Ever found yourself measuring success solely by the numbers on a spreadsheet? As I sit with Mike Claudio, we unravel the deeper meaning of success in life and business, way beyond the top-line revenue. Our conversation is a journey through the hidden facets of bankruptcy - emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational - and the quest for a balanced life. Mike with his rich tapestry of roles from hosting the Big Stud Podcast to spearheading WinRate Consulting, shares how purpose-driven leadership and authentic storytelling can morph our messes into messages that resonate and inspire.
Hiring and firing - it's an art and a science that many leaders grapple with. This episode peels back the layers on why hiring slowly but firing swiftly is key to maintaining a vibrant company culture. Mike and I reflect on our own learning curves, stressing that setting high standards is a catalyst for growth, both for the individual and the organization. We share anecdotes and insights, offering a candid look at the transformative power of trust in your team's abilities to make crucial decisions, and how embracing this trust can propel your business forward.
Navigating the choppy waters of success and relationships requires a steadfast compass and an open heart. Mike and I tackle the hard truths about growth, including the inevitability of conflict and the importance of accountability. We explore the courage it takes to make tough decisions, like prioritizing work commitments over personal ones, and how these choices shape our personal brand and our journey toward fulfillment. Join us as we dissect the essence of true leadership – it's not about having all the answers, but knowing which questions to ask.
Ever found yourself measuring success solely by the numbers on a spreadsheet? As I sit with Mike Claudio, we unravel the deeper meaning of success in life and business, way beyond the top-line revenue. Our conversation is a journey through the hidden facets of bankruptcy - emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational - and the quest for a balanced life. Mike with his rich tapestry of roles from hosting the Big Stud Podcast to spearheading WinRate Consulting, shares how purpose-driven leadership and authentic storytelling can morph our messes into messages that resonate and inspire.
Hiring and firing - it's an art and a science that many leaders grapple with. This episode peels back the layers on why hiring slowly but firing swiftly is key to maintaining a vibrant company culture. Mike and I reflect on our own learning curves, stressing that setting high standards is a catalyst for growth, both for the individual and the organization. We share anecdotes and insights, offering a candid look at the transformative power of trust in your team's abilities to make crucial decisions, and how embracing this trust can propel your business forward.
Navigating the choppy waters of success and relationships requires a steadfast compass and an open heart. Mike and I tackle the hard truths about growth, including the inevitability of conflict and the importance of accountability. We explore the courage it takes to make tough decisions, like prioritizing work commitments over personal ones, and how these choices shape our personal brand and our journey toward fulfillment. Join us as we dissect the essence of true leadership – it's not about having all the answers, but knowing which questions to ask.
Welcome back everybody to behind the tool belt, episode 221. Today we have another special guest. Stay tuned. We will be back after our short intro from our sponsors. My name is Ty Backer. The name of the podcast is called behind the tool belt. Thank God, this isn't live, or is it? You asshole is going live. We might be here for a while, so buckle down From where back. Welcome back everybody. Thanks for tuning in on your lunch break and adapting to our new 12pm Eastern Standard Time. We are currently attending the winter storm event, currently under new ownership by Josie Parks, and his team are doing a phenomenal job so far. Today we have Magnificent, probably one of the heaviest hitters in his space, michael Audio, host of the big stud podcast. Owner, founder at winrate consulting Author. Father, husband. Coin the phrase win fast, win often, mike, my friend, how you doing, brother. This is always impressive the level that you do things at.
Mike Claudio:Like is everything just? I mean I know it doesn't happen overnight. I know you've been doing this for a long time and you know as somebody who's been doing content you know and podcasting for a while. It's impressive to see how much the details matter to you guys. And it's just a problem, man, it's not easy to do. People think it's easy. It's just like tie back or just easy. I really think my 500th podcast episode last week and that ain't easy and like seeing other people doing it at a really high level. I love watching people do really cool things at a really high level, so you should be proud of me.
Ty Cobb Backer:Thank you so much. You know it's not as easy as we might make it look, and that's what I think is the best and sometimes very nerve wracking. We just got off the plane, literally within hours ago, from Utah. We were in an event. Diego Dante and Hunter Blue and their team rode to Roofcon, so we didn't really set much up, but Dick was chasing me around with a camera. I had the opportunity to speak there and crushed it.
Ty Cobb Backer:I had prayed in the morning that you know, just as long as I can impact one person here, that they can go back to their family and you know their company and then impact the lives of those that work for them, and it's going to be a win. And I was kind of nervous doing it. Believe it or not, everyone never believes me. Nobody ever believes me when I tell them that. You know I get nervous. You know I still have a lot of passion for this and I want to make sure I articulate the message well and that they understand where I'm coming from and where I've been and how sincere I am about this. And I had never done and I know this might sound crazy, but I've never done a PowerPoint presentation, and so I was a little nervous about that and I had about three, maybe four days to prepare for this. I didn't know we were going, and so I did it together. John helped me with it. We did a Canva slide and it was super dope, and so of course I'm nervous and I can't see it. So I don't even remember what slide was next, but anyhow. So I kicked the crap out of myself, thinking I didn't do very well and I was stuttering a little bit. And, but I tell you what, there was a Q&A afterwards and there was probably five to ten contractors that came up to me and just asked me so many great questions and I felt so fulfilled. And then, even after the Q&A, about five, six more contractors came up to me and spoke to them. I poured my heart out into them and was still beating myself up a little bit, but then I started to realize I was like you know, we 10X the mission, my mission.
Ty Cobb Backer:Firstly, in the morning, when I prayed, I said you know what? I just want to impact one person. And we impacted at least, at least 15 people. But going back to what you were saying before, I went down that rabbit hole a little bit was.
Ty Cobb Backer:You know it's not easy. I'm my own worst critic and this isn't I removed it being about me a long time ago. This is about, you know, mike coming on the show and then everyone else listening, and this is about everybody else. And I don't really care get hemmed up too much on how many Ns, aas, f bombs, all that stuff. I just really want to get the message out there. I want to impact somebody's life and this is how we do it.
Ty Cobb Backer:As nerve wracking as it is for us to set up a smash lab here quick in the lobby, as the union setting up back in the expo, they didn't let us in there yet and they're putting carpet down and curtains and all that stuff. It's not easy, but there's a purpose, there's a why to it. This is our why, this is my why, not just my family. Yes, number one. First and foremost, they're everything, but secondarily, you know, the impact is just like you are, mike. I know that's why you do this. What you do for a living is that impact, that fulfillment that you feel after impacting somebody's life.
Mike Claudio:It'd be hard to keep up with it all if it wasn't worth it. You know, like seeing people's lives changed and families changed and you know, breaking addictions, breaking the mental, the mental demons that a lot of people deal with. It's people look at it so much at these events and I think in the industry I think all business, but then contractors so loving it they just focus on top line revenue is the only measurement tool, right, and it's like it's so not the right measurement tool. In the grand scheme of things. I've coached hundreds of companies now and like the ones you think they got the most together are likely the most broken behind the scenes. You just found a way to outwork the problems, right, and so, like the top line revenue is not where winning really happens. And if you look at it from the grand scheme of life, you know I look at a lot of different factors and I try to determine what winning looks like to me, like my talk at RoofCon last year. Mike, you know I was with you. Roofcon last year was around like dreaming selfishly and figuring out like who you want to be and how you want to operate, because when you're chasing a single scoreboard like that, you drop the ball on so many other avenues and so many other aspects of life and business. You know, and from that perspective, is one of those things where it's money is not the ultimate goal and you don't know that, so you get it. You know it's the only thing you worry about when you don't have it and you get it and you realize, well, that didn't actually do anything for me and like that's. I think that's the hardest part to like help people understand when they're behind the, when they're behind the ball of payroll and mortgage and they don't have the house they want or the car they want or the employees they want or the companies they want or the like all these things money, money, money. Then you lose yourself on the journey, like I mean you and I have talked about it you know you lose yourself on that journey and then you have to like and at some point you have to break something to rebuild, and I try really hard as a coach to help people not have to like, build something. They have to completely break apart to rebuild later, because that is always more painful. You always let people down, you always cost you more money and like you're doing it in the impact you're making and helping people shorten that failure gap so they don't have to end up, like you know, breaking something in the future. And sometimes you know something I've heard somebody say once is when building a business, at some point you're gonna go bankrupt somehow.
Mike Claudio:Bankrupt isn't only in money. Like you have bankrupt emotionally. You have bankrupt spiritually. You have bankrupt in emotions or relationships. You have bankrupt physically. Like you lose everything in some aspect if you're not careful in paying attention to the whole picture. You know money is the bankruptcy that most people talk about. But, like people lose relationships, marriages, relationship with their kids. Their health and fitness is typically one of the ones that goes pretty quickly as well. You know people get bankrupt in those avenues. Self-confidence gets bankrupt. They're like, oh, but I got a $10 million company, cool. But like you, also hate going home, like that's not a win. You know it's like what does winning look like to you Is a really big part of? You know the impact you're making and the impact that I try to make.
Ty Cobb Backer:No doubt that's such a great topic. You touched on so many good points there. You know self-esteem, confidence, bankruptcy. You know bankruptcy is not just a monetary or financial bankruptcy. There's many other bankruptcies spiritual bankruptcies, there's emotional bankruptcies. There's bottoms right there's emotional, spiritual bottoms that I think a lot of people have hit or in right at this moment. Right, but don't really want to talk about it that much, and that's why this is such a great topic right now.
Ty Cobb Backer:You know about those things and how we pull ourselves out of that and you know when things do break, like how do we fix it, how do we respond? You know what was our reaction to that and that's. You know why what you do is so important. You know for someone like me to be vulnerable and whether you know this or not and I wanted to touch on this like, whether you know it or not, like you've been a mentor of mine from a distance. You know I'd listened to your podcast and stuff like that, read your book. I don't even know what it was like.
Ty Cobb Backer:Three, four years ago you came out with a book. I read that. So you've been, you've played a big, huge part. You know, of my success. You know and that's what's cool about what we do right, so people can listen to our experiences, the vulnerabilities, the trials and tribulations that we've gone through. And I think, once you get you know, getting back to like we don't get paid to do this, I don't get paid to be a podcaster, we don't get paid to do that.
Ty Cobb Backer:It caused a lot of money to be a podcaster man? Yeah, it really is. It's become, you know. What has happened, though, is the money has become like the tool, has become the vehicle, so we could actually do these things, and it definitely, at times, don't make financial sense to pack the gear up and come to wind the storm. And it's not even an ego thing, because I had to check that. You know, like, why are we doing this? Like last year, we went to every single event and to see if we could do it. You know, first and foremost, it was kind of maybe a pride thing, maybe not necessarily an ego thing, and then we've realized the impact that we had this year. People were asking us to come back this year because of the impact that we had. I'm getting more speaking engagements. People were asking us to come back and talk, and you know the purpose of things. I apologize about the noise. Like I said, I'm sorry, in the lobby of a hotel. Yeah, I'm gonna ask you a question.
Mike Claudio:I think a lot of people struggle with this and I think a lot of people have a lot of value to bring, but they deal with the insecurities and, like, the personal doubts and the imposter syndrome. And was there a moment or a season for you? This is my podcast, I'm curious. I think it's a topic we can talk about when, like you realize, like, oh, I actually do have value to bring people and I need to start sharing that Because, like you've been in business for a really long time decades, right, yeah, you know, and I've been in the world of construction for the, you know, since pretty much 2012,.
Mike Claudio:So going over a decade, yeah, so, like it was there a moment when you were like I've learned enough lessons now that, like, people need to hear this, or I should impact people, or I'm able to impact people, and there's people someone's gonna listen to this, just like you read my book. Someone's gonna, like I actually do have an impact I can make, right, and, like you, and I can't impact everybody, like that's like the whole coaching world. They're all trying to, they're all fighting over the same people. I'm abundance. There's so many people out there to be helped. I want to actually create more influencers in this space that are doing it right. So how did you? Was there a moment, was there a season when you were like, oh, I actually can't help people.
Ty Cobb Backer:You know that's a great question because, because I have suffered from insecurity and doubt and stuff like that, I've come from a broken past which was self-induced, self-inflicted, so that the insecurity was there from the beginning, like if you really knew who I was, you wouldn't want nothing to do with me, kind of imposter syndrome, and I struggled with that. But I think that has also helped me, push me to make sure that you know, like when you said earlier, like we pay attention to every detail. That's why because due to my insecurity, you know of failure.
Ty Cobb Backer:That's my favorite, huh, yeah, we have to push ourselves double time and to be able to surround myself around people who co-sign that with me. I guess, for lack of better terms. Vic is one of my biggest fans. Who the man behind the lens? He would fall on a sword for me because he believes in the purpose.
Ty Cobb Backer:But I would say, probably going back, probably close to nine, nine, nine and a half, 10 years ago, my mom had lived with us and she had passed away and she was huge in giving. She was a huge servant, did everything for the community on many different levels Summer Jubilees, exchange Club, santa's Breakfasts, the dare program she brought to my school back when I was in elementary school, pardon me. So when she passed I felt like I needed to fill her shoes right, I needed to pick the torch up, and that's kind of how I dealt with that grieving as well, instead of letting it manifest into a negative in my life and fall back into the bottle and things like that. I kind of went on this journey, but I really didn't know where I was going. So about five, six years ago I read the book Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek, definitely, and that for me had really opened my eyes and solidified and crystallized for me, like actually, what my purpose was, what my mission is gonna be. It's like I needed to read that book and it was such a good and then I read I actually read it backwards. I should have started with why, start with why, but I read Leaders Eat Last. Then I read Start With why and how he articulated what his purpose was, what his why was like leading from behind and showing the love to your team and giving them the credit when the credit's due and even sometimes when it's not due, and empowering them, encouraging them.
Ty Cobb Backer:I went on a mission and I started to retain, attract people in our business and those that the quality of people. It seemed like that started to come into my life when my mindset shifted, like when that paradigm shift happened for me. After reading that book and I read it several times it's one of those books I read at least once a year and to then that was probably about four to six years ago I read that and then I started to dive into other literature and podcast and things like that and I started to gain confidence because I realized that my mess actually became my message Okay and I think I was able to inspire a lot of people, whether it was in recovery people that I worked with. We attracted a lot of people in recovery to come work for us. We all believe kind of our core values, our personal core values, our professional core values all aligned very well and I still struggle with doubt. That's why I have a coach. They have a sponsor that I bounce ideas off of, because I have 100 ideas that I think are great ideas but only usually one of them are a good idea at the time.
Ty Cobb Backer:But I think probably four years ago I really started and I know that sounds crazy that it's only been like four years and some people might be like, wow, it's a long time, but for me it just seemed like it was yesterday where it was like I started to come out of my shell. I started to come out of the shadows and was like, hey, my mess is now my message. I feel like I can really help you and I've always helped people. For those of you that might not know, I've been in recovery for over a decade and a half and so I've always had that I gotta give this thing a way to keep it mentality. That's one of my personal core values that if I wanna keep this thing, I have to give away every single nugget that's ever been given to me so freely. I have to give it away as freely as it was given to me.
Mike Claudio:No, it makes sense. I mean, that's a powerful reason and obviously a long journey of messes to turn into a pretty powerful message, right, yeah, if you look at it from that perspective, it built up momentum over a long period of time. Yeah, but I think more people need to appreciate those mistakes. I think they look at them as this badge of failure as opposed to a badge of honor. I talk to people a lot and say I think you did this, but I think a lot of people struggle with. This is like you got to coach from the scars, not the wounds. That's a lesson I heard once.
Mike Claudio:I heard someone say once I coach and mentor from your scars, not your wounds. When you were in the starting battle of recovery, it was not the right time to start talking about recovery. You was still a wound, right. But now these messes aka I would call those scars are great. Hey, look, I did that, it was right here. Look, you see this right here. You see that scar. Don't do that. Okay, like this is what happened. When you do that, and because it's healed, you've emotionally disconnected from the wound and makes it easier to talk about it, and so that's one of the best, I would say depictions of how to and what to coach or mentor on is like teach from scars, not from wounds, and it helps people relate to it and helps people see that you've been through the battles and can really make a bigger impact Because people have the empathy to say you get it, because you have that scar. I see it, I can visualize it and it can be really powerful for people.
Ty Cobb Backer:For sure, for sure. You know and that's funny, you say that because you know I needed that experience. I needed to make those mistakes, and we talk about things like this all the time. It's called experience. I needed to make all of those mistakes in order to be who I am today. I needed to pick up every single drink, I needed to do every single drug. I needed to do all of those things and thank God it wasn't horribly grimy stuff. I mean, I drank a lot, I partied a lot and I realized that I was allergic to alcohol because every time I drank I broke out in handcuffs, right. So I Ah, ah, ah.
Mike Claudio:I'm sure you've said that a hundred times. I've never heard that I'm. That's good yeah.
Ty Cobb Backer:You know and, and you know along the way, thank God I didn't burn myself out too bad, where you know, I'm still relatively intelligent and sharp and, and you know I I can retain and, you know, become very knowledgeable at things that I'm very passionate at right and and I've become a pretty good business owner as well. So I've applied those things that I've I've learned, you know, from from my personal life, I apply them into my business life and that's, I think that's where a lot of my humility has come from, because I don't forget where I come from, bum. And I think that's some of the two, two things here. I think some, some of the issue that we have, especially in this space, whether it's, you know, the whole guru thing is the lack of experience that a lot of people that are coming into this space and nothing wrong with that, I mean, you got to start somewhere right To gain that knowledge but I don't think necessarily they have the the experience from having a broken background or have been seasoned enough or have gone through enough seasons in their in their lifetime to speak intelligently, whether it's financially, business or or on personal development, stuff like that. Because I see a lot of that and I think that's that might have been one of the driving forces for me as well too.
Ty Cobb Backer:It's like what could is it if I die with it all up here? What good is it doing to anyone else? And I try to share that message within our organizations. You know, especially with the older guys that are coming through on the production side of things, that that don't necessarily know how to coach because they're from the old school mentality. But it's like, listen, denny, if you died today, you know what good would it be to the five youngsters that that are under your management? You know, if you're not, you know articulating how you do things to the best of your ability to them, because this is the thing we have to continuously, especially in in a management position.
Ty Cobb Backer:I remember early on in my career I wore 75 different hats. We talked about this earlier this morning with some of our team came down here with us today. Some of our leadership team and I love when we get together because we just kind of nerd out on on leadership, like leadership is is my, is my bag man. I just I love it. I'm going to be continuously a student of leadership and hopefully in that I can become a pretty good Stuart as well of leadership, but anyhow, we were talking about, you know, insecurity, this whole this topic.
Ty Cobb Backer:It's almost like you were sitting in a room with us, mike, but you know, I I lost my train of thought there for a second. Sorry, there's a lot going on here. Where the hell was I going with that Leadership? Yeah, but I was talking to Mike T, who's with us this morning, and we were talking about leadership and we were talking about leadership and we were talking about and I'm going to probably totally go off track here a little, because I totally forgot what the hell I was talking about that might be the three hour time differences, time zones that we've been in over the past 36 hours and I'm not exaggerating from East coast to Utah to Texas now, plus the spring ahead time change thing here's got my throat and the elevations and stuff at Utah and everything wonky with me anyhow.
Ty Cobb Backer:But you know we were talking about insecurity and being able to delegate responsibilities. You know, I was wearing the 75 hats and I was, I was just holding on so tightly because I felt like nobody could do my job as good as I could do it. And a lot of that had to do with insecurity about myself. And the reason why I say that is because I don't think I had an issue with delegating stuff, but my issue with insecurity is that I had to do it. My issue was is that I would take it back? I would take the win out of their sales, right, I'd be like here, do this for me, but then I would watch exactly how they did it. Nope, you did it wrong. Nope, get out of the way, I'm going to do it.
Ty Cobb Backer:And a lot of that had to do with my self esteem, my insecurity and and and I wasn't being a very good leader. I thought I was you know what I mean Because we were getting shit done and and I talked down to you to make myself feel better because I was insecure about my abilities, my inabilities. Um, so I find today that the more that I've worked on myself and the more that I'm okay with myself, the easier it is for me to trust another individual, because one I trust myself. Right, I'm not so insecure. I feel like I should be in this room today Because there was a long there was for for the longest time.
Ty Cobb Backer:Going back to what we were, the original conversation here was is that I didn't feel like I deserved or earned my right to be in the same room with my Claudio on the podcast today. You know that would have been my fear. That would have held me back from growth personally and it would have held the company back from growing as well, because I kept bottlenecking the business. But until I got okay with me and got right, right with me, the six inches between my years, that's what was broken, not everything else. As I'm screaming go, go, go, grow, grow, grow, and wondering why we're not going anywhere, I had three fingers pointing, pointing back at me, and I used that analogy probably five times today. Is this something I've created?
Mike Claudio:Yeah, Well, I think one of the issues I think we're the conversation where you lost travel, talking about like gurus and coaches, getting into the industry and like not really having the experience of every word, but you know whether it's in a coaching environment or a leadership role I think where a lot of people fail is they're very uncomfortable with what they don't know and so you have to go and it's like you almost pretend or force it because you don't want anybody to think that you don't know something. I think that's when, like you know, if you look at coaches or mentors, they really start to mess up when they try to coach out, like they kind of outpunt their coverage a little bit. You know they're out of three and they're trying to coach someone out of nine and like that just doesn't work. But that person if you're out of three, one in two need your help to get to where you're at right and so. But I think that happens in business too, where leaders, ceos, are maybe a three in a category and they hire a seven and then try to force them to do everything that the three knows and they basically turn the seven into a four because they don't just, they can't just say I don't know, you're smarter than me. You tell me what this is supposed to look like and then go do it. And that that ability to separate from the, the emotion of what you might not know, and like, oh, a CEO is supposed to know everything. No, they're not. Like Steve Jobs does not know how to build an iPhone, right. Like he did not know how to do that. He had very good skill sets, right. And so you see this all the time in small business, especially when, like you, were the technician that started.
Mike Claudio:It is you hire people that are better than you and then pull them down to your level because you don't want to give up control of certain things, and all it came down to was the intentionality of I don't know this, I hired you to know this. If you don't know this, I got to hire somebody else. Like, I've had that conversation with people I don't know how to do this, stop asking me. I hired you to do this and if you don't know how to do this, then I need to hire somebody else. And no, no, no, no. I know, I just didn't know how you wanted it done. I don't know how to do this, so how I want it done is irrelevant. It's under. You know I'll underperform your level of doing whatever that thing is right. You know, for me it was learning P and L and balance sheets. Like I was not good at that. I hired people to teach me that and now I'm better. I'm still not the expert, but I'm better.
Mike Claudio:I think so many leaders get stuck in the well, how do you want this done, boss? And they're like well, then they tell them, but it's at a, it's at a three level, when that person was capable of a seven, and that's where businesses stagnate. It's where growth halts. It's where great employees turn into terrible employees. They feel stagnated in their role and like that's something you evolved through, obviously, and are now better at pointing all five fingers at everybody else. But like, but overall, I think it's that it's the, it's the ego, that's the. It's the ego and the insecurity that you feel like you're supposed to know everything the minute you can accept you're not supposed to know everything. Everything in life gets better because you can walk into any room and get on any stage. You go on any podcast like I don't know and like that's okay, like I like to you.
Mike Claudio:You said earlier in this conversation around.
Mike Claudio:Like you, you don't like using PowerPoint presentations.
Mike Claudio:I don't either. I'm starting to use them more lately because of the. I'm trying to build more of a consistent keynote speech, kind of that, you know. So, like, using a pat, like a presentation, say some helps, but for the standpoint of like I'm not a pretty good stage. But like and say something and some of them go.
Mike Claudio:I think you're wrong and I go. Yeah, why they say this reason. I said I actually agree with you. I am wrong. Thank you so much and move on like nothing fucking happened and so many people just do not have the ability to do that inside their own companies and that that stagnates so much growth and so much opportunity. And like that same person's complaining three years like dude, no one just wants to work anymore. Man, I can't find anybody who wants to do any work around here. No, they just don't want to do it your shitty way and you don't give them permission to be creative and build it their own way and like that's just a fact, 100%.
Mike Claudio:Most people struggle with in this. But I would consider small and medium business world. You don't get to large business holding on to everything. So like you even get like I don't know what you consider a medium business, but I'd say like 25 million to like 500 million is probably a medium business. I don't know, I'm sure there's a metric out there. I don't know what it actually is but like under 25 million is a small company, you know, and so in that space you can own more than you have to to be there. Beyond that, you have to learn how to give up control and you have to learn how to like, be okay, being bored sometimes, and not jump into the business and just create problems so you have something to solve. Like those are major issues I see in small businesses when, like that leader is struggling with that evolution to CEO 100%, 100%.
Ty Cobb Backer:I agree with everything that you're saying because unfortunately, I hate to say this, but I've lived that nightmare of that fear and that insecurity and as an entrepreneur or CEO whatever title you want to use right, like, our job is to inspire and motivate and create good ideas and then be smart enough to know that you need to surround yourself around smarter people and that your job. I actually recently changed my signature. I've been talking a lot about this. I just recently read a book by John Gordon. It's called the Energy Bus and I can't speak highly enough about it. He talks about you know, ceos and what his terminology of a CEO was a chief energy officer Great book. I recently changed my signature to say that I'm the CEO and I put underneath CEO chief energy officer, because I'm the one that needs to bring the energy, I'm the one that needs to bring the positivity, I'm the one that needs to bring, you know, that good, creative momentum and keep that momentum. And once you find that momentum and see that's probably the hard part Like those that are stuck in that I need to know everything and fill with fear because they know that they don't know everything. Okay, it's okay to say that I don't know anything and that you know I need help with this or ask questions and empower your team to collectively think on how to build something out, whether it's a system, a process or a project that you guys are working on together. I think that sense of ownership that you can give to your team but how you articulate that I don't understand this but I need your help with it also matters too, when you're talking about. But there's two words that I've learned over the years that has been probably two of the most powerful words that I've ever used was you decide, you decide, and what's cool about it is, if you can get your business to a place where you're not the one just making all of the decisions anymore, that you've empowered your team, you've entrusted your team enough to make daily decisions Right and, of course, you got to practice. This is definitely something that I've had to practice at and choosing the right people that can make those decisions.
Ty Cobb Backer:But when I started to find my replacements not because I'm trying to retire, but on a micro level you know my replacements, for you know the marketing, the AR, the, you know the, the, the, the invoicing, the, the service department, the costing department, so I found all of these replacements for me Right, and what's crazy is is that I was I was so mediocre at at everything anyhow, because I was spread so thin. But when I started to find my replacements and empower my team, you know now they have ownership in it. They're doing it so much better than I could possibly have ever done it and it's because I was okay with me, knowing that my limitation is this these people can see around corners that I can't see around, and I need them to take on that responsibility and carry this load with me, carry that burden and you know and have ownership in this thing, because when they grow, the company grows. You know what I mean.
Ty Cobb Backer:I think when we think so short-sightedly, you know we paralyze the company, like you were talking about, mike.
Ty Cobb Backer:We hold the company back, we hold our people back, we drag them down, we hire all these eights and nines and tens.
Ty Cobb Backer:And here we are, for because we decided to stay in the weeds, work on the business, stop working on ourselves or maybe we never even worked on ourselves to become an eight right In our leadership. If there was a scale from one to ten, you know you need to be at least an eight. If you're going to be in a leadership position, you need to be on an eight because if you can, the more that you work on yourself and the more that you can learn to leverage your assets, which is your people. Your people are your assets. And if you can get out of the business, start working on yourself, start learning how to delegate and empower and entrust people to do the job and work in the company, why you know while you're working on, you know at a higher level, like kind of, so you can see everything, dude. That's where the exponential growth comes in for them, because as they grow, the business grows, and I don't think a lot of people see it that way and I think it's due to insecurity, I think it's due to insecurity.
Mike Claudio:I think they overvalue getting it wrong. Like they're so afraid. Like if they hire somebody and it's the wrong hire, they train them and it's not like they're so afraid of it getting it wrong that they stagnate in any decision. Like you got to hire slow and fire fast. Like I've always said that you know. Like there's a there's a judge that goes around the winter ecosystem because people ask me about a problem with an employee. It's always almost fire them. Like it's if you're bringing it to my attention, it's already too late. Like it's the problem has been going on for probably a long time that you don't even know about. And so we talk about fire fast went off and like when fast went off and there's a tag on the fire fast went off and it's kind of a joke that goes around. But I think people do this, they hear us talking about it and think that, like the first time they hire somebody, that's going to be the guy and give up full control to that person. That is not what we're saying Like, but there's there's. There's that dichotomy of like how much permissions or how much control to give up, how much to keep, and I think that stagnates people because, like, you're going to get it wrong, like you have to do what we just talked about. You have to be really good at recruiting, if you really good at hiring, if you really good at onboarding, if you really good at leadership, if you really good at accountability, you have to have objective measurement tools like KPIs and SOPs where the whole people accountable. All that's, that's the basic foundation, necessary things to do what we just said.
Mike Claudio:We may sound civil yeah, hire people and then let them do stuff for you. That's not. That's not the whole story, right, like there's a lot more that goes into that, that you and I learned over time of getting it wrong. But no matter what you do, those first couple of hires you're going to mess up. The first couple of hires you're going to mess up. No matter how long you plan, prepare, organize, you have to go through those lessons to learn what to look for and how to hire and your leadership style and your skill sets. And the longer you wait, like I would hire and fire 10 people between now and the end of the year just to learn how to. Because, like that's part of business, man, like, if you're afraid of hiring and firing people, you're stuck, you're just an employee Like you're a highly paid employee for the rest of your life.
Mike Claudio:I would challenge everybody to try to hire and fire five people five to 10 people by the end of the year. You'll learn a lot in that process. And it doesn't like people look at well, I don't want to hire someone for $80,000. It not work out. Well, you're not really paying them $80,000. You're giving them, like you know, two to three months to test it out. It's costing you like maybe 12 grand to test it. Most people lose 12 grand. They don't even know it. Stupid mistakes. But from this leadership, the conversation that we're obviously dove into today, like get really good at hiring, fire people by hiring fire people Like there's no other way to do it.
Ty Cobb Backer:100%, 100%. I agree with you 100% on hiring slow. Whether it's the interviewing process to make sure that they fit the culture, that's the deal right there. You can have the best, most expensive systems, processes, foot in place, kpis, none of that matters if your culture is garbage Because they're not going to follow the systems, they're not going to follow the processes, they're just not going to do it.
Ty Cobb Backer:If your culture sucks, I learned that early on because we didn't even have a system in the process. The system in the process we did, and it was by default. The system and process was here every day as they were sitting outside my office door waiting for me to tell them what to do. Not necessarily and unfortunately, I trained them that way. I trained them to wait for me to go out there and tell them what to do. I trained them on what to think, not necessarily how to think on their own and make their own decisions throughout the course of the day. Of course, I wanted to bitch. Why do you continuously keep knocking on my door? Leave me alone. Not that the culture was crap, but that's just the culture that I had developed.
Ty Cobb Backer:When we talk about culture, the culture isn't the huggy grab assy take advantage of, because that's eventually what happens. Because I've been on that end of the spectrum too, where I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. I want everybody to work hard for me. I'm not going to hold them accountable. I'm not going to put KPIs in place and things like that. We don't need it. We shouldn't have that. What happens is people end up taking advantage of you. When you do that, nobody likes the word accountability. Accountability equals success. My terminology of accountability means success. If we're not holding each other accountable and again I'm pointing three fingers back at me too you need to hold me accountable too. If I told you something, that we were going to do something or this was the direction that we're going, you need to hold me accountable too. I need to lead by example. If I'm not the first one there and the last one to leave and I did that for years we set the presidents I'm not getting there any earlier than my team is today.
Ty Cobb Backer:Now, I think the earliest somebody gets to the office is like 430, but that was the type of culture, the mentality, the standard that we set. The standard is what the standard is when people come in, we hire them slow, and when they're there for a while, they either level up or they get pushed out almost automatically. One of the first questions people ask me when they start is when's the start time? It's like you'll figure it out. Okay, I'll be here at 7 o'clock. Okay, well, they'll get there at 7 am. They'll realize people have already been there for two hours. The next thing you know the next morning you see them, they come in. They're there at least a half hour earlier.
Ty Cobb Backer:What happens is when you develop a culture like that, everyone is there for each other. They're so good that the person sitting next to them has a job today. That individual is so good at their job that the person sitting next to them, or the person across the hallway or the person upstairs in the conference room upstairs they have a job today. They have accountability for each other. If I show up late today, it's not the anxiety that they're going to get scolded, it's the anxiety that they're letting their teammates down because they can't complete their job until I have my job completed.
Ty Cobb Backer:When you can get and inform that kind of culture, then you grab the team, you get in a room and it's like okay, well, we need a system and a process over here. We need KPIs put in over here when you can get them to build it together. Now they got ownership. The new person comes in and they're training them. The new system or the old system or whatever that is the KPIs and everything that's put in the place. Well, now they have ownership in it because they've built it. They're the ones training the new guy or gal that comes into the organization and they have ownership in it.
Ty Cobb Backer:This is something that we came up with. This wasn't how it has always been, but this is the way that we do it now. This is what we've developed. This is the thing about systems. It's a living, breathing organism. It needs its hair cut. Sometimes you got to clip its fingernails, sometimes you got to scrap it and start all over because what worked last year is not going to work this year. What worked last week isn't going to work this week. Probably. But without having systems and processes and KPIs put in place, you don't know if it's a personnel issue. You won't know if it's a system issue. Without having that in place, does the system need tweak? Does it need revamp? Is it an incompetency thing? Is it a lack of training thing? What is it, but without a system and process put in place, you can't identify where things might go.
Mike Claudio:People underestimate how valuable data is Right. I heard something once and it was the best thing you can have in any decision is clarity of the reality. People get so overwhelmed by the what is and the what might and the lack of details and what's really happening, and not opinions and not emotions. The best thing you can have in a decision is the clarity of the reality. That's why I do as a coach, because I'm not emotionally attached to my clients' businesses. I am, but I'm not. It's not my baby. It's like, hey, man, the reality is, if you don't fire this person, this is what's going to happen. The reality is, if you don't hire this person, this is what's going to happen. The reality is, if you don't, I can bring reality because I'm not emotionally attached to the lack of details or the backlog of context or anything else. I think systems, processes, kpis, data gives you the reality. I think actually, you know when someone's underperforming right, it can be somewhat obvious what happens I think a lot of times is people's overperformance or high energy or good personality can shield you from the reality of their underperformance.
Mike Claudio:A bad attitude is easy to spot. A bad attitude is easy to spot, but a good attitude that still sucks. It's still very detrimental to the mission. That's the hard one. That's where the objective data is. It's not me versus you, it's not Mike's opinion versus Ty's opinion. It's Ty, your performance to this objective standard that we agreed upon. We can both agree. You're underperforming that standard, not, I think, and your opinion is. And let's argue about perspective. It's the data shows you're underperforming the objective standard. I want to help you get there. It's me and you versus the standard, not me versus you, not my opinion, and limited perspective to your opinion and full perspective. Right, because the first thing you do when you tell someone with a good personality that they're underperforming, they want to just describe to you everything they think you don't know about how hard they've been trying. It doesn't matter how hard they're trying. I hate to say that, but the reality is it matters how well they're living up to the standard of that role in the overall machine.
Mike Claudio:Without document, sops and standards and KPIs. It is literally just your opinion versus theirs, because they're a good person, you won't hold them accountable. You'll believe their excuses, you'll believe their reasons, you'll give in to their perspective because they're good people and they try really hard. They've been around for a while. That's why that objective what I call third party measurement tool, which is the SOP, which is the process, which is the KPI, or the data, or the activity, or the CRM that is what you need as a leader to hold people accountable. Without that, it's impossible. I believe it's impossible to hold an entire ship together with subjective standards. Objective standards, I believe, is the tool most leaders are missing when it comes to holding everybody in their ship to the standard, because someone with high revenue numbers on the sales team is going to get away with someone with low revenue numbers isn't. That's still unacceptable to me, because the lack of activity or standard setting in this part for that high performer right now will turn them into a bad performer later.
Mike Claudio:What happened to that guy? He was closed in millions of dollars last year. He wasn't doing the work. He had two referral partners that fed him guaranteed closed deals all year. He pissed one of them off because he didn't follow the process and now he's underperforming. I don't know what happened. I know what happened. That should trigger the shit every time. I love it.
Ty Cobb Backer:That's so good. It's so good Everything that you're touching, mike, you are so smart. You're one of the probably smartest people because, like I said, I listen to you all the time and just the stuff that you come up with is just on such a deeper level. Obviously, you have a lot of experience with dealing with entrepreneurs and staffing issues and things like that. The confidence that you have in your abilities, I think, is a huge reflection on your success. There's no doubt about it, and why you run such a tight ship over there is because of the KPIs and the systems and processes that you put in place. It's inspiring to me to listen to you. I listened to your Monday morning, motivated.
Mike Claudio:Mike's Monday motivation.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yes, I love that, because Mondays usually suck. I don't know why. I still think at times it's no different than a Sunday or a Friday To listen to that. But I think your last one was you must piss people off.
Mike Claudio:You're going to have to piss some people off. Let's talk about that. What inspired that?
Ty Cobb Backer:I think this is going to be interesting for everyone, due to a really good drain system like this.
Mike Claudio:I mean this concept of holding people accountable and like we've all dealt with different things in our life, from a overvaluing other people's opinions on things right, and one of the hardest lessons for most people to learn is the people that love you the most want you to be successful up to a point that they believe you deserve or are capable of, and when you go above that level, you piss some people off, and you're always going to piss off people that don't know you. This is, I think, another part of like building a personal brand and being online is like there's people in the fringes that think they're entitled to a full opinion and if I don't react to it, I'm the asshole right. Like everybody's got a fucking opinion and so anytime you build something of meaning, there's going to be people that take a 30-second clip of you. It's like you know the best compared analysis is like when you're in the grocery store yelling at your kids and someone wants to teach you how to parent and they have no fucking clue what led to that and no fucking clue what you've done. I'm like shut the fuck up. Like I'm sorry, I apologize for my language, but I hate when people just like take a 30-second snapshot. I think they have all the context. They need to give me advice right now. And so, like what happens in business all the time, and like some people are going to have an opinion based on a really small snapshot of your story and when you don't react, to respond the way they want you to, they get pissed off at you as if they were entitled to your attention and input, but what really weren't. I think most people struggle in business and in life is exceeding the people they love, the people that love them's expectations for them, because then, well, you've changed, oh you too, good for us. Now, well, you can't come to the barbecue, you can't come to the wedding anymore. Like this happened to me. This is happening to me right now.
Mike Claudio:We throw a client appreciation event every year on the first Friday of December. I got invited to a cousin's wedding, who's on that Saturday, and I said I can't come and they're like, but we gave you like eight months notice. Can't you rearrange your schedule? No, like, I'm sorry that, like you, as an employee can leave work and work doesn't stop. I don't have that luxury In this specific event. It is the biggest event we throw every year. There's will be 150 people there and for all Win Ray clients and employees. I can't miss that. I'm sorry. And if you don't like, but like I got like my aunts mad at me, now my cousin's mad at me, and I'm just like I'll send a check. What do you want from me? Like I can't be there and like that's an example of like.
Mike Claudio:If I carry that as like I'm some sort of bad person, which a lot of people do. I'm the bad person for not going and prioritizing this thing. You're gonna hate life because you're gonna be doing that all the time and by prioritizing things and reaching certain levels and becoming a certain version yourself, like you're going to piss somebody off. If you carry that as you're the problem, you become the problem to yourself. Like you said, between the six inches in your head and so like in business and in life and trying to accomplish something, when you are not giving up and like your track record shows I shouldn't be successful, but you are anyway you remind people that they gave up. You remind people that they thought they weren't good enough, so you must not be good enough. You remind people that like, oh, like that version of you that they don't, they don't know you changed right.
Mike Claudio:It's one of the biggest issues, I think when you look at, like, your longterm friendships, they don't change what you do, but then somehow you're better than them. You're not, you're just out of all of them, right, and like that's what? Like the new people, like the person who just met me today, the person on this live podcast that learned to, let me say like man, mike really knows this, dude's awesome. There's somebody I failed 20 years ago. That's like Mike. Please, shit, mike, shouldn't be leaving anybody. Well, bitch, I evolved, I changed. I'm sorry you weren't a part of every step of that journey. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, and people cannot conceptualize that. People who have not evolved cannot believe that you've evolved enough to deserve the thing that you have. So you must have lied, cheated or steal to get it, and now they have to punish you because no one else is going to. So I have to punish Mike because he doesn't deserve this Shut up.
Ty Cobb Backer:I love that. I love that when you were talking, I counted probably at least five relationships over the years where I don't speak to those people anymore because whether it was envy or jealousy or something, or they felt like I didn't deserve what good things were happening. And it's just funny how people's mindsets it's like they're the ones rooting you on when you're down here. You know what I mean. But then when you actually get up there, it's like all of a sudden it's kind of like now you're the asshole because you can't be at the barbecue, like you had mentioned, or go on vacation. There was a couple that we used to hang out with all the time and like something happened. Like I felt like we were growing at the same time together but then all of a sudden something changed and I don't think it was us, I mean, other than the fact that Janna and I we kept growing and we were doing the fearless 44 and stuff like that, and that really helped propel us. You know what I mean, that accountability of staying consistent daily and setting goals, and we accomplished a lot in those 44 days. And then we did another one. We did another one. You usually do one or two a year and it's like those self-improved things that improvements that we do. You know, people I don't know. I think a lot of it has to do with envy and of them watching you succeed. And it's so crazy because I try not to and I might have been guilty of that a little bit too, especially when I was younger. If somebody had a car or something that you know I couldn't, I wouldn't be that guy like hey, congratulations. But I think, having lost everything and have found that humility, that humbleness, and want to see people win, like, listen, dude, like if I'm riding first class, my team's riding first class. You know what I mean. If I have to ride coach, guess what? We're all riding coach. You know what I mean and that's where my mindset is today. I want to see everybody win exponentially. You know we talk about this all the time.
Ty Cobb Backer:When people come into our organization and they're here for a while, they because we're really big into self-improvement, you know and growing as an individual. So when you come into our organization, you're going to be different. You're going to change. You're going to be different. Your habits are going to change. The other thing is the more time you get up in the morning, or how you treat other people and your work ethic, like these. Things change.
Ty Cobb Backer:And core values A lot of people don't even know what core values are Okay, or let alone a personal core value. But to have a business, have core values and let's say they don't stay Our retainers is pretty good, but let's say they do move on. I guarantee it that when they come through the organization and they leave, they're a different person. The only thing that I can hope for is that they can go out, make $100 million and impact a billion people with what they have learned from coming through our organization and have that impact that might sting, that might burn, and I think that's the thing about legacy. When you get to that level, it's like there's a catch 22 with legacy. Unfortunately, we're not going to get the credit for half the things that we may have impacted somebody's life with, and now we don't even know half the people that might even watch this podcast today that may be impacted by. But you have to be okay with that. You have to want to do this, to just want to be able to inspire people and when you can have that influence on other people's lives and not really give two shits about taking the credit for them.
Ty Cobb Backer:We were talking about this conversation earlier today and I think as the older I get, the more mature, and I think it really comes down to maturity and humility. I can't speak enough on humility and finding the purpose in life. I heard people say what is my purpose in life? The purpose, in a nutshell, is that we're here to serve, and if it's anything outside of serving other people, then it's just selfishness. And I'd like to talk about legacy a good bit helping other people, having an impact, coming to realize. We talked about the money thing earlier. Money is only like the vehicle that has given us the ability to do these things. Being an entrepreneur, it has to be more than the money. The ones that keep fighting are driven by something much more than money. We go through way entirely too much bullshit. You know what I mean. We got to get clear on our purpose. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to be.
Mike Claudio:That's a whole another podcast episode.
Ty Cobb Backer:I'm playing a city.
Mike Claudio:in purpose it's a whole another episode. I hate to cut this short, but we're a little past the hour and I need to get going in my next video.
Ty Cobb Backer:Oh cool, I can't even see half the shit that we're doing right now. So thank you, no problem, I appreciate it.
Mike Claudio:Thank you so much for having me on man, that was awesome.
Ty Cobb Backer:Yeah, thank you for coming on and putting up with my airhead on us today.
Mike Claudio:No man, it's all good. Enjoy the rest of your trip. Hopefully you'll continue to make the impact there that you hope to, and looking forward to seeing you at the next one man. Thank you, brother, all right.
Ty Cobb Backer:Well, you guys have a good day. Thank you for watching. Make sure you tune in next week for episode 222. Don't forget to like, love and subscribe to our Spotify, our YouTube and our Apple channel. Talk to you guys next week for episode 222.