0:00

Gentlemen , cheers , yes , cheers

0:03

, cheers . Fun Friday , great to be here , cheers

0:05

. Nice to meet you , colin , nice

0:07

to meet you too . James , I don't have to be introduced to

0:09

this geezer over here . He's good

0:11

White teeth .

0:13

That's right .

0:14

I love the white teeth . Gotta keep him white man . It's

0:16

pretty good .

0:16

I gotta say yeah .

0:17

Gotta do it . Oh

0:20

yeah , we have the bullet bourbon

0:22

. We don't usually drink on the , on the , on

0:24

the podcast , but we're only having a little bit , you

0:26

know what man I've been the day and I've been booze free

0:28

for like ten years .

0:29

I mean booze free . I mean I got have wine with Jan

0:32

and stuff , like that Crap

0:34

man . When I dig a sip of this I'm like that's

0:36

booze . Yeah , oh yeah , that's . That's a real deal . It's

0:39

just straight rocket fuel for you , yeah it's

0:41

not simple .

0:42

What do you think ?

0:42

of it I love . I love bullet . I love

0:44

bourbon . I mean , I'm not a big drinker these days either

0:46

, but if I do , you know , I might go from Manhattan

0:49

or an old-fashioned . So , you know bourbon's just

0:51

nice . That's a little sweet yeah .

0:52

I was listening to you . Listen to Megan

0:55

Kelly's podcast . No her new one

0:57

on serious .

0:57

No , I found you can get it . Is she a comedian

1:00

or what ? Sir no making Kelly .

1:01

She used to be on Fox . Remember the blonde ?

1:03

Okay , no , I don't , I don't know , don't she

1:05

?

1:06

debated one of the presidential debates

1:08

. Okay , gotcha . No , she's awesome . Yeah , but

1:10

she was saying that her

1:13

favorite thing is tequila , but you put an orange

1:15

rind in it to take the to

1:18

sort of the ugliness

1:20

out of tequila .

1:21

Oh , okay , so if you don't like the tequila note , but yeah

1:23

, I don't like it .

1:24

Yeah you're like rough right and

1:26

a little orange peel interesting . Okay , which

1:28

I'm gonna be doing tonight .

1:29

Yeah , yeah so .

1:30

I'll have a headache tomorrow With

1:32

your tequila choices to . I was just in Phoenix

1:35

, lots of tequila , but you

1:37

know a nice tequila versus Cuervo which you

1:39

would drink as a teenager . It's a way different tequila experience

1:41

, what's the N ?

1:42

Yeho . What I mean ? What is it ? What's the deal with that

1:44

Like ? There's mascals

1:46

that taste like Band-Aid as far as I'm concerned . Yeah

1:48

, have you ever tasted that ?

1:50

before . No , I haven't , it's not good

1:52

.

1:52

Well , I think it's an acquired taste . I think it

1:54

maybe it's like a there's a cilantro

1:56

paradigm to it .

1:57

Right , yeah , I've only drank like

1:59

cheap tequila , like you know , in my 20s

2:01

type thing . Yeah , exactly our Caprice

2:04

. You remember Skybar ?

2:05

Yes , yes , I remember Skybar , I remember the

2:08

summer man Remember they'd open up . Yeah , I

2:10

was on Smythe or Nelson . Yeah , it was on the corner of

2:12

Smythe and gravel Smythe and gravel , that's right

2:14

.

2:14

Yeah , skybar man , that was my , that

2:16

was the place , yeah . I remember I moved here in O3

2:19

and went to . Skybar was the first like

2:21

club I went to in the big city and you

2:23

made it upstairs .

2:25

Oh yeah , How'd you get there ? Did you know somebody

2:27

? Because usually you'd be stuck down there in the second floor .

2:29

Well , they had an age limit there . Do you remember that too

2:31

? You had to be used up to be 21

2:33

to go in there . Okay and okay

2:35

. So , yeah , I would have been 21 . So

2:37

I don't know , I it wasn't . I

2:39

used to go there all the time and go up to the top and they'd

2:41

open the , and they'd open it up in the summer

2:43

and stuff like that . So , yeah , yeah , it was awesome

2:45

.

2:46

I've you've . Did you grow up here

2:48

, Colin ? I grew up here .

2:50

Yeah , and in 2003 , 2003

2:52

I started DJing . Oh , no way actually

2:55

, oh yeah , I started . Djing .

2:57

So you still do , you know .

2:58

I do not , I do not .

2:59

I'm gonna pick it up .

3:01

It's amazing . It's wonderful , I mean , when I was

3:03

DJing , we were using final records CD

3:06

turntables like starting to come out Like yeah

3:08

, it was old school . Yeah , and and yeah . Now

3:10

everyone uses laptops . But

3:12

, yeah , if you can get your hands on some old techniques

3:14

. 1200 turntables , it's just that

3:16

warm analog sound , it's wonderful .

3:20

Welcome to the site . Visit podcast . Leadership

3:23

and perspective from construction

3:25

. Your host , james

3:27

Baldwin .

3:52

Wow , actually we got a special .

3:59

It's down at . Dallas and a guy

4:02

just hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue

4:04

and said he was driving from Oklahoma to

4:06

Dallas to meet with me because he heard

4:08

the favorite connects platform on

4:10

your guys podcast .

4:13

And we celebrate these values every single

4:15

day . Let's get down to it .

4:23

As you all know , we often do

4:25

the podcast at build X in Vancouver

4:28

. So this year we are there

4:30

again . So that is going to be on

4:32

the 14th and 15th of February . Now

4:35

build X is celebrating your 35th

4:37

year doing this in Vancouver , so that is quite a milestone

4:39

for them . So they have completely

4:41

overhauled their program . They got a whole bunch of new things

4:44

going on In

4:46

like last year . For instance , they had

4:48

7500 participants

4:51

, 300 exhibitors , 42

4:53

sponsors , 100 sessions

4:56

, 244 speakers . I mean it's

4:58

pretty serious . So if you

5:00

want to be informed about construction

5:02

in Vancouver , you got to go to build X . So

5:04

we're gonna be there . We have lots of cool guests

5:07

lined up . We're gonna be near the VRCA

5:09

connector lounge with our friends from the VRCA . Yeah

5:13

, you know , we've had them on . We're

5:16

going to be talking to them more . We're also doing CLF

5:18

with them in . May . So

5:20

there's also the shine awards , which

5:22

is celebrating interior design excellence . Build

5:26

X is going to be awesome , so we hope

5:28

to see you there and we will be posting

5:30

the episodes after we

5:33

finish recording those exciting

5:35

interviews . All right , we'll see you there , all

5:44

right . So we're talking leadership motivation

5:46

today , because you're the man . Yeah yeah

5:49

, Colin Robbins .

5:52

Have you guys seen Tony Robbins in person

5:54

? Have you guys seen him in person ? He's a huge guy

5:57

right .

5:57

He doesn't have like banana hands right , like he is , he's

5:59

a large human being . I didn't know anything about

6:01

him really . You know , you hear about

6:03

him . He came to Vancouver . I want to say this was 2018

6:06

maybe , or 2017 . Yeah

6:08

, for a day . So I went down to that and

6:11

yeah , just a , just a . It's

6:14

like a rock star , like a rock concert

6:16

. Oh , you know , just the hype and everything hey the

6:18

hype and and you know , I know we're

6:20

gonna talk about motivation today . Yeah , I

6:22

think he's one of the biggest motivators

6:25

out there , but I Think

6:27

for a lot of people it doesn't last when you get

6:29

motivated by someone outside , there's

6:31

just not this lasting factor . I think motivation

6:33

comes from within . Yeah , that's a good point .

6:35

Well , he from what I knew

6:37

. So I used to have this coach named

6:40

Samantha Sargent . Awesome

6:42

, awesome and actually she was Alex's . Yeah

6:45

, anyway , we

6:47

were talking earlier .

6:48

Oh gotcha .

6:49

You're one year late , yeah .

6:51

Some of us showed up on time . Yeah , that's right , you know

6:53

, but we didn't have to put a time clip on you .

6:55

You're actually you were early , you're right on time yeah

6:57

there we go .

6:59

But I Got

7:01

the the Tony Robbins CDs

7:04

of the ones you would listen to like that yeah and

7:06

she was telling me that he's

7:08

king of NLP . So

7:11

which is ? Neurolinguistic

7:13

program so when he , when he'll say something to

7:15

the crowd , he'll be like so tell me , have

7:19

you ever felt like just not getting up in the bed ? Say

7:21

aye , that thing . Yeah that's

7:23

. NLP Okay because it's making

7:26

you Say yes right . Yeah

7:28

, he makes you say yes over and over

7:30

and over again to the point . You say yes to his other

7:32

stuff . Gotcha Okay he's conditioning

7:34

you throughout the the seminar

7:37

right to get used to agreeing with

7:39

it . I interesting , pretty cool . Yeah

7:41

, am I right ?

7:42

It's , yeah , it is that , and

7:44

and it's very active . Right , you're up

7:46

, your , your your high-fiving and hugging

7:49

people and it's active and loud . Yeah , you

7:51

know , I went to that and then another one , maybe

7:53

a year later , but

7:56

yeah , I just did , just didn't have that lasting factor for

7:58

me .

7:58

So was it personal power , or at least the giant

8:00

within , or ? I think that those were the two bucks .

8:02

It was . It was none of those . I think he has like

8:04

a five or six day event . Oh yeah

8:06

power within . This was , this was the

8:08

power of success . Okay and

8:11

I think they had other speakers in the morning , tony Robbins

8:13

in the for the whole afternoon , so we got

8:15

a dose , maybe three , four hours of them . It

8:17

was great . You leave their feeling different , energized

8:20

, but does it last , right ?

8:22

Yeah , I did like the CDs , because Actually

8:26

, what else Do you know ? A guy named

8:28

Dennis Miller . Do you remember him ?

8:30

this guy's like comedian .

8:31

Yes , yeah , yeah , okay . So he used to have this stand

8:33

up . He's like . You know . I spent all

8:35

last night listening to self-improvement cassettes . Now

8:38

I feel a little inadequate that haven't done up the CDs

8:40

. Yeah , yeah , there you go , right . So it's

8:42

like this kind of you know . It

8:44

always makes you feel like you're yearning for something else

8:46

. But I have

8:48

to say that I had those personal power discs

8:51

and I still remember limiting

8:53

beliefs , Things that are all

8:55

about a lot of things are in your head . Yeah you

8:58

put it up your own barriers and

9:00

you create your own stories , and you

9:02

have to knock those down in Order

9:04

to sort of open yourself up to what could be

9:06

. Yeah , totally so yeah .

9:08

So I mean , those were really good when I was

9:10

in my 20s , I find a lot of limitations

9:12

are in your head , right Like you make up these stories

9:14

right of like what I can and can't do and yeah

9:17

like I could have white teeth , but yeah like if

9:19

you just yeah , if you just got your shit together

9:21

and might in your teeth there you know you could be . You

9:23

could be sitting here with a tie clip with me , man .

9:26

I could you know , I think we're not gonna be able to see you

9:28

in Whistler . Yeah , that's right .

9:30

Yeah , that's right , that's right , yeah , just a

9:32

couple eyes , yeah you know , I

9:34

hear about imposter syndrome a lot like not

9:37

just read like the last year , yeah , and there's a lot . I

9:39

think that's one of the most common sublimiting beliefs

9:41

today in people's head , totally .

9:42

Can we just like break that down for a second imposter

9:45

syndrome ?

9:45

for those who don't know what that is yeah , it's this inner

9:47

voice that tells you you don't belong , You're

9:50

not good enough to be doing what you're doing . Like who are you

9:52

to be in this room ? Or think you can achieve

9:54

this ? Yeah ?

9:54

okay , but it's not even . I find it's what

9:57

I've seen . It's not even in your personal or your professional

9:59

life . It's in your personal life , too . You can be like with a partner

10:02

or a friend or something . I've had friends that

10:04

have come to me and like , opened up about

10:06

things . I'm like whoa , like I never , never

10:08

even thought that I didn't think that of you or no one's

10:10

judging you , and it's all what you're making up in your head , right

10:12

of what .

10:13

So so let's

10:16

just chat about how you guys met , sure

10:18

, and have you worked with

10:20

Colin before or are you know ?

10:22

No . So , like Colin , I or our bromance

10:24

started this or like I guess

10:26

it would have been in the summer . So

10:28

I actually met Colin through a mutual friend

10:30

of ours and and someone in the industry

10:33

, paul Diole , and so Paul had

10:35

said , hey , you should reach out to Colin . When I joined Maven

10:37

I wanted to take a look Strategically

10:40

where the company's at , where we want to go , do some

10:42

strategic planning and stuff like that , and just

10:44

asking around in my network Like who's the

10:46

who's somebody you'd recommend you've worked with and

10:48

you've enjoyed working with , and Colin's

10:50

name came up . Colin's name came up through Ram as well

10:53

, like my , my friends there . So but

10:55

I think it was ultimately Paul who introduced us . And then

10:57

Colin and I had a , had an intro call

11:00

over teams and I

11:02

actually when the way I've gotten to

11:04

know Colin bit is is

11:06

through this hiking group that I've got going

11:08

, and so I had mentioned a call and hey

11:10

, I got this . This hiking group we meet on Sunday

11:12

mornings . Colin had mentioned that he lives

11:14

near Grouse Mountain . I said , hey , why don't you come out ? And

11:16

so Colin came out to that a couple times

11:18

and we hiked together . You get to know each other and I think

11:21

you know , that's something we can talk about today

11:23

too . But like doing things like team building

11:25

, events like hiking and Productive

11:28

things where you're getting cardio in and stuff as well , but you're also

11:30

setting a goal in achieving it , it's a good you kind

11:32

of start to form bonds with people , right ?

11:33

That makes sense .

11:34

So yeah , so that's . That's where I got to know Colin

11:37

. And then yeah

11:39

, that's here we are today .

11:41

Here we are today , yeah , nice . So

11:43

so what ? What sort of

11:45

things did you ? Did you give advice to

11:48

Jesse about , like , do you remember

11:50

the conversations .

11:51

We had a few talks going

11:53

up . Michael , the girl's crying going

11:56

up Sorry .

11:57

Pull all the way in there . There you go . We need

11:59

to get that big voice , that big .

12:03

Yeah , we had . We had a couple chats , I

12:05

don't know specifically , but just getting to know each other

12:07

and then talking . You know , jesse was pretty new into the

12:09

role at Maven as CEO , so we

12:12

probably talked through a little bit of that kind of stuff . But

12:14

in between huffing and puffing going up the

12:16

BCMC trail or was

12:18

the grass grind open when we started , or was it .

12:20

I think it was . I think we should see . Yeah , it's actually

12:22

a CMC , nice , yeah . So

12:24

let's just talk about you a bit , colin . So

12:28

give us the Back

12:30

or give us , like the , the rap sheet . What have you been

12:32

doing ? Since your DNA

12:34

until today .

12:36

Yeah , so today I'll start there

12:38

. Go back . Today I'm a solo printer , executive

12:40

coach consultant . So what is

12:42

what do I do ? I coach people

12:45

, primarily CEOs and executives . I

12:47

chair two CEO peer groups in the

12:49

city through McKay CEO forums , yeah , and

12:51

I do leadership training strategy facilitation

12:54

. So those are , that's like the bread and butter . Is

12:56

those four ?

12:57

things Nancy McKay .

12:58

Yeah , okay , nancy McKay founded McKay

13:00

CEO forums , so

13:02

yeah , and that competes with sort of Tech

13:05

in Canada or Vistage . These peer group formats

13:07

, I found them fantastic . I was

13:09

a member of one for Probably

13:12

six , seven years before I became a chair , yeah

13:14

, so I got lots of value . My career before

13:16

that was 26 years in tech and video

13:18

games . So 1993

13:21

I started my career at EA Sports

13:23

, electronic Arts , here in Welburnaby and

13:26

a lot of people said , well , colin , you don't , you don't look like

13:28

you've been working for 26 years in the tech industry . I

13:31

started there at 15 years old , so

13:33

bit of an orthodox path . I

13:35

was a good student in school , loved

13:38

hockey , tore my knee , couldn't play hockey

13:40

anymore , got depressed , dropped out . So grade

13:42

11 stopped going to school , started

13:45

working at A&W flipping burgers my first

13:47

real job and what

13:49

did the parents say ?

13:51

when you're like , I'm out .

13:53

Yeah , you know my mom , a single

13:55

mom , okay , so she wasn't super happy

13:57

with that , but it just became really clear I wasn't

13:59

guys very close . Yeah

14:01

, we were very close , are very close . Okay

14:04

, and you know , just became clear to her hey , he's

14:06

not gonna go . So she

14:09

worked at a nonprofit Burnaby

14:11

Family Life and they had government

14:13

sponsored programs to help

14:16

trouble teens battered women

14:18

, single moms and my mom said , look

14:20

, okay , fine , if you're not gonna go to school , why don't

14:22

you go in this trouble teens program ? They'll

14:25

teach you how to write a resume , they'll teach you some

14:27

soft skills and and they'll help you

14:29

find work placement . So you're gonna go get

14:31

five weeks of work experience . The

14:33

company will get some free labor and the government

14:35

program pays you . It's a win-win-win . So

14:38

I'm like , okay , I go in this program and

14:40

I'm just a temporarily

14:42

depressed kid who can't

14:44

play hockey and I'm in there with 15 year old

14:46

gang members and drug dealers . And

14:49

I'm like , oh , my goodness , this is not

14:51

my peer group . What the heck have I done ? Yeah , but

14:54

the the biggest stroke of luck in my life . I

14:56

wrote on the application form for that program under

14:58

hobbies I wrote video games . This

15:00

is 1993 , and one

15:02

of the coordinators came to me and said oh , colin

15:04

, video games , we had someone in this

15:07

program before . Go do their work experience

15:09

at Electronic Arts . Would you

15:11

like to go do that ? And everyone

15:13

else in this program is going to big O tires and

15:15

yeah and be sound in retail . And

15:17

I got to go spend five weeks at EA and I

15:20

was supposed to leave , go back and finish

15:22

grade 11 . I thought , wait a

15:24

minute . This is the perfect intersection

15:26

of my passions technology

15:29

, sports and video games . Why

15:31

would I go back to grade 11 and learn

15:34

how to type on a keyboard ? Why don't I stay here ? So

15:36

I stayed there for seven years .

15:38

That's cool . So at so

15:40

15 going 16 years old . They

15:43

like what capacity do ? What were you doing

15:45

there ?

15:46

I started as a tester . Okay , which

15:48

is not just playing video games all day .

15:50

Sounds like we're going into one level and be like , yeah

15:52

, wrong here . Yeah , very , very hate this

15:54

level .

15:55

Yeah , all day very systematic

15:57

, you know , but it was

15:59

fun . I just , I just love that and that was . You

16:01

know , that was back in the 90s . There weren't , you

16:04

know , when games were finished and

16:06

shipped , there was no internet . Yeah

16:08

there was no patching them .

16:09

The game was you know it's it burned on

16:11

a disc or ?

16:12

cartridge . And that was it , you were done . Yeah so

16:14

we did some crazy overtime . A lot of the

16:16

video game industry still does crazy overtime

16:18

, but you know , I remember my longest shift

16:20

back then and I loved it . I Went

16:23

in Thursday morning and left Tuesday afternoon , wow

16:26

, oh no sleep .

16:28

Four hours on the reception , coach Wow and

16:31

I loved it and they have a . But they have a whole campus

16:33

there , don't they have , like they do , new

16:35

and or was they out maybe back then they didn't back then

16:37

that was we were at 4400 Dominion .

16:39

Okay , willing it in Canada way . This is before

16:41

moving to the campus . Yeah , but I

16:43

remember that was Canadian Thanksgiving weekend . It

16:46

was the first time we were shipping

16:48

FIFA soccer on PlayStation

16:50

, the first ever PlayStation . Oh nice , and

16:53

it's that Thursday morning . The game has to ship

16:55

on Tuesday and we've never

16:57

got saving working on memory cards . Oh

17:00

geez , like that first PlayStation you had to have

17:02

this separate memory card to save it . We it

17:04

was never working in the game had a ship in four days

17:06

. So you know it wasn't just me

17:08

. A lot of us stayed and just put in the work

17:10

to get that thing over the line and it was

17:12

amazing . I wouldn't trade that experience for the world .

17:14

So that must have taught you the

17:16

value of hard work and what

17:19

it means to deliver someone with some pride .

17:22

It taught me that . More importantly , the

17:24

lesson I remember the most was

17:27

what a privilege it was to

17:29

work somewhere you loved and do

17:31

work . You love Because I observed

17:33

my my peers at 15 years old

17:35

and even adults . How many

17:37

people did I see that just hated their job and

17:40

they just treat it like a job . And for me

17:42

I've never had a job like that , where it was just a job

17:44

. It was always something I'm passionate about , I care

17:46

about , I'm highly motivated To

17:49

work at . So that was one of the best gifts there

17:51

is . Just realizing how privileged that

17:53

was and to not settle for less

17:55

after , that's awesome .

17:57

I mean you You've

17:59

gone through this over the last number of years

18:01

of having that burning thing

18:04

, of having that satisfaction .

18:05

Yeah , totally , totally . I think . When

18:07

I when I first met Colin and he told me that story

18:09

, I thought I was , I thought that was super cool , just

18:12

the journey that he's taken to

18:14

where he is today , right , and so when you and I

18:16

were thinking what , hey , you know who's some people in

18:18

your network you think we could chat with on the show , I was like

18:20

Colin would be at the top my list , right , so

18:23

I know and I think that you

18:25

know that this is .

18:26

I mean , you're in construction on the engineering side , yeah

18:28

, I'm in construction and software side and

18:31

I think that Collins , you know advice

18:34

and sage sort of perspective can really

18:36

add to you know , our listeners

18:38

, I mean just in terms of Motivation

18:41

, leadership , you know what they can take away from this because it's

18:43

universal , doesn't matter what business right so

18:45

yeah , all right , so continue on

18:47

. So 15

18:49

till and then seven years . So what's that ? 22

18:52

or 23 ?

18:53

Yep , yep 22, . You know a lot of 80-hour

18:55

weeks through there so I missed my young kind

18:58

of adult that was working .

18:59

We're thinking my math . Yeah On

19:02

the fly that's really shitty , you can do elementary

19:05

math .

19:05

Yeah , I wouldn't trade

19:07

that for the world . So then I

19:10

left EA in late 2000

19:12

, right around the dot-com bubble peak , to

19:15

go to a startup and that didn't

19:17

work out great . So within I think four months

19:19

after leaving all the safety and security of EA

19:22

, the startup Ran

19:24

out of money . You stop paying us . Okay and

19:26

so now you're your post comm bubble

19:28

and there's not a lot of tech jobs , there's

19:30

a lot of tech people looking for work . So I took

19:33

almost a year off and just

19:35

focused on myself and absolutely

19:37

loved it . But I also

19:39

struggled to get back into a job

19:41

. You know just wasn't finding a lot of

19:43

good opportunity there . I tried to go back to EA , didn't

19:45

work out and eventually

19:47

Actually , to be totally

19:49

honest , one of my good friends owned

19:52

a carpet cleaning business and

19:54

he said hey , colin , I know this isn't your jam , but

19:56

if you want something , you want to help me clean carpets

19:58

for a while . So that you know that hit

20:00

your ego a little bit . You were this sort of 15 year

20:02

old at EA and now you're like cleaning

20:05

carpets at the after the dot-com bubble . So

20:07

that was short-lived , you know . That was

20:09

a couple months . And then someone I knew

20:11

for me was working at a software company . They said , colin

20:13

, come on in . And I went there and and

20:16

the story goes on cool and then

20:18

okay .

20:19

So and then to

20:21

, to where you are today

20:24

. There's the middle part of , yeah , reeducation

20:26

and all that kind of stuff that you did .

20:28

Yeah , yeah . So that company where

20:30

I started working out , they were a software company headquartered

20:32

in Oxford , england . They didn't make printer software

20:34

. Wait , and printer software

20:36

they're called software imaging . Okay , yeah , okay , yeah

20:38

, we had this little they did . They did Work

20:41

with , like the printer manufacturers Rico and

20:43

Epson , etc . But we also built this

20:45

tool called ink saver . It's just little

20:47

Windows system tray app that would intercept your

20:49

print job and you could save ink , basically

20:52

. But that company

20:54

was headquartered in Oxford , had an office in Japan

20:56

, so I stayed there

20:58

for In Vancouver

21:00

maybe four or five years . They moved me to Oxford

21:02

with my now wife , julie . So

21:05

we moved over to Oxford 2006 and

21:07

I'm reporting

21:09

to a CFO . I have no education

21:11

and I'm thinking I just want to invest

21:14

in myself and Julie and I are thinking about having

21:16

kids . And this CFO

21:18

I'm reporting to says well , colin , we've got this open university

21:20

, why don't you go do a year-long certificate

21:23

in management with them ? So I did that

21:25

. And Well , why don't you do

21:27

a year-long deployment management ? After I did

21:29

that and the open university said

21:31

hey , colin , you've got all this leadership

21:33

experience . I would became a team lead at EA

21:36

at 17 years old , so most

21:38

of my career has been managing people right

21:40

. So they took all that experience

21:43

and said come into our MBA program . So I did

21:45

. That took another two years . So

21:48

, yeah , high school dropout with an MBA really

21:50

on or on orthodox path wouldn't change it for

21:52

the world . And

21:55

I met someone doing the MBA

21:57

, met someone at Rackspace , a hosting

21:59

company you might have heard of Mm-hmm

22:01

, and this was 2008 . So the golden era

22:03

of managed hosting before cloud and

22:06

AWS came in and

22:08

I I left this small

22:10

software company in Oxford , moved to London

22:12

to work for Rackspace

22:14

and just Just an

22:16

incredible experience learning about leadership

22:19

, culture , values . It

22:22

was just an absolute rocket ship when I

22:24

joined there and my career and my skills

22:26

just took off like a rocket as well .

22:28

Nice rocket space .

22:30

Rocket space was a good name for it .

22:33

That's cool . So . So

22:35

now , what was the ? What

22:38

is the most common things

22:40

that you are Helping leaders

22:42

with now today ? Like , what is the ? I

22:45

mean , do you have a , if you're to look at a

22:47

diet Venn diagram of , like , where's , where's

22:49

the opacity ? As

22:51

dark as possible in the stuff that you

22:53

teach people ?

22:54

Yeah , you know I have . I have a annual

22:57

leadership advantage program that's divided in

22:59

three parts . So I think this is the Venn diagram . It's

23:01

lead self , lead others , lead the business

23:04

. Okay and different people need different things

23:06

. You know I'll coach some CEOs when

23:08

actually the predominant thing they need is help

23:10

leading self right . It's the imposter

23:12

syndrome or it's just organizing

23:15

themselves . Others

23:17

, it's leading the business right . They're like hey , I don't

23:19

actually have a good structure or process

23:21

for creating strategy

23:24

and executing it and checking KPIs . Like

23:26

, can you help with that ?

23:27

Yeah and for and what do you ? What

23:29

pro like , what systems you find is

23:31

good for that , because I've been introduced to EOS and

23:34

it seems pretty slick . Is that something that you would use

23:36

for that , or there is there different models on , depending

23:38

on the industry you're the person's in or

23:40

like ? What does that look like ?

23:41

Yeah , the two I know are scaling

23:44

up .

23:44

Yeah , EOS Okay . Yeah .

23:46

EOS is the entrepreneurial operating system . Yeah

23:48

, the book for that is called traction on demand right

23:50

. The book for scaling up is called scaling

23:52

up . Yeah , and they're , they're both great

23:54

. They're basically operating systems for how to run a business

23:56

right , yeah . Yeah , so you know what

23:58

metrics do you look at . How do you create a strategy

24:01

, what's your meeting rhythm to make sure you're actually

24:03

working on things that are important , not just firefighting

24:05

? Yeah and they're both great , though I

24:07

have a lot more experience with scaling up . We

24:10

put that in at a demonware , so

24:12

yeah kind of fast-forward my career . I leave rack

24:14

space in London , I go to demonware

24:16

in Dublin Ireland . Demonware

24:19

is the online studio for Activision . Yeah so

24:21

we're running all of the back-end services for games

24:23

like Call of Duty , skylanders

24:25

etc . So we put in scaling

24:27

up at demonware . But

24:30

what I've heard other people who use EOS is it's

24:32

a little bit like scaling up light . It's a little bit easier

24:34

, more approachable . You could run it with maybe a smaller

24:37

team .

24:37

Gotcha .

24:38

So if anyone's listening here and thinks , oh , I'd like a

24:40

blueprint for how to run a business , right , if

24:42

it's smaller , I'd invite you to maybe check out

24:44

EOS , first Gotcha , but larger , maybe

24:46

scaling up .

24:47

But they're both great and and for

24:49

clients you have in the construction

24:51

world . Is there one of those , is

24:54

there one that's preferred over the other ? Is it more , like

24:56

you said , based on organizational size , that

24:59

?

24:59

yeah , size seems to be the bigger . Okay , the bigger

25:01

thing . Right , so any like BC . 90%

25:04

of the businesses here are 10 employees or less . So

25:06

if you're a listener here in BC you know

25:09

maybe in around that size probably EOS

25:11

it might be easier to implement than

25:13

something like scaling up Gotcha .

25:15

Have you heard of the RACI ? Yes

25:18

, we have that for all of the Essentially

25:23

. Have you heard of this ? No you basically

25:25

take all of your job functions , yeah and then you

25:27

, you , you classify them of who

25:29

is responsible , who's accountable , who

25:31

needs to be informed and

25:33

who needs to be consulted . Right , yeah

25:35

, that's the acronym for it . Yeah , so it's basically

25:38

you know , I've got , I've

25:40

got a whole bunch of informed . There's

25:43

some stuff I'm accountable for , right , you

25:46

know , revenue , or investors or whatever

25:48

it is . Yeah and then Actually

25:50

it's cool because it breaks down every function of

25:52

the company interesting because I'm used to using that

25:54

on a project .

25:55

Yeah , like on from a project perspective . But I yeah

25:58

it's interesting to use it on from a business perspective

26:00

, like for an organization .

26:01

Right , yeah , yeah , and what's nice about is it

26:04

? It's , it's really . I Think

26:07

the informed and consulted is a bit Too

26:10

nuanced , almost because I'm like what's the difference ? But

26:13

you know the difference .

26:14

Yeah , yeah , yeah , tell me , tell me there's a

26:16

there's a big difference and and there's big value

26:19

in understanding it , because , look

26:21

, a lot , of a lot of the issues people

26:23

face are people issues . Yeah mostly right

26:25

and and you think about stakeholders

26:27

who aren't considered . It's

26:30

a big thing , yeah right , like hey you , you

26:32

, you came up with this decision but you never thought

26:34

about how it affected me . Now we got problems

26:36

and trust is breaking down . So in the

26:38

race C model , the eye in the sea is

26:40

I Is who should be informed

26:42

. It's one-way communication you

26:45

get no voice , you get no vote , but

26:47

we need to inform you of what's happening , whereas

26:50

the C is who's consulted

26:52

. It's two-way communication , with

26:54

being consulted , you still don't get a decision-making

26:57

vote in our in what we're doing , but your voice

26:59

gets heard , right . And so a lot of

27:01

the times , people that should be consulted are treated

27:03

like they're just need to be informed or

27:05

not Consulted at all , and it

27:07

creates all kinds of problems . So just being able

27:09

to think through big decisions

27:12

or plans , how does it affect people

27:14

?

27:14

and let's make sure we consider who should be informed and consulted

27:16

totally well I

27:18

think that's important , important from the relationship

27:20

side , to that that people feel that they're heard or they

27:23

understand right , because you go forward

27:25

with something and somebody doesn't . Even if they have an idea

27:27

that you're not going to necessarily consider , they still want

27:29

to be , they want that to be heard , right . So yeah

27:31

, very much .

27:32

So , yeah , and look , I think some people want

27:34

to die on every hill . Yeah , right , like it doesn't

27:36

go my way Like I'm just gonna throw my toys out of the

27:38

pram . I you can't . That's like lighting

27:40

the tail , wag the dog , yeah . So with

27:43

consulting , it's great to hear those voices . What

27:45

I found is look , if you got to Explain

27:48

about a change or a decision , one

27:50

of the best questions answer is why . Why

27:54

is this happening ? Yeah , that's really what most people want

27:56

. Answered is why and how does it affect

27:58

me ?

27:58

Yeah , well , how does it affect me , as I find is the

28:00

big one ?

28:01

Yeah , yeah , those , those two , and they get overlooked

28:03

a lot and you can't just say it once . You got to say it multiple

28:05

times . So people get it , and some people Really

28:08

struggle to get on board . They have to get their own way

28:10

, but others they get it right there

28:12

, like okay , you had my , my voice

28:14

is heard .

28:15

This is the why I can disagree and commit

28:17

a lot easier now , because I know why you made that decision

28:19

Right so in order to make that work

28:21

well , you obviously need a set

28:24

of values and how we do things around

28:26

here like a playbook . Yeah

28:28

and because otherwise that could just be a rat's

28:30

nest or a hornet's nest

28:32

.

28:33

Yeah , yeah , I think yeah , two

28:35

things we could talk about here . One is company

28:37

values , yeah , and the other is is like

28:39

a team charter . So you

28:42

know , sometimes I've helped some executive

28:44

teams come up with that and it's it's different from

28:46

your values . It's just a set of behaviors

28:48

this team creates that says this is how

28:50

we're gonna succeed together , right , and

28:52

it would be things like hey , we're gonna consult each

28:54

other when we should be , we're gonna

28:56

have the courage to face conflict when we need

28:58

it , so on and so forth .

29:01

I think something that that , that that

29:03

we have in the construction industry , especially

29:05

On site , would

29:07

be something like the builders code . Yeah , right , the builders

29:09

code pledges really , like that . It's like a team charter

29:11

of like how are we gonna treat each other on a job site

29:13

, how do we approach conflict , how do

29:15

we approach bullying , all that kind of stuff , right . So I

29:17

think that's something that would be very applicable

29:19

to our listeners in construction , right ?

29:21

So yeah , yeah , totally so

29:23

. When it comes to there's

29:26

a company having like

29:28

a credo , ethos

29:30

, you know

29:32

tagline , that maybe even is even public-facing

29:35

, something they have to live up to , how

29:38

does that dovetail with values

29:40

? And then you

29:44

know , sort of like how putting values

29:46

in action I mean a lot of these things are

29:48

the same words and you see them on this it's

29:51

the same stuff . I mean , I used to do this when

29:54

I was doing branding , because part of your , your

29:56

brand values are part of an extension , or your corporate

29:58

values . So you know

30:00

, for how

30:02

does that have you come

30:04

up against ? This sort of that doesn't make

30:06

sense if this isn't there and that like , how does that sort of

30:08

block and tackling work ?

30:10

Yeah , yeah , vision and values together

30:12

. The best way I can answer that is is

30:14

give the example of rack space back

30:16

in the days of managed hosting the

30:19

golden days , golden era of managed hosting

30:21

back around 2008 , 2012

30:23

. We had it so right . The vision

30:25

was to be recognized as one of

30:27

the world's greatest service organizations . I Was

30:32

touring a friend from Canada around the office and

30:34

it was all open floor . Even

30:36

the GM Sat at

30:38

a pot of desks . No offices , everybody

30:41

had their full country flag hanging above their desk

30:43

and in London , you can imagine how diverse and colorful

30:45

and vibrant that is oh yeah . I'm touring around

30:47

, she says , wow , this place looks amazing . What's

30:49

the vision here ? I stopped the next

30:51

random employee in the hall and I asked them and I knew

30:53

they would say it to be recognized as one of the World's

30:56

greatest service organizations . Nice

30:58

, the reason that

31:00

worked ? It was tied to the strategy

31:02

of rack space . Right , rack space was white glove

31:04

service . If you want the lowest cost

31:06

hosting provider , we invite you to go to our competition

31:09

, but if you need white glove service

31:11

and you're gonna pay a premium , come to us . So

31:14

the the vision was all about supporting

31:16

how we win in the market and

31:19

when you have something simple like

31:21

that that you can measure . You know , every town

31:24

hall , every monthly town hall , which were called open

31:26

book , very transparent culture . The

31:28

first number the GM

31:31

talked about was net promoter score . How

31:34

do we know we're winning and

31:36

succeeding on this mission of being

31:38

recognized as one of the world's greatest service organizations

31:40

? Yeah , we compared ourselves to Ritz Carlton

31:42

, not the hosting industry , because Look

31:45

you ever . You know I call the telecoms company . Yeah

31:47

, I tried to get . Service is not a high bar . Yeah

31:50

, that's right . That's right . So

31:52

that was the vision side and

31:54

and worked really well . Everybody loved it . The

31:57

values were done so well also at

31:59

rack space and we

32:02

had values . I still . I posted about this on LinkedIn

32:04

Last month got lots of engagement

32:07

from people who haven't worked there in a decade saying

32:09

I still believe in , resonate with those values

32:11

.

32:11

Oh , nice , yeah , was that the one that the posting you

32:13

did with their flag , right ? Is that a different

32:15

one , different one ? Yeah , both about rack space

32:17

, that's right , I did the flag .

32:18

Everyone signed my flag when I left and I still have it

32:20

in my backyard office in North . Van yeah

32:22

, but the values just to talk

32:25

about what brings values to life , because they're all words

32:27

on a wall . Right when I onboarded

32:29

at rack space , we

32:32

were growing super fast . I think there were 20

32:34

or 30 people in my onboarding week

32:36

and we had an

32:39

hour session on the values , where

32:41

someone came and described the values , talked

32:43

, and it was right before lunch and they said they

32:45

said this , they , they put us in little groups and they said okay

32:47

, you three , you have

32:49

the value , fanatical support and everything

32:51

we do . We want you to go out

32:53

and find a random employee You've never met or talked

32:56

to before and get them to tell you a story about

32:58

that value being lived and then come back

33:00

and tell all the rest of the new hires and

33:03

the stories that came back blew your mind . Oh nice

33:05

and you're like , wow , these are not words on

33:07

a wall , right , right , they're lived , right . Yeah

33:09

they're lived and also tied to strategy . Right , fanatical

33:11

support and everything we do . We went on strategy . We

33:14

have to compete that way , right , right .

33:16

So for Jesse

33:18

in your new role , yeah , like you , I

33:21

mean , you've been having to listen to other

33:23

people for a while , yeah , now you're the guy

33:25

that's right . So Question

33:28

for you , colin , and maybe this can

33:30

give some shed some light to what

33:32

I'm sure that you're going through , probably

33:34

Is that how much of

33:37

the Corporate values

33:39

are an extension of

33:41

the leaders values as

33:43

a person , because the person is a

33:45

total douchebag and you're like well

33:47

, that's how

33:50

people treat each other around here , because that's how

33:52

that person treats everybody , right , the

33:55

values you know could be

33:57

words on a wall , as you said , not lived , etc

33:59

. So for Jesse and myself Obviously

34:03

our values being good people , we think

34:05

we know , we're considerate to people , all those kinds of things how

34:07

much do those flow down ? Flow down , you

34:10

know , via gravity , to

34:12

the corporate values for us to even be able to live

34:14

them ?

34:15

Yeah , I think there . I think there's

34:17

two camps here . One is what

34:19

are the actual values that are being lived , if you just observe

34:21

and are honest about it , and the second one

34:23

is what are your aspirational values ? So

34:25

a lot of leaders might talk more about

34:28

aspirational values . No , we should be transparent

34:30

. We should do this and look with , with leadership

34:32

, it's not what you preach is what you tolerate . So

34:35

you can have a value that says we have a culture

34:37

of excellence here . But

34:40

then if you , if

34:42

you don't hold people accountable , if

34:44

you tolerate missed goals and you don't

34:46

say anything , then actually your culture is not one

34:48

of excellence , it's . It's not what you say , it's what you

34:50

tolerate , right ? So you have these

34:52

. What are the real ones that exist ? And then , what

34:54

are your aspirational ones ? Sometimes they're not aligned . I

34:57

find founders will often

34:59

have a really good grasp on what

35:01

the the values of the organization are . You

35:04

know for Jesse , for you , I mean , you came in

35:06

six months ago , so I don't know how that

35:08

works out with with you and your experience .

35:10

Yeah , I know it's interesting because part of what , when we had

35:12

originally met and we did do some strategic

35:14

planning we I took a look at our values

35:16

, not not I , we as a management team

35:19

, and Maven took a look at our values and Really

35:21

redefined what they are and part of

35:23

the metric we use for each other and people

35:26

that we bring on board , as do they live and model those

35:28

values . So I would say that at this point

35:30

, they're not aspirational like they're what's happening

35:32

right now , but I think that's probably

35:34

part two of when we do . Our strategic planning

35:36

for 2025 Is talk about

35:38

where do we want to be in terms of ? Well , I'd like

35:41

to check in and are we , have we modeled and live these

35:43

values that we Assigned a year ago

35:45

or that we that we put together a year

35:47

ago ? And what is ? Where do we want to be ? Because

35:49

we , like our vision is to is

35:52

to have 50 million dollars in revenue by 2033

35:54

and also deliver at continue

35:56

delivering excellence , be known as a

35:58

leader in owner's rep with utility and municipal

36:00

infrastructure Within western

36:02

canada and western us . I mean , the next step for

36:04

us is to go south . So I think that

36:07

the values that we have put together are

36:09

. I agree with what you're saying . It's what

36:12

do I think the value should be , but

36:14

also collaborative Strategic

36:16

planning with my management team and that what

36:19

do we feel we can actually model and live like

36:21

what ?

36:21

let's be real here , because I you

36:24

don't want to be phony , that's yeah , yeah , like listening to you

36:26

guys and and and .

36:27

Keep talking about having up on a wall . I totally agree . I've worked

36:29

at organizations where you have values up

36:32

on a wall and you know it's all phony baloney . Yeah

36:34

and no one believes in them . And I like what Colin was

36:36

saying , how you could grab somebody in

36:38

that organization and say , give me an

36:40

Example of this and they would be enthusiastic

36:42

and tell you a great story , I

36:44

think . I think a lot of us in a lot of

36:47

organizations would struggle if we just randomly

36:49

grabbed one of our team members and said

36:51

, hey , tell me about this value or what's our vision

36:53

like . So I think that that that is

36:55

a real , a real example

36:57

of as a successful organization

37:00

living their values and people buying into it

37:02

and believing it and being enthusiastic

37:04

about it .

37:04

Right yeah yeah , stories bring values

37:06

to life . Totally , totally . That's the

37:08

biggest thing I could share there so with

37:11

the , the

37:14

sort of tenure of

37:16

.

37:16

You know , the average time somebody spends at a company

37:18

by

37:21

the time that they've completely adopted and

37:23

are living and breathing is

37:25

often when they're also

37:27

In the time they're

37:30

looking maybe somewhere else or

37:32

like . So Having

37:35

those values be very sticky and

37:37

very like the stories

37:40

are really good because it gets people that kind of you

37:42

know , pull , pull themselves out of their

37:44

Thoughts

37:47

of all , I could go to another job and actually refocus

37:49

them what they're doing now and have some more meaning . So what

37:53

is the ? Is there

37:55

some kind of a strata of connection between

37:58

income levels and people being engaged in

38:00

values ?

38:02

I don't know from my experience , I think you

38:05

know , I think people like we all want to be part

38:07

of tribes , right , like that's pretty well documented . And

38:10

when you find , when you find yourself

38:12

in a culture with people with shared values , it's

38:15

, it's phenomenal . I think when you find yourself in a

38:17

place with disparate values , it ends up being really difficult

38:19

to have longevity . So

38:23

I haven't seen any studies on this , but I would . I would

38:25

imagine there's a correlation with more longevity , staying

38:27

somewhere and being in a place where you have shared values with

38:29

the organization that people you work with . I

38:32

totally agree , I think , from a retention standpoint .

38:33

I mean something that everyone deals with . I mean especially what

38:36

I see in engineering construction is Recruiting

38:39

is a whole challenge . Recruiting is a whole challenge

38:42

, but then actually , when you get the retention is the

38:44

other part ? Yeah , when you get the right people in , how do you

38:46

keep them around ? Yeah , and I , and you

38:48

know , coming up in my career , I know there is nothing more repulsive

38:51

to me than A leader saying out

38:53

there saying something when you know that that's

38:55

not reality . And I think that when you can get

38:57

people to buy into values and and that

38:59

you model them as leader in your leadership team models them

39:01

, but even the most junior person

39:03

in the organization models them as well you really

39:05

get a sense of belonging and , like that you fit in . Yeah

39:08

because if you don't feel like , if you feel like you're

39:10

a square peg going into a A

39:12

round hole and it eventually you're just going to get

39:14

tired and move on , right . And so I

39:16

think this day in age , especially with more junior

39:19

folks , they really want to see you

39:21

model . What is your edi policy and

39:23

what is your work from home policy and do

39:25

you really support work

39:27

, life balance and and people

39:29

with families at home and all that kind of stuff ? Right

39:31

? Because if it's lip service , people are going to jump ship

39:33

, right .

39:33

Right . I got a question on when

39:36

you say we're

39:38

all like , you know , we're all In

39:41

these tribes , and then

39:43

If you add ism

39:45

to the end of it , it's suddenly an icky term , like

39:48

if you could say we're all tribes and some yeah , that's tribalism

39:51

. People's like , well , I don't want to be tribalism

39:53

, that's terrible , but isn't that the same

39:55

thing ?

39:56

Yeah , it's really strange . I remember

39:58

you know what comes to mind when you say that is we

40:00

. I was at a place where we moved offices

40:02

and we were moving from

40:05

sort of two different buildings into one and we're

40:07

trying to map out what's the optimal floor

40:09

plan and layout to to encourage

40:11

teams to work well together , and not just within teams

40:13

but teams and other teams . And

40:16

I remember thinking in the time like the best thing

40:18

is just a giant football field where everybody's

40:20

on the same floor . Yeah , uh , because

40:22

we , we hear and we talk about siloed

40:24

thinking all the time . Right , and siloed

40:26

thinking , you know , part of that is

40:28

is it's kind of that tribalism

40:31

gone too far where it's like I'm here to protect

40:33

my phyphdom and all I care about

40:35

is marketing or operations

40:38

or engineering or finance . I don't care

40:40

about all the rest of your problems . Yeah

40:43

, and that's not good , because these groups have

40:45

to work together to achieve common goals

40:47

. Right , and it's one of those things you know

40:49

, for anyone here on a leadership journey thinking

40:51

about Progressing through

40:54

your leadership career , the more senior you

40:56

get typically , the more you need to bust

40:58

out of siloed thinking , because you

41:00

know you're sitting on the executive team of

41:02

a company . You can't just be

41:04

there representing marketing or engineering

41:06

, you need to represent the

41:08

whole organization and think about how these pieces

41:11

work together . Yeah , so you know

41:13

, one thing we talk about is I

41:15

think this is from Pat Lynch Oni's a great

41:17

book called five dysfunctions of a team . Yeah , really

41:20

great read on on on team

41:22

performance and I think

41:24

there's something in there about who's your first team and who's your second

41:26

team . And

41:29

I'll ask that of executive team . Sometimes I'll

41:31

say , look , you're all here , you all have a function

41:33

you run , but

41:35

is that your first team or is this

41:38

executive team ? You're on your first team and it's not

41:40

a universal answer from people . Now

41:42

Lynch Oni , I think , really believes look , your first

41:44

team has to be your executive team , because

41:47

if you're putting the needs of your fife , dem or

41:49

function or silo first , then

41:51

we're not getting that cross-functional leadership

41:53

, we're getting this sort of blue on blue

41:55

fighting in the executive boardroom

41:57

.

41:58

So does this come from ? Like human nature

42:00

, Like typical

42:03

, like human dynamics , of where Even

42:05

everyone says hunter-gatherer , like going back

42:07

to those times when everyone had to Um

42:10

, bifurcate every kind of function

42:12

that went on in a tribe . You had

42:14

X-men going out to hunt , the other people coming

42:16

and making sure the place was orderly and

42:18

the other people getting milling

42:20

rice or milling grain or there's

42:23

all these different functions that go on , and

42:26

then you have people who manage

42:29

those groups of people and that's kind of like

42:31

a company at that point right . So it's like a . So

42:33

is this ingrained in us to

42:36

live that way , behave that way ?

42:39

Yeah , I think you're onto something there . You

42:41

know we think about conflict , right , there's

42:43

something I heard recently I'm struggling to remember it

42:45

exactly but you know you think about all the conflict

42:48

in the world today . There's conflict

42:50

between countries or conflict within countries , and

42:52

you know , if there wasn't any conflict anywhere , where

42:55

are you going to find the conflict ? You're going to go to your family

42:57

, yeah , so there's like there's always something about

42:59

. There's definitely a tribe somewhere . But

43:02

where does that demarcation line end , right ? So ? But

43:04

there's a reliance on different .

43:06

you could call them , there'd

43:08

be celebrity jobs within the

43:11

let's just go back to . You know there would be

43:13

the I guess , the celebration of they're going

43:15

out to hunt . And what did they come

43:17

back with

43:20

? Is there a curiosity and excitement about because

43:24

there's an element of surprise what happens

43:26

at the camp or the , whatever you call it , the town or

43:29

whatever you would call ? it

43:31

or where they're residing is , is that you kind of see it's all open

43:33

. You kind of see it's all open anyway

43:35

. There's no surprises , the same stuff going on . But

43:40

yet if they went out and killed , but

43:44

there was no fuel to have the fire going , they

43:46

didn't have any preservatives . The kill

43:48

would die if they weren't able to cook

43:50

it in time . Right , so

43:54

the lower

43:56

, less celebrity job was just as important , because

43:59

the celebrity kill wouldn't be

44:01

able to be eaten without that . The celebrity kill

44:03

wouldn't be able to be eaten without that lower

44:06

echelon of you

44:08

know a function within the tribe , right ? So

44:11

is there parallels between that ? Now

44:13

?

44:14

I see them , I see them . The classic one

44:17

I see is people in support functions

44:19

. You know , in my career I worked

44:21

in , I worked in IT

44:23

at some point right where you're basically

44:25

supporting people internally like a help desk

44:27

. Yeah . And you're just a

44:30

. It's a thankless job . A lot of the time , right

44:32

when I have something wrong , I need you and I'm complaining

44:34

at you all the time . When

44:36

I left and when I went to Rackspace , I

44:39

was leading a frontline support organization

44:41

there , but we were the product . It's

44:45

the same work . We're like managing servers , fixing

44:48

things for people , but we were the product

44:50

and we were treated differently , right

44:52

. And I've seen and heard that in other organizations

44:54

, where support staff feel like second-class citizens

44:57

, yeah Right , and that they provide such

44:59

an important role and it's something that you know

45:01

. I see like , if you're , if you're someone who's not

45:03

in a support function , if

45:05

you're in , you know the product or you're

45:07

in that celebrity type of role , yeah

45:10

, I encourage you , treat the people in support functions

45:12

with a lot of respect .

45:14

Yeah .

45:14

Because they do a great job for you .

45:16

So many things dangerous is that if you let , if

45:18

you let your role dictate kind of how you

45:20

approach people , your ego and everything else that

45:22

can get you in a lot of hot water , right , and

45:24

I've seen that and I think that that's

45:26

where people that I look up to and that I see

45:29

that are successful , they're humble

45:31

, right , and they they have

45:33

realized what we're talking about , that everyone does

45:35

play a role . And maybe you're over

45:37

here doing this and I'm over here doing this , but just like

45:39

your example , well , if I bring

45:41

home this big buffalo for us to

45:43

eat and there's no one to cook it or preserve

45:45

it or anything , then it's just going to rot out or do the job

45:48

. Yeah . Yeah exactly or do the work Exactly

45:50

?

45:50

Exactly , yeah , yeah , yes , yeah

45:52

. It's , um when

45:56

I'm we can sort of

45:58

chat about this a little bit , but

46:00

I find that there's we're

46:03

in a strange time right now

46:05

where there's this magnification

46:11

of the haves and have nots you

46:13

know , because it's sort of the middle class is kind of

46:15

shrinking and you know the , the

46:17

wealth gap , or I've already , I've already you know how are

46:19

we going to label that . But what

46:21

we're seeing now is that , in

46:24

order , those in power

46:26

are seeing have

46:28

you heard of this ? The rise of the men in Jirio class

46:30

. No , okay , so this is this

46:33

, is this concept of um

46:35

, in order for you could

46:37

just call it a king or a queen , for instance

46:39

, owner of a company , ceo , whatever

46:41

it is in order for them to , to , to

46:44

continue to collect their million

46:46

, two million , whatever dollars that they

46:48

make , um and

46:51

obviously way more than that and other companies , bezos

46:54

, all those guys , they need everyone to

46:56

do their thing in order for them to collect their

46:58

check . And the

47:01

rise of the managerial class is essentially this

47:03

when they all get together and

47:05

the mob says , no , we're

47:09

not doing this , because you

47:12

know , maybe the values are are not aligned

47:15

or , uh , the company hasn't kept

47:17

up with inflation or pressures

47:20

of um . A

47:22

perfect example is you know , if , uh

47:25

, city of Vancouver , you want you get your property

47:27

tax done and you use you , you

47:29

feel like saying to the city , can you fix

47:32

like a bunch of stuff , and they don't . Yeah

47:34

. That's what that would feel like , Right , it would

47:36

feel like I don't want to pay my taxes . But we get , you

47:38

know , find if we don't . Right yeah

47:40

. People just leave companies , yeah , or

47:42

they come together and they say , no

47:44

, you clean that up , other than we're not doing our

47:47

thing . So what do you think ? This rise

47:49

of , uh , the

47:52

, that managerial class kind of pushing

47:55

upward , saying we're not going to , you

47:57

don't get to have your life anymore unless

47:59

we're happy ?

48:01

Yeah , it's super interesting that

48:03

another trend I'd relate

48:05

to that is is a population

48:08

right ? Yeah , so you know we're

48:10

in an we're in an extended labor shortage

48:13

for the next decade . Uh , there's

48:15

boomers retiring . There aren't enough younger

48:17

people to replace them . So how are we going

48:19

to fill that need ? Immigration is part of

48:21

it , yeah , I think . I think innovation is another

48:23

part of it , especially for Canadian organizations

48:26

. Uh , a lot of Canadian

48:28

organizations are lagging behind U S

48:30

organizations and others in in innovation . So

48:33

, going to a factory and seeing just humans doing

48:35

things , I think , I think we're behind there . Automation innovation

48:37

yeah . So that's a big part , but there there just aren't

48:39

enough people . So I think that creates

48:41

a power shift . Where I mean most

48:43

of my life and career it's been an employee

48:46

employers market . They have the power

48:48

, yeah . Yeah . We saw through COVID

48:51

it really shifted like 2022

48:53

. Oh yeah , 2022 was hey

48:56

. Look , if you're not happy in your job , leave and go

48:58

get at least a 10% bump wherever you

49:00

want . Yeah , everybody needed people . Right

49:02

. And we saw that reverse . You know 2023

49:05

and even early 2024

49:07

, there's been a lot of layoffs in the tech industry , so

49:09

I think the power is sort of shifting

49:11

back and you see it with things like work from home . Yeah

49:14

. Where I think a lot of leaders were

49:16

very reluctant to be directive

49:19

with their work from home policies , yeah

49:21

, and I saw a lot of it shift last year where it was

49:23

a lot more directive like come in three days a

49:25

week or come in five days a week and if you don't like it , go

49:27

work somewhere else .

49:28

That's right yeah .

49:29

But doesn't like work from home , only really work

49:31

for like A and B players .

49:34

Yeah , I think so yeah .

49:36

Otherwise it's just not working .

49:38

No , I mean , if you have a C player , they're probably not

49:40

doing a lot of work in the office . They're definitely not doing

49:42

a lot of work at home . That's right . That's right .

49:44

Well , I think the room for development for a C player

49:46

is limited at home too , because when I look

49:48

at even myself in my

49:50

career and what I learned being in the office

49:52

around the water cooler , running into people in the

49:54

hallway and just kind of learning

49:57

through being there , I think when you

49:59

have somebody that's at home , that's maybe not performing

50:01

, and then if they're at home as well and there's distractions

50:03

, they're not interacting with people . It's just a recipe

50:05

for disaster , right ?

50:06

So the question is is work

50:09

from home a corporate virtue ? Is

50:11

it an ad ? Is it like a yeah

50:14

, you can do this because we're a great

50:16

company and we want to position ourselves as , or

50:19

is it like

50:22

? This is the part that I find this is

50:24

really hard to map . Is that ? Not everybody

50:26

understands how the companies make money ? Like

50:30

we can slice it a billion

50:32

ways , but if you don't understand the pure economics of how a company

50:34

works , like

50:37

there needs to be a multiple on time

50:39

in order to convert into dollars , that's right

50:41

. If people aren't producing , you're not getting

50:44

that . And

50:46

if they're doing it in their pajamas or barely doing

50:48

it and doing their laundry half the time , like

50:52

part , we can get into this

50:54

part , because I find this quite interesting is that you

50:58

know , jesse always is

51:01

well put together , tie clip , immaculate

51:03

, all the time , but it's his ritual . You

51:09

can tell . He gets up in the morning , probably has a thing

51:11

he does , and he gets ready for battle every day , and

51:13

there's something to be said for that of

51:16

getting ready for battle . That's what work is

51:18

. It's called work for a reason , and

51:21

I think we've become more and more of a company

51:24

. I think we've become

51:26

a bit soft . We've become

51:29

a oh , what about me ? Well , go

51:31

and start a company then .

51:34

Yeah , I mean , I definitely think there's

51:37

a bit of softness right . I did a Peloton

51:39

ride a few days ago and the

51:42

instructor Robin Arzon , it was a

51:44

90s hip hop ride . Oh nice .

51:46

That's awesome .

51:47

And she said this the song is from back in

51:49

1991 , when no one cared about your

51:51

excuses . You did a post about that

51:53

today .

51:54

I saw that . I saw that . Yeah , I like that .

51:56

It resonated because back in the 90s you'd

51:58

hear suck it up by a cup and

52:00

I think the world has progressed a lot . It's

52:05

a lot safer for men to talk about feelings

52:07

. It's a lot safer to talk about mental health . It's

52:09

a lot safer to say you're not okay . There's

52:11

a lot of positive that's come from that and

52:15

my point in that post today was

52:17

who doesn't care about your excuses ? Are

52:19

the scarce resources you covet yeah .

52:21

Ooh , that's good .

52:24

If you want , we live in a Vancouver

52:26

. This is an expensive real estate . It's

52:28

not the only place . You talk to anyone in any major

52:30

North American city they're not saying

52:33

oh , it's cheap here , that's right . And so

52:35

if you want to live somewhere that's attractive

52:37

and central , you're competing

52:39

for a very scarce resource . That's right . And

52:42

if you're not hustling

52:44

right hustle culture gets a bad name today Some

52:48

places if you don't come in on Saturday , don't bother coming

52:50

back in on Sunday , right , yeah yeah

52:52

, right . No one's forcing anybody to work in places

52:54

like that , but who are we to say that's

52:56

bad If that's what you want to do , if you

52:58

want to go work in an investment bank on Wall Street and

53:01

have that experience , go nuts

53:03

.

53:03

if that's what you want to do , but this is what I'm getting at Are

53:06

these actions as companies ? We do it too

53:08

, so I mean , it's not like a lot

53:11

of our staff work at home , etc . But

53:15

the question are we doing this because we feel

53:17

we have to ? Do we truly

53:19

? When you say living the values , is

53:21

that really or are we just placating

53:23

?

53:25

Yeah , I think I see both . I

53:28

talked to some CEOs who have hybrid

53:31

or fully remote workplaces and

53:33

they're not placating . They're like , hey

53:35

, on top of

53:37

my metrics , we're succeeding , we're fulfilling

53:40

clients' needs and all this and I'm happy and it's working

53:42

. And then I know others which are like I'm

53:44

worried about losing people , so I feel like I have

53:46

to offer flexibility or I won't have work

53:48

here . So I see both .

53:50

Like one thing that I always ask when

53:52

someone's like hey , working

53:54

remotely , I'm like , what's remote ? Look like

53:56

. Like , do you have a good monitor

53:59

? Like , do you have

54:01

a keyboard ? Are you hunched over your coffee

54:03

table trying to do what you would do

54:05

with two screens in your face ? Yeah , At

54:07

the office , that's right , you know . Like you don't have

54:09

. It's like if you

54:11

want to win a cycling race , you can't

54:14

do it on a tricycle . Yeah , you

54:16

just can't . I know

54:18

it's somewhere else , but you're on a tricycle . The

54:23

pedal , the shafts on the cranks are only so long

54:25

, yeah , right .

54:25

So you can't get far , that's right .

54:29

So it's like , if you can do it , well , but

54:32

I just I don't know

54:34

. I mean , I think , have

54:37

you heard of this paradigm

54:40

of the meaning vacuum ? Have you

54:42

heard of this ? No . Recently there's this

54:45

a lot of podcasters

54:47

are talking about the meaning vacuum of the fact that religion

54:50

is at an all-time low . I

54:53

think it's been a 70% decrease

54:55

over the past number of years , which

54:57

is huge . It is huge , yeah , so when people

54:59

don't have anything to believe in , we

55:02

now have to fill it with something else . Yeah

55:04

, right , so we have to fill it with meaning

55:06

of our job , to fill it with meaning of who

55:09

we are , our identity . Our job is a

55:11

huge extension of our identity . I

55:13

was talking about the barbecue session , which

55:15

is you go to a backyard barbecue

55:18

and or a patio at someone's

55:20

house and you have the

55:22

small talk yeah , yeah , you know , it sounds like you hear it . Hey

55:24

, so what do you do ? Extension of the identity

55:26

, boom right there . Right , it's the barbecue talk . So

55:29

if you say , well , I work at Tesla

55:32

. If you're like , oh really , or I work at Amazon

55:34

, oh , what do you do ? Or if I work at , like

55:37

you know , smuzzle Widget

55:39

Company , they're

55:41

like oh , there's no cashier , yeah so . I mean

55:43

, this extension of the

55:45

identity is really becoming rampant

55:47

in terms of what someone's

55:49

work-life , work-life balance , who

55:52

they are , how they can virtue

55:54

themselves to other people with their social credibility

55:56

, is all wrapped up in us trying

55:58

to run companies . Yeah , yeah , and it's

56:00

a shit show , yeah . Oh

56:03

, totally Because we got to do it all .

56:04

Yeah , but it's so dangerous to let that

56:07

define you too . I find , right Like , I've got friends

56:09

that have been in roles

56:11

. They're hey , look at me and everything else doesn't

56:13

work out . Well , they're

56:15

crushed right . Or now , who are they ? What do

56:18

they do ? Like it's . I think you

56:20

need to really have that line in the sand

56:22

of who you are personally , who you are professionally . If

56:24

you can mesh those two together , that's great , but don't let that

56:26

define you .

56:27

Right .

56:27

That's where I've seen failures , right so

56:29

.

56:33

But I mean , when I look at a guy like you , I go OK

56:35

, well , you got your shit together .

56:37

I try .

56:38

So not everyone's like that .

56:40

Yeah , true .

56:43

So I mean , you have the good

56:46

gray matter between the ears to be like , yeah , you can't

56:48

mix these things . I got to be this guy here

56:50

and this guy here and that's because you're intentional

56:52

about your life , right ? A lot of people

56:54

are like on ice , slipping

56:56

everywhere . Yeah , without skates , right I mean it's

56:59

like so maybe , colin

57:01

, like , how

57:03

do you have these , some of these conversations

57:06

at some of your clients these days ?

57:08

Yeah .

57:09

Yeah definitely .

57:12

I mean , some of the conversations will be sort of

57:14

post-exit , right , Like someone sells a

57:16

business . That's like that was a massive part of my identity

57:18

. What do I do now ? Right Now , the headspace

57:21

is a lot more about meaning and

57:23

purpose beyond my

57:25

identity in that organization , right ? Yeah

57:28

, you know one thing

57:30

I did I was young , I'd

57:32

left EA right that

57:34

hide of the dot com bubble . I went to Tefino

57:36

, I went to Pacific

57:38

Sands on my own for a retreat of

57:41

one , and I had a book with me . I

57:43

had Stephen Covey's Seven Habits

57:45

book . OK , and there's a chapter

57:47

in there about begin with the end in mind , and it's all about vision

57:49

Right , and

57:52

I went there not really knowing what I was doing

57:54

, but I came out with three things that , 24

57:57

years later , still are my North

57:59

Star . It's I want to

58:01

build a strong future for my family , I

58:04

want to help other people grow and I want

58:06

to have fun along the way , and

58:08

that's been my North Star for choices , personally

58:10

and professionally . In fact , like I

58:13

spent 26 years in tech and video games , why did

58:15

I leave there ? It wasn't exactly

58:17

tied to my North Star . Gotcha

58:19

. And I noticed about myself look

58:21

, I'm more drawn to people in leadership . What

58:24

would it be like to design a life where

58:26

actually all I did was help people

58:28

grow Right ? And so

58:30

I played the long game with that and intentionally

58:33

left corporate life and

58:35

the gaming industry to be a coach , consultant

58:38

, sure , and I

58:40

love it . So I feel like I have

58:42

that intentionality and I feel

58:44

like my work and my life

58:47

are integrated . Being

58:49

a solo , you have a lot of discretionary time on

58:52

how to do it . But what I've learned , like I talked

58:54

to a friend who said , colin , you're the most intentional person

58:56

I know , and I've realized

58:58

actually a lot of people are not intentional about

59:00

things like that .

59:01

They've got to fall into it . Is that what you

59:03

mean ? Yeah , it's OK , you have your shit together too .

59:05

Yeah , I'm curious about you guys Like how

59:07

you're intentional Like .

59:09

I'd just love to hear you guys comment about intentionality

59:11

as well .

59:12

Yeah , I mean , that's it . I'll tell you

59:14

what For me . I think I had my

59:16

idea of what let's

59:18

call , like your term , like North Star

59:21

, what that was , before

59:23

I met my wife and then , once

59:25

I was with my wife , then I having a

59:27

baby , and that changes . So I think

59:29

that , for me at least , that North Star

59:32

has changed . But I think it's OK

59:34

. Your meaning of

59:36

success can change , but

59:39

I think your core value is still like for me . I

59:42

share the value with you of family . That's always been

59:44

something that's core to me , and before

59:47

I had my own family , it was like my parents

59:49

and that side of my

59:51

family . And now that I have my own family , it's like when

59:54

I make decisions , how is this going to impact my family ? How

59:56

is this going to impact my ability to spend quality

59:58

time and be present ? And I

1:00:00

think that for me , that's something

1:00:03

that I've struggled with taking

1:00:05

on this role I'm in now , too , is that

1:00:07

there's so many things I want to do , but

1:00:09

you need to be intentional about where you spend your time , where you're

1:00:11

going to get the biggest bang or return

1:00:14

on your one minute in , what do you get out

1:00:16

of that ? But also , are you going

1:00:18

to go home at night and be totally burnt out and just

1:00:20

fall down on the floor . That's no good either , so

1:00:24

I'm definitely not the person to give advice . I've

1:00:26

struggled without myself , but I think I've got a formula

1:00:28

that works for me . Now I don't know

1:00:30

, james , what are your thoughts on that ?

1:00:33

I struggle with it because every

1:00:37

time I think about being

1:00:39

intentional , I

1:00:42

think I am default that way . But

1:00:47

I'm 52 now and

1:00:50

there's a bit of nihilism

1:00:52

that comes in . What

1:00:55

is this all for ? And it starts to happen

1:00:57

when you get a little bit older . You go , ok

1:01:00

, what's after this ? And

1:01:04

then if there's no evidence

1:01:06

and obviously if you guys are religious , take

1:01:08

this for the grain of salt . But for those

1:01:10

who are like , if there's no trophy ceremony

1:01:12

, I get to look back and be like , well , james , good

1:01:14

for you , you did this and this and this it's just black

1:01:17

and I don't even know . I'm there because it's so black

1:01:19

, because I can't even tell , and

1:01:21

what does all this mean anyway ? And

1:01:25

so that part makes me

1:01:27

sort of temper

1:01:30

. All of my decisions with

1:01:33

things matter , but

1:01:36

don't get too caught up in

1:01:38

it , because if you do

1:01:40

, I

1:01:44

think that's what the epiphany people get

1:01:46

when they go to space they're

1:01:48

out in the blackness and you see this little blue

1:01:51

and green ball there . And they're like oh my

1:01:53

god , why do we care about we're

1:01:55

having bourboned ? Is

1:01:58

this cut crystal ? I don't know if it

1:02:00

is . This minutiae that we focus

1:02:02

on as humans is this

1:02:05

are we missing something

1:02:07

? So when we talk about that meaning

1:02:09

vacuum or religion going to like there's a lot of nihilism

1:02:12

going on , so a lot of people are very

1:02:14

uncomfortable .

1:02:15

Yeah , you know another angle

1:02:18

I think about on that . I

1:02:20

was coaching someone in the marine industry many

1:02:23

years ago and they

1:02:25

were telling me a story where

1:02:27

they're on their client's $20 million yacht

1:02:29

and their client turned

1:02:32

to them and said I feel dead inside . Oh

1:02:35

jeez , and yeah . That was my reaction . Wow

1:02:37

, and I've gotten really

1:02:39

curious and I asked my client . They're like well

1:02:41

, yeah , this person basically sacrificed

1:02:45

their marriage and their health and their

1:02:47

family all for career and wealth . Right

1:02:49

?

1:02:49

And that's how they feel .

1:02:50

And now they have this prize , this yacht and

1:02:52

they're standing on it and feeling dead inside

1:02:54

, totally so since then

1:02:56

I've always asked high net worth

1:02:58

individuals what is going on here ? Do

1:03:01

you know what I hear ? I don't hear . Oh

1:03:03

wow , I hear . Yep , that's

1:03:05

kind of the standard .

1:03:06

Oh really , yep , Jeez .

1:03:09

Yeah . So what I

1:03:11

think about there ? I think about two things . I think about success

1:03:13

and fulfillment and

1:03:15

success . One of the problems I

1:03:18

think prevalent in the world today is we're chasing other

1:03:20

people's definitions of success .

1:03:22

Totally Instagram and everything else that's going on

1:03:24

, right , yeah , yeah .

1:03:25

So I think chasing your own definition of success

1:03:27

is the better play . But

1:03:29

even success , it's

1:03:32

ephemeral , it's fleeting , it's temporary

1:03:34

, that's right , you get a new house , get

1:03:36

a new car . How long does that feeling

1:03:39

of success last before it's your new normal ?

1:03:40

That's right .

1:03:41

Yeah , days , yeah , right

1:03:44

. So it's just this never-ending hamster wheel . It's the

1:03:46

hedonic treadmill that you're

1:03:48

on , and so for me , I look at it and it's like

1:03:50

sure , set goals , get promoted , like

1:03:52

, get bigger jobs , bigger houses , all

1:03:54

that kind of stuff , get boats if you want it . But

1:03:57

be mindful that that feeling of success is temporary

1:03:59

. So for me , the better game

1:04:02

is fulfillment , which is doing loving

1:04:04

what you do every day , yeah . And

1:04:06

if you can design a life where

1:04:08

you love what you do every day , I think

1:04:11

that's yeah . I think that's a better thing

1:04:13

to chase than these other people's definitions of

1:04:15

success , or even your own , because they're just temporary

1:04:17

. You need to replace them , that's right .

1:04:18

So what would you say about ? And I

1:04:21

talked to my wife about this this morning

1:04:23

. We were talking about struggle , yeah

1:04:25

, and putting

1:04:28

when

1:04:30

you try and go into achieve things , you're

1:04:32

putting yourself into self-inflicted struggle

1:04:34

. But are we

1:04:36

designed as humans to need struggle

1:04:39

and without it we're

1:04:41

kind of like the guy on the inside ?

1:04:43

Yeah , I mean , the way I think about it is there's an optimal

1:04:45

level of stress ?

1:04:46

Well , there's you stress , and there's the other stress , right . There's the

1:04:48

stress where I'm being chased by a line I'm going

1:04:51

to get eaten , and there's stress where I want to win

1:04:53

the game .

1:04:53

Yeah , two different types of things , yeah

1:04:55

, exactly , and

1:04:57

even in the latter one , where you're trying to win the game , I mean

1:04:59

too much , too prolonged amount of that , I think , can

1:05:02

burn you out and be unhealthy . Not enough

1:05:04

of it leads to complacency , right . So

1:05:06

I think there's that optimal zone of stress . And look for

1:05:08

a lot of people , the way you grow as an organization

1:05:11

, as an individual , you've got

1:05:13

to get out of your comfort zone . Yeah . And that's stressful

1:05:15

Totally . Yeah .

1:05:18

There's . You know , at SiteMax

1:05:20

this was last year we would

1:05:22

do a . The metaphor

1:05:25

for growth was mountaineering

1:05:29

, so going on

1:05:31

an expedition , and I would explain that

1:05:33

someone

1:05:36

would say to me so you know , where are we going

1:05:38

here , what's this going to be like ? I said , ok

1:05:41

, here's what we need to understand

1:05:43

. So these

1:05:45

different milestones we have

1:05:47

of success or things we want

1:05:49

to achieve are like different base camps

1:05:51

on the asset . Now

1:05:54

, I actually cannot tell

1:05:57

you with certainty because

1:05:59

it is life-threatening

1:06:01

what the weather is going to be like around

1:06:04

that north side

1:06:06

. I don't know Other

1:06:09

people have been there but I

1:06:11

can't tell you with 100% certainty

1:06:13

that it's going to

1:06:15

be great , or whether

1:06:18

it's going to be a total hassle to get there , or

1:06:20

whether

1:06:22

or not we're going to be almost out of

1:06:24

oxygen by the time we get there . What

1:06:27

I need to know , though , is that

1:06:30

you have enough faith to

1:06:32

go on this expedition , because if you

1:06:34

go with us and

1:06:37

you , three quarters of the way

1:06:39

, are like I don't want to do this , you're going to kill all of us . That's

1:06:44

why mountaineering , I think , is a really good

1:06:46

metaphor for business , because

1:06:48

we don't know what

1:06:51

the environment is going to throw at us . Everyone's

1:06:54

expecting us to be able to say well

1:06:56

, tell me what the top of the essence like .

1:06:59

I don't know , but everyone's experience is different

1:07:01

too , how they perceive it too . True , true , yeah

1:07:03

, that's the other part .

1:07:05

Somebody might be freaking out that there's a drop here and they don't want to cross

1:07:08

a crevasse when somewhere be like oh , I'm going to give

1:07:10

her shit .

1:07:10

Exactly .

1:07:11

Yeah , I

1:07:13

think there's people

1:07:15

with different risk appetites too , right , but

1:07:17

the world's uncertain , it's

1:07:20

really hard to be able , as a leader , to step

1:07:22

out and say , look , there's an exactly clear path here

1:07:24

and we all know what's going to happen . I think adaptability

1:07:26

is one of the more

1:07:29

important and valuable characteristics today

1:07:31

in leaders and in everybody in an organization

1:07:33

. Can you adapt to the unexpected ? Because COVID

1:07:35

is a great example of that right , obviously , yeah

1:07:37

.

1:07:38

Yeah , huge . Yeah , the

1:07:40

C word Right , that's

1:07:42

right . Yeah , jesus . It's

1:07:46

been such an interesting when we were talking about

1:07:48

the rise of the man in G-Rail class . One

1:07:50

thing that I've

1:07:53

said this on another a number of podcasts

1:07:55

is that where I saw things

1:07:57

change was

1:07:59

when , pre-covid

1:08:02

, when Kellyanne Conway said live

1:08:04

, oh , that's

1:08:06

alternative facts . I'm like what

1:08:08

the hell is an alternative fact

1:08:11

? It's either objectively

1:08:13

true or it isn't . That's right . And

1:08:15

people were like I guess

1:08:17

it's my

1:08:19

subjective truth . So

1:08:22

that mixed with

1:08:24

then we had COVID come and

1:08:27

people can now say , well , this is my truth

1:08:29

about how I feel . It's

1:08:32

like , oh , my God , we're in fantasy

1:08:35

land for most people , because

1:08:37

most people aren't . We're all

1:08:39

struggling in some way and

1:08:42

that just gave us the right to struggle on a whole

1:08:44

new level and virtue ourselves

1:08:46

for saying that I now have the power to say

1:08:48

what I want when I want , like

1:08:51

you've seen it where somebody's like well

1:08:53

, I don't feel safe at the office , it's because

1:08:55

they actually don't want to be the opposite at all , but

1:08:58

now they can say I don't

1:09:00

have the guts to quit , but I'm going to

1:09:02

say I'm not safe . It says that whole thing

1:09:04

going . I mean , good Lord , it

1:09:06

was just and now . What we're

1:09:08

doing is do you think that there is an element

1:09:11

of recapturing

1:09:14

that power again back

1:09:16

to reality a

1:09:18

bit .

1:09:19

I think it's still invoked to be a victim in the world

1:09:21

today .

1:09:22

Why is that ?

1:09:23

It's what we see , right . I mean , you look at it makes

1:09:25

us special . You look at something to talk about . Well

1:09:28

, why ? Why would we take a victim mentality

1:09:30

? Because we can blame others , we

1:09:34

can avoid failing right

1:09:36

. And when you , when you look , when you turn on mainstream

1:09:38

media , go to a lot of places on the internet , what

1:09:41

do you see ? I mean , just talking about mainstream media , it's

1:09:43

all like if it bleeds , it leads , and

1:09:46

it's not media's fault . They're just giving us what we

1:09:48

want . We don't want the good news , we

1:09:50

want the blood and gore and carnage . Yeah , exactly .

1:09:53

And so to make ourselves feel like better , it's

1:09:55

not as bad for us .

1:09:56

I don't know I don't watch mainstream news

1:09:58

, but it's like I

1:10:00

don't think it's news , I think it's entertainment . You

1:10:02

know , and if you want to go see everybody dying

1:10:04

and like all the bad things in the world , go turn on

1:10:07

the news and then . And then you know

1:10:09

they're always looking for victim stories . So what you see

1:10:11

when you're engaging in media is

1:10:14

is victim stories , and so I think

1:10:16

that maybe that gives

1:10:18

people permission to feel , okay , I'm going to be a victim

1:10:20

now and I'm going to like blame others and not take

1:10:22

accountability and responsibility . But that's

1:10:25

one of those things about leading yourself right . If

1:10:27

you're , if you're taking a victim

1:10:29

mentality , you're just disempowering

1:10:31

yourself . It's just I

1:10:33

can't . It's just there's no reason to

1:10:35

do that . Yeah , I agree .

1:10:38

What time is it ? Half

1:10:41

30 , half five , half five , jesse's

1:10:44

like it's all good

1:10:46

, it's all good , so

1:10:49

maybe why don't we ? This has been

1:10:51

pretty , pretty awesome , but I think

1:10:53

there's a couple of like nuggets you could

1:10:55

leave people . So , obviously , jesse

1:10:58

, on the construction , you know engineering space . What

1:11:02

kind of do you have ? Any like , I don't know ? Tip

1:11:05

of your tongue , tips , yeah

1:11:08

.

1:11:08

For you know , for someone who wants to just be

1:11:10

successful , right yeah , then

1:11:13

you know just some general things , because everybody's

1:11:15

going to be at a different place . I think when

1:11:17

you , when I think about leading yourself , it's

1:11:19

about adopt , adopting

1:11:22

the right mindset , and

1:11:24

you know what's a good mindset . Here's

1:11:26

an example you win or you

1:11:28

learn right . Learn this from doing Jiu-Jitsu

1:11:31

. Not everything's going to go your way in your life

1:11:33

and your career and your work and your job , but

1:11:36

if you can adopt this mindset of you

1:11:38

, either win or it's an experience to learn from

1:11:40

you just you show up , you do your

1:11:42

best , you learn from that , you get better , you keep going

1:11:44

, and that's a great way to

1:11:46

lead yourself . because if you don't do

1:11:48

that , if you're someone that complains and you blame others

1:11:51

for trying to make your life better , guess

1:11:53

what ? The people that hold power that are going to help

1:11:55

you succeed in your career are going to see you as someone who's short

1:11:57

of responsibility . When I think about

1:12:00

lead self , I think take that ownership

1:12:02

, adopt a supportive mindset would be one

1:12:04

of the first things I'd say . Okay

1:12:06

.

1:12:07

That's pretty awesome . Second , nice

1:12:09

Should I keep going .

1:12:10

Oh yeah , lead

1:12:13

others . So this , this one look at like a

1:12:15

lot of success in your career is interpersonal

1:12:17

skills , right , like you got to

1:12:19

be good technically at your craft , but

1:12:22

where I think a lot of people fall down

1:12:24

is it's that interpersonal being able to work well

1:12:27

and communicate well with others . So

1:12:29

I would say , invest in that

1:12:31

, especially if you're interested in leadership . I

1:12:33

mean , it's all about people right . Like you know

1:12:36

, in a lot of the leadership development

1:12:38

courses we do and a lot of

1:12:40

even our CEO peer group sessions

1:12:42

, like a lot of the things we're talking about is issues

1:12:44

with people Right . So

1:12:47

being able to collaborate , communicate

1:12:49

well , having empathy

1:12:51

for thinking through other people's perspectives

1:12:54

and what they care about , is

1:12:57

a superpower .

1:12:58

And it's universal too , like not just to our

1:13:00

industry and journey and construction to stay anything

1:13:02

.

1:13:02

I'm sure a lot of your clients from varied

1:13:04

backgrounds have the same issues , right

1:13:06

, so yeah , you know

1:13:08

Joseph Campbell wrote a book in 1949

1:13:11

, the Hero with a Thousand Faces , and a lot

1:13:13

of people talk today about Joseph

1:13:15

Campbell's hero's journey . You

1:13:17

guys familiar with this .

1:13:18

No .

1:13:19

I'll just broad strokes it . In that book

1:13:21

he sort of laid out a template that is

1:13:24

now used in a lot of popular stories

1:13:26

. So Star Wars George Lucas credited

1:13:29

Joseph Campbell with how he built the story for Star Wars

1:13:31

and it kind of goes like this You've

1:13:33

got a character , they've got a problem

1:13:35

, they meet a guide

1:13:38

. The guide calls

1:13:40

them to action , gives them a plan

1:13:42

, and the character then succeeds

1:13:45

All right . So you think about Star Wars

1:13:47

. Luke Skywalker is your character . He

1:13:49

has a problem . What's the problem ? The

1:13:51

empire murdered his aunt and uncle . He

1:13:53

meets a guide . Obi-wan Kenobi calls

1:13:56

them to action , gives them a plan , go learn the force

1:13:59

, take on the Death Star and lead

1:14:01

them to success . And so for most of us

1:14:03

, we're the hero

1:14:05

in our own stories . So the way

1:14:07

we engage with other people at work

1:14:09

in life is I'm the

1:14:11

hero in my own story and all the rest of you are there to

1:14:13

support me on my hero journey Interesting

1:14:15

. But what if you flip the script

1:14:18

? What if you see yourself

1:14:20

as the guide in

1:14:23

your interactions with other people , and

1:14:25

not a guide like , oh , I'm speaking down to you

1:14:27

, but just a guide who

1:14:30

actually has empathy for what other

1:14:32

people's dreams , opportunities , hopes

1:14:34

are , and positioning yourself as someone

1:14:36

who authentically , genuinely wants to help them get

1:14:38

what they want . And when you can

1:14:40

come at relationships from

1:14:42

that angle versus I'm a hero and you're there to serve

1:14:45

me , watch everything change .

1:14:46

Interesting .

1:14:48

I like the empathy thing .

1:14:49

I like the empathy

1:14:51

thing too .

1:14:52

What I think is what add

1:14:54

the diamond sparkle to

1:14:56

empathy is selfless empathy

1:14:58

, and one that I'm not virtueing

1:15:01

. Yeah , do you know what

1:15:03

I mean ? Because a lot of people are seemingly

1:15:05

empathetic , because they want

1:15:07

to tell people they are . It's kind of like , you

1:15:10

know , like a CrossFit people's like you did

1:15:12

CrossFit yeah , I know you do , cause you just told me , yeah

1:15:15

, it's like those , those kind of people , right

1:15:17

? So it's like to

1:15:21

be selfless and

1:15:23

empathetic about people . I

1:15:26

think is is is kind of the

1:15:28

, the magic combo .

1:15:29

Yeah , yeah , I think

1:15:32

people confuse , that , confuse empathy and sympathy

1:15:34

too Right . Sympathy

1:15:36

, as I feel bad for you . Empathy , as I understand

1:15:38

your perspective . It takes work

1:15:40

and effort to do that right , because

1:15:42

if , if I'm going to take the time to understand you , james

1:15:44

, or you , jesse , and how you , really , I have to be

1:15:46

able to listen . Right . I got to shut up . Yeah

1:15:49

, I got to get out

1:15:51

of that gravitational pull to being the hero in my own story and actually

1:15:53

put myself in yours and be patient

1:15:55

. Yeah . And I think for some people

1:15:57

that might seem like the long way

1:15:59

, like , oh , we don't have time for that . Look

1:16:02

, if we're getting shot out on a battlefield , sure , Like

1:16:04

yeah , tell me what to do , Right . But

1:16:07

in the workplace we often have the time

1:16:09

and actually that's the fast way is

1:16:11

when , when people feel understood

1:16:13

, they can move on together

1:16:15

with you , Right ? So that whole

1:16:17

thing about empathy is is a big part

1:16:20

of leading others Nice

1:16:22

.

1:16:23

All right , anything

1:16:25

else , what do you think ? I think it's great . I mean , that was awesome

1:16:27

.

1:16:29

I get excited when Colin , when Colin speaks , when

1:16:31

I you know , as I've gotten to know Colin , I think you

1:16:33

know he's a . He's a great person to bounce

1:16:36

ideas off and give you perspective on things

1:16:38

. Also , you know the the kind of folks

1:16:40

you work with and the different industries you work with . I think

1:16:42

you can bring a good perspective because I

1:16:44

think , with James and I like for me , my head's in the

1:16:46

sand with engineering and consulting and that's my

1:16:48

world . You're , you know you're on the construction

1:16:51

side with software . That's your world

1:16:53

. And so it's good to sometimes pull your head up

1:16:55

and listen to what other people have to say , their experiences

1:16:57

and what's going on . Right .

1:16:58

So this is really good . I mean

1:17:00

, Colin , you've got . You're a good orator too , Like

1:17:03

I'm , like I can tell Thank

1:17:05

you .

1:17:05

Yeah , that's good , appreciate that . I

1:17:08

think that's the best voice for radio or face for radio . Yeah

1:17:10

, that's the best one yeah .

1:17:12

Well , jesse , this is . I think we'll probably do some Whistler

1:17:14

stuff .

1:17:15

Yeah , absolutely yeah , that's cool .

1:17:16

Yeah , all right . Well , thank

1:17:18

you very much for introducing me to Colin .

1:17:20

Yeah , and this has been a pleasure

1:17:22

, yeah .

1:17:23

Yeah , sage advice .

1:17:25

My pleasure guys . It's really really enjoyed

1:17:27

it , Love it . Awesome Okay .

1:17:37

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