Hello, and welcome in. Happy Wednesday, everyone. Hi, Addy, Bridget, and Cindy. I always want
to wave to everybody. There's Michelle. Robin, hello. Sue, hello. And Bonnie, Leanne, and
Owen, and Tyler. How's everyone doing on this Wednesday? It is week 38 of The Edge, so we are
on the countdown. This is three. Next week will be two, and then one. We're happy to have you here.
We've traveled almost 40 weeks together. That is a long time. That's a long time. We feel like
we've gotten to know everyone. As Dion says, it's become its own little family, so it's really good
to see you all today. So this is Wednesday. If you have any wins for the week, please drop them
in the chat. We love to see those. Or since we are in week 38, tell us which training, which
Edge training you are finding most helpful at this current time. So either your weekly win
or which Edge training you are finding most helpful at this time. We've got some good ones
like Kaizenning. You've got the QBook, Buckets, DeepWork. You have some really good
trainings to refer back to. All right. Well, we're just going to give about another moment for folks
to jump on and get connected to audio. And while we're doing that, Sue, thin slicing. Yes, Tyler,
QBook, and Buckets still extremely helpful. Those don't ever. And the thin slicing. Those don't ever
stop being helpful. Deb, QBook. Yes. Cindy, Kaizen. Yes. Those are all so good. When we did the Kaizen
training and we utilized Kaizen here at Brilliant, but I went home and I think I Kaizened everything.
Tell my daughter, let's Kaizen it. What? So it's very, very helpful. Robin, the three growth
strategies. Yes. For the 10X. Yes. Yes. And Addie is Kaizen. Thank you for sharing that. That's
good to know what is really hitting home for you guys right now. Well, last week we talked
about the black box modeling. And the black box model, if I can say it, black box modeling is how
we can quickly determine the financial viability of a new product or business strategy. And it
cuts out the kind of emotional thinking that keeps us stuck, which is super helpful because
it brings clarity to the process so that we can make well-informed decisions. And we were all
given homework to black box a project. So how many of you guys did that? Black box to project
or an idea? Oh, okay. Robin. Robin, we can count on you. Addie. Yeah. Good. Let us know how that
went in the chat. I think we'd love to know how that went for you. Today's a fun topic. We're going
to talk about existential flexibility by Simon Sinek. And these principles are exemplified by
various successful organizations, and they can guide leaders in navigating uncertainty
and maintaining their core mission. And right before we dive into the call, today's pro tip
is referring back to week 29 of upgrading your meetings. Do you guys remember that?
The FIRE meetings, to build your culture, to always have and expect FIRE meetings. So you invite people
based on the right time, not just in case. You give permission to comment after. If you were
watching others work, you can ask the question, was I needed in that meeting? There is a cultural
permission to say no to meetings. And one of my favorites, the five-star permission that if after
10 minutes, you realize the meeting doesn't really pertain to you and your role in the business, you
have permission to leave. And we know that a meeting is the last action of resort. So if you
find that you need a refresher on how to have FIRE meetings, go back to week 29 in the EDGE group
on the app and give that a rewatch. All right. Is everyone ready to dive into existential flexibility?
My word. Okay. As a reminder, as we're going through the material, feel free to post questions
and comments in the chat. And Deon, I'm going to hand it over to you. Hey, that is a mouthful.
Just so that you all know, I think we're running five or six meetings today as a team. So we look
a little weary. That's why we've got a lot of things going on here at Brilliant. So that's the
reason. Okay. So this concept is actually a pretty sophisticated
concept. And it's only sophisticated to people who haven't been trained. So that does not
include you, you are trained. That means if you're following this conversation, you really
have caught a lot of the components of the edge, because what the edge does is we build
different components up in layers, so we can get to this type of conversations. So here's
what I want to say is that I'm going to talk about six items that make up the concept of
existential flexibility. Now that sounds like a big word. But what it really means is there
that you I don't know if you remember back to when we did training about the difference
between the finite game and the infinite game. Do you guys remember that training? So the
finite game uses language like we have to be number one, and it acts like that there's
winners and losers and so on. But the infinite game is we want to be better than we were
last year. The infinite game is us measuring ourselves. I just watched anybody watch the
Apple that quick meeting they did this week. Anybody watch the launch of the new MacBook
Pro watching Apple do events is the quintessential explanation of what the game the infinite game
looks like. Those people do not focus on anybody else. They don't focus on what the competition's
doing. They don't measure anything of that. And the reason is Apple measure themselves by their
own against themselves. You know, how good are we against ourselves? So here's the interesting
thing about the infinite game. Apple uses language like this is the fastest MacBook we've ever built.
Well, what happens if you had a really awful MacBook last year? Now you've got a slightly
less awful one. Be the best. That's true. It is the best. Have you seen their graphs, the 3x and
the 2x? Those graphs are completely and utterly meaningless. They truly are from a pure, excuse me,
engineering point of view. But what they're demonstrating is I noticed that if you watch
that presentation, I love watching their presentations, man, especially Steve Jobs,
that guy knew how to do this. And what he did is he always they assumed they were creating a space,
they were inhabiting their space, and that they were so filling their space and on top of their
game that they didn't reference anyone else. They were like, we're it, we're the game.
And you go, what about my Windows machine? They go, the what machine?
You know, like, acted like it didn't exist. And so as a result, everybody buys a Mac who's in
who's in Apple world, you know, all act like it's a cult, you know, me included. So, you know,
if Apple launches a new shiny thing, I'm probably buying it and then deciding what to do with it.
I don't know. I think that's, I just gave up my weakness here. But the reason is,
is because what they've done is they are selling us something. You know, they're not telling us
Apple are not telling us that if you are in the infinite game, you're telling people why you're
doing it, you're creating a course. If you're in the finite game, you're telling them what you're
doing. And if you listen to Dell and all those people, oh, we have, you know, RAM and this and
their CPU speed and the blah and the blah and the blah and the stats. And yes, all the benefits of
all that. Nobody genuinely, only a few technical people actually care. What does Apple do? They
start their whole event with here's some guy walking down the road, listening to their music.
And there's some creator doing something cool. And there's somebody taking their iPhone and
making a movie. And then there's this family event and we get all, what are they doing?
They're connecting us to why Apple is important in our lives to do life. That is the infinite game.
So you say, well, we don't have cool stuff like Apple. You know, we sell widgets and they're
boring. Sure. But the why you do it involves passion. There is a passion in your why.
So six points for creating existential flexibility, existential flexibility,
existential meaning outside of yourself, flexibility, where you can look at your own
business and not be so caught up in the day to day of the business that you can't see the bigger
picture, that you can't be existential, that you can't extract yourself out of the immediate and
look at the big picture and say, hey, this is what's going on in our industry. This is why
our why is so important. So number one, clarify your why.
And, you know, don't just do it once as a sort of a whiteboard exercise, make it part
of your language.
Remember constantly driving the why.
Have a course, make your business about a course, you know, if you can make it one you're
willing to sacrifice for, you know, make it something that's worth it for your employees,
for your team, for the people who are involved, for your customers, make them feel like this
is something almost noble.
This is something grand.
This is something important.
You say, well, you know, you know, I sell accounting services or whatever.
You can make it important.
You can literally make it important.
And let me tell you this part about making clarifying your why.
As founders, we get so focused or as leaders, we get so focused on making the products profitable,
making the business profitable.
And we don't realize that when we clarify the why, it just drives that process.
It puts that it's like turbocharging your sales.
It's like turbocharging your community.
So Apple's why is challenge the status quo, you know, consider all other technology and
all other computers to be, you know, the monolith.
And we don't care.
Do you remember that ad they did where the person who ran in and then threw that big
thing up and smashed the screen and all the people, what it was saying is the entire industry
is, you know, just a bunch of robots and it was all sort of in black and white.
And then there's one person come running in color and smash the screen and, you know,
think different, I think was the big thing at the time.
So what is Apple saying, hey, if you don't fit in the little box, you know, do you remember
the little guys with with the ads that they did with with the two guys?
Hi, I'm a PC.
Hi, I'm a Mac.
Remember that they got sued out of their minds for that, that those series of ads.
But there were a massively effective because what Apple was saying is that it matters.
Being able to have technology that serves you and not use of your technology matters.
Technology that empowers your life matters.
So why does your company exist?
Why does your why does it matter?
Right, especially if you're in a more commodity type business, if you're a service or a product
that maybe they can get from two or three or several sources, then then this is even
more important.
You have to nail down why, you know, Patagonia's why is to save the planet through sustainable
practices and products.
Hey, man, if you buy Patagonia, you care about the planet.
There's no logical connection at all.
That's not even probably true.
But people who buy the products feel this.
There's a passion.
So don't underestimate the why, because it brings the passion to what you're doing.
Number two, be adaptable, not opportunistic.
Be adaptable, not opportunistic.
In other words, stay flexible without compromising your core values, you know, allow a certain
amount of adaptability.
So here's the hardest thing about this point, the willingness to blow up your own products
before the market does it for you.
You know, this is a hard one, man, because we get attached like children to our products.
We like we created this.
The market loved it.
It's struggling a bit now.
And now we're sitting scratching our heads saying, what do we do next?
And sometimes when the market is blowing up something you're offering now, don't confuse
the difference between the markets blowing something up or you're just in a market cycle.
Some businesses are very driven by by economic cycles.
You know, they're very dependent.
You know, if the market's going well, business goes well.
You know, so if you're in the, you know, in the roofing business, bad weather is your
best friend, right?
So because you get to replace lots of roofs and lots going on and you have more business,
so bad weather is your is your best buddy.
Well, you can't put bad weather into your marketing strategy, right?
You can't plan that.
So what we're saying is then how do you adapt to that?
How do you have a mechanism where you can ramp up your team really quickly during when
there's a lot of bad weather or at certain months of the year, then scale it down and
focus on other products or just scale it down.
So you need a variable capability.
That's what I'm talking about.
Be adaptable to your market.
and understand what your market does. I know for us, at
Brilliant, we just recently did this, right? We had a very
profitable product week called life coaching was an $800
product for three months coaching. And we made it
basically free. And when we made it free, well, it's sort of free
if you belong to to, you know, to the church, then you then
that's part of that now. But we had to realize that we had to be
flexible and willing to blow up our own products before the
market did. So but what we replaced was a much higher order
product, you know, for leadership training, so having a
school of leadership. And now we have a $5,000 product instead of
an $800 product. And we're able to offer those people so much
more. So being willing to blow up your own products is huge. So
Microsoft were amazingly good at this. Microsoft, you know, for
the longest time just relied on Windows and Microsoft Office.
And what did they do, they started to almost blow up their
own product by using cloud computing. Microsoft put
unbelievable amounts of cloud computing. Now, if you want to
study in a company that in the last three to four years, and I
can never pronounce his name, the CEO Nutella, somebody can
pronounce it. Anyway, someone throw it in the chat for me. So
the CEO of Microsoft, they were this day in comparison to Apple,
they were tiny by market share. Now they're right up there with
it. It's unbelievable how much value has come into Microsoft,
because they were willing to blow up their own products and
introduce new things. You know, Ben and Jerry's did this. Now
there was some Satya Nadella. Nadella is his last name. Okay,
I got it. CEO of Microsoft. Great leader, really worth
studying. He's unbelievable. Number three. So number two is
adaptable. Number three, trust your team. Now I'm not saying
just trust your team globally, we talked about having a culture
of trust. Now I want to bring a refinement as a leader to that
language. Trust your team to make decisions that are aligned
with your why. You see, if I know my team is aligned with our
why, then I can trust them and I can let it go because they will
do what I know they need to do. So it's not a blanket trust as
Oh, well, we just trust you and so on. Sure, we're going to give
them that as the starting point. But now that we're maturing this
concept of trust, so what does that mean as leaders, it means
that your team have to be super clear on your why, so that you
can trust them with it. If that why is so clear that it informs
their actual daily decisions, that puts you in a different
league. Because now you're really buying back your time as
a leader, when you're trusting your team, guess what you don't
have to do? Want to tell me what you don't have to do? Huh? You
don't have to throw in the chat. What do you not have to do if
you trust your team? Remind them do their job. That's true. What
else? Yeah, do it yourself. Right? Constantly manage them
micromanage them. Exactly. You do not have to be their mommy or
their daddy. Business wise, you know, so worry about the
results. Good one, Joe. Okay, so when you trust your team, what
you've looked you want your team to feel. I love my job. I feel I
can be myself here. What I do here matters. For that to be
real. There has to be real trust. There has to be
opportunity to take risks, even fail and still be safe. When
somebody when you trust your team, and then and they take a
risk, and they fail. That's where your leadership is truly
tested. And the integrity of your trust culture is now on
display. Because now you're saying to them. Okay, you said
we can go. Well, I can see it's aligned with a why it just
didn't work out. No worries. Thank you for trying. cost us
money. It's painful. And, and the language I use as the leader
is when one of the when one of the people in my team fail, I
never say they I say we. So if somebody
Our team tried something and it failed. I remember about a year ago, back when Dia was working with
us and we launched this marketing thing and it was a disaster. It really was, and I know Dia would
say that here, her idea, and I encouraged her. She ran by me, I said, sounds like a great idea,
it was a bit risky. We wasted, I think, $20,000 on nothing. So now for a small company, that was a
lot of money to us at the time. And so when I presented the failure to the team, what did I say?
We tried this thing and we failed. What did that message say to Dia?
Now, what would be my language if it was a success?
What would have I done? I would have used what theory? Somebody throw in the chat.
She, and I also would have made her the hero of the story. You know, Dia came up with this idea
and it was amazing. Isn't she wonderful? Well done, Dia. Great job. Make her the hero, right?
She failed. Man, we tried, you know, but we failed. What does that do for Dia the next time she's
taking something on? He will stand with me, my leader. When I asked my leader and she said I
should do it, when it failed, she stood with me last time, she'll stand with me again. So that
makes your team very bold, but also way more wanting to make sure they please you. You think
that it's counterintuitive because you think, well, that just lets them go run amok. Not at all.
When they see what it costs you, that you spend your trust chips on their behalf, they're a little
more careful next time. Like next time we do that new thing, are you sure we should do this?
You know, so it is incredible. You know, the thing, the thing, the companies that do this
really well are two companies, Google and Zappos. Google empowers its employees to spend 20% of
their time on side projects, fostering innovation and creativity. What does that mean? It means that,
hey, we said take one deep work session. What is one deep work session? That's one,
you know, out of 10. So that's only 10%. We're only recommending 10%. One bucket out of 10.
One deep work. They do two buckets. If you work at Google, you have to spend two buckets of your
time, eight hours of your week doing unrelated work to do a side project. And you say, well,
Google, they got billions of dollars. That is true. Guess how they became Google with billions
of dollars? Which came first? So here's what we're getting down to. A high value culture
drives value in your business like nothing else. When you clear and your culture knows why you're
clear and your team knows why you're clear on your why, and you trust your team to be aligned
with that why, you drive incredible culture. Let's go to the next point. Number four, build
resilience. You know, Simon Sinek puts it this way. He says, develop the resilience
to weather storms, staying true to your purpose. So this is different from the idea of, you know,
blowing up your own products and don't wait for the market to do it. This is a different idea.
This is if you know you go through fluctuations, when interest rates are high, if you're a mortgage
broker and the interest rates are really high right now, you better have some resilience in
your business plan, right? And if you have a team selling products that in that space,
you have to build the kind of resilience. Now, there's two big drivers for resilience. Number
one driver is that you have an alternative ability to scale. So like I used the example,
if you're running a roofing company, then being able to bring a lot of contractors in very quick
and having the kind of agreement with them that they go to first, because the other roofing
companies in the city will have the same idea. So what if you put those contractors on a retainer,
or you paid them something special so that they had a contractual obligation to say to you,
say yes to you first. So those type of little innovations builds resilience and allows you to
scale. So you don't have to always do everything. I mean, the other way is you can do it the Tesla
way, sleep on the factory floor. Now they asked Elon, why did you sleep on the factory floor? I
mean, once you go to your office and just least lie on the sofa, he said, no, it was important
for the team to see me suffer because I cannot expect them to say, I can't go sit on some island.
you know, sipping cocktails while they're suffering on the factory floor. I wanted
them to see me suffering as much. In fact, I wanted it to hurt me more than it hurts them.
That was his, those were his words. Now you can do that. That's not sustainable. That is,
you can do that for little bursts. That is not a great long-term resilience strategy.
Look, Tesla has been on the brink of bankruptcy so many times, you know, and then of course,
then in 2008, almost all of Elon's companies were on the brink of bankruptcy and he was going
through a divorce. So, you know, it was the lowest, he said it was one of the lowest points.
And then in 2018, he has this another massive low point when the entire market started to short
his stock. Does everybody know what that means? Shorting stock? Okay. So if you don't know what
that is, if you're buying shares of a company in the market, you buy them here and you plan for
them to go up. What you're doing is you buy low and you sell high. It's called going long.
The opposite is also true. You can sell stock you don't have, then the market goes down,
then you buy them at a cheaper rates. You sell them at a hundred, you buy them at 50 and you
make the difference. That's called shorting the stock. In my personal view, it's one of the most
immoral things that shouldn't even exist on the planet. That's like, that's like taking massive
advantage of some other person's misery. It's like somebody's business has failed or, you know,
a woman, you know, somebody has lost a spouse, maybe, you know, wife lost a husband or whoever
was the primary income. And now they're having to sell the house. And then you come in there
just selling all the furniture. And in the point of their misery, in their lowest moment,
in this terrible calamity that they're facing as a family, you're negotiating down, you know,
because you know, that sofa costs $5,000 and they're asking 800 and you say, can I give you
200? It's that to me, that's shorting the stock. It's one of the most moral, reprehensible aspects
of modern business in my personal view. And as you can tell, I'm pretty strong about it.
And the reason I'm strong about it is because when the market shorts your stock,
it drives your stock price down. What does that do? It means you don't have working capital.
So you can't function. So you just get, it just gets harder and harder. If you're borrowing
money from the bank and your stock price is at a hundred, the bank's looking at how to lend you
money. If that drops to $30, now the bank's going, hang on a second, we're overexposed here. We're
certainly not giving you any more. You're operating capital gets nailed. And so in 2018,
Tesla was the most shorted stock in the history of the world. Billions and billions of dollars
short against him. Now I'm very happy to report that they were all wrong. Why did they short
Tesla stock? Because they didn't understand this thing of resilience. Now their story,
if you read, anybody read Walter Isaacson's latest book called Elon Musk, he followed Elon
around for two years. He wrote the one on Steve Jobs. He's very world famous for his books. But
if you want to read a fascinating book, it's not a pro or against Elon book. It's a very,
Elon had no say in what was said. And he followed Elon around for two years in all his meetings,
sat in board meetings, sat with him everywhere. Here's what the market misunderstood about Tesla
in 2018, because he promised them that by the end of whatever it was, September,
they would be at 5,000 cars per week. And I think it was seven or eight weeks before that there were
2000 cars a week. And they somehow they were flying drones into the factories, spying on Tesla,
bribing employees, getting information. And they got all their information told them,
there is no way on this earth that Tesla makes it to 5,000 a week and their stock's going to crash.
So we're going to all short the stock. Guess what they did? They made it to 5,000 a week,
and they pushed it. And how did they do it? He realized a profound thing, which I've already
taught you on how to make things less dumb, what they call the algorithm at Tesla. Remember the
thing about deleting? Don't optimize something. They were spending all this time with all these
robots, and they realized there were certain functions. They're standing there looking on
this production line. And somebody's watching how difficult it is to program this robot to do
something. So they just jumped in and did it themselves. And they did it a fraction of the time.
And they said, you know, humans are underrated on the production line. So they hired a bunch of
people, and they took out tons of robots. They literally walked around with an orange spray can.
marking Xs on all the robots that were going to get taken out was the most automated factory in
the world, became a whole lot less automated because they were automating something that
shouldn't exist. And that change unblocked the whole process and got them there. And those
short sellers lost tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.
Yeah, I know you're smiling. I was smiling too. I think, I think, you know, you play that game,
you pay the price, right? Number five, engage with humanity. Let me get to the point here very
quickly. So when you run a business and as your business grows and the complexity grows,
it's easy to forget that your customers, your team, your employees are people.
And it's easy to stop relating to them at a human level. The company that's really good at this,
two companies, Airbnb and Costco. Airbnb fosters connections by allowing hosts and guests
to share unique experiences and spaces, emphasizing that human connection.
Costco treats employees well. I mean, they provide fair wages, benefits, and they even have,
they have some very creative elements to remind themselves that the team at Costco are people.
And so connecting with your customers at a very human level, even on your mistakes and challenges,
you'll be amazed at what your customers will do when you treat them. And you appeal to their
humanity. Number six, and the last point, commit to long term value. I've been thinking a great
deal in these last few weeks about the edge and how does the edge help businesses?
And so recently I was talking to a friend who's built a very successful business and,
you know, very successful. We're the small team that they're doing, they're doing pretty well.
And so I asked the friend, how does this end? And they said, what do you mean? I said,
and so I remind them of the joke from the comedian, you know, divorce ends only one of two
ways. Are they in divorce? Sorry. Marriage ends in one of two ways, either in divorce or death
until death has to part. Right. Sounds pretty, pretty dark. But the point I was making is why
are you building this business? What's, what's the end game here? Are you going to sell it?
You're going to sell it to the employees, hand it to a family member or just shut it down?
Would be sad to have built all this and put all this energy and just shut it down.
So when my son Bruce was starting his first business, I think it was about 20 at the time,
he, you know, I was helping him get going. He's got registered, had a few clients
and I sat him down and I said, okay, so Bruce, here's the deal. It's five years down the road.
I want you to pretend that I am a private equity firm and I've come in to buy your business.
Question number one, what am I buying? What is it? Number two, how much is it? He said,
dad, how do I know? I said, why don't you know? So I'm starting a business. I said,
now this question should be in the back of your mind always. As a leader, focusing on the value
you create. So what we've been teaching you here at the edge is how to create a high value culture.
Why? Because with a high value culture, we'll create new products. You'll attract high
performance employees above your pay grade. You'll be able to really take care of customers.
You'll have a situation where people love to work and they bring their most creative side of
themselves. And it serves you as the founder, listening to this because you're freeing up your
time, but ultimately it comes to a point that you have to sell it. We say, well, I'm not planning
to sell it. Yes, but you should act as though you are. So how much five years time I'm buying your
business question, how much am I paying? What am I buying? Let me tell you, I've been on the,
I've been on both ends of that. I can't tell you how many times I've been able to buy great
businesses at great prices because the founder never went through this exercise. And I, I fell
for them. I was a fair price. They were happy. We agreed done. It was a fair price for what they'd
built. However, if I'd had this conversation with them five years ago, and they could have made a
couple of small changes, they may have been able to double the price. In one case, I think they
could have been added as zero because they were selling distinct software is what they could have
done is turn it into a SAS software as a service product.
product and provide it online. And at that time, private equity
were paying stupid prices for companies like that. Now, I
wouldn't have been the one buying it, but I'm sure the
others would have. So I'm saying this to you, so well, I'm not an
owner, I don't need to know all this. Oh, but you are, you act
like an owner. Because that's the culture here. When you when
you have an edge mindset, when you bring the edge is what
value am I bringing to this business? Think long term. And
if you were going to sell it, by the way, note to owners, if you
are going to sell your business, make sure you take care of your
employees. With one exception, take your executive assistant
with you. Because that takes a long time to develop. It's the
hardest relationship of all to develop. Okay, all that to say,
as you're going through this process, think about the value.
So existential flexibility comes down to six things, we're gonna
have a breakout session. Now, I haven't got a worksheet for you
specifically to work through today. Because I want you to
only answer one question, I just want to have a discussion today.
You can talk about what any of these items you want. But I'd
like you to have one discussion today. And that is, what value
can I bring or do I bring to this business? What value do I
bring to this business? And as part of that value, you know, is
there something you see you can change? Can you help number one
clarify the why? Two, do you think there is some product you
might need to be blowing up before the market does? Three,
you know, do you trust the people report to you, even if
you're not the main leader? But do you trust them to be aligned
with a why? If the answer to that is no, then it's on you,
what am I being as a leader that I haven't so clarified the why
that they're not in a position to be trusted? Number four, can
we build resilience in some area? Can we change the way we do
things when the market shifts around us? Number five, can we
engage with the humanity of our customers, our employees in a
better way? And number six, what how can we build long term
value? Now, you notice there, I left it pretty open, because
that's a pretty sophisticated conversation you guys are
having. So you should be massively impressed with
yourselves, that you if you follow this discussion today,
and it made sense to you. Honestly, you're in you're in a
very small percentage of people who can think about business in
that way. Take it from me, I can't tell you how many CEOs,
owners I've met with, that would that would have struggled
through that, having all those elements, as well as we've just
laid them out. Okay, very good. Any questions before we rush
off? Okay, so I'll hand it back to you then, Jenny.
Right, thank you. Now we're going to go into our breakout
rooms. And we will call you back at 155. And I put the question
for discussion in the chat. So if you would like to copy it,
you are welcome to do that. All right, here we go.
How was your discussion?
How was Bridget? You're muted. Sorry, I said, Jenny had no
mercy. She kept pushing us. That is good.
What did you guys come up with?
They're so quiet. Oh, Mark.
I'm interested in knowing. In a free format conversation was
such a big topic that I didn't want to steer it down a specific
road. So I wanted each team to pick the thing that was most
useful to them. So Robin, how did it go with your team?
We just laughed the whole time. We had a great time. You're
going to have to go back and listen to the recording. You
won't even believe it. But we had we had a blast. We didn't
want it to end. So I mean, it was it was perfect. I mean, I
couldn't have scripted a better everybody telling you know what
their bag what they brought to to Noah and everything. So yeah,
you could you could take that recording and put it out there
when you do breakout sessions.
Okay, good. Well, I'm glad you liked it to vary it up a little
bit. Yeah, so I wasn't so prescriptive. Yeah, Jenny, how
was it for you guys?
It was really it was it went really well. It was really it
is it's it was definitely an exercise that makes you reflect
in it when you have to say, okay, if someone were to buy
this business, they're going to have to pay a lot of money. And
What would I tell them is the value that I contribute to this business?
It really forces you to look inside and make a declaration about
your value and your worth, right?
But what comes with that is, is that the confidence that it can come with that
and the freedom and the permission to really excel when you realize, Oh, I am
a key contribution to this business, especially in this area, it really does
allow you to think bigger and broader about what you're not only what your
contribution is now, but what it could be.
So creativity.
Um, and yeah, so it was a really good conversation.
Oh, good.
Tyler, how'd it go for you guys?
It was good.
Um, we, we have like a really good range of people on this call from our team.
It's not the whole team, but, um, like we were in somewhat of a
crawl space at the moment, I would say it, or that's the title I'm going to give it.
But then we have Joe, you know, who founded the business, you know, on the
call and he's like, we're not in a crawl space, this isn't, this isn't dark enough
yet for me, you know, kind of thing.
And, and so it's really good for the, I think newer people or younger people
to just have a perspective of both.
Um, but at the same time, man, this is such a relevant topic
for us and just really, really good.
A lot of truth to stand on and a lot of good questions to ask, ask.
Um, I think it's really helpful for our team to go through it.
So thank you.
Oh, certainly.
Welcome.
Anyone else want to comment on any you've took out, especially those who are on
the, the solopreneurs here and the team, um, Eddie, if anyone else want to comment.
Sue, you guys good.
I'll, I'll just make one quick comment for me.
Um, these six points were, it felt like, for lack of a better word, I
don't quite know how to put it, the container in which the business sits
inside of, and, um, it really is kind of a synthesis of everything that we've
been gleaning all year and a little bit surprised that, oh, wow, I'm kind of
doing that a little bit and I'm kind of doing this a little bit and I'm
kind of doing that a little bit.
And yeah.
And why did I even start?
Why did I even begin to think about hiring employees?
It was all about what's my end game year.
What's my exit strategy.
Um, and, and what do we, and what's my why with the business.
And it seems like that just brings me back to the way it just kind of
brings me back around full circle.
Okay.
If this is the exit strategy, then why am I doing what I'm doing now?
And why is that my exit strategy?
And, and so, um, yeah, I loved it.
It's probably one of my favorite conversations in the last little while.
Um, and, uh, and I have been thinking a lot about because of my age and
because of where we're at, you know, what are we going to do with this business?
As my husband's retiring and I'm thinking about, you know, in three or
four years, what am I, am I still going to be running a business at 75?
I don't know.
So, um, yeah, so it's been good.
It's good.
Which then kind of informs how I, how the team and I work together.
And then also how I communicate things with all of our clients.
So they all said, you're not retiring yet.
Are you?
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm pouring into these gals so that you can,
the, you know, things can continue on.
You don't have to worry about your bookkeeping.
So.
That's it's one of the most amazing conversations.
Uh, I was talking earlier today, Bridget and I were talking earlier
today with, um, Barry and blue from Sage.
And, um, it's really interesting, you know, and they said, you know, we
spend so much time, we're getting our products tight and customers and
focus and who's our, who, and we get everything lined up, but we, we don't
put the same effort into the whole thing, but at some point I got to sell this.
If so, if it's a management buyout, your, you know, your own team buys it out
from you, or you hand it off to your kids, uh, or you sell it to someone who
would, you know, a lot of times what a conversation like this does is it helps
you understand the value of what you're building and therefore what price you
should pay.
That's why I asked the question, what am I buying?
How much is it?
Because most in my experience, most people underestimate the value that they
have, or they massively overestimate.
They don't get it in the middle.
They are the, Oh, this is worth, you know, $10 billion.
That's genius.
Although I don't know what it's worth, you know, and you go, well, don't you
have customers and IP and this and processes and a team, and isn't that
worth something, you know, so it's, it is a good, I know we went a minute over
there, but I'm glad you found it useful.
And, um, you know, it was one, it was a, it was a very proud moment for all of
you that you had that level conversation about business and your.
role and value creation in it, that's impressive.
To me, it was very rewarding to see you guys,
enjoy that level of conversation, very impressive.
Thanks so much, have a great time
and we'll see you next week.