Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.192 | feat. Jeffrey Rogers from Catalyst Leadership Dynamics

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

Jeff Rogers on Aligning Leaders at Every Level and Leading Through Adversity Host Noah Chrysler interviews Jeff Rogers, founder of Catalyst Leadership Dynamics, about coaching organizations by aligning senior leaders, mid-level managers, and frontline “doers” through what he calls the “trifecta effect.” Rogers says leadership often fails due to assumptions and lack of clear communication around mission, vision, values, SOPs, and KPIs, noting many companies’ documents are missing or outdated. He explains coaching fine-tunes healthy organizations, earns trust, and helps teams embrace change, including unlearning command-and-control habits that make founders bottlenecks. Rogers discusses navigating six generations in today’s workforce by focusing on each group’s strengths and treating people how they need to be treated. He recommends Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” Rogers shares his own business failure and bankruptcy, emphasizing accountability, resilience, and adapting tenacity. He directs viewers to CatalystLeadershipDynamics.com, and the episode closes with Click Stream Studios and sponsor mentions. 00:00 Why He Does This 00:11 Meet the Guest Jeff Rogers 00:36 Catalyst and the Trifecta Effect 02:18 Leadership Mistake Assumptions 03:45 Fixing Clarity Mission SOP KPIs 08:03 Resistance to Change and Trust 12:21 Unlearn Relearn Learn New 12:47 Founder Bottleneck Command Control 14:38 Continuous Learning Mindset 15:48 Comedy Story Humility to Learn 16:44 Generations at Work 17:46 Turning Bias into Strength 19:20 Leadership Books to Read 20:34 Trust and Hard Conversations 22:23 Platinum Rule Leadership 24:05 Entrepreneur Journey and Collapse 26:17 Accountability After Failure 29:18 Lessons and Tenacity Email 32:14 How to Work with Jeff 33:46 Studio Plug and Farewell

And I really dedicated my life to that. When I went into this practice, my idea was maybe if I can do this, then other people wouldn't have to experience what I experience. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Good News York. My name is Noah Chrysler. Today, I am sitting with Jeffrey. Jeffrey, welcome to the show. How are you, man?

It's good to be here. Thank you. Absolutely. Cool. Go ahead and introduce yourself quick. My name's Jeff Rogers. I'm the founder of Catalyst Leadership Dynamics, and we work with all the layers of business to help them get from where they're at now to where it is that they want to go.

And for each company, it's different. Beautiful. Cool. more about this? So what exactly does your company do and how is it different for each company? Yeah, you know, we started about eight years ago under the brand Jeffrey A. Rogers executive business coaching. And in that space, we started out and my vision was kind of limited. I wanted to work with executives, business owners, business executives, and kind of help them lead from the highest level, the organizations that they serve in. And what we kind of found over

time was different organizations kind of specialize in different spaces, maybe executive space like I chose to, or maybe mid-level managers. There's a lot going on with apprenticeships and different things now, so maybe at the doer level. But there wasn't anybody really that worked with all three layers of an organization and kind of help them get from where they're at to where they want to go and really aligning all the people within the organization. And so we kind of founded the trifecta effect is what we call it, where we kind of harness senior leadership, mid-level leaders, and then the doers, which we call frontline ground force, front line for clerical administrative staff, and then ground force for the construction manufacturing type people, and then kind of align all of them

and help them get to where they want to go with better collaborative efforts. And, you know, to be able to get more done with the resources you currently have is really the need of today. For sure. Yeah. No. I mean, It's a long statement about what we do. No, I think that's great. You talk to leaders at every level of the organization and you help align them so they're all working together. 100%. You know, you said it a heck of a lot shorter than I did.

Hey, you know, that's a... It can be long-winded. No, it's great. Hey, it's a podcast. Long-wind is perfect. That's what podcast is for. Beautiful, cool. Leadership, wonderful.

What do most people, you know, high level, what do most people not, like, misunderstand and get wrong about leadership? Assumption. They assume that people know and understand what the mission. is and they assume that people know what's in their heads on how they want to get there. So we really work on communication, clarity, expectations, and deliverables in a way that are meaningful and actionable. And a lot of times at a high level, you just assume that Bob will make sure or Sally will make sure that the team knows and gets done what they need to get done. And very often they're doing their very best, but they're not hitting the mark.

and then the organization starts to get frustrated, gets wonky, and then oftentimes we get called in. And it's kind of a misnomer that coaching and consulting helps fix things. Like, you know, Chuckie's broken. We need to get them fixed. That's really not how it works. Where we really are effective is taking an organization that's doing well and fine-tuning it so that they can excel.

Sure. That's awesome. Can you give me an example of, so you mentioned, like, miscommunication or lack of communication. Can you give me an example of maybe a client from a long time ago or somebody anonymous so that they're not like, oh, that's me. I don't know. Can you give me an example? That happens a lot.

Example of what now? Basically, one of these situations. You mentioned like miscommunication. Sometimes people not communicating what their vision is, right, the leadership at the top so that people can execute and they're surprised about things. Got any examples of that? Very often when I walk in, the very first thing that I ask for that my team asked for is do you have, and can you provide me a really?

written mission statement, vision statement, and the values of your organization and how people are expected to conduct themselves. And very often they'll say, well, Jeff, you know, you don't understand. We've been here a pretty tight team. We've been here a long time. Everybody kind of knows what we do. And, you know, we all behave accordingly. So you don't have one. No, we don't have one. Or it's, well, here it is. And it's kind of, it's really outdated, but, you know, everybody gets it. So that's kind of that. And then my next question is, do you have an SOP manual, a standard operating procedures manual? And how is it with key performance indicators that you evaluate your team so that we can give appropriate feedback to let them know, hey, we're doing really well or we're kind of missing the market.

And these are the things we need to adjust. And very often those things are lacking. Or they too are outdated and they might have, you know, the 80s dated on them or something of that nature, depending on the company. But very often people assume in senior leadership and at the mid-level manager level that people know what it is they're supposed to be doing. And the truth is they don't. Or they did and now things have changed at the rate of change that we're experiencing today, both in manufacturing, AI and all the things that that's presenting, challenges and advent, right? It's great stuff. But how do we manage it?

And that, I think, when I say assumption, I write a lot. And assumption is the root of all communication evil is something that are. And I know that's a bold statement. I love it. But it's so true because when we assume we're going to get it wrong most of the time. You make an ass out of you and me. I really thought that that's what you're going to say. No, but yeah.

Yeah. When you assume you get it wrong most of the time, that makes complete sense. Most of the time, you know? And so when those assumptions are made, start to get off course. And then we start to accept. result and then we get frustrated and start banging fists on tables and starting getting a little snarky and that's when things start to go sideways. So if we can interrupt that cycle and really set clear expectations and deliverables and a lot of times at the ownership level they don't want to

get boxed in with well you know we do a lot of things we wear a lot of hats and I'm fearful that if I really dial in this job description or these expectations and deliverables the other add-ons that I might want or need to get done, might not because, well, it's not in my job description, Jeff. You know, you don't understand. And, you know, there's ways to work that through, but people need to know what their expectations are so they can perform to their best ability. I believe very strongly that people don't wake up in the morning and say, you know, I'm going to be difficult today, right? I don't think they do that. Right. I think they end up being difficult because things have gotten frustrated. There's no clarity, and they're frustrated because they lack

direction. Yeah. That I completely agree with that and I think that there's a lot of wisdom in that. So basically one of, if someone is to, you know, lead an organization or start an organization, one of the things that you're saying is have a clear mission statement. Make sure that it's relevant, make sure that it's updated, make sure that people know what it is, right? You also talked about values. I think that that's huge too. The rules by how we play the game. Yeah. And I, yeah, not just like, how do we win or like what game are we playing, but like this is whatever game we play, we're going to play it this way. I love that idea. I think that's great. Powerful. And most organizations lack them. Or they're a nice banner on the wall that you see when you walk in,

but we're really not living to that standard. Yeah. Cool. And then the third piece of advice I think you've kind of given here is if you are leading, then, you know, make sure that you clearly are communicating to the people underneath you and working alongside you, what they're expected to do and how they can contribute to the organization's success. Especially with, you also mentioned KPIs, right? Like, hey, you're going to be evaluated. on these things, right? A salesperson is going to be evaluated on number of opportunities generated and sales closed, right?

Another type of employee is gonna be measured on different things. Yeah, cool. If they don't understand why we exist, where we're going, and how we choose to do it, then I think everybody's left to swim whatever direction they can thinking that they're doing the right thing. Yep.

And it's problematic. That makes a lot of sense. Do you, so you mention some resistance that you get from people, right? If I get this big list of tasks, you know, then my employees are going to not do anything that's outside of that list of tasks. Are there any other objections that you hear a lot, like any friction that you guys get when you come into these businesses? Yeah, name it, right?

Yeah. It can be anything. And it depends on the industry. It depends on where they're at, what stage of life they're in. Are they a startup? Are they a functioning company? Are they on the tail under the curve? Are they a family business in succession planning?

I'm finding myself working a lot in that space lately. And it's exciting because there's no scenarios that are the same. I recently onboarded a new client and the question that the founder had. Really nice business, too. What's the system? What is the system by which you're going to lead us through this process? And I said that's a really great question. I've got an outline and I'm more than happy to show it to you and we'll work towards that.

And he was looking for a definitive 90-day milestone. Step one, step two. Right. And that's an outline, and that's what we'll do. But depending on where each person that plays a role in this organization is emotionally and the ability to perform to that standard is what's going to dictate how fast we get there. So, well, you may have a two to three year time frame, and that's a reasonable time frame because a lot of times people are like they want it done tomorrow.

But it really, depending on the organization, it can take five years. it could, who knows what it could take. But we have to kind of work towards that with a plan and then provide that accountability. And so change. When you ask, what is the thing that most people object to? It's the ability to understand that we're going to need to do something differently if we want to earn a different result. Everybody wants a different result, but we need to do things differently to earn it. And there's where most friction comes from.

Interesting. Yeah. Especially probably when, you know, senior leadership is going to bring you in and then you have to, you know, all of the people beneath them are frustrated, like, oh, who's this random person who's coming to my business? Who's this guy? Yeah. Or who's this team of people?

What do they know? They don't know what we know. Right. And that's fair. And so the first three months, I always say it's just to earn trust. Right. And I tell people right off the bat, my team when we walk in or myself, if I'm working with somebody individually, I'm not here to tell you what to do, right?

Who am I to tell you what to do? But I am going to share with you best practice. and do differently's that are going to be effective in helping you get to where it is that you said you want to go. And right now they're either blind spots. You're unaware of them, and that's fine. Or you resist it because it's uncomfortable and you don't want to do it. Change is hard. Well, if we do this, Jeff, you don't understand because Sally is going to be very upset. She's kind of done this role for a long time.

And, well, you know, I don't want to disrupt the apple cart. But maybe technology has advanced to the point where Sally is no longer the right person. for that role and we can reassign different tasks. We're not going to dismiss her, right? She's been an effective role with the organization and a wonderful human being. So we'll reposition her to be successful, potentially in a different role, but we need to get the right person in that seat to be able to move the organization forward. And that type of change where emotions are involved are where a lot of good people have

difficulty in doing that. For sure. That sounds very difficult. It's hard. Yeah. It really is. And that's why, you know, people, Jeff, I think we'll, you know, we'll work with you for a one-year engagement and we'll do these things. And then the next thing we know, it's three years later.

I'm like, where'd that go? Yeah, wonderful. And I brought you in just to work with me. And now we're working across all teams, you know, in the organization. How'd that happen? And it's because we found that one dot connects to another. It's not just a simple fix. And a lot of times, I think people want it to be a simple fix because it's painful.

It hurts. profitability might be shrinking that hurts we might be losing effective in good people that hurts why and some of the whys and the do differently's are really going against the grain of what maybe got us here and we share people all the time the concept of unlearn relearn learn new and the idea is we need to unlearn potentially some of the things that were very effective and helped us get to this point of success and those were really really cool. But it's hard to unlearn things that you believed in that got you here. Can you give me a concrete example of something that somebody has to unlearn or, you know, yeah? Yeah. How about I'm a founder and command and control? I've got a team of people that when I started and these were the things and everything went through me and I had to do it this way because I needed to manage things. But over time, the organization grew and now I've become the bottleneck and I don't even know that I'm the bottleneck. And now I'm losing the good people.

because can I be trusted to do what I know how to do and I've demonstrated that I can do it well, but yet I have to go through Jeff because Jeff doesn't really trust that we're capable of doing what we need to do. So to unlearn that fundamental, it's the only way a company can scale and grow. Absolutely. A lot of times they want growth, but they don't understand that they're the limiter. So that would be an unlearned. Cool. Can I translate that into my caveman brain? So cool. So if I found a business, right? And at the beginning. You know, I'm hiring, you know, individuals. I've got a staff of three or five or whatever, right? And I, at the beginning, you know, I'm basically directing exactly, hey, do this, do this, do this, right?

But basically, once a company grows and scales up and has more customers and triple the size than it was, then basically you can't have the same brain, you can't have the same person, because that's just too much information, too much oversight. They're not going to have a deep insight to every client. They're not going to know everything. They become robots if you do that too often, too much. Yeah. So instead, basically, instead learning to empower other people, trust them with certain things, and then set up systems, again, with those KPIs, right? Hey, this person delivered on this metric, and that's exactly what I asked them to do, and that sort of thing. And then we reward them, and we encourage that behavior, and we get more of what we encourage, right? We also get more of what we tolerate.

So if we tolerate poor performers, everybody that's performing well is going to start looking around going, you know, what's going on? Yeah. Why don't I slack? That sounds great to me. I can get away with it. That's what I'm going to do. Yeah. Interesting. So, yeah. And then I just want to go back to the, so the next idea, right, unlearn, relearn, what are the things that I need to tune up on, right? With technology changing and things changing such that they are at a really advanced rate, you need to relearn those things and tune up and tighten up. And then what can I make way by getting rid of those things that I need to unlearn to make way for the things that I need to learn new?

And, you know, that's at a speed that I'm, I'm struggling. struggling to keep up. As soon as I think I know where I want to go, more information becomes available and then need to tweak it even a little bit more. And I love that, right? So in our community, in the catalyst community, in those we serve, we really lean into a culture of continuous learning. So if we think what we know what we need to know to be successful, probably that's going to be a recipe for failure. So those are one of the things we kind of look at when we look to onboard an organization is, you know, maybe we won't onboard because I don't think we can help if that's the mindset that you have. Yeah. I think that's amazing.

I, a bunch of different things come to mind, but. I'll bet, right? Yeah, I mean, that's... Pandora's box. Right. Think about it. Absolutely. Like, I don't know. One of the anecdotes that comes to mind for me is, you know, I was in Atlanta, Georgia for a while, and I was trying to do stand-up comedy and become good at stand-up comedy. And, you know, I had done improv comedy for years, you know, over a decade. And I'm like, okay, cool. Like, I'm pretty funny.

I should be good at this, right? And so, you know, I go do my open mics and I realize, oh, my God, I don't know how to write a single joke, right? And it, and I... So much goes into that, right? Yeah, a ton. And, you know, I knew how to be funny in a different context? But it's like, okay, how do you write a joke?

And I had to, again, unlearn all of these things and accept and have the humility of, like, okay, cool. Like, I need to learn this brand new side of this thing that I knew nothing. thing about. And it was great. So, but anyway, um, terrifying at the same time I would bet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who am I? Like, I thought I was good at this. What the hell? Yeah, but I don't know. I think that's funny. But it's a good, it's a good story. Yeah, it's a good way to grow and continue to grow. So, um, do you think that, uh, maybe this is a bias that I have? Because I've been, for most of my life, I've been a younger person, right? But do you think that there is a difference

between older generations in the workforce and young people in the workforce? I hear, I hear a lot of things about, you know, older generations complain that younger generations, you know, want things a certain way. That said, being somebody in the younger generation, I feel like our generation has been forced to learn at a faster rate than any other generation before. And so, I don't know, any insight into that? Yeah, it's great. You know, it's the first time that there's been six generations in the workforce at the same time, right? And each of these generations bring with them competing ways of how they prefer to think. how they prefer to execute and do what they do, how they prefer to make decision and decision-making,

their emotional capacity, and their priorities, right? Their priorities and life balance, time management, all these different things. And so each generation brings with it a bias and an expectation. And so very often what we like to do is understand all those different players within an organization. And rather than looking at the negativities of each of those components, right, oh, the work ethic of today's young people is not what it used to be when I was young, right? And all those types of things. And I get that.

But at the same time, they bring a talent and a skill set that as a senior leader, you don't have, specifically technology, innovative thought, the ability to, I don't like the word multitask because as human beings we can't do it. But to prioritize and execute and see. through and then move forward. And so I think when you put the multiple generations in a workforce together in an organization and get them to start looking at the advance of positivity, the things that each generation brings and can contribute and then start the collaborative process, I think that's when an organization can really start to execute and perform and get rid of those

biases and start to accept things a little bit more and start to look at the benefits of it. And I've seen it happen and when it does, it really just kind of lean back and put a big smile on your face, right? Because we all have them. We all have these bias, right? We all have these biases. We all have these preferred tendencies and ways that we want to do. And sometimes when we can't do it the way we want to do it,

we get frustrated and get pouty face or whatever it might be. Yeah. And so there's where the friction comes in. Interesting. As far as thought leaders, as far as books on leadership and organizational behavior, who would you say, hey, these are great. Maybe these are not so great.

Books and thought leaders that you'd recommend. I like that. So I really enjoy Patrick Lencioni, and I really enjoy the five dysfunctions of a team. I love that book. That book is incredible. You know, and it doesn't matter what organization it applies to everything universally.

And so, you know, the premise is lack of trust in an organization. Trust is the foundation, and without it, we're going to fail, right? and then inability to have difficult conversations, fear of conflict. And then the next one is lack of commitment, lack of accountability, and inattention to results. And when you put all that together, it goes right back to our opening valley of this discussion, which was mission, vision values. Because if you don't have those three things, none of that hierarchy can be functional. It just can't.

And so I really enjoy that idea. And he wrote a companion book called Overcoming. the five dysfunctions. And that's fantastic too. So I think that applies to organizational leadership at every level. And then you can kind of bring that through. And when you really think about it, it is about leading by example. It's about demonstrating the behavior and modeling the behavior that you would like to have modeled. It's about having those difficult conversations. When we first talked before, when we first met, you had mentioned the idea that you found interesting was some piece that I did.

Difficult conversations don't need to be difficult. And I believe that to be true in that they become difficult when we're disrespectful, when we're snarky, when we're not data-driven and have knowledge to support some of the things that we're speaking about. So with respect and candor in an organization that builds trust, you can then ascend that hierarchy and you can get the organization to flow effectively. Yeah. Wonderful. I'm so glad that that was the book because it's like, I've read that book and I've loved that book and I think that that book's fantastic. That book is written in a very interesting way and I, you know what's so funny is that like I don't, I didn't remember the five dysfunctions until you said them, but I just remember the the process in which they go through in that book, right?

Which is, you know, they come in, basically a consultant comes into a business, right? And like, everybody is like, there's a few people with like big egos, right? who are like, I do this and I'm great at this, you know. And then it's the process of like acknowledging, hey, we are failing in these areas, right? Then, you know, it creates chaos in the room and everybody's really upset. And then, you know, they go through the process of resolving it. It was an offsite in the Napa Valley, right? In this beautiful environment. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I share with people that, you know, it's a, I'd like to read that book. I don't like to hear it in an audio. They act it out in a way. And I think it just loses. the essence of it. That's just my opinion. And that's coming from a dyslexic person. I like to

learn from an audio, visual, kinesthetic by doing, and then to back it up with reading and writing. And I share that very often everywhere that I go. Because, you know, if you read my bio, you know, university professor and different things that I was able to do, business owner, etc. It wouldn't present itself in that way. But everyone has different things that, you know, forward leaning, I might not lead with, hi, I'm dyslexic and, you know, I don't learn the way that you would learn. But from a leadership standpoint, to be able to demonstrate that, because everybody has something. And there's all these assumptions that get made. Well, I prefer to learn this way, therefore, I'm going to teach you to learn the way that I prefer to learn. Golden rule, I respect

that. But the Platon rule says, well, how about I treat you the way you want to be treated, right? The way that you need to be treated, not the way that I need to be treated. And when we go back to that generations in the workforce, there's the magic pill. Interesting. Yeah, it's powerful. Treat the person the way they want to be treated. Exactly. Interesting.

I, you know, I think I've heard that before, but I don't think I've actually truly thought through that. And I've never... Think about that from leadership perspective. Yeah. Maybe they want to be treated or the way they need to be treated? The way they need to be treated. Okay. So that's different than how they want to be treated.

Interesting. It's a way to say it. Okay. Yeah. Good separation on that. Yeah. Because we all want everything, but what do we really need? The essence of it, if our needs.

If our needs aren't met, we're going to behave one way or the other way, right? We might want these things and we can work towards those wants. But let's start with the foundational needs. And it all starts with trust. Yeah. Interesting. That's fascinating. Cool.

Jeff, tell me about your story. So, you know, how did you get into this and how did you, you know, grow through up the field? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I started my first business when I was 19 years old, putting myself through college at LaMoyne right here in Syracuse. And that was great. Built an organization that was phenomenal over 33 years.

What did it do? 50 employees. Landscape and construction. Oh, cool. So service-based and then construction element, 35 trucks, 50 people at the highest point. Wow. It was good. That's amazing.

Yeah, a lot of really great. What was it called? It was called, back in the day, it was Mueller Farms Landscaping Company. Wonderful. And that was great. And then it wasn't. We hit a wall at 100 miles an hour. and I share this story publicly often and suffered complete failure, including bankruptcy.

And it was probably the most difficult time in the life. I've had some ups and downs professionally and personally. That was by far the worst experience that I'd ever had. And let a lot of people down. And I'm a person that doesn't like to do that. And in that process, the one thing I'm probably most proud of through that difficult moment was taking ownership of the situation. And I'll never forget. It was in October. And on a Tuesday, I had to sit down with my wife and my advisors, and I showed the books and everything, and I didn't see a path out of it. And I was just looking for everybody's input to see what might we do. And it was from the accounting and attorney perspective, it's time to fold things up. And so that hurt, right? So that was the worst day.

Then the next day, which was Wednesday, was the worst day because then I had to release my staff. And that was horrible. And to let multi-generations go, right? At that point, we probably had about 40 people. And many of them had been with me for a very long time. Some of them had daughters or sons working and so on. And so that was emotional. There were a lot of tears.

There was anger, you know, people were scared. What am I going to do? It was horrible. And the next day was, I think, the hardest. And that's what I call the drive of shame. And I call the mentor of mine. And I said, hey, you know what, Dave? I need you to make sure that I hit all these locations

because I'm going to share with them that I'm going to not be able to meet my obligations. Never missed an invoice in my life. And now I'm going to miss all the invoices in my life. And I need you to make sure that I get to each of these locations by the end of this day. And I'm not going to want to do it because I'm going to hear probably a lot of really bad stuff. And I earned it. But I need you to make sure, because if I want to put my head on the pillow at the end of the day, I need to make sure that I did this. And of course, he said, well, you know, you don't need to do that. And I'm like, I know I don't need to do that. Right. So anyway, made the trek and probably visited about 15 locations and got to the end. And throughout the course of that trip, it was like, why are you doing this to yourself? Are you punishing yourself? And it wasn't about punishment. It was about accountability. And so, So when that day was over, I heard all kinds of different things, and that's fair, and then put my head on the pillow and, you know, cried like a baby. Like that was, that was it.

It was that rush of emotion that this is done. And the next morning, I kind of got up and said, who, now what? I was 54 years old, professionally that had done, all I had done all my life. And what am I going to do? still had responsibilities. I still had a lot of meat left on the bone. I had been coached for probably about six years prior to that. And somewhere in there, and it's too long to get into,

but I was asked to share what it's like to be coached in different things. And I certified to become a business coach, which was really interesting. And then went through that failure. And then the question was, well, wait a minute. Who's going to hire a guy that's just been through what I've been through, right? Typically, you hire a coach to help you navigate. But what I learned was, and my clients share it with me all the time, the university shared it with me when I asked the dean, of all the people you could hire, why would you hire a person that just went through what I went through? And he said it probably the best. And the idea was nobody can talk to the through, going full circle. And you can. And I want our students to understand from that perspective, not just to, hey, what happens when everyone's great? It's easy when everything's great. You learn character and you learn integrity.

learn those values of business when things don't go well. And sure enough, it was true. And so I leaned into that. I volunteer this information because I want everybody to know that with the best laid plans, sometimes things don't go the way you plan it to go or the way you want it to go. And what are you going to do and how will you behave in adversity? Because that to me is where true leadership is forged and where you're able to take that to the next level. So that's my story true and through. And I think it helps a lot of people. No, it's a very powerful story, and I thank you for sharing it. Absolutely. Very cool. If you could give yourself, and maybe the answer is nothing, right? But I asked this question to a lot of people, right? If you could write yourself an email and send

it to yourself, when would you send it back to, right? Like how many years before the business goes under, right? Or, you know, like bankrupt, I don't know if it goes under is the right term. But, you know, when would you send that email and what would be in that email and what would you tell yourself or would you say you know what hey the past is the past I would do it all the same yeah I wouldn't do it all the same right I don't have a lot of regrets I I wish that that hadn't happened I hadn't been forced to let people down in the way that I did I wait I think of it every day right and I try to behave in a way differently so that that and so that others won't have that happen and that's a genuine learning point from that and I really dedicated my life to that

When I went into this practice, my idea was maybe if I can do this, then other people wouldn't have to experience what I experience. So I think what I would do, the name of my boat is tenacity. I believe in tenacity, grit, working through it, punching through the wall. I think with a little more gray hair and a little more wisdom, I would write that email to myself and say, hey, you know what? Rather than trying to punch through the wall, maybe look for the window or the door. and adapt a little bit differently, and take these signs that are being presented to you

in the form of adversity, more in the form of opportunity, what might we learn from it? And rather than being overly tenacious, maybe structuring that tenacity in a more productive way. So in hindsight, and that's what I try to do with the clients that we're fortunate to work with

and help them understand different perspective, different points of view. And I share that story with everyone right on the upfront so they know. hey, maybe there's something to it. Beautiful. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for your time. And thank you for so much for, you know, sharing that information.

You know, I know that that probably, I mean, I can imagine the difficulty that that must have caused. And I don't know. And so thank you for sharing that. Absolutely. My pleasure. And the ability to do that and from the platforms I speak all over and I share that often. Because whether you're an executive or a manager, right, you have aspirations, you have desires, dreams. that you're going to be able to achieve something,

and maybe it doesn't go the way you want it to go, or experience that I had at an ownership level, how you are able to work through that adversity, and sometimes that crushes people, and they're never the same. But maybe there's a way through that path to be successful, and that's the message that I'd like to bring. Yeah.

No, I think it's great. I think it's great. Definitely hits on a lot of, you know, for everybody, I think, you know. How do you respond to adversity? And so I think it's a very universal story and something that we all deal with at some point in our lives. Absolutely. Cool. Jeff, how do people hire you?

How do people work with you? What do you want them to do? Catalystleadershipdynamics.com. We're able to work with people on one-on-one. We have private groups. We have groups that are open to the public at the senior leadership level, the mid-level manager level, and at the doer level. Greg Smith on my team was a CPA leads our know-your-number series. And we have sales training.

So there's a lot of different ways that we can touch an organization and help people get to where it is that they need to go. The Know Your Numbers series sounds like a really, that's a wonderfully named series. I love that. That's great. And notice I said CPA to lead that scenario, right? So very well qualified, very well structured. And a lot of it is designed to a lot of business leaders, including myself, right? Not CPA driven, not accounting driven. A lot of people don't go into business ownership from an accounting background. They go into it maybe from an operations background or a sales background, but not very often from an accounting space. And so they really need the support to help them understand what it is truly that they're looking at. So thanks for pointing that out.

Absolutely. I think qualified CPA leading a class. That sounds really interesting. I might buggy at some point about that. Cool. That's because, I mean, hey, that's, you know, operations. That's where I started. Sales, that's what I'm kind of learning and into.

It proves my point. Yeah, accounting, though. That's like my big gaping wound. My accountant does that work. No, you need to know that work better, right? Exactly. Yeah. That's funny.

Yeah, cool. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Fantastic conversation. Wonderful person. Thank you, Jeff.

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