recurring theme I find over and over.

over and over again. I mean, Kevin Sistram started Instagram. He was a computer nerd, you know, but he had to rise to that occasion and learn how to be a leader and learn how to talk to a large audience of people, you know, who watched him. Even Stuart Butterfield, you know, a lot of these folks, you know, were toiling away by themselves. Lisa Price, who started her cosmetics company, Lisa Carroll's daughter, she started it in her kitchen, you know. The guys who founded Method soap, I mean, it was the two of them working in their group house in San Francisco. Over time, as they looked around and they saw 10 people and then it was 15 people and then eventually 100 people, they had to figure out quickly how to lead. And in most cases, it wasn't a process of like, what do I do?

What do I say? It was kind of working it out. And the charisma kind of came to them. Now, of course, there are examples of brilliant founders who just aren't right. to lead the company, you know, and in some cases, they agree. The business will be better off having a CEO. We've seen that on occasion, but I generally think that founders are almost always the best people to run their companies because they know it better than anyone else. They know the story.

They know the mission. They know the reason why they get out of bed every morning. And I think time and again, the founder of a business is just the business. best person to inspire the people around them, to want to make what they do great. Well, it makes sense. It's their baby. It's their baby. They literally gave birth to this child. You know, you started four or five years ago. You said, okay, we're going to have this podcast and this show. We're going to interview founders. I imagine you might have had some preconceived notions about leadership. Has anything surprised

you along the way? Any standouts where you thought, wow, I didn't see that coming. And look, at almost every interview I do, I'm surprised. You know, look, when I interview somebody, and when I interview people who appear in this book, I know a lot about them going into the interview. We do a lot of research. I do many, many hours of reading. But I'm also trying to trigger memories through my questions that I didn't know and that they may not have remembered until the moment of the interview. And what I find in many, many examples of my conversations with some of these titans, you know, people like Jamie, Simanov of Ring who sold his company for a billion dollars or Andy Dunn who started bonobos or

Jen Hyman who started rent the runway are people who are vulnerable who show vulnerability who have talked about things like depression and anxiety and just crippling moments of not knowing what to do and self-doubt and I think that's really important because a lot lot of us assume that entrepreneurs are these hyper-confident, self-assured, they got it all figured out. But in virtually every case, in virtually every story I've told, somebody breaks down at some point. They remember a moment when it was all lost. You know, I recently interviewed Joel Clark, the founder of Kodiak Cakes, the pancake company, amazing protein pancakes. I'm sure a lot of people know Kodiak's.

And 11 years ago, man, Joel was, that company was bankrupt. He was looking for a buyer. He couldn't find an investor. Nobody wanted to buy that brand. He went to his dad, and his dad took a line of credit out on his home. His dad had no money. He worked for the church's whole life. He took a line of credit out on his house and gave Joel $50,000 to pay down some debts.

And recounting the story, Joel just broke down, you know. He was just shattered. You know, he worked on this thing for 16 years. it couldn't make it profitable. Today it's the third largest pancake maker in the country. They're looking at $200 million in revenue this year. I mean, that's, that was 11 years ago. And I think that this idea of showing vulnerability, and I think it's been a real shift in our culture. You know, it used to be that the leader was tough and, you know, and now I think it's changed a lot. So I'm curious, do you sense that they are generally vulnerable like that? Or is, I imagine there's something about that conversation with you and you triggering those members. where maybe for the first time ever, they just kind of exhale and I'm putting down some of this baggage because they're going back through that journey for the first time. Yeah, I mean, they're revealing what we kind of already know, which is that all of us go through these moments of self-doubt.

All of us have sleepless nights. You know, all of us have times where we doubt our own abilities and we worry about whether we're going to make payroll. And when people depend on you, it's very stressful. But what I'm trying to show and what I think I have learned about entrepreneurs is that they are truly human. They are not superhuman. And it means that they have moments of crisis and moments of self-doubt. And what I tried to do with the show and with the book is to say, this person that you admire, you know, Howard Shultz or Richard Branson or, you know, the founders of Airbnb or. the founders of Rent the Runway or Bonobos or Method, let me tell you their story. So you

understand the mistakes they made, the right decisions they made, how they resolved their problems, but also the really dark, crucible moments that they went through in creating this incredible brand. I've experienced that. You know, when I listen to these conversations, I'm driving and I kind of just get the sense of like, oh, they're like me. You know, they're like a regular down-to-earth person. And oftentimes you don't perceive that when you, you know, their names in the headlines or they're on the cover of fast company and you kind of build them up as a God in your mind a little bit. But, you know, you mentioned hearing their story. And I think everybody has a story. And you have this amazing way of just drawing the story out and getting them to be, I don't think you're getting them to be human, but you're highlighting the fact that they're the same as the rest of us.

I mean, I think a big part of that is bringing as much empathy as you can to a conversation. And trying to, what I try to do is I try to jump into that person's movie, right? Like we all consciousness, human consciousness, I think the best description is it's our own movie. Like when you walk around, you're seeing everything from your perspective and your day is your experience and your perspective. And that's your movie in your brain. And it's very rare for any of us to be able to jump into someone else's movie, you know, into their real-time experience. And that's what I'm trying to do. I want to be in the passenger seat.

And I want to be there and say, I'm here with you. Let's go on this journey. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're able to really get some of these intimate details from people because revealing those things that are only in your head to me and to our listeners can be cathartic. Yeah. How often does it occur that a founder starts out with humble beginnings? They're chasing their purpose, and they look up one day and they've succeeded. And they start reflecting back on that journey and they go, man, I've got some regrets. There's parts of this story I'm not really proud of because success can be very alluring and we can chase and chase and chase.

And I've seen this where sometimes leaders can lose who they are in the pursuit of the thing that they're chasing. They're trying to fill a hole in their own heart and they kind of lose perspective. about the impact they're making or who they're serving or just even being okay without the business. Like, who would I be without this thing? And their identity gets, you know, it's wrapped up into it. And that happens oftentimes when founders sell their businesses, you know, especially when their name is attached to it. Say more about that. Well, I mean, Kate Spade is a wonderful example of it. I, you know, I had her on the show. It was really, it was a last major interview she'd given before her death. It's tragic.

What a wonderful person she was. You know, having her on the show and telling me her story and how she started making handbags out of potato sacks, canvas sacks. She had no money. She had no connections. I mean, she was an editor at Cosmopolitan magazine, but she had no experience making in the fashion world. And she built this incredible brand. And she eventually sold it fairly early in the late 90s. But imagine, you know, Kate Spade for the rest of her life, she couldn't use.

her name. She would go around the world and see Kate Spade shops everywhere. Her name, but it wasn't hers. And that can be very difficult. And I've interviewed people, Dave Anderson, who founded Famous Dave's Barbecue. You know, he took his company public very early and lost control of it. He's involved with a company. He's a brand ambassador, but it's not his business anymore. And if you ask him about it, he will tell you his biggest regret was taking it public because I think at the time you thought this is going to make us scale quickly and it's going to make us big and you know and so had he had a chance to do it differently i think he would have done it differently because his name is on that brand it's famous daves but it's it's not his you know at entree leadership we really believe in

business should be a calling it's it's something that you do with your life you know if if you're in game is to exit or to sell well then what you're just going to hang out on a yacht the rest of your life with who you're going to be lonely as hell like you got to you got to have something to live for that you go, this is why I was put on this planet. We see that oftentimes, like you're saying, somebody sells or they go public and they start to go, I no longer have control on this thing that I'm supposed to be doing with my life

and they lose their identity in that. I mean, you had this conversation with Kate Spade, and we all know the tragic story, and it's really sad. But if she could come back and talk to these founders today, looking at the whole story arc of her life, what do you think she would say as that caution to say, hey, keep this as your true north? Well, I think it's what you say, right? What you said, which is for most founders, I think, and for most people who start businesses, it becomes who you are.

It's your identity. It's what gives you purpose in life, what gets you out of bed. You know, you go to an office, you've got colleagues, there's camaraderie, and there's a shared purpose. There's a feeling of solidarity. And when you give it up, when you sell it or in some cases you lose it, you lose your identity. And that's the reality. Most people, not just entrepreneurs, most people, I think we all think in our minds, oh, it would be wonderful to just lie on a pool lounger and have a frozen daquery for the rest of my life. But actually, that actually leads to depression, misery and a whole host of other things.

There's a, you know, I think it's Marcus Aurelius who talked about how in life. we need to experience strain and challenge and adversity every day in some way. Now, I exercise every day, okay? Now, I hate it. Okay? I absolutely hate it. It's strenuous. It's an hour of my day.

It's really hard. I don't look forward to it, but I do it because it's the hardest thing, hopefully, that I will do that day. And I will do that for the rest of my life. It's a never-ending process. It's not like one day I wake up and I say, okay, I'm healthy. I can now go play on a pool lounger and have a margarita. I'm going to, you know, over time, my body and my mind will be great. And that's why a lot of entrepreneurs, even who are billionaires or multi-millionaires, they'll work until they're dead because it's their identity. It's

who they are. Well, I think it's a great metaphor. You know, I have found similar feelings. There's times I'm like, oh, I just don't want to work out today. I'm not feeling it. but I've gone through the cycle enough where I didn't work out for a season, and I felt terrible, and I felt depressed, and I just couldn't get motivated with anything in life. And so it's kind of one of those things that I hate how I feel when I don't do it more than the little bit of discomfort that I have if I'll just do it every day. And I think it's similar in business. Of course there's times you're shoveling crap. Of course there's times you're going, I went out of this. I'm dealing with this employee issue or whatever, a legal issue.

but the idea of not doing it, you said it earlier, so what's my purpose? Person without a purpose is lost and depressed, and that's a sad state. We both have seen that. Yes. You were talking earlier about some of these people kind of breaking down when you're talking to them and having very emotional accounts of their journey. Do you feel like that there's pieces of this that when they're talking with you, you talked about empathy and having a connection?

We found a lot of small businesses oftentimes that owner or founder is very isolated. They don't have a connection and they're carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and there's not a sounding board. What have you found to be the correlation between great founders who became great and making sure they weren't isolated or putting other smart people around them so that they were a part of a team? This becomes really, really challenging the bigger your business gets, right? because people around you start to join the company and then you get isolated in a bubble.

And really the best leaders that I have interviewed are leaders who have figured out how to break through that, how to make themselves accessible and to really demand to hear hard truths from their people and to be challenged. Doug Conant is a great example. He's not a business entrepreneur, but he was the CEO of Campbell's. He took over Campbell's in the early 2000s when that business was tanking, and he turned it around. He turned around that iconic soup company. And one of the first things he did when he got to the company was he spent the first six months just walking the halls and talking to people and saying, please, I'm not here to intimidate you. I'm here to learn from you. I need to know what's going on.

And he had small, intimate, one-on-one gatherings with hundreds employees. He was his own in-house consultant. And he discovered so many things that needed to be fixed and solved. And he took those problems one problem at a time and solved them. You know, this also applies to a small company, a small organization. Because if you're the leader and you're running your HVAC company and you've got 20 people, you know, there are things that maybe sometimes they don't want to say to the boss where they, you know, they might feel uncomfortable. But it is, and I have this, by the way, running my team. You know, I've got a team of 15 people who work on my shows.

And, you know, sometimes there are things that they are not comfortable talking about with me for a variety of reasons. And so I try to have one-on-one conversations with every person on my team regularly just to hear them out, just to hear what's on their mind. If there are things that we could be doing better, it's really, really important because that ground truth comes from the people on the ground. Well, they have that perspective. And like you're saying, sometimes they're afraid to say the emperor has no close. and there's a power dynamic or a power differential. And, well, if you say that to the boss, you know, you're on his bad side or you might get fired. And I think it's so important for leaders to do exactly what you're talking about is it's making it safe to say things that would be uncomfortable, even if it's about that leader.

Because if you don't have that trust and that transfer and the ability for the team to come in and not get smacked just because they say, hey, this could be better. You're never going to hear what you need to about what's in your blind spot to get better, you know, as that leader. Right. And I mean, a classic example of this is Dov Charnie of American Apparel. He built this amazing brand, clothing made in the United States, high-quality cotton shirts and, but the brand became about him. And if you start a brand and it's about you, the brand can never live on beyond you. You know, Starbucks is not Howard Schultz, even though he essentially founded it. I mean, he bought a little coffee bean store called Starbucks and merged it with an espresso shop in Seattle.

and then recreated Starbucks. But it was never about Howard Schultz. I mean, he embodied the brand, but he knew that he could leave any time and somebody could take it over. And that is the mark of a great leader, somebody who understands that it's not about them. It's about this thing that they're putting out into the world. And in a sense, to me, the greatest entrepreneurs, the greatest leaders are the ones who essentially work themselves into obsolescence, whose goal is to make themselves obsolete down the road. They're working themselves out of a job their whole life, right? Exactly. And that can be daunting. And it can also feel like, okay, so I've worked myself out of a job.

What is my purpose now? You know, it comes back to what we were saying earlier. So the ones that have done that successfully, how do they, once they arrive at that point, stay engaged? They haven't lost their value. I would say they're a hundred times more valuable at that stage. But functionally, they don't do anything. You know, it's like, what do I do now? Right. And I think the, most successful leaders when it's time for them to step aside become mentors. And think about the CEOs in the 80s and 90s that were venerated, Jack Welch. I don't think that we would talk about Jack Welch's model today as a particularly good model. I mean, I think a leader who lays the groundwork for their successor to succeed is actually a

great leader. The person who says, hey, you know, I'm stepping aside from my business and I'm going to hand it off to my son or my business partner or my employee, and I'm going to make sure they succeed. That is a sign of a great leader. Actually, a good example of this is a friend of mine who used to run NPR, Yarlal Mohn. A terrific CEO, phenomenal CEO, a wonderful, charismatic kind man. He stepped down a year and a half ago and is retired now, but is still an advisor to his successor, serves on the board, is there as a sounding board.

He doesn't micromanage, he doesn't control. He doesn't even offer his opinion. He only waits until he is asked, and he's asked a lot because he's got a lot of wisdom. He also works with young entrepreneurs as an investor and as a mentor. And I think that's a huge opportunity for people when it's time for them to step aside to share their wisdom. Because you've got, in some cases, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of experience. And now your job is to pass it on. You're hitting on something that I know you're very familiar with. That's the hero's journey. You come from being the warrior who's got to go fight a battle. And after you go through that battle, you understand kind of how it works and you ascend to this guide. And your job is to then guide all the young warriors who are about to go into battle.

Yeah, you become Obi-1 Canobi. Right. Right. And you're looking for your next Jedi. And this is something that really does give people a strong sense. of purpose. You know, one of the things that I think is a real challenge in the United States today, and maybe somebody watching this can solve this problem is we have an incredible reservoir of talent among retired people and older people. Incredible. I mean, think about the collective wisdom of all the senior citizens in the United States who are not working at a job. That's a great point. And all of that wisdom that is untapped and the trillions of dollars of value that these people can bring if their wisdom is tapped. And I think that's a huge challenge that we have to figure it how to navigate not only in the United States but in other countries.

You know, you look at a country like Japan where elderly people are venerated, worshipped. You know, in the United States, they're ignored. And that is a challenge but an opportunity as well. Yeah. I love the idea of somebody doing a show where they interview, you know, the former generations and extract that. advice. But, you know, I also know that, I mean, if you're that young warrior and you're going, well, I need a mentor, some of that is up to you to go find that person. You got to seek out mentors, right? I mean, that's a part of the game. And it's not like, it's sort of like a marriage,

right? My friend Simon Sinek, who I think you've, you've had on the show, a wonderful, writer, he talks about this. And, you know, people have said to Simon, hey, will you be my mentor? I've seen this at his, at his events, you know, and I go way back with Simon. We've known each other since we were teenagers, by the way. Oh, wow. And Simon has said, you know, look, finding a mentor is not just asking someone to be a mentor. It's like a marriage or falling in love with somebody. You have to cultivate somebody.

You have to really identify somebody or some people who are doing things that you want to do. And you have to figure out how to develop a relationship with that person before you become a mentee. And oftentimes it's not a formal question of like, will you be my mentor? It happens naturally. And I think a lot of younger people starting out have that opportunity to find those mentors in their workplace, obviously, in their division. What I did when I started out was I looked for people who were doing the job that I wanted to do, you know, who were doing the things that I wanted to do, who were leaders in my organization, you know, early in my career, I was an employee at NPR. And I looked for the people around me who I thought were really making important decisions. And I, you know, I made

sure to work really hard for them in exchange, hopefully, for some mentorship. And it's a process. You know, it's something that a mentee has to, you're right, find and identify and work hard at. But I also think that mentors, people who are in a position to offer mentorship, people who have experience and advice, they have to open up. They got to open up their arms and say, I'm here. am available, you know, and make it clear that they are ready to help and advise anybody who is seeking it out. Well, it's a beautiful thing. I actually had a conversation yesterday morning, and it was just me mentoring somebody that they don't even work in my area. And I got to tell you, if I'm honest, when they asked for the time, I just kind of had this impulse of like, I don't

really have time. Yeah. You know, but I like them. Like, I want to make the time, but I don't have the time. And for some reason, I just, I just committed. I said, let's do it. Yeah. And Guy, I found that after the conversation, I think I was better maybe than even than they were. Like, I left for something more than they got out of it. And yes, you did. Talk about this idea of, you know, leaders and founders who are busy, they're building their business. There's so much going on. The value of making time for mentorship, it's not just about the people you're mentoring, but you can't afford to not do it because of how your own leadership development is tied to this, right? That's right.

This is an old concept, servant leadership. Actually, not that old, but it's a concept that's out there. When you serve, it actually gives you a greater sense of purpose when you're serving other people. I mean, this is why, and Bill Gates has talked about this. You know, he gives away his money. Obviously, he's got a lot of money, and he has a responsibility to give it away because he can really shift things on planet Earth. but it actually creates an incredible feeling in him when he knows that he can give his wealth away. He could just hand it away, you know.

And that is, it's a similar concept with running a business. When you are offering somebody mentorship, it actually is a, it's actually a very validating experience because somebody is coming to you, Daniel, or whoever's watching and they're saying, hey, you're somebody I admire and respect and you've got wisdom. I'd love to tap into that. I mean, how often do people come up to us and say, hey, you're wise. I really think you're great. I mean, you probably get it more than most people, and I do too because we have public jobs. But for the most part, people don't experience that when they're waiting in line at the supermarket. But all of a sudden, you've got somebody in your company or maybe a college student coming and saying, hey, you know, I really want to start a small business.

I know you've got this HVAC company. I know that you run a small interior design company. I know you have a small law office. Can I talk to you about that? And so being able to give that to somebody is incredibly nourishing and fulfilling and validating. And so many of us don't realize that being mentors actually serves us as well. So two-part question. Do you have people that you mentor?

And if so, how do you decide where you're going to prioritize? You can't mentor a thousand people effectively. You have to prioritize. Who are you looking for where you're going to go, I'm going to spend this much time with this person? It's worth it. I'm looking for primarily, and most of the mentoring I do are, of course, with people on my team. But also, you know, occasionally a younger person I've met and we've connected. I look for people primarily who, of course, I believe have potential and I believe have an incredibly strong work ethic.

But the number one thing I look for when I hire somebody or mentor somebody is, are you kind? because if you're kind, I can train you to do the things that we do on our show. I'm pretty sure of that. I am not a rocket scientist. I'm a professional interviewer. I learned how to do this over 25 years of doing it. You know, I didn't come out of the womb knowing how to do this. Nobody does.

If you're kind and considerate, compassionate, and empathetic, that's the most important thing I look for. When you find somebody that's kind, and I imagine that what goes with that is a spirit of humility, which means that they're teachable and they're coachable, right? Yes. It's just amazing when somebody says, hey, I'm hungry and I'll do the work. I would often rather have somebody who's hungry and lacking in talent than somebody who's very talented but arrogant, you know, because if they have it all figured out, they're not in a learning state and they don't, they're not interested in your opinions.

A thousand percent. I mean, a thousand percent. And I think one of the tricks for younger people starting out who are less experienced is to to really show that humility. And of course, look, when you're young, and I remember this feeling, you know, you're in hurry. And you have great ideas. And sometimes your ideas are actually better than what you're seeing in your business. But it's really important to show respect and for the people who have kind of done the grind, you know, for 20, 30 years.

And to show humility. Because really what you're asking for is a chance to learn. And then over time, a chance to offer your. own opinions and to begin to shape either the organization you're in or the job you're doing or the product or service you're trying to build. You know, I hear a lot of these success stories, you interviewing these founders, and we've seen this with entree leadership companies. Many times the founder will say, you know, the money's great, the notoriety, but the really

special part that I didn't know was going to happen is all these relationships that I've built along the way. It's the people that I've been able to do this with. Have you found that to be true? Yes, 100%. I mean, you know, the show is called How I Built This. My book is called How I Built This. But, you know, the reality is there's no eye. I mean, it's a every brand, every business, every company was built by multiple people, you know, many, many people. And it could have been, you know, a small moment of somebody giving feedback to a product that was transformational. You know, it could have been somebody who wrote a small check, seed money to make it happen at the beginning. We just did a company called Briogio, hair care products company, run by an incredible entrepreneur named Nancy Twine. She's just found somebody who believed in her and gave her a small check to start this business out at the beginning. And today it's one of the fastest growing products at Sephora, you know, an incredible story.

And I see and hear this in every case of every person I interview, you know, whether it's Stuart Butterfield of Slack or, you know, Joe Gabi of Airbnb or Dina Trout who started. health aid kombucha. It's the people around them who they really talk about and light up. Well, that's what it's about. And that's the thing that's lasting beyond the bank account and everything else. It's those relationships. You know, Guy, many people listening to this podcast, small businesses between two, 200 employees, they're probably driving to work right now, listening to this going, okay, that's inspiring. All these big names, they've made it. Great. And I'm coming into Monday morning and staff meeting. And I'm a little bit burned out and I'm struggling and I'm not sure if I have what it takes.

You've seen the humble beginnings and you've talked with and sat with the Titans and the Kings who have made it. What would you encourage them with? The ones who are maybe on the fence going, I don't know. I mean, I've put my whole life into this thing. Maybe I don't have what it takes. I think I have that dream. I think I want to keep going. But guy, I'm not sure.

It's really hard, but you have to get out of your own way. And many times, you know, when we're well into a business, 10, 15 years in, you know, we've got battle scars. And it's very easy to get comfortable or get cynical. And this is actually a story that I've heard time and again. And Joel Clark is a great example of this. Joel Clark of Kodiac Cakes. He was at that point after 16 years. He was cynical.

He had bad battle scars. He had just seen all the obstacles thrown in front of him. He couldn't get his product distributed in any of the major stories. of course, it's in Costco, Target, Walmart, everywhere. And he ended up hiring a 22-year-old recent graduate of the University of Utah. He put up an ad in the Career Center. This kid transformed his life. His name is Cameron because he came to the business energized, excited about pancake mix.

And Joel was thinking, really? You're excited. And Cameron said, this should be in Walmart. This should be in Target. This should be in Costco. And guess what? He started pitching these huge companies. This 22-year-old kid went to Minneapolis in a suit and tie and pitched Target and got Codiacakes into Target.

I love it. That transformed this. I mean, at that time, Joel was in his late 30s. You know, he was burned out. This kid transformed the business. Sometimes you just need a shot of energy. You need a Cameron or you need to find a, hopefully my book can do some of that for you. or you go on a retreat,

or you find somebody to come in and do an analysis and to kind of help show you that you got to get out of your own way in order to allow yourself to really find your potential. It's like you've got to shake it up. If you're doing the same things, you're going to get the same results. You got to disrupt yourself.

Yeah. Yes. Well, Guy, in our final moments here, I'd love for you to cast a little vision about why you're optimistic about the future of our country. Because right now our country is dealing with some pretty serious issues, and it's a lot of garbage and mess that we've got to work through.

But personally, I still believe it's the greatest country on the planet. And a lot of that belief is tied to the fact that we have this free market enterprise where somebody who says, hey, I have a problem that I want to go solve. I want to build a company. I want to make a difference. That's still possible here. And you've seen that. And you've talked with hundreds, even thousands of people.

who have actually done that. And that dream is still alive, I believe. But what do you see? What do you see about where we're going or at least where we can go if we do this right? Look, here's the reality. In the United States, entrepreneurship is in decline. The height of entrepreneurship was in the 70s

and in the 1980s in the United States. But we have this incredible opportunity to see a rebirth and a re-energizing of entrepreneurship. Because I believe that people starting up businesses, small businesses, that is the backbone of how our country really kind of is reborn. You know, small businesses aren't just the backbone of the United States. They're the engines of innovation. That's where the really truly transformational ideas come from and these small businesses that then grow and grow and grow. And I am super energized and excited about the future of entrepreneurship.

I think what is most crucial and most important, and I'm starting to see signs of this, is that opportunities become more and more available for more and more people, not the usual, not just the usual folks. I think, you know, look, I'm a white guy. You're a white guy. It's easier for us to find funding and opportunities because of our system. And I believe that once we, and I think we're going to move in that direction, once we see, you know, opportunities and mentorship and. and investments going to all kinds of folks from different backgrounds, from poor communities, from rural communities, from black communities, Latino communities. We're going to see this incredible, incredible flowering of entrepreneurship in this country. We're going to see businesses that were born at this time during this crisis because, you know what? We're in the middle of a huge crisis. And if there's one thing I know about crises is that they inspire innovation and change. And I think this one will inspire huge changes.

And in five to 10 years, the big companies we're going to be talking about were born during this time. I love that vision. It's beautiful. He is Guy Raz. The book is How I Built This. Check out the book. Check out the podcast. If you haven't heard that.

Where have you been some inspiring stories in both the podcast and the book? The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World's Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs. Guy, thank you for what you do and how you've curated these stories and your own story and how you inspire with highlighting what leadership can look like and what an inspiration it is to be a part of a business and growing something that you believe in. Thank you for these words. Thank you, Daniel. Thanks for having me. Talk about a unique perspective on success. The thousands of conversations that guys had and all the data he has of all these men and women who started out small, they had a dream, they followed it, they bumped and scraped and they

They ran into blockers along the way, and then they had a breakthrough, and they came out on top. Well, guys, you know what he told us? Success is not mysterious. That's good news. It means that the success principles are, well, they're just that. They're principles. And you take your hard work, and you take your passion, and you connect it to these principles. And, guys, it's a matter of time.

You're going to win. If you don't believe that, you've been doing it wrong. And at Entree leadership, we're here to help you do it right. We're committed to helping you tie into these principles. that are guaranteed to make you successful if you'll do the work. Again, it's not easy, but it's not that complicated either. So what's your takeaway on this? As you think about your success story, maybe you don't see yourself becoming a household name. I don't know. Maybe you do. But even if you're not envisioning being on the cover of Fast Company magazine or Forbes or, you know, all these big

shots that guys talking to in his podcast, what's your success story? Why are you here? What's your purpose? what's getting you out of bed every morning, even when it's hard? And if you go, some days I don't want to get out of bed, some days I don't know. Guys, it's time to double down on clarifying your purpose, figuring out why you exist. It's more than money. It's more than a better lifestyle. I mean, those things are fine, but those should be the byproduct of you caring deeply about solving a problem in the marketplace. Figure out your purpose, and then you have a plan, and that's going to lead to profit.

That's how it works. Okay, guys, so I get it. Like sometimes you go, all right, I want to tie into these principles. I've got the drive. I'm working my tail off. But where do I start? I understand what it's like to feel overwhelmed. I get that there's so many things that you're doing.

I get that, you know, you come in some days and if you're like me, you're just putting out fires. You got this team member issue. You've got this sales issue. You've got something going on with the customer. And, you know, you got to put out the fires. I get it. And you can't live that way. Guys, you've got to get some clarity and do a little bit of a diagnostic and go, okay,

what really matters right now? What am I going to focus on as the owner to get above this thing so that our business can scale? And that's why our team put together a free assessment for you guys. A free assessment that's just going to help you do a little bit of a diagnostic and say, okay, how are you doing in the six drivers of business? See, it really is simple. There's only six things you've got to focus on, your personal growth, making sure your purpose is clear, your people, your plan, your product or service, and your profit. You focus on those six things, you're going to win. You absolutely will. But you got to kind of know how you're doing in each of those areas. So our team put together the Entree Leadership Business Health Assessment to get you the

information you need to see how you're performing in each of those areas. So you guys got to take this assessment. It's absolutely free. It's the thing that you've got to start with so you get that clarity. You're not feeling overwhelmed anymore. And all you got to do is text the word progress to 3344. Get this free assessment. Text progress to 33444. Or click on the link in the show notes and we'll send you a link to take the assessment guys you got to do this it's the foundation to moving towards your success well i hope you enjoyed this episode of the entree leadership podcast if you did please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe and for a chance to win a twenty five dollar amazon gift card you can review this episode by clicking the link in the show notes be sure to follow us on social media at entree leadership this episode was produced by tim hole and it was edited and mixed by will rudder i'm your host Daniel Tarty, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network,

like Borrowed Future. Not so fun fact, America has a $1.6 trillion student loan crisis, and it's out of control. I'm George Camel, host of the Borrowed Future podcast, where we uncover the underbelly of the student loan industry and show you what you can do about it. It'll inspire you to see that it is possible to avoid student loans and graduate college debt-free. Listen to borrowed future wherever you listen to podcasts.