The Home Service Expert Podcast - Transforming your Employees into Resilient Leaders through Ethical Influence

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Keith Mercurio is the Senior Director of Executive Success of ServiceTitan, and CEO & Founder at Ethical Influence Global. Keith has spoken to nearly 20,000 people on the topics of leadership, influence, sales, and personal development. He has guided over 600 businesses and transformed their own leadership identity and led unprecedented growth for their teams. In this episode, we talked about coaching, training, leadership development, decision making, personal development...

And high performers that become leaders that kind of push from out in front, they tend to be very competitive. They tend to not take no for but sometimes forget that along the way, their job is actually to build, is not to deliver the result, but to curate leadership teams that deliver the result. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. I got a really special guest I'm really, really excited about today. The Mr. Famous Keith Mercurio. He's an expert in sales, leadership, communication, training, and development.

He's based out of Wilmington, North Carolina. He's a service titan senior director of executive success. He started that about two years ago. He's the founder and CEO of Ethical Influence Global. And in the past, he worked with Nexstar. He was the director of training. For more than seven years, he was at Nexstar, where he built and refined over 20 transformational training programs, oversaw the development of 15-person training staff, conducted over 120 events per year, and trained over 7,000 people annually. Quite the resume there, Keith. That's very nice of you to say. I laugh about that resume because it's tailor-made

for like one thing in this world and it's what I do right now at Service Titan. And so having come from the industry, it's kind of funny how I managed to meander my way into this place in life. It was certainly a nonlinear path. You know, from every angle, all I hear is just amazing things about you. This is what we're hearing right now. Greatest trainer of our generation, bar none. And a big reason why I am a trainer, it's just, unfortunately, it says Facebook user. We said two of the best in the space you know tom howard and i were together i mentioned this to you but he just he's a raving fan of yours and you know my psychology days make me think of like carl young so you're very unorthodox but you get results and um i'd love for you just to tell everybody a little bit about

yourself and just what your experience was like at Nexstar. I think Jack Tesser is one of the best leaders I've ever met. And transitioning to Julian, I'd love to hear just, and then what it's like at Service Titan and just your traveling and speaking experience and history. Well, you know, let's start there with it because to talk about myself would be to talk about the people who have guided me, no question. And I think there's a great story I just shared about Jack Tester the other day. I was a brand new trainer for Nextar. It was about eight months into my career there. And no need to mince any words about this. I mean, I was like off to a rock star start, kind of golden boy in my first little bit of

stretch of time there was going out on the road, booking all these trainings, killing it, coming back with wonderful reviews. And I would come back in the office and take my victory laps and go out on the road again. And there was about eight months in, I went out with this girl that I was dating at the time and we stayed out too late, made bad choices, and I ended up late for work the next day. And on my drive to work, I was starting to build my case about how I was going to react to the reaction of Jack Tester. How I was going to point out how every single day I've been on time, I've never missed it. I haven't been out for a day, delivered nothing but results.

And essentially was, I don't know if you're like this, Tommy, you're such a different personality than me. I'm not sure. But I build a lot of conversations, arguments, debates in my head prior to and outside of all the conversations that I ever have happen. And so I'm building this one in my head and I get to the office kind of guarded and ready for a confrontation. And Jack looks up and he goes, buddy, come on in here. And he brings me into his office and he goes, Hey, you okay? And I was like, well, yeah, yeah, I'm okay. And immediately just everything that I had built up melted away. He was like, have a seat. He's like, geez, you've okay. And immediately just everything that I had built up melted away.

He was like, have a seat. He's like, geez, you've never been late like this before. Everything all right. I'm like, yeah, you know, I made some bad choices, found myself away from my car and everything else. And he was like, okay. He's like, well, listen, that'll happen. He was, you know, I was worried about you. I'm glad everything's okay. And he said, you know, and this is why we have PTO. He's like, sometimes stuff like this happens and you can always just call in and take a day. He said, I'm going to go ahead and I am going to dock you a PTO day for today. And you can either take it, head home and just enjoy your day, or you can stay and work. It's up to you. But you know, that's, that's how I'm going to handle this. Just where we're a few

hours into the day here as late as you are. And, uh, you know, that's, that was it. And he said, all right. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. He's like, all right, you know, give me a hug. And I just walked out of his office and I was like, oh my God, what was that? What was that? And as I would go on to study and, and, you know, really look into the art and science of leadership, you know, what I witnessed was just, it was an astounding demonstration of the fact that he genuinely cared about me. He was worried about me. He also held really clear standards.

He let me know how I could handle it differently moving forward. And he checked in to make sure that everything was okay on my end at the beginning and at the end of it. And that was a lesson that would resonate with me for a lifetime. Well, ever since at least. And I think when you talk about like unorthodox, there's no question I'm unorthodox. It's one of the greatest compliments I can hear, frankly, is when people tell me that my stuff is different than anything they've ever seen.

That means the world to me. And it's not that I do it to try to be different, but it's nice to know that somehow there's a different way of seeing an age old study of influence and leadership. But it's moments like that, that where I was led in such a beautiful way that really helped me understand what great leadership looks and sounds and feels like. And it's taking all of those elements into consideration. And yet notice he still held a high standard, but how many leaders would have dropped a hammer, then felt completely justified, written somebody up, you know, I mean, in our industries, I mean, the trades, that's like the number one tool that managers lean into is a

write-up as though that's leadership. I draw from influences like that along the way. And that's what informs a lot of my style of looking at how we can be both compassionate and hold people to the highest standards and ourselves most of all. You know, it's interesting because when you spoke to Simon Sinek up on stage, one of the things I really was fascinated by is what he mentioned. I don't know if it was on stage or if I just saw one of his videos,

but he said, when I go to Four Seasons and the people talk to me, he's like, they genuinely care. It's the caliber of people that they hire. And I really feel like at A1, obviously I'm here all day, every day, but the people are like, it's outside of work too. It's not just at work. It's like we come into work, but I don't mind coming in on a Monday morning. And it's like the caliber of people genuinely care. And I think that's what you're talking about is Jack. When I first met Jack, everybody at Nextar, this was 2017. They said to me, you should really try to get Nextar to train garage

door companies. So everybody was rooting for me and they're like, there's Jack, go talk to him. And I said, Hey, listen, I'm a big fan of yours. I've read your book. I've actually used Gail, the same person or not Gail, Helena, that helped kind of put your book together. And we're talking and I said, what would you think about getting the graduate? She goes, nope, not going to happen. Absolutely not. And I'm like, all righty then. Nice to meet you. But he just did the point. And I've watched him train people. I was at his breakout session at Pantheon years ago. And just the one-on-ones is by far the most disciplined cadence, just to the point person I've ever met.

Well, he was a world-class operator as a CEO. I can't say enough about how much Nexstar taught me about the importance of operational excellence in a business. Because I tend to lean much more towards the transformational and inspirational elements of leadership. That's where my kind of heart and passion is. I had a fair bit of, I think, a charismatic ability that I really leaned heavily on in my early days, especially to influence people. What Jack really imprinted on all of us at Nextar was operational excellence was what would breed the grounds for the ability to genuinely care,

for the ability to bring in that inspirational transformational influence. And so I learned in my time at Nexstar, you know, we always wanted to balance our, our trainings so that the ship didn't list too far one way or another towards the transformational or towards the operational that it's about striking that balance of both. And so your very quick recognition of, I mean, I got to study it for eight years. You picked it up instantaneously of his operational excellence and structure is spot on. I mean, he's a tremendous operator. He's the ultimate. I mean, if I had to look up, you've read the one thing probably by Gary Keller or there's a couple of books, Essentialism of Focus is like when I called Service Titan and I called Aura, I talked to

nine sales reps. No one would let me into Service Titan. They said, nope, we only do HVAC plumbing electrical. And I got on the phone with Aura and he said, you could surely understand that we do not want to get involved with any other, we want to master these things. And I said, Aura, I truly understand and I appreciate where you're coming from, but I don't take no for an things. And I said, I truly understand and I appreciate where you're coming from, but I don't take no for an answer. And if I got to start an HVAC company to fix my way into here. And he said, you know what? He said, I've never heard anybody with such passion that wants to get on. He goes, I'm going to send out 10 people. Usually we send out one. I'm going to set you up for success, but it's on you to make it happen.

And I'll never forget, he trusted me and Service Titan has changed our company dramatically. And you've changed Service Titan, Tommy. I mean, you go back to this and first of all, I can vouch for in my short experience with you, the premise of your unwillingness to take no for an answer. In fact, you texted me and then called me on a Sunday to recruit me into a speaking role. And this is what I said to you. Actually, it's what I said to my wife. I turned to my wife and I said, you know, it's people like this that make the world go forward. I said, it's not my style. I'm much more sort of a coach, an advisor. I struggle to just make the decisions and move forward. It's people like you that when I partner with or I work alongside where, you know, I mean, you are always looking out at the horizon. And I think I said it to you this way. And then when I partner with people like you, I'm able to maybe bring a little bit more awareness to the possible wake that you leave as you drive forward.

But it's that personality type is a really big deal. know immediately, though I appreciate the clarity of vision and guardrails that Jack operated with, I think similar to what we've seen in service, Titan has grown immensely because of our expansion into garage door and our partnership with you. And I think similarly, I mean, I would certainly nudge Nexstar to say, hey, maybe it's time to revisit this, especially with, but now you've gone ahead and started to build your own version of Near in the garage door industry. So again, you know, this is your own way of not taking no, even if the no was joining Nextar, you said, okay, well, you know, I mean, this is what I heard was fuck it. I'll build my own Nextar. So that's what I love about, you know, partnering with and seeing people like you with that vision and that tenacity, which, again, is very different than my own style.

And so that's part of this work is coming to admire and appreciate styles that are dramatically different than my own. Leadership looks like a lot of different things. And this idea that it's supposed to be one way is, I think, really myopic. You know, what's really interesting is I met Julian at Cristiano's event, and I never met him before, and I didn't even know who he was at the time. He kind of came into that role and really was unknown to anybody that didn't have his training. And all of a sudden, he created a huge name for himself. And I'll tell you,

I just want to pull up a text message because this is the way julian is first of all he invited me out to minnesota and i spent three days with them and just i mean we tore up the town and i just got a text from him on the 5th at 309 p.m it said thinking of you sending love peace and power i hadn't spoken to him in months and he's a lot different than Jack. I'd love to hear, you know, I don't want to spend too much time on Nextra, but it was a big piece of your history in the trade. So certainly, what would you say the difference in leadership and just your experience with Julian? I don't know, I guess he came on as

Jack was leaving, or when you left, or how did that? No. So what's, what's really fascinating. I mean, I, my relationship with Julian is as probably as strong as there was in the time at Nextar. So Julian came on as an implementation coach and then became the training manager. And as a result reported to me, so he was, he and I were just a one-two team for many years. And I would attribute the majority of the success of the training organization at Nextar to Julian. I was sharing earlier that I'm good as an advisor. I'm very thoughtful. I know those are strengths of mine.

As far as the decisive moving forward and implementing, that's an area that I'm not strong. That's where Julian, among other things, he's got a lot of gifts, but he's also incredibly strong as an implementer and a doer. And so what happened when we started working together was that ideas of mine that I'd been ruminating on for years suddenly started to, A, get improved by him and then, B, implement with him. And so I think a lot of the stuff that happened at Nexstar that gets attributed to any of my leadership was very much the result of his tenacity and his ability to move forward. And he did so without any need for the limelight or, you know, making sure that he got credit. And interestingly enough, in the end, he got all

the credit, right? He became CEO. So there's a lesson in there too, that he wasn't hungry for, you know, the constant need for recognition, but just kept his head down and kept doing the really hard work. And so then he became VP. So that was an interesting conversation in that he had been reporting to me and then he got elevated to VP and I started reporting to him. My first thought was like, man, this is great for him. And my second thought was, I'm really glad I was a cool boss to him because now he's my boss. So it felt like that was a little lesson in its own right. Like how you treat people should never vary dependent on reporting structure. That's for sure.

In fact, it's a really important lesson for leaders to look at. If any part of you is leaning into your status, your role, feeling like you don't have authority because you don't have a title or anything like that. You're looking at all the wrong things that make leadership count. And Julian always operated as a leader, regardless of his role. He thought with the same level of ownership as a CEO when he was an implementation coach, and that's why he's had the success and the really extraordinary rise in Nexstar and I think is you know bringing a really fresh way of thinking of things as well as maintaining the legacy from what I understand of all of Jack's operational excellence.

You know Julian flew out here he said listen you've been to my house basically I want to come see yours and hang out with you in Phoenix and he sat right here and he's, listen, you've been to my house, basically. I want to come see yours and hang out with you in Phoenix. And he sat right here and he's very calm and content and he smiles. And he goes, listen, I've never seen anybody going at your pace. He's like, my only question for you is at the speed of which you're going, the one thing that I'm going to tell you right now is that you're going to have a battle building leaders. And he said, you're going to have to pull leaders from out of the industry. And I said, I know. I said, one of the things I do is I pride myself on going outside of the industry. I don't really hire a whole lot of people with experience, but that will always resonate with me when he sat right there and he said, you need a complete plan of how to take

somebody that's okay, that has natural abilities and bring them up to the level of a leader. Because it's the hardest thing in the trades is to get amazing leaders. And that's something that we've struggled with. We've gone to every leadership training, read every book, and it's very, very difficult because the one thing you can't train is passion. It's hard to get people excited and to see the vision. And I'm just curious from your point of view, it's leadership development. You know, Aura was a natural leader. I look at somebody like Ken Goodrich that just, they're born leaders. And then some people develop. I think I've developed a lot and I still have a long, long way to go. But what is your

thought on that? So I want to kind of answer this thoughtfully. There's a couple of things I would say. Initial blush is I balk at this idea that there's such a thing as leaders so much as there's leadership. Leadership is how we're being, you know, and what we're doing on a daily basis. I'm hesitant to ever label someone a leader or not a leader too aggressively as though that's a constant way of being. I mean, great leaders lack in their leadership all the time. And I think we need to be careful about that. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Or do I need to dive deeper? You're saying the way that I'm taking that is leadership is a quality that comes out in leaders and other people. You said Julian at one time, you know, reported to you and maybe wasn't necessarily involved with a bunch of it, but he had the qualities of that. Yeah. Yeah. There's great leadership. And again, this goes back to like this idea of natural born leaders. And I hear what you mean. There's a premise around that, but comparatively, for example, John Maxwell says that leaders make leaders who make leaders. Right. So this is what Julian was talking to, you know, to look at, and I don't have enough information to say one way or the other, but what I suspect he was warning of or advising towards

is this idea, you know, Tommy, high performers that become leaders that kind of push from out in front, they tend to be very competitive. They tend to not take no for an answer. They tend to be very charismatic and being able to share their vision but what sometimes gets lost in that process is that they take total responsibility for delivering the results and leading with their passion but sometimes forget that along the way their job is actually to build is not to deliver the result but to curate leadership teams that deliver the result and so you know if i were coaching you i would be asking you what are you doing to build the team that's delivering the result right now what kind of relationships are

you building among your leaders not with you and your leaders but among your leaders like what are their relationships with each other and what are you doing to ensure that they're learning to trust and support each other to succeed? Because if you are a naturally competitive person and if winning is a natural part of your makeup, you've got to be careful that as you multiply the leaders in your business, that they're not just attempting to replicate your path because there's only one of you, but there's many of them. And they may end up competing against each other instead of collaborating to learn to win as a team. So that's where I would build off of what Julian was saying as something that I would just keep

an eye on. But I can't say one way or another without you having some really honest self-reflection on that. And then probably talking to your leadership team, you know, and one of the questions that you ask a leader is if they're being completely honest, when they come to their monthly or quarterly or annual, you know, budget review, would they rather have hit the budget? Well, the other departments didn't, or would they rather have hit the budget while the other departments didn't, or would they rather have been the one that missed the budget while all the other departments hit? And what this does by forcing this binary either or way of thinking is explore whether the team win or the individual win is more important to them. You know, we read five dysfunctions of a team as a company. And unfortunately, at 110% growth a year,

you get siloed. And you start caring a lot about your current team, but not about the whole necessarily. And it's an individual aspect. I wouldn't say that as an overarching factor of everybody. But I hired a president of the company to come on and fill the gaps that I wasn't say that as an overarching factor of everybody, but I hired a president of the company to come on and fill the gaps that I wasn't able to fill because I know I've got a lot of issues with my leadership. So one of the things that we discussed was he said, listen, I got to really evaluate you for a few months. And when he came back to me and he said, listen, you are not the issue. You're zero of the issue because in fact, you're not as involved as I would have expected you to be. I didn't even go to our budget meeting. I said, listen,

I know what I'm going to do at our budget meeting. I know that I can't shut up. I know that I'm going to affect everybody's mind and I'm going to get too involved. So I said to Dan, I said, here's what I'm going to do. I said, you guys do not come back to me with some bullshit. I said, I want some real goals. And I said, I want to know how we're going to get there. But you guys build the road because this is the road you guys got to travel on. And it's not fair for me to influence it. But I said, as far as marketing and sales, I'll get these sales averages up with the

help of the team and everybody. And I guarantee you, we'll bring the leads. And I failed in a couple of markets and we're working on it. And I've got a couple of great people working on it. But overall, I chose to opt out of a lot of the meetings I used to attend because I know myself. of a lot of the meetings I used to attend because I know myself and I know that it's so hard for me to sit there when someone says a goal and it's like they don't push hard enough. So they call it Tommy goals. They said, here's the bottom that we need to hit. Here's the stretch goal.

And then here's the Tommy goal. So I love this. And Tommy, the thing I would point out though, is that whether you were there or not, because you said that you were there now, because you said, don't come back with some bullshit, come back with real goals. You were there. And in fact, what I would caution and coach you on is the amount of pressure that that creates, but ambiguous pressure. What does that really mean? What's going to satisfy Tommy? What does that really mean what's going to satisfy tommy what does this really look like and so here's where i would challenge you i would say well you simultaneously say that you know i want you to come back with some real goals one of the great

leaders i've seen in this regard is brad casepier down at radiant and what that organization has done and brad casepier just asked one follow-up caveat to that tommy he said you know what do our super stretch like party goals look like and if you agree to them are we going to have fun getting there are we going to love getting there because i am not going to sign this team up for a goal, which by the way is arbitrary and made up, right? I mean, it's an extrapolation of what we've done against what we think possibility is, and to burn our people out? Are we going to exhaust our team members along the way? Are people going to start having, not being home for dinner at night with their families all because this goal became more important than anything else. As you create, you have such incredible influence and especially with your team, but in general, just across everything you touch.

I mean, I've watched it now the same way Julian acknowledged. It's an extraordinary pace that you're operating at, but are you putting pressure on people to also make sure that they can enthusiastically opt into this goal because it's something that they truly want? And by the way, it's okay, Tommy, if your culture of your organization is we work at these types of paces and people know that signing up, so be it. That's okay. You can have any type of company you want. You just need to make sure that it's being transparently communicated. And if that other thing is a concern to you, that you also put pressure on them to think about that too.

I completely agree with that. I think the main goal, when I wrote down a billion dollars on that whiteboard at the last office, I wrote a straight line from the top right to the bottom left. And I put five grids. And I said, at an average tech of 500,000, I need 2,000 technicians. And then I figured out the leads. And I called three managers into my office. And I said, what would average tech of 500,000, I need 2,000 technicians. And then I figured out the leads. And I called three managers into my office. And I said, what would we need to do today?

We would need a badass training center. We would need three full-time recruiters and five full-time trainers. And my biggest goal was helping them realize what needs to happen today. And so what I did, actually, I just got off the phone with Jim before we jumped on this call and we designed a calculator for the technicians. And rather than give them a goal of revenue, I said, listen, what are your dreams? And we've really worked hard to figure out what people's goals and dreams are. Home ownership, better credit, kids in private school, 10-year anniversary, golfing with my dad on a trip. And so one of the things I try to push is,

you want this, then you're going to make some sacrifices along the way. And we need to remind, you know, whether it's your wife or husband and kids, that this is for the good of everybody. But if your goal is to be at home at 4 p.m. every day, I'm good with that. So I think it's important to understand. And I think Tom Tom told you I've given away 21% of the company to staff here and they sprint because of what they want I know they don't care about hitting a billion dollars I mean that's an arbitrary number that I chose because it's a milestone for us but ultimately they're all sprinting at the same pace but not everybody but they're all rowing in the same direction for sure, because there's a lot of millionaires going to come out of this company. And that's what excites

me. I mean, ultimately, yes, I love being a company that's on the cutting edge of just technology and what we're doing, but it's important to me that they hit their goals, which is sacrifice. It's goal setting, it's habits habits and it's more important is determination so for me it's i got to figure out what motivates you and just remind you of what you want because the way to get there is not going out and buying a snowmobile or a boat the way to get there is to be very very determined and you've got to be um disciplined. And what I mean by discipline is just sometimes you might have to work a Saturday, but I don't care. For my management, it's unlimited PTO. You take off.

If you want to work three days a week and you're hitting your goals, I don't care. If someone walked in late, I have no idea. I'm not monitoring the front door. We're looking for them. They work from home half the time. So I'm a lot different than jack in that aspect i'm like look i really don't care how much you work you know i love if you put in a 70 hour week i love if you put in a 10 hour week it's just i'm not a person that's

counting hours ever so i don't know if that well no i think this it does and just keep an eye on that you know i mean this is like you know we talked about ara and his leadership i mean one of the things i've watched ara focus deeply on was the unknown impact of his what he didn't even realize was intimidation with a comment like that one you know just don't come back to me with bullshit i trust you guys just don't come back to me with any bullshit right i know you'll do the right thing it's like like a dad saying to their kid, I know you're going to make the right choices tonight, Tommy. There's a certain pressure that comes with that, that we need to make sure as leaders that we're paying attention in our leadership,

that we're paying attention to those comments and what message they do send. And that's not a criticism of it. It's just an awareness, right? You may become more aware of it and say, I'm good with it. And that's exactly what our culture is. Now, a couple of things I want to point out for anybody who's kind enough to be listening to this right now, what you do so well, the two things that really strike me in the conversations I've had with you and surprised me, by the way, I'm going to say this just as candidly as I can. You're a far more evolved and thoughtful leader than I expected

you to be from whatever little bit of like Facebook persona of yours I had experienced. I have really marveled at the depth of your thinking, your basis of learning, all the books that you actually do read and do draw from, it's very impressive. And I mean that. And there's two things in what you described in your story. One is when you set that goal, working backwards to say, what do we need to do today to make that future possibility? This is just good goal setting.

And it's astonishing how much people struggle with this, how much organizations struggle with this. And that's why like, whether it's, you know, reading rocket fuel attraction or getting into any of the other kind of operating systems out there and understanding goal setting, it's so important that when you set a goal, that there's then using the calendar to say, what are the quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily activities and resources necessary to achieve this? The other thing is to make sure, I'll just say this as a one-off, we can revisit it,

that it's in line with your just cause or your vision. That's another really important thing that we can talk about from Cynics work. But the second thing that you do exceptionally is with your team members, and my God, please, folks, hear this, that you do not give them revenue targets and now expect that to matter to them. This is what creates resentment, frustration, disconnect inside of organizations, is we give everyone static targets. And now we say, this is now your goal. This is what you should be achieving. And we create for our team members and technicians and salespeople, these relationships with these goals that they might be unrealistic. They might be unfair. They didn't come from me. They're just about this. There's no attachment to any meaning in it. And frankly, it's not even a good way to

coach people. That would be like coaching everyone in your batting lineup that they should have a 330 average. It's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous expectation. There are benchmarks. That's great. But what you do instead is you attach it to what they want, what drives them, and then help them see what are the metrics they would need to get there. And then you coach on what behaviors will be critical to achieve that metric. And what inexperienced managers do is they coach metrics. They tell people they need to raise their close rate. They need to raise their average ticket. They need to increase their revenue. They need to get more five-star reviews. That's coaching a metric.

What you do is you coach a behavior. And I haven't witnessed it firsthand, but I suspect you do it this way. I suspect you don't tell people what behaviors they need to engage in. I suspect you ask them, if you wanted to increase your close rate, what are two things that you could do differently during the call that would make it more likely that that customer is going to say yes? Or if you're looking to increase your average ticket, what are the three most important components in the customer experience that would help them choose a higher priced item or a more substantial package and still feel great about it? leading questions, guiding questions that help people find their own answers, not leading questions that help them make it seem like it's their answer. That's the bullshit that I watch managers talk about getting buy-in and leading questions and all this stuff. No, yes, guiding

questions that help people arrive at their own path to their own goals that motivate them. And you do that at a glance as well as anyone I've seen. And I think that's an enormous reason for your trajectory. And that's the part that I want to make sure you're taking time to really think about and make sure that your leaders understand that as well. You know, if you really think about it, the first time it was years and years ago that somebody sent me a message and they said, I get to coach my son's soccer team because of this. It became so much more than money or goal setting to me. It became life-changing, truly, truly life-changing. And I became addicted to changing lives. And I love when people fix their

credit. I love when they bring a kid into this world and they say, it's going to be a great life. And I love it when someone says, I had the worst relationship with my wife. And now we get to spend quality time every night together because I'm no longer a slave to my company. And when you really look back and you figure out, all I tell my guys is, listen, don't worry about being number one now, just better your best. BYB, better your best. What can we do together to help? And I'm addicted to training. I'm addicted to these little things. We are obsessed with role play. And I got to tell you, the first time I brought up the word role play, everybody rolled their eyes and they said, dude, we're not role

playing. And now I could go to any corner next door. I guarantee you, if I walk next door, there's 10 people role playing next door. There's two technicians that took the time out of their day to come to the training center and work with them, not because they have to, because they want to. And I just love watching. I love this equilibrium. I don't want to be involved. I love it evolving without me. I love it that I get to meet new people every day when I walk through this office. I love that the paint is getting redone right now, not because I asked them to. I love it when I see somebody in the parking lot picking something up, not because they have to, not because I asked them to. I love it when I see somebody in the parking lot picking something up, not because they have to, not because I told them to, because they want to. And it's something pretty special. I want to make sure that we clip the quote. I just love watching role play, Tommy Mello. That's important. Just as long as we get that quote clipped.

So this is an indication, again, of the way that your leadership breeds ownership and responsibility. And I love that. And also you can make it easier on yourself too, because when we use language that has a negative connotation, we have to overcome that negative connotation and get them to engage in it. You know, at Cindy Powski years ago, just said, stop calling it role play and start calling it skill practice or simulation. So it's that simple. She said, adult men don role play and start calling it skill practice or simulation. So it's that simple. She said, adult men don't want to engage in role play with you, but they're more than happy to engage in skill practice or simulation, right? And sometimes it can be that simple, just paying attention to our language and not creating an uphill battle

for something that could just be shifted in what we describe it as and how we label it. The other thing that I want to come back to, and in the spirit of the nuance of language, just offer a thought for your consideration, is this idea of changing lives. I would even say, just be cautious with that thinking, because what that does is it makes you responsible for it. But if you are creating an environment in which people get to change their lives, that hands the responsibility and the credit back to them. Now, your responsibility is to create the environment, the business, the platform, and the model by you yourself as a leader. But then we're changing people's lives too. We're creating

a platform and environment and a place in which people can change their lives and create the lives they want. That gives them all the credit and responsibility back. And frankly, that's the reality of it because I've, I've trained at this point, you know, I don't know how many tens and tens of thousands of people along the way, I've never changed anybody's life. And I've had a lot of people walk out of the same exact training event telling me it was life-changing and telling me that it was the worst three days of their life. So clearly, I'm not the critical factor in that. They are, right? And how they're choosing to absorb the information, that makes a difference.

And what you're doing is you're really building a place in which people can change their lives you know you and i spoke i don't know about two weeks ago and you said listen i want you to really think long and hard about your mission to be north america's largest and most trusted garage door company, you mentioned to me, I would really change that vision to be the best place to work in North America at a trades business. And it really resonated with me. I thought a lot about that and I definitely don't want to just go change it without everybody's impact on that. But truly it is a breeding ground for just, it's just amazing to see. And I definitely want, you know, you said some stuff earlier about just writing people up and putting them on a pip and saying, what's wrong with you? What's going on? Why aren't you hitting your goals? What's

going on, man? What's happening? You know, sometimes people are going through some stuff at home, and everybody does. And having a heart to say, I'm here for you. Let's work on this together. I'm your friend in this. And you've always had my back and I've got yours. Let's just have a candid conversation on what I can do. If there's anything to be more of a friend to you rather than a boss. I always say this. I've had coaches that used to take me to dinner when my mom wasn't home from work. And they cared. They genuinely cared. And I had two-a-days in football. And we had two-a-days for a week straight to play one game. We practiced 10 times to play one time. And that's one thing

I'll always bring up is, listen, have any of you played sports? Have any of you heard of two-a-days? And yet, a lot of times we say, listen, we're going to practice for two weeks, and then you're never going to practice again for the game. You're going to learn in the garage from now on. And so I love calling it practice. We always talk about that. We say, listen, let's practice. And I always pick up tips. Last week, I had Brent Buckley, who's going to do 12 million on tune-ups this year. He's a leader. He's out there still doing the work. And it's so impressive to me because he came on and we do these 15-minute interviews every week with different people. And we play it to the entire technician team.

And he said, all you got to really do is care. If you truly care and you think you're offering the best product and you're actively listening, you're going to give great results and you're going to do well. And I love when I get to show people, they don't always want to hear it from me. And this is why I love podcasting because now I just say, listen to Keith. He said it the best because I don't like it coming from me all the time because it gets stale and it gets like a broken record. So I'll share with you a discovery in my coaching that that has been profound and continues to inform me because you'll notice it in my conversation that I very often will reference other people who are doing this particular thing well. That's one way that I ensure that I'm, A, citing the original source or an example of it, which people can attach to,

but also that it's not a constant message for me, right? Because that's an exhausting form of leadership. And the other thing that I found, Tommy, is that the way in which we're able to most effectively share ideas with people is when we share with them what we're learning, not what we already know. So I continue to find that people are very enthusiastic to learn alongside my learning. They're much less enthusiastic to learn from my teaching. So when I'm sharing with people, I made this mistake this week. I had this error this week. I just came off of a coaching session. I was in a training. I did an offsite. 99% of the offsite was outstanding, but there was a moment where I got contentious with one of the participants. I kind of lost track of my poise.

I got impatient. I got a bit aggressive. I let some natural tendencies of mine out that aren't my best leadership qualities. Well, it was pointed out to me, and my initial reaction was to want to defend it. And then I said, no, that's not my mantra as a leader, as I am kind, patient, and totally committed to seeing these men and women at and holding them to their very best that wasn't kind and patient that was impatient that was me having a reaction that wasn't in the best interest of this person

and so i just looked at i got i'm going to apologize for that and i got on the horn with this person i apologized and he ended up telling me that this thing had really upset him. And then I shared with some other leaders in the business, by the way, heads up, I apologize, who had witnessed it. I apologize to this person. And they were like, oh, wow. Thank you. That was actually on my mind, man, being able to share, like, Hey, this is what I learned this week. This is where I failed this week. And genuinely, not just for any other reason, but that brought people closer to me than anything that I could have taught them about how they should be. And so it's a really important distinction.

So yes, to the podcast and bringing in others, that's just brilliant from your standpoint to cite other experts. But also, as much as you can humble yourself and continue to share with your team members what you learned yesterday, last week, last month, what you continue to struggle with, it invites people into the learning. And to kind of cap this off, John Maxwell would talk about the law of the lid and that teams won't develop past the lid of the leadership. I agree with that, but I don't think that's the whole story.

Teams will only continue to develop at the rate at which the leadership develops. And so it's this trajectory that creates a gravitational pull that, oh, this is what it looks like to be a leader at this organization. It's not having all the right answers. It's asking tough questions and admitting when we're wrong quickly. One of our core values with ethical influence is be wrong early and often. And it's about recognizing that it's in our wrongness that we find the quickest path to growth. If I wake up today and everything that I thought turns out to be right, then I had exactly the peak of my existence that I can have. But if I wake up and discover that there were things I believe that I'm wrong about, I've just opened up a whole new lid of

what's possible and what I didn't know that I didn't know. That's pretty interesting. I love the way you think about things. I've really focused on a huge weakness of mine, which is reflection. And it was so hard before COVID for me to look back. And when shit hit the fan, I have a bunch of trusted advisors I call. One of the things I've learned is to plant ideas. I don't mean to do it, but when I reflected, I realized I used to call whoever wasn't like, for example, if somebody really respected you, like Luke or COO, what I would do is I'd work with you on an idea and then I'd have you call Luke because it sounds bad, but that's one of the things I realized that I've done with a lot of my mentors is if I find somebody really respects them, and then it sounds bad, but it's almost like planting an idea and making it their idea, because I know they're not going to work hard if I got all these ideas. But what I want them to do is to find their own path. But by service time, we brought 15 people with us. You saw the bunch

of black shirts out there because truly we send our leadership team to different shops all the time, usually HVAC, HVAC and plumbing, because I think they're the leaders in the trades right now. And it's amazing what they come back with. And I'll tell you this, I got a huge disagreement with Luke a month ago. And he said, if you don't want me to do this, I won't. I'll stop right now. And I said, Luke, all I want you to do is make sure that if it doesn't work, you don't stay committed to that idea. Because I'm going to let you run with this. But you realized by taking 20 of our top technicians out of the field to do a job by job management might not be the best thing today. So I want you to continue to test and just let the numbers guide you because it's scary to me. It was really scary. And I just

said, listen, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to let you lead. And I grabbed this book. It was sitting on my desk. It's power questions. One of the things that I really try to do is ask a lot of questions, make people think long and hard. Why is this going on? And is this the right idea? And give me your mindset on making these decisions. And some of the times I don't think some of them are thought out and some of the times they are. I trust my team. I will tell you I'm 100% committed to a fault. Sometimes I don't know what's going on and I don't mind that. I really don't. It's something I've had to release the control and it's not easy for a guy like me to do that. All right. So very good. Three things to circle back on here that I thought were really interesting. So as it relates to the questions that you're

asking, well, first of all, so this was really important in the coaching. And again, to point this out to the listeners, this is a really important distinction. Not, I'm going to let you do this, but it better work. But I'm going to support you in doing this. As long as you promise that if it isn't working, you don't stay stuck on it. That is such a critical distinction in what support looks like, because the former would be more like the don't come back to me with bullshit budgets, make sure that they're real, right? That's the one that's sort of like a latent threat this one was supportive leadership and coaching because it said look i don't necessarily agree with this but i want you to go forward with it as long as you promise me that you don't stay

stuck to it if it isn't working that's fucking great coaching that's great coaching that's fucking great coaching. That's great coaching. That's such an important distinction. One is support with a fair bit of caution. One is like a latent threat. So incredible distinction that I wanted to make sure I pointed out that I heard in the language. The other thing is this idea of asking great questions. what I want to make sure I encourage and even challenge with you is something that I heard in there, which is asking questions to let them think that it's their idea. Be careful about that. That's manipulation. I was recognizing that. Good.

That's brilliant. And it's okay, by the way, because we do that. So I want to share with you a way that I've discovered that we can still have our ideas, still be able to introduce our ideas, but not put people through kind of a leading question that is guiding them towards our own answer. And it's really been a game changer for me and my coaching. And it's a simple way of stacking the phrase. So let's say we have this idea popping up about taking 20 people out of the field and doing this other thing and it gets presented, or we're talking about how we want to solve an issue. I'll say to someone, you know, Tommy, I have some thoughts on this, but before I share them, I'd like to hear yours. And then I ask the question from a genuine place of curiosity.

And here's what happens for me when that takes place. One, I think you and I are probably similar in this way, that we're competitive, especially when it comes to ideas. We like to share great ideas, maybe be thought leaders, have the answer that astounds people, have a great point that we want to make. And although that can be a strength of ours, it can really limit the growth and the thinking of a team that we're responsible for coaching. Nevertheless, it's still how I'm wired. So when I say, look, I have some thoughts on this,

but before I share them, I want to hear yours. It allows my brain to pause and not need to get my thing out there. I already set a place for the fact that I will get it out there. But what I realize is that if I share my idea first, I am going to dissuade pretty much any other thinking in the room, unless I've got some really courageous people in there that are willing to disagree with me or who even have the self-awareness to realize that I might have just shifted their way of thinking with the idea that I shared. Lastly, what it does is it allows me to genuinely listen to what their ideas are and still hold a sacred place where I can return to my ideas after and not smash them,

not make them feel like their ideas were worse. And what I found Tommy, 50% of the time, my initial idea is probably still a better idea. And 50% of the time, the other person's idea is superior. And had I not asked it the way I asked it, I might've never heard their idea. And so that's a strategy that I've been able to develop for being able to not manipulate people, not ask them leading questions to try to get them to my solution,

but still be able to make a stake that I have some thoughts on this, but also open up a forum where they get to share theirs first so that I'm not leading them in one direction or the other. When I went to Jack's breakout session, he said, I've never implanted it. Basically, he said, my team, my one-on-ones, they present to me. What went well this week? Where could I spend more time? What did we amplify of our core values? He's got that whole guide.

And then what I added to his guide, and I got to tell you, I am horrible at this. But I love it. But one of the things on the back sheet is I said, okay, what are the person's dreams? Who's important to them? Their kids, their dog, you know, me. Nicely done, bud. And Jack's not missing a whole lot of anything, but I felt like, what are some of the things outside of work? Because those conversations matter and they're very interesting and it brings some, it's

actually something that somebody could look forward to and it forces reflection. And I think it's fabulous. Yeah. Fabulous. And two things I'd like to say, one Jack's missing plenty. Trust me. I worked for him for eight years. He's missing plenty and so are you. And so am I. All right. And that's okay. Now, the thing I want to point out about the reflection, I love what you're doing. I think you are amplifying that one-on-one by having a spreadsheet or some sort of data points about how to check in on this person. I mean, when I put somebody's name in my phone these days, I'll usually put their name plus their spouse's name plus their kid's names so that every time they call, I'm reminded of all the people I should be asking about and checking in on, because I don't necessarily naturally do

that. That's about being resourceful. And this is what I want to share with you about what I just heard you say. You said, a huge weakness of mine is reflection, not reflecting. But I want to make sure that you understand that that is a limitation of yours that's directly tied to a strength, which is that you're always looking forward. I mean, Tommy, I spend 99% of my time reflecting, thinking about everything that's happened and just heard and what I just said. And I mean, hell, it's an exhausting place to be. And I need people like you to get me to look forward. But if we suddenly turn you into this great reflector, we're going to take away your superpower, which is looking forward all the time. So there's a difference between working on a weakness versus being resourceful and self-aware about a weakness or a limitation.

Because if we start focusing your energy on reflection, then we're going to take away your superpower, which is forward thinking. If we help you become aware that sometimes you don't reflect and maybe create some very specific ways of reflecting that are actually forward thinking. What's one lesson that you've learned that you want to make sure you don't forget moving forward? Something like that, brief amount of time, low energy expenditure that maximizes your ability to quickly learn and apply. That's beautiful. Or surrounding yourself with people that you sit there at the end of slamming away at some vision and go, now what am I missing? And you let them live in their superpowers, which is to look back at lessons passed or

potential impacts that you might not have heard. These are ways of becoming resourceful, thoughtful, and self-aware, but without limiting what is your strength. I don't coach people on fixing weaknesses, man. That's a horrible place to spend time. I coach people on maximizing their strengths and mitigating the impact of their limitations on themselves and on others around them. That helps a lot.

Because I will tell you that I've never really focused on my weaknesses. There's a great book on my shelf over there called Off Balance on Purpose. And people always say, I want to live this perfectly balanced life. And I want everything. I want my work-life balance. And I'm like, oh, okay. What does that mean to you? Because I'll tell you what, if I'm working all the time, I'm not praying 10 times a day and probably not getting all my workouts in. If I'm working out three times a day and the perfect diet, but what I've learned is my trainer has to show up to me. That makes me accountable. I pay a lot extra for him to come here and work out because I've,

I've learned my weaknesses. So I've surrounded, I know all my weaknesses and I know a way to set up my life. But look, there's a lot of weaknesses I still do. But I've really tried to take away the excuses of, I can't go to the gym today. Or right now, I'm working with somebody that's going to be preparing all my meals. So to make it easy, I bought all these color coordinated and I'm not this guy. I'm not a C-type. This is probably the most C-type thing I've ever done. But I bought all these color-coded Tupperwares. And then I just, this is what I like in these. And then I'm working with a dietician to make sure it's getting me to where I want to be.

Because I've always gone to leadership and the best of the best. When I lost at ping pong, this is a story that's on TikTok. I hired the number one trainer in Arizona to help me. One guy. And that was my GM at the time. So I think it's great to be aware and get help. And I've always, I went to rate my professor and I went to five different colleges at the same time because I had a really good organic chemistry teacher. I was pre-dental. So I went to five because I stacked the deck. And I said, this teacher is going to teach me the best to get through my test. And also it's going to be a lot easier to learn and easier to get an A in that class. So I've always tried to just go straight to the source and get the best of the best.

This is wonderful. And there's so many lessons. It's funny because when we had our first conversation, if you were to say what percentage of the time you were talking and I was talking in our first conversation, what would you guess at? I have my answer, but I'm curious what yours is first. I was probably 60, 40. I'm usually 80, 20. I would have put it at 80, 20. So as I was preparing for this podcast I was like I don't even know how this podcast is going to go if I'm going to be mostly listening or mostly sharing you know like I'm not really sure but in that preparation I had no problem because the stuff that I'm hearing from you is exceptionally evolved it's really really, really evolved. And I have a sign behind me right there

on the shelf next to the gin that says what our niche is, ethical influence global. And it's to unlock a magical level of influence in already exceptional leaders. And this is where I've decided to focus in life because it's like in the course of this call, it's not massive shifts. It's not these one eighties that make, but taking someone like you, it's amazing watching how fast your neurons fire. I mean, and I mean that, like I said this, and then I see you reach for a book that reminds me of this. I mean, you make connections fast. And now if we take you and just up that awareness, that nuance in language, that distinction, and what your thinking is on this, or exactly how you're expressing this, or what's your intent when

you ask that question, man, it's remarkable. And now this is how I learn to influence people in multiples. Because a leader like you with how many people are in your organization right now? 500. And how many people are we expecting to listen to this podcast? 15,000. Okay. So that's influence, right? There's going to be people out here that I'll never meet.

You'll never meet that listen to this. And they do something different in their business of 500 people. And now we're starting to have the potential for thinking that can create an environment that is world altering, right? And so, you know, this is the stuff that I love to dial into. And I so appreciate and hope that people keep hearing as you continue, because you'll continue to listen to Tommy's podcast, right? They're here for you and your guests, but this is a, you know, a singular appearance with me.

Keep listening to the way that Tommy is constantly seeking others and advice and then saying, oh yeah, I could see that. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's different versus trying to return volley with an example of how he already knew that thing. If you listen for that, you're going to see, and Tommy, it seemed to resonate with you when I talked about that idea of being wrong, but you do it very quickly and you do it by acknowledging, oh, that's interesting. Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way before. Oh, that's really fascinating. And not only do you make me feel like I'm bringing value, but it immediately demonstrates how quickly you're willing to hear somebody else's

opinion and not try to return volley to show how much you know. Now, the one caution I would have for you, different than Julian's, somebody who achieves at your level, I would make sure, and it sounds like you've got the right anchors for this, but I would make sure that there's also a distinction that you're studying that you have self-worth in who you are without it needing to be attached to achievement you know tom howard said you might make me cry but i'm not going to cry on this episode but no it's interesting you know why not wait why not why aren't you going to cry on this episode why would you say that wow well just it hits home pretty hard, but at the end, what about that hit home? What about that hit home? Oh, I just, if you look at everything, I always talk about legacy. And what is a legacy? When you look back at someone's life, who did they affect? Who did they help? Help them help themselves. That's what I'll take from what I've learned today. Who did I help help themselves? And well, that's what I consider an accomplishment. I do feel like let it rip Tommy, grab a tissue.

I do look at people's lives. I always said there's only one competitor right now for me, and that's Elon Musk. I do have self-worth. I never once thought about that because I don't take the time to reflect. I don't look back at things. I'm not like, oh, when we celebrate big wins,

it's for an hour. And then I say time to move forward. And I think almost to a fault, but definitely reflecting and taking some self worth and just saying, I don't know. It's just something I got to really think about. I don't have anything. So to be clear, the goal is never to make anyone feel or do anything. But I do want you to notice how quickly you wanted to get out of that moment of reflection. And, you know, whatever discomfort it brings and whatever is there for you, that's where there's something really powerful for you to explore now or in the future. And so all I did was just bring you back to what I felt like and saw that you wanted to get out of real fast. And you kind of went into some of your known scripting,

as it were, things that I always say, which brings you back to what you're comfortable with and got you out of where you were uncomfortable there for a moment. Doesn't have to be now, doesn't have to be ever. But when I work with extraordinary performers, I've watched the fall when people sell to private equity and suddenly they're not the owner anymore, not making their own decisions anymore in the same way. When people retire, when people step away from careers. For myself, Tommy, we talked a lot about Nexstar today. When I left Nexstar star i had no idea how much my identity was wrapped up in next star no idea and i went through astonishing depression as i

tried to figure out who the fuck i was without that and then realized that I had attached, I created a whole life around achievement and being impressive with no sense of self-worth without that achievement. So when I hear, I just listen. If there's something there for you, it's there for you and it's yours to explore. It's definitely something I'm going to reflect on and just really think about because I go back to better my best. I just consider achievement and it's growth. It's personal growth too. And it's, oh man, I don't like having conversations like this because to me, I like to get the feelings out of it. That's just who I am. And it's something I need to focus on when people talk about feelings. I'm like, let's move on. And it's something very deeply rooted that I could spend a lot of time on. And I probably should. Well, the only thing that I would point out there is that it's a feeling that keeps you from wanting to deal with feelings. Yeah. So it's not that you operate without feeling people who are logical and see themselves as logical,

think that they operate without emotion. That's not at all true. It's that logic creates a sense of comfort, which is a matter of emotion and how they feel. And so they want to be comfortable. So they stay in the logic. Right. And so that's particularly if control and comfort

are come together for you we make sense of it and then we move forward and so that's it's great that's great that you recognize that this is not a place that you like to spend time but it's uncomfortable is what it is yeah of course i mean i these conversations, there's a book on my shelf called Tough Conversations. It's a tough conversation for me internally. Yes. And it's a little bit different because I'm not used to having these conversations. But what you do is have these conversations often and you're comfortable with them. And, you know, you go into someone's past.

It's like this. Sometimes I don't want to go to the doctor more because, and I think a lot of people do this, my step-mom just died because she didn't go to the doctor when she was bleeding and she had really bad cancer. She would have gone when she had that, it could have been fixed. And I think that's exactly what you do is don't go too far down this road without, because once you, but you told me this last time we talked, once you see it, you can never go back. Right. You can never unsee it, which is why I don't do it with people who are unwilling.

Unless they invite the conversation, I don't do it. I won't because it's, there's a reverence. You got to respect people's place and where they're at. The only thing that I would share differently, I'm not comfortable with these conversations, Tommy. These are not natural for me either. And I also don't seek them or necessarily, I certainly don't try to create them. I'm just present to them when they're there. And before I came on this call, the only thing I did to prepare for this call was, you know, fundamentally other than physical preparations, was I repeated my mantra to myself. And so before I got on this call, I said, I am an instrument for learning and not the source. I am kind and patient and totally committed to seeing this man and holding this man to his very best. This man is brilliant,

courageous, and the perfect place in his life for our paths to cross. He's awesome. I'm awesome. Today's the day and now is the time. I love that mantra. All right. Now, when you just wanted to move off of that, everything in me wanted to let you move off of that. Right. However, I had already called myself to show up as seeing you at and holding you to your very best. And to hold you to your very best in a conversation we're having about leadership, about learning through leadership, how many times a week do you tell people that you don't grow in your comfort zone? Yeah, absolutely. And so here you are being

uncomfortable and wanting to get back to being comfortable. And you're the leader who's going to lead with this massive influence. I'm going to see you at and hold you to your best. It's not because it's comfortable. It's because that's the version of me that I summoned to this conversation today. Yeah, it's powerful. I mean, really, it really is. And if you really look at the first four to five years of your life, I think that's really what you got to get back to is what caused you to turn things off. It's pretty impactful now that I think about some of these things. But I learned to turn a lot of things off. But it's really important that I don't always keep those off because it's not fair to the people around me. But you went deeper, didn't you? That's pretty special what you just shared, man. I just want to honor that. You asked earlier about being inspiring. Do leaders need to be inspiring? You can't be inspiring unless you're inspired. And as far as compassion is concerned, you can't teach compassion unless you're compassionate and you sure as hell can't teach forgiveness unless you're willing to forgive.

And you just go in there. It brought tears to my eyes. And if you don't recognize how fucking powerful that is or how strong that is, then you've got a misunderstanding of what it looks like to be a strong leader because that level of vulnerability right there is what brings people in. And then, then you turn on your charisma. Then you turn on your motivational mindset. Then you attach to goals. And now people know that you're not just an icon, but you're a human and they want to walk alongside you and they want to be a part of this journey with you. And they see what it looks like to have to face their own shit in order to grow to be bigger yeah well there's plenty of shit here you know it's one of those things where

you really look back at your childhood and you could really you could figure out why you make decisions you could figure out the things that really you avoid and the feelings that are attached to those. It affects a lot of relationships in a very impactful way. All right. One more, one more opportunity here. I want you to say the same thing you just said, only say it as an I statement rather than a you statement. So I avoid certain discussions and certain feelings.

And I definitely need to be aware of when I'm doing that. That feel different? Yeah. Yeah. I always say you because I don't own it when i do that yep amazing and i just got chills when you said that what an incredible recognition because that's exactly a little sneaky game the non-conscious plays to seemingly acknowledge something but actually defer it into a you statement or sometimes we'll do it as a we

statement versus an I statement. And when it's an I statement, it forces this complete experience of ownership and it internalizes to something very real for you. And that was fucking amazing. So thank you. Thank you. Listen, this is fantastic. I don't mean to do this. I didn't want to bring up one thing on this podcast that I thought was really impactful last time we spoke is, you know, you do a lot of work with service type, especially the executives. And we spoke a little bit. Vahe and Ara are heroes to me. Me too. Me too.

And you said you constantly see these guys making decisions that are always pro for the trades. Because I said to you this exact question, I said, as a bank, as a business, and having investors like Service Titan does, there's a fiduciary responsibility to the holders. You're holding their treasure, their money, and a lot of their time. And you said you constantly see them making ethical, influential decisions towards the trades, always the business that they serve. And that was very impactful for me. And I just wanted to make sure before this podcast ends, because I think that's so important because I said, I've been on their investor calls. I've talked to four potential investors and they just said, would you be willing to pay

more for this service? It was all about, would you pay more? Would you do this? What if they increased your cost per technician by $20? What would you do? And you said, every day you see them making very tough decisions that are always towards the business owner. And I really thought that that was important that tough decisions that are always towards the business owner.

And I really thought that that was important that people hear that because those are the type of people they are. So there were two decisions I made when I left Nexstar. One, I would only work with companies in which the leadership was willing to engage in this coaching. So for example, could you imagine if you hired me to work in your company, but you weren't willing to have conversations like this, but you thought all of those people should. Your people really need this, right?

So I wouldn't work with companies in which the highest level wasn't working. And I would only work with people who I was aligned in my values with. And I got to meet R and Vahe back at Nexstar probably in 2014, I think, 2013, something like that, very early in their trajectory. And then I would eventually come to work with them in this capacity with the privilege to be executive coach to them and to sit in the room while they make the hardest decisions imaginable. And now they've got thousands of titans as employees. They've got tens of thousands of employees. And every single time I watch them say things like this, well, I don't care what we could do, but we promised them this.

And so we're going to go back and we're going to make sure that we stay true to our word. Or I hear things like, no, we're going to honor the relationship and what they meant to us in our growth path, regardless of where we are today. Or they make decisions and they say, is this what's best for, and they do make this call, and this is hugely important. Is this what's best for our vision of becoming the operating system of the trades? All of these are the factors, but they never, ever make a decision about what they can do if it's not in alignment with what they should do. And they never make a decision that's outside their value set. And these are, you know, I mean, I'll speak to R and Vahe, but that entire executive team,

because of course they're bringing in people that are sharing in their values. I just, I wish that people could bear witness to the conversations I get to bear witness to. Because although they might disagree with something that they see, on the user end of ServiceTitan, or they might have their issues with the way ServiceTitan's handling something, if they could see the root decision that was made at the highest level and the values and the vision that were attached to it. They disagree with it perhaps, but they would never question how beautifully the decision was arrived at. And you got to remember, these are still young founders. These are not seasoned career leaders. These are young founders who built this software themselves and then have

somehow navigated through this extraordinary trajectory and have investors that they need to think about, have all of these new factors. Think about the rate that they have to be growing as human beings in order to sustain this type of growth for an entire team, organization, and industry. And then lastly, this is exactly what they do in alignment with what Simon Sinek said. They make decisions based on their just cause, becoming the operating system of the trades, and their values, which are built around the type of team that they want to have, being obsessed with customer success. That's what Aura always talks about in private meetings, not for the public, in our meetings. That's what youura always talks about in private meetings, not for the public, in our meetings. That's what you hear him talk about.

And ensuring that we are changing lives, creating the platform to change lives inside and outside of our organization. They lead with the just cause. They support it within their values to make sure that they're aligned in their integrity. And then they move forward with those decisions, even when they're tough ones, or even when they might mean short-term sacrifices to investors, short-term sacrifices to bottom lines and so forth, or tough questions and tough conversations that have to be had with customers to ensure long-term success. None of this shit is easy, man. And boy, I marvel at how much they have to balance. And guess who is showing up for coaching sessions every other Friday and taking a hard look at themselves. I'll show you the backside of it so that nobody can zoom in on the details. Although these are all the good things, but I've got Ara and Vahe's 360s on my desk

with all the anonymous feedback from 15 to 20 different people that these two men sit there and absorb and reflect on and have tough internal conversations along with interpersonal conversations to keep growing to be the leaders that support this industry. You can question a million things, but what you cannot question is the heart and soul of that organization. I promise that.

I want to add one thing that's important to me. I called R.A. up and I said, hey, man, you're the reason we are what we are today. And it would mean a lot to me if you could show up and just pop into Vertical Track. He goes, can we do it in a panel and i said hell yeah and he flew out just to be there with us he's got the busiest schedule of anybody and he said hey i could fly in but i gotta fly out to be in my soccer practice with my son yeah and he goes i could only come in for a couple hours but i want to hang out. And a person walked up to Ara with four technicians, four. And he said, all right, I'm having some problems with this. Ara got on an hour call with him the next day. Now we could have developed our own CRM and done a bunch of stuff, but I believe in them. And I believe that they do care. And it's genuine.

They're the best. Yeah. I mean i i don't want to overstate it or over politic it i i cannot speak more highly i mean it's that's across the board there i work with brad and sarah casepier i work with will and shanna blanton and i work with ara and vahe and their teams and their orgs you know from, from Radiant to Blantons to Service Titan. And each one of those people and pairs demonstrate the highest character, the highest level of compassion, along with being extraordinary visionary leaders who I see it as my job just there to coach and support. And that is out of all the things I've accomplished or anything I've accomplished in my life, not to say like, there's all these things, anything I've accomplished.

I think my finest accomplishment is the people I get to work with outside of the people that I consider my friends. No, you're, you're a hell of a guy. You've done a great job. And, uh, you know, when we talked the other day, I'll close up with a few questions here, just that I do on every podcast. But the other day when Bree's like, oh, my gosh, she's like, you need to talk to Keith more. She's like, I've never even heard you like that. So it's very powerful what you do. And I'm a big fan. And I really appreciate the time today. As we close out, I ask if someone wants to reach out to you, what's the best way to get ahold of you, Keith? So ethical influence, global.com is my website. And there's lots of resources on there along with any contact info. That's great. You can always reach out to me at K Mercurio at service Titan. That's also available. And I mean, just in general, like you'll find my, you know, just frankly, you're going to find my cell phone number on the website. So you can reach out to me and whatever medium

works best, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, I'm on all those spots. Give you a call on a Sunday like I did. Yeah, no kidding. And then is there a few books that are outside of the norm of E-Myth Revisited and Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Influence and some of these other books? Is there three books that really? Yeah, I'm back here. I'm going to pull a page out of Tommy Mello's playbook. And let's see here. One of these is very obvious. Oh, this is a good one.

I don't have a copy of it live with me. I have it on Audible, which is Simon Sinek's recent one, The Infinite Game, which I think is a non-negotiable for leaders to read. So Simon Sinek, The Infinite Game. I think it's his best work yet. Tribal Leadership. Brad Casebeer introduced me to this. This is a critical, critical read and absolutely game changer for me. Life-changing book for me is Plato's Republic, specifically the allegory of the cave. So you spoke of my style being unorthodox. It may be because it's influenced by authors from hundreds and even thousands of years ago. And so it's been around, it just maybe has been lost a little bit. This one, I think most everyone has read, but specifically chapter five,

habit five, seek first to understand then to be understood. Just keep rereading that as many times as needed. And then a trillion dollar coach, the story of Bill Campbell is just a remarkable, remarkable book. These are books that changed my paradigm and how I coached and how I thought some ways reinforced some of my real core values, which was a beautiful thing. Bill Campbell reminded me that it's okay to tell people I love them all the time. As I started getting like a little concerned, whether that was okay in this new corporate environment and everything else. And I go, you know what? It's up to them, whether they embrace or reject that, but I'm going to keep telling people I love them because I do. And so there's certain things in here that totally changed the way we think. And there's

certain things that reaffirm the way we think. And I think it's important to seek both. The last thing I ask is, I had a lot of questions on here. I didn't hit one of them, but I think it was very profound direction we took this podcast. But we talked about a lot of great things, and I definitely impacted from this. If you had to just close us out with a final thought, maybe something we didn't address, maybe just something that everybody needs to hear or just take action on or whatever you think you want to end on. I'll give you the stage to close us out. I really appreciate that. And thank you for not following all the questions that you had, because that's not a conversation, right? What

you did instead was you had a conversation and you actually listened to what I had to share and you changed what you were going to say next because you listened to me. That's what chapter five is all about. And so, you know, my friend and mentor Jack Needham taught me in the spirit of listening to listen for the last three words. and what that meant to me was to stop formulating my next question my next thought my next response halfway through somebody's sentence because although maybe i've learned to not actually interrupt somebody when doing that mentally i've stopped my listening and i end up not really hearing what that other person had to say and so i'm continuing in this practice to learn to ensure that people are heard, not that people feel heard. And I think that's a really important distinction.

We can't control how people feel, but we can get really clear about our intent to ensure that they are heard and give them a chance to feel heard. So that would be my thank you to you for today you made me feel heard my thank you to your audience that listened to this and hung in here all the way maybe to the end even and for all of you that's a gift that i would ask you share with the people in your life well keith you are an amazing man an incredible coach and just a powerful human being. So once again, I deeply, deeply appreciate this and one of the best yet. And I've been doing this now for a long time. So this is fantastic. I appreciate you.

Tommy, thank you so much. This was a real honor. And you're welcome. You're welcome. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot to me. And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers,

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homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making any money on it to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your life season further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it. you