They probably just don’t know
Audio Transcript:
So I have a story for you today that has nothing to do with the actual topic of the podcast we're going to talk about. But before that, I just want to share with you those of you that are watching on video, those of you on the audio stream won't see this, obviously, but those of you watching on the video will see, you know, my my background's changed a bit.
It's been a while since we've done video. I, I really don't prefer it. You know, I'd rather just kind of talk into a microphone or whatever else, or when I'm doing something. We've got mics on. That said, it's it's probably worth showing you space. I man, this this is an apartment that's above our garage.
It's been really great for me because I do work from home when I'm traveling, but I do work from home, and this has been great because it allows me to have some separation with the my house, my home, my family and work. But I'm just right there. So it's cool. It's not just down the hall. I've tried that.
I've been in the basement before, and I know many of us who are working from home, are having to navigate that. And it is like it can be done and it can be done to wherever in a side room. It can be done. Whatever. Probably not. Best to just be sitting on your kitchen table trying to do something.
I know we've all tried that. But anyway, this is where I'm at, so you'll see video here. Maybe we'll try to change. It's not the best looking thing to see, but whatever. Right. That's not why you come. It's not. Certainly not for our dashing good looks. So, anyway, let's get on to the story that I wanted to tell you, and then we'll get on to the podcast.
So, first of all, surround yourself with people who love you. That's just. I can't say that enough in this example. And then. Bummer. I actually let some folks down that I love, just recently. But their response to it, there's just two things I can take from a lot of things. But what happened is I have a call every couple of weeks where we we call it walk.
It's flat. We're we're taking an issue. It's something in my head I walk all the time and and that's what I think and process. A lot of the challenges we're up against in the market are opportunities, and it's kind of like strategic thinking there. And years ago, we just decided, you know, let's if you want to come along, you can come along.
And so there's no real structure to it. It's it's topically based, there's no real takeaways. And we just kind of grab whoever's interested in having those kind of discussions joints. Well it's it's oftentimes, you know, half our company a third of our company maybe a little more or less just depends on what's, what's going on that week and what people's schedules are like.
And, the most recent one, I, the kids had had a snow day or two, the two hour delay. And so it kind of threw the schedule off, although I usually go down at a certain time in the morning and I usher them all out and hugs and all the way and, and wish them the best day.
And I get back to my, my work after my morning session. And this time, because it was a two hour delay, I ended up working through what I normally would. I went down, they were getting ready leave. I went down to say goodbye to them. My wife had a task for me or something. Well, in midst of that I left my phone up here and normally you know my watch it to me, but I'm far enough away where the Bluetooth wasn't there, so I had no connection to the world for the most part.
And I'm just doing little things and and then I look at my watch and I realize I'm two minutes past the end of this call. We're about half our company is on there waiting for me, to come on and lead this call. And, yeah. So I'm like, ooh, that's a problem. Well, so two things. One, first of all, you know, it's it can go two ways.
Year one, I actually was was pleased to know I have been able to rely on tools like calendaring and whatever else. So it's not in my mind. I'm not trying to juggle everything I'm doing in a day that would that would fry my brain. It just doesn't make any sense. Our the modern world we face, we've got to use these tools now.
The flip side, you say, well, you're such a slave to your calendar. Well, I see it completely opposite. I was able to be free with, without having to worry about my calendar. Now, the challenge is I wasn't connected. I didn't plan ahead. And here we are. I left it, so, you can take it. That how you want?
I I'm okay with being reliant on those systems that I put in place because they rarely let me down, and then I don't have to worry about it. You know, I do my day plan. I look at, I plan my weeks, that kind of stuff. And then, man, when middle of fire, I just let it roll and run my day that way.
So that's me. Your mileage may vary, but the second thing is, And this I feel I feel bad, but I'm also warmed by it. It's kind of weird thing. So, like, people were worried about my health because I don't miss I don't miss anything like that. And that's not common. And they couldn't get home because my phone was up here, so they were texting me.
They're emailing me, they're slacking me. They were every which way. I was getting it from all the angles, but none of them was coming to me and they were just concerned for my well-being. And it's just, yeah, you I would not saying something like that or fake something like it. So you get that outpouring. But it was just nice to know that the people I work with also really love me.
And that's cool. And I love them. And it makes it, it makes it awesome. And so anyway, that that has nothing to do with today's, podcast. It was just a part of the experience. And you're along with this journey, that's what we talked about in the beginning. This is authentic. And I'm sharing with you as I'm going.
So, to that, I want to thank Esther last week for putting out a podcast of an interview I did with Mike after. It was a great interview. I enjoyed talking with him. Great guy. And you know what we talked about there was a value to you, hopefully that the the challenges that that we've been doing that you went through were great.
I know for me, they were. And I want to share a little bit about, the most recent challenge, the feedback challenge, where I had, some experiences that I think are positive. And I wanted to kind of share with you, how that went. And I'd love to hear from from you how maybe your challenges went if you, took advantage of that.
You know, overall, I did. So I had already told you I had sent out my feedback survey. If you haven't listened to previous episodes, I sent out a feedback survey to to a few people that I work with routinely and look for kind of specific questions of how to get that back. And that's that's outlined in a previous episode.
And I also put it out to the entire company. I threw a link in slack in our open channel and I said, hey, if you're interested, I don't want to put it on any, but as if you're interested. So I got a few more that maybe I wouldn't have sent to, them specifically, but I got a few more back.
That was kind of cool and added a little magic to the thing. So for me, that was a successful piece. Or Cessful challenge that I got. I got direct goodies, but I also have kind of an indirect goodie, and that's what I want to talk about today. Before that, let's go through some of those kind of direct goodies that came from that, these surveys that we do in this way and as a, again, as a leader.
And it is what it is in this organization. I'm the founder of this role I play, you know, somebody else can play it. They can play better. They will. That's fine. But as a leader in this organization, it's oftentimes hard for people to be honest with me. And I hate that. And we run this culture in a way where there's a lot of our team that is.
But some people aren't, and maybe there's are newer people, or maybe it's just their their personality or posture. But generally people can be honest. But but some aren't going to be as honest. And these things allowed me to get really good responses. But you know, one side of that, it's not just like, hey, what you're doing wrong. A lot of people don't want to seem like they're blowing smoke up your rear end, or being a sycophant or a suck up or whatever.
And so this allowed I got some really nice comments about things that they appreciated, about what I've done for them, or at the company or whatever else. And they were I was blushing, and a couple of it was really, really cool. And I'm not bragging. It just I was it was really nice to, to get that kind of feedback.
And I'm not sure all those folks would have done that outright without being prompted and without it being in an anonymous survey. So anyway, so that was cool. And I also did get some feedback and things to work on. And let's take a breath. Now, one of those things was, sometimes I can talk too fast, I know. Shocker.
If you've been listening this podcast, many of the podcasts I listen to or books on, you know, audiobooks, books on tape, almost data myself, bad. Audiobooks. You know, I will listen to a to two and a half speed, a big deal. And I don't think you can do that with this one. Probably. So maybe I need to slow down.
Maybe that's where I go. Slow down so that you can listen to this podcast at a high speed. But anyway, it is what it is. But what I think that's done is I was always the kid in school, and like, I, I would miss problems or miss things on a math test and oftentimes I would skip I would just skip a whole whole I mean, if you've done it right, you skip the whole problem and go from 7 to 9 and eight.
Didn't even answer. You didn't see it just moving fast or I'll skip words when I was writing in language arts or whatever. So here we are. My brain's moving fast and my mouth is moving fast enough to keep up with. And sometimes I talk fast. I skip words, so I'm sorry you've been. If you've been listening me in this podcast, you probably had that experience.
My apologies. But it's it's, it's something I think about. Right. So I but I think listening to those podcasts really quickly and in the audiobooks really fast, I think it's kind of jaded. My relative disposition toward speed in terms of speaking. And so I have to think about that and I probably need to slow the heck down.
I don't know how I do that, but anyway, it's great feedback, and I've noted it, and I'm trying to take advantage of it and, and or take advantage of feedback and make a change. Also, another one that was I thought was interesting, and there's so many I'll, I'll give you a few, but another one I thought was interesting.
The, the feedback was, was really positive, but it was also, I say yes too quickly sometimes. And I want to believe in my team. My team. I hardly ever say that. I want to believe in our team. Right. And I know that's not just words that I use to our team. My team, you know, it's not play that's important to me.
And it's easy. Of course, I'm the founder. I'm the CEO. Yeah, I get it. But but I don't own these people and we're doing something together. And so our team. Right. And the basically they come to me and they're saying something. I believe in them. And so I'll ask some questions, I'll give them some feedback, but I trust them and I let them go.
But it's really good insight to I, you know, asking those questions. And basically just being that I won't say interrogator because that's not what you are, but but really challenging people around you in a good way so that they, they're, they're, maybe not be doing that enough at least to, to at least one submission that came through.
And that's, that's made me think about that. That's really good feedback. You know, feedback. Yet sometimes it isn't always right. But I feel like that one might be right. I think this this respondent is probably on to something that sometimes I might just trust. You may be enough where I'm not being valuable to you as a champion, as your champion, as you, as I would want you to be as my champion.
So anyway, so I thought that was a good one. And then, you know, one other one was that I need to be more involved in. And this is always the juvenile way, but, I keep spreading the company DNA. Let's put that put it that way. So spreading the company DNA. And what what is meant by that is, you know, how you look at something if you especially if you're a founder, you know, this was your vision, and it doesn't mean your vision doesn't change.
It doesn't mean your vision. Don't you know that you take on more visionaries along the way? Of course. But you are still primarily likely in your role as a founder, unless you've ceded that role to someone else who's better at it. You're primarily the vision setter. And, and, and for me and my role in the company, it's foundation and direction.
So I'm setting the vision for who we are and where we're going. And so it's important if it's easy in these roles sometimes because you don't want to micromanage or maybe you're you're a control freak and you're doing too much yourself where you don't give a chance for others to be doing things, but you being there as a sounding board of kind of laying out some of that vision along the way.
And for me, I sometimes will again trust the team and defer. Maybe I won't, won't be engaged on a sale or a customer account or, some kind of project. And because, hey, there's there are smarter, better people to do those things, and there are and and I don't want to get in their way, however. And now those either micro managers that you need to you probably think about going the other way.
But for me, I got to think about maybe being more involved at times and sharing my perspective so that so that that DNA can can be spread. Because when you hire new people and many folks, different phrase in there. But anyway, when you hire people, they come in with their own experiences and their own perspectives of how the world works and how companies work.
And that may align with what you have. Great. But oftentimes it won't. Your culture is unique to your company. And so anyway, that's, that's probably something that I'm going to think about more. And I've already done a few things, have already engaged where maybe I normally wouldn't have, and I've seen great value. So I've got to be thoughtful there.
So here's the last piece. And this is kind of an overarching thing. This wasn't a specific feedback to me, but generally in the experience of this whole thing, which, you know, there's lots of goodies again, but the whole thing, I kind of looked at it and then now I'm going to tie in, you know, as we've talked many times, my role the founder father and friend.
Right. So, so as a as a founder, you know, there's lots of these specifics I can take out of this. But I also found and we'll start with let's start with as a father, as a, as a husband, your significant other or your kids, may not know what you think they know. And so I do a lot of assuming because I have, I have some I have smart kids.
They're they're brilliant. I love them, they're great kids are great humans, but they're also 11 and 14. And they lure me in. They don't learn me. And I get lured in because I think sometimes they're they know more than they know about things, and I'll assume that they know stuff, and then I can get either disappointed or frustrated or think, you know, they're just being coy about something and they really don't know that thing because I haven't told them.
Well, and I've had maybe I was talking too fast or or what? Or maybe I wasn't engaged as much as I should have. And that once that one's hit me, I'm thinking about that a bit. My wife, for instance, you know, in any relationship, there are things I'm like, are you kidding me? Of course. What? You know, you begin to think, well, you almost begin to think, well, they're doing that on purpose or or they're they're not they're a bad actor or whatever else, whatever phraseology you want to use.
And when you know what they may be. So I don't know. That's up to you and yours. But, with mine, I think oftentimes it's just that she really. No, she didn't know. She she doesn't she's not in my brain. I think about a lot of things. Just like, let's talk about math. This. Maybe I skip that, but I didn't share that with her.
Or maybe it's talking so fast or so much. Maybe she took me out, which that that can happen, but, I think there's a big pieces. I got to remember that the people around me sometimes just don't don't know, I haven't I haven't shared with them what my expectations are or what my thoughts are, and that just helps me.
This, this whole thing, getting that feedback helps me to realize I need to take a compassionate approach when when something's not as I expect it to be. Was I clear and and maybe, maybe I was. That's okay. And it's not about anybody do anything for me and what I want to do, but I but maybe I wasn't clear.
Maybe. Maybe they're just operating on their own experiences and their own perspectives and their own learnings. And that's why they're behaving the way they are. Not because they know what you want and they did something different. It's that they didn't know. And that's sometimes, hard thing for me. So yeah, I'm just a man so authentic here. I don't know, we're just just as friends.
Right. So that's one for me. So you take that from your your significant other as a, as a, as a father or a wife or husband, whatever. You're, you know, to your kids and, and again, I don't want I've realized my kids a couple times I, I just think, I think the world of them and they are they're awesome people.
On what I read, it feels like a big brag and this whole stinking podcast. But but I love them and I do expect a lot of them. But I also just expect they know lots of things and do lots things because they are so capable and they are so awesome. And that's that. I mean, that's fair. And you want to push them, of course, but it's not super fair when they're sitting like, I genuinely didn't know I was supposed to act a certain way or whatever.
Now. And we've all been kids. We know. Oh, I didn't know. You know, I get it, but I, I really want to be thoughtful about this going forward for me and with with my family is, you know, maybe they just didn't know, maybe didn't know. And then I go to, you know, at work, right. As a founder. And there are so many things when you when you're a founder, oftentimes I will be worried that I've said something too many times.
I've they're tired of hearing this thing. And there's an old quote, I think it's for the LinkedIn founder, somebody where you know when and it's private ceremony. There's nothing new under the sun, right? But where they the the quote was, when you get tired of saying something is when they just start to hear it. And that's always stuck with me.
But that's the stuck with me. In theory, it's hard to execute. And here's here's an example. We have certain cultural tenets that are important to our company that I have talked about. I feel like every day for the last 15, 20 years, when in reality I may not have talked about it three years, but we have a lot of employees that aren't that work with us three years ago.
Right. And so how can I expect them to know now? We've codified a lot of our culture. And so, but the point is, things that you think you might have shared and everyone should understand, maybe it's been a while, you know, you say, well, just the other day we were well, that was ten years ago or whatever.
And so so it could be that for you, I don't know, or you've had a few side conversations, but somehow and as you scale your organization, sometimes that data doesn't get around like it would. And we, we spend a lot of time on communicates communication. But anyways busy too. Right. So it's hard and no systems ever perfect.
And so sometimes those things you're sharing, they, they only get into a small part of your company or they. And so I tell you is my role. That's one of the things I really work hard to make sure we're communicating as clearly as possible. But but it does. It just helps my disposition. If I come to a situation first with a maybe they didn't know.
Now you find again trends. I as you know, if you've been listening for very long, any one moment thing, I'm not as concerned about that. I'm willing to learn you know, when I learn. But trend over time. If somebody is always like, I didn't know. I didn't know it. Okay. All right, buddy, this is, is your M.O..
This is something different. But, you know, I think generally for for me, in my posture, I'm going to try to take try to operative word. It's hard, but I'm gonna just try to make that, a primary reaction to something when I'm like, are you kidding me, too? Oh, wait a minute. Maybe they didn't know and then try to understand.
Well, how did this data miss you? Are you not paying attention? Maybe, is it that that this thing didn't get into the right channels? Maybe. Is it that I really haven't talked about it in five years? Maybe all those things could be true. So anyway, with that said, that's that's it for today. We're not going to do a challenge this week.
What. We'll pick those up here and there. I've got some thoughts in my mind. Love. Any feedback from from you you know met with ash and we're talking about different different approaches with what we've done. And, and some feedback from you guys have really been helpful. And I do have some questions that I'll, I'll get to and answer at one of these points.
But today we're back in the booth, we're recording and we had to get our audio right. We've gotten that over the last few months. And now videos. Yeah, it could be better, but it's it's still better than me where it looks like I'm maybe, nailed it in from a from a jail cell or some captive location. So now you see, I'm I'm in an efficiency apartment.
It's here, ready to record. So anyway, I hope this does valuable for you. This is a little more of just a hodgepodge of things happening to me and where I'm at. It's, you know, dangling preposition there, but, hopefully it's, it's valuable to you. I'd love to hear what you'd like to like to hear from me otherwise.
And, Yeah. So, anyway, I hope this week's been a great week for you. And you, you know, take this weekend, unless you work on weekends and do that too. But hopefully you get some rest and some relaxation. You're in restoration so that you can hit it again next week. So anyway, as always, wherever you may be, I hope you're flourishing.
Alex Reneman is the founder of Mountain Leverage and Unleash Tygart and host of Flourishing w/ Alex Reneman. For 20+ years he has worked as CEO of Mountain Leverage, honing the concept of flourishing and experimenting with it in the business. In July of 2024, he decided to begin to share this idea with others, which led to his podcast, social content, and the plans for other initiatives in the future.
