Accountability & All The Cliches | Rhett Power

Watch the episode here

JW Marriott

 

Episode Topics:

• If you don’t set the tone, someone else will, and it might not be what you like.
• Taking time off with busy work days helps
• When you stop going all the time, you’re able to make big decisions better
• Accountability isn’t an overnight thing

 

Rick Jordan
Hey what’s shakin’ Hey, it’s Rick Jordan. And today we’re going all in. My guest today is just, I’m pumped about this because he’s a CEO, right? Like me, obviously. But a best-selling author and executive coach of Forbes columnist, and founder of Accountability Inc. is all these things that the dude just has an amazing company that’s out there CEO accountability. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. red power what’s shakin’, my man?

Rhett Power
Hey, brother, Reg, it’s great to be on, man. It sounds like we’re both on the road this week. But doing our thing, but I’m glad to be with you.

Rick Jordan
That’s what we do. Right. And it’s right. I think about this because I’m excited to hear what you have to say about CEO accountability. But it’s an interesting concept to me, because I mean, even with the show right now, you’d like to say, we’re just traveling, but yet, we’re still sticking to our schedules. And I’m sure there’s way more insight than you have into accountability than just that. But we do what we need to do wherever we need to get it done.

Amen to that. I mean, that’s our job. Right? We’re Our job is to get it done. And it’s not it’s it’s it’s tough. Sometimes you make sacrifices. I know. I know you. You’ve been there. Right? You’ve made those sacrifices. we all do. That’s what we’re here for. I mean, I think, you know, accountability is often a scary word, right? It’s something that we feel like means that we’ve done something wrong. And my whole mission is to sort of change that around, right? And then say, look, its countability is a value. It’s not about doing right or wrong. It’s not about just being held accountable for results. It’s about it’s really your whole ethos, man, I live in this world where I think, you know, I feel accountable not only to the results, but I feel accountable to the people, I feel accountable to the customer, I feel accountable to the product that we put out there. And to me, it’s more of a value than anything than just a word that that’s sort of a scary word that people use when something goes

wrong.

Rick Jordan
Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, as you’re talking through a lot of that, too. There’s a lot that resonates with me that I do the CEO talks every Monday morning with my entire company, because we have different offices, right? Different physical offices across the US. Right. And that was one way for me to be like, because I hold myself accountable to the company’s culture, to my company’s culture, that there’s no other person that can actually instill that I believe, then the CEO, you know, other people can get on board and can drink the Kool-Aid if you want to call it that and be sort of like ambassadors for the culture within the company. But the only one who sets that is the CEO. And I was talking this Monday about Tim Grover, I’m sure you know who that dude is. And he was talking about Michael Jordan, and how you mentioned the sacrifice is what he was saying really hit home because it’s like Michael had games to play on Sundays, Michael had games to play on Christmas day when he couldn’t play Santa Claus. And when it comes to that, I mean, that dude, Michael was the CEO of the bowls, man. No joke, it’s like whatever he needs to do to get it done is what he did.

Yeah, no, look, I mean, you’re right, like, so if you don’t set the tone, right? If you don’t set the course and the tone and the culture, somebody else in the organization is going to set it. And it may not be what you want it to be right? Because you know, all of our organizations have influencers, all of our organizations have people who are leaders, maybe not entitled, but that lead right there. They’re looked at as influencers and people that are important. And so but if we don’t, if we don’t set that tone, if we as founders, and CEOs don’t set that tone, and that culture, somebody else is gonna set it for us, and it’s probably not the one that we’re going to want.

Rick Jordan
Typically, I see that with acquisitions, right? Yes.

That’s sort of a cliche. I know, but it’s like it’s so true.

Rick Jordan
It is, it absolutely is. And can you describe a time for me because I know looking deep inside myself, I know there were times when, if I’m being vulnerable, I neglected that role, right and neglected that accountability to the culture and just allowed people within my company or companies to set that for me. And it wasn’t mine, and then I had to push a reset button. Have you been through a similar scenario at all?

I’ll actually tell you one that’s actually more important than just what happened with my company. I, I am, I remember, when I started the window when I co-founded the toy company with Pete, we,

you know, I was all in

and we both were all into it, we were living out of the van, we were delivering products all over the place, we were, you know, hustlin’. And one of the things that I forgot, and I sort of lost sight of was the family side. And so I didn’t lose sight of the business culture. But I certainly lost sight of the family side, and the family culture and the faith and what not being present, when I should be what that was doing, you know, I was missing stuff that I shouldn’t be missing. So I didn’t have that. I hate the word business, work-life balance, and men. But I certainly didn’t, I certainly wasn’t doing enough on that side. And so absolutely, I mean, like, you know, and I, and it took business partners and, and my wife at the time, you know, and the family has, you know, timeout, you gotta like, you gotta make some different choices. You know, and actually, what, you know, what really happened after that, which I thought was, I look back on quite often and think it’s kind of remarkable, when we sort of did a big reset a couple of years in, and it actually started taking some time off and started, like leaving the office before midnight. You know,

Rick Jordan
when that happens to a CEO,

better, our business cut better. We got smarter, we got better, we got, there was more harmony in what we were doing. And we found our net, we found our way better. And I think I don’t. I don’t know why. But you know, when we read, rebooted, and we resorted to reading, looked at everything, and we sort of reset, we hit that reset button, things got better. And so, um, you know, I think that was probably as a result of spending more time with the kids and the family and, you know, taking a little bit of time off, and then being able to come back and actually make better decisions and better, you know, calls for the business and so but, ya know, it’s easy to lose sight. And you know, particularly if you’re like us, CEOs are driven people who were driven people, right, we were over-focused on the work and on making things work. And I think it’s very easy to lose sight of some of those things that are so important, like the family and the, and also the culture. Right. But also, some of those things that you like, the culture of the business, I think is easy to lose sight of.

How did you finally concede, you know, what, when,

Rick Jordan
when people It sounds like maybe your, your spouse was telling you, hey, I think you need to make some better choices here for the family. How did you finally give in to that?

I think it was probably an ultimatum of some sort. I don’t know, you know, you know, you’ve got to, it’s not the I don’t think, I don’t think it was an either or, but I think it was Look, man, this isn’t working for me. And, you know, you learn, if you value something, then I note that I didn’t value them, I didn’t value the family. I just think I was probably taking it for granted maybe, or knew it was there and knew they were there to be in the end, they were very supportive. And to sort of take advantage of that maybe or lose sight of that. And I think that those words probably yanked me back to some reality. And the other thing that the My partner and I did was we also started to hold each other accountable. And that’s again, I think that’s another reason why the business started really working for us, is we started putting an accountability structure in place where we forced each other on weekends, to at least every other weekend to take that weekend off. Right? We’ve started saying, hey, the work is going to be there more, let’s leave. Let’s leave right now. Right, let’s cut off today, leave that laptop on the desk, you know, and so I think that sort of helped as well. But I think it all sort of came to a head and then it was either we were going to need to do something completely different and go back to work doing what we were doing before, you know, with jobs, or, Hey, we’ve got to recalibrate this. I think it was sort of consciousness on the family side, both of our families and the two of us were just getting worn out and burned out and that wasn’t going to help anybody. So I think It sort of all came to a head at that period of time. And I think, you know, it took people from the outside to sort of yank you back. It took somebody, and that’s a good thing about having people in your life that can do that for you. Right? That knows you well enough and that has enough influence on you to say, hey, you need to fix that. Right? And you listen to those people.

Rick Jordan
For sure, what you’re saying today is resonating because I just think of literally where I’m at right now. Right? I’m in a, I’m in a JW Marriott in Orlando, we’re recording the show, right? It’s in the top 2% of the world. Right? And the reason I’m here is it sounds counterintuitive to hustle culture, right? And it’s exactly what you’re saying. Because there’s so much right now, like in my cybersecurity company that is sort of chaotic. It’s almost like a reset button from an acquisition that I’m pressing, and, you know, looking at budgets and layoffs, and all of this, you know, as we streamline, I mean, it’s almost like what Elon did when he took over Twitter, you know, it’s a similar scenario, I’d rather do more with the same amount of people than keep the same amount of people and do less. But then sometimes with acquisitions, it’s just how it is. So things just happen the way they happen. And in the midst of all of this stuff that’s going on, I’m taking a week and saying you know what, I’m checking out at like one o’clock every day, for a week straight. I’m gonna check-in in the mornings, you know, you and I are recording a show. I’m checking in with my key people, getting some work done, continuing to move the business forward, but then it’s, it’s not staying till midnight. So the counterintuitive part row is just that. It’s like I’m saying, We’re super busy. We have a ton going on. I want to take some time off. Yeah, but it’s helping dude. It’s totally helping me.

And then help you zero in and focus more. I mean, I think I think we, I mean, I think that’s the remarkable part. I mean, I see how you’re lighting up. And it is like that that’s true when you think you’re better when you have that sort of set time. Right. And you take that time. I mean, it makes you think it makes you sharper. I don’t know why, but it does.

Rick Jordan
Save my kids or help keep me accountable to this too. It’s pretty odd, because I mean, we talked about this a little before the show, it’s like they love universality. So it’s like, Hey, Dad, when we’re going to go today, you know, what, when are we going to head out there today? I’m like, All right, it’s time to close the MacBook. This is the reason why we’re here. That’s right.

And it’s not easy to do. It’s hard. But, you know, I think once you do it, I mean, it’s it that I’ve gotta I gotta tell you the story. So I’ve got to work with a coach. He’s a coach and he does something that’s just really remarkable. He works from home. And then he’s got three, I think three small children. And what he does, is he has his work clothes. And so he gets dressed every morning and his work clothes. And so the kids know, like when he’s when dad’s in their work clipping is in his work clothes, that he’s not off limits, but you know, not to bust in the door, and, and disturb. And then he comes out at five and he puts on the dad clothes or the play clothes, so to speak. And that means that it is open for business. And you know, he’s there to help with homework and play and go out and shoot basketball and do things. And so I just love this sort of way he likes, sort of just switches, like turns that switch off, puts on play clothes, and the kids know it’s time. Like that’s their tongue. Right?

Rick Jordan
That’s really cool. I heard a story that it was a Navy SEAL who’s a friend of mine who would do this with his wife and he would do hats, like baseball hats, you know? Yeah, one would say CEO because they work together also but it was the same thing. He had two little kids but he would like when he would talk just so people would understand especially his wife would understand what mode he was in at any given moment. It’s it’s a thing I see this too like as a CEO right I see this it’s hard to it’s hard sometimes to shift on a dime like the tone of your conversation yeah so softer and more personal versus hardcore CEO you know it’s it’s it’s a different stuff so he would utilize similar scenario utilize different hats. One would say CEO but then he put another hat on I don’t know what the other head on that’s a partner let’s get it on or whatever. He would use physical baseball hats to help with that.

I could go with that. I like that.

Rick Jordan
No joke. Why did this shift happen? Because I love how you’re talking about this point in your life because it’s like, and I love dynamic shifts in anyone’s life, I get excited over them, because it’s like everything that happened prior almost doesn’t apply anymore. Because you’ve actually truly made the decision, it isn’t like you’re trying to do something, or what at least I found this with me, it’s like everything that happened prior. It’s history, it’s past, it’s not anchoring me anymore, because as of today, I’ve made a decision. And it’s like, when I know these types of decisions in my life, they’re going to be 100% Different a complete 180 going forward. Did that happen? Did that happen with you in the toy company, did you see things start to take off when you made that shift was or correlation, there

was definitely a correlation. And I I totally give that, that period. You know, when we made the changes, and you know what, what also happened at the same time as we, we realized we needed to stop. And again, this is a cheat, but we needed to get out of the truck and get, you know, start working in the business and not working on the business that is working in the business. Or I’m sorry, working on the business not working in the business. And that was so true. And that was when we sort of made this big shift to stay, stay put, stay in the office, stay focused on the client, the product, and not go out there and do all the things that we could actually hire somebody to do. And that we needed to hire somebody to do it. We needed to take that next step. And that risk had to bring other people on to sort of take on some of these jobs that we had learned how to do. I knew how to do it. So I didn’t need to do it anymore was the question I needed to ask myself when I needed to be more strategic because it was a terrible business model. And we had to change that business model. Unless we had time to do it and think about it strategically and, then be able to make that pivot. If we keep doing and doing and doing, we’re never going to have time to make that pivot. And that all sort of was around the same time when we decided we can’t be gone all the time, we can’t. When we come back to the office, we can’t be back. We can’t be in there in the warehouse you know, until midnight, or two o’clock in the morning every day. And so it helped us actually make some of those key decisions. You know, when you stopped running all the time, we were able to make key decisions that I think transform the business. So I think absolutely, it was a big shift. I mean, you’re talking about big shifts, I think it is an interesting thing. And there are sort of big moments where you have a big change. And one of the things I like to talk about often in interviews, but you know, often in talks is like listening to your gut, and I don’t know where you want to take the day. But I’ve defined I think a lot of my life by listening to my gut feeling and what my guts telling me and like I’ve had lots of different, done lots of different things, career-wise everything from, you know, Foreign Service to, you know, running a toy company, to running a coaching company now. And all of those sorts of big changes. Going in the Peace Corps when I was 28, you know, all those big changes in my life. If I had listened to my gut, say it’s time to do something different, it’s time to make a big change. Those are the times I think I would have, I would have got myself in trouble or not in trouble. But I think I would have been unhappy. I hadn’t, you know, pushed myself to say follow what my brain and my heart were telling me to do. And then just being complacent or not taking that risk. I think life would have been a lot different.

Rick Jordan
You touched on something about being unhappy. And I’ve noticed that anyone in this wide world can do things that they’re really really good at as a career as a business and still be the most unhappy individual ever. Yeah.

Rick Jordan
And it’s because of what we’re talking about today about having that it’s like a separation cohesiveness
Wow, yeah. That’s interesting.

Rick Jordan
It’s such an, you know, almost like an oxymoronic phrase, but it’s a that’s what I see this as, and I’m going through a lot of the same thing. So I mean that the timing of you and I talking, you know, I’m putting this out to the world could not have been better because I’m going through some of the similar scenarios right now that you’re, you’ve been through, and it’s hitting home, it’s like, I know that everything from this point forward, because when I looked in, it’s like, there’s a lot of things and that I was just unhappy with. And a lot of it had to do with really letting go of my own accountability to me, to my vision, to my dreams, to how I needed to push things, and still being compassionate to other people in the process. Because I love that you know, and not to get into the cliche about pleasing people, it’s just the compassion side of things, that is always going to be there. And I’ve learned this, you know, just over the past couple of months is that the compassion for others that are in and around my circle, whether it’s a coaching client, whether it’s employees on my cybersecurity company, whether it’s podcast guests, whether it’s people I’m just talking to from stage, you know, or even out to millions at a time doing mass nationwide media, that compassion is always there. But the compassion is about their situation, and maybe their choices. Because it has nothing to do with how it affects me, and how it affects my dream. When I allow that. To do that, then I let go of the accountability I have to myself. And that’s been the lesson that I’ve learned over the past three months, man is just getting into that perspective of like, I love you, I care about you. At the same time, the choices that are being made are not the best choices, and they’re being made by you. This means in order for me to protect my vision, in order for me to protect my dreams, there are decisions that I have to make that you might not like. But without them, I’m not being accountable and true to myself. That’s right.

That’s the tough part as a CEO, brother, it really is.

Yeah, you know, a lot of times, and I don’t know the situation, and I’d love to talk about it if you want to dig into it. If you know, I know those situations, and a lot of times, for us, it was people who were with us from the beginning. Yeah, early on, and I met a lot, personally. And it didn’t do us any favors, culturally, it didn’t do us any favors, in the long run, to win when they couldn’t grow with us. Right? Yeah. I don’t know if that’s what you’re talking about if that’s the situation you’re in, but yeah, that’s tough, man. But you’re right, at the end of the day, you’ve got to honor the vision that you’ve set out for the company. And, it’s not honoring it, if you’re not making some of those tough decisions sometimes, particularly around people, it’s tough.

Rick Jordan
I liken it to the same man to no joke, like the same as choosing to work out four times a week because I do the same type of accountability. You know, because I mean, that’s the theme of the conversation today is your accountability to your vision is the same accountability that, you know, if you can do that, if you can tie it back to something else in your life to where it’s like, I’m hardcore accountable to myself with this. And then you can take it, you know, to working out. I mean, that’s one of the things that I love doing. I love staying fit. I love staying healthy. Anybody who sees me, you know, even when I go on Newsmax like God, Rick’s really buff, you know, I got that feedback. And I was, like, I actually don’t do it so that was just like a natural side effect, you know, but I do it because I feel good. I’m healthy. That’s it, and then it’s sure it’s nice to look in the mirror, I won’t, I won’t deny that. But at the same time, when I’m not accountable to myself that way, you know, and there’s been times you know, because even though it’s been consistency over and over and over again, there’s times to where, you know, like I’ve had a surgery that threw me off course for like six weeks, you know, and then it was difficult to get back into it because you lose that accountability. It’s the same thing as when you’re a CEO with your accountability to your own vision to where you start to entertain other things that are counterproductive to your vision for that same six weeks. It’s like you allowed some external thing to come inside you similar to surgery, right? And then that, that just derails your accountability to yourself in those moments, and then it takes a little bit of time. So I hope that people listening to us today can have a little compassion for themselves. Because when you lose that accountability to yourself, it does take a little bit of time to get that back on track. It’s not right away, you know, or not a long time. It’s not an overnight thing and it’s not like a two-year thing, but it could be a couple of weeks.

Oh look, I mean, I mean how Many businesses fail, because this is where we this is where the CEO, loses the loss right? So I got the worst case of addiction in the world. So for me, like staying accountable to, you know, the business and the focus on my health and all the things the family, right, is, is something I have to really, really fight to do. How many of us get so distracted by the bright shiny objects as the CEO? Right? The newest thing?

Rick Jordan
Every damn day, man, every Right.

Right. And so what you’re saying is absolutely spot on, because I think that’s where we get caught up. And a lot of businesses sort of end up failing and missing it, because we don’t stay accountable, we don’t focus on what the business is, the product, the culture, the team, and the customer. And so I think what you just said is really spot on. And in acidosis cases where people just sort of lose the accountability to all of it, and get distracted by all the stuff and lose sight of a lot of the key things that we have to pay attention to right every day. Yeah. Businesses running. For sure. You mentioned your coaching business a little bit. And I know that’s been going on for many years at this point, right? Yeah. How did you jump into that? You know, how are you? Hey, I’m gonna go help people. Now after I built these amazing companies. I think I can do the same for others. It was really random. I, you know, it is that way, isn’t it? That’s why I was asking my brother.

It’s so random. I was on stage I was on I was, I was out in San Francisco at a conference. And I think I was sitting with Marshall Goldsmith and might have been in a conference or something. Anyway, we started talking and, you know, went to dinner. And next thing I know, I open a coaching business. And, you know, the reason why is and I’ll tell you why I wanted to do it. So when I was in the Peace Corps, I was teaching in Uzbekistan, was teaching current events and marketing, and I was teaching at the college level. And I mean, it was the best two years I ever had. And I remember thinking, you know, what, if I can see that spark and people’s eyes that I saw on those kids eyes, if I can do that, that’s something I want to do for my career, and the conversation I had with Marshawn. And I’ve got Mark Thompson who is one of the top SEO coaches in the world, who became sort of a mentor. In essence, if I could do that for people and give them that spark, and give them, you know, just that little push, that little bit of help, that gets them to where they want to be, then that’s what I want to do. That sounds like it, but I never had a coach, I’d never had a coach and business I wish I had, I mean, I’ve made a whole heck of a lot fewer mistakes, and that has been a whole lot faster, it growing the companies, I mean, I’d have been a lot better as a CEO, probably a lot more mature and a lot more focused. But you know, that’s neither here nor there now. But, you know, I figured, okay, if I can do that, then that’s, that’s a heck of a way to, to work and live and to get to help people. And that’s, that’s, that’s sort of how that started. And, you know, it’s a journey of learning, it’s a journey of figuring out a whole new business and how to make money, you know, how to make a profit at it, and how to, you know, how to what was the business model? What’s the methodology and all that, that that certainly was a process? And how can I specifically help people with what is my, you know, what is my core competency? What is the thing I can really do? Well, that’s going to help people. And so, you know, that took a bit to figure out and that’s where the accountability focus really came in. And what because I know that the difference that’s played in my life, you know, when I, when I’ve held myself accountable, and I’ve had a good accountability system, then I’ve been successful when I have it, not so much. So, you know, I knew I knew that’s where I wanted to go with it.

Rick Jordan
That’s awesome. I love the randomness of it too. I share a similarity because my mind is just about to launch right. And I was like Helping people and I’d be at events and I’d see friends there like, like, big-time speakers and people like David Meltzer and his team and they take a look around. He’s an awesome guy. Yeah, he and I met probably just about a year ago now. And we’ve done a lot since it was just like kindred spirits, as I’m sure you have a similar experience. And the playbook? Yeah,

I was on a show last week. Damon’s awesome.

Rick Jordan
He’s an awesome dude. So as I was talking with him and his team, and it was a similar scenario, you know, like, show me your DM. So I’m showing my DMs, I was like, Dude, there are all these people that want to talk to you, that want to help you. Like, you need to coach like, I know, you’ve got the public company, you’re building and everything, but people are literally asking to be coached by you. It was like, All right, like, a coach now? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, when you have people asking for that help? I mean, you gotta do it. And they gotta figure it out.

It’s certainly a cool scenario.

Rick Jordan
Yeah, right on, it’s, it’s a complete contrast to how you see a lot of the coaches, and I’m doing air quotes, you know, for everybody who’s listening on iTunes, and Spotify, for all the coaches in air quotes, that that are out there be like, I’m gonna be a business coach, you know, and they’re, they’re 19 years old, you know, just graduated high school or whatever, you know, they just got done working at McDonald’s a little bit ago. And not saying that those individuals have nothing to offer because I believe that they do, I think there’s always value in anybody who’s really one generation beyond where you’re at.

And so they could, but not so much.

Rick Jordan
The scenarios that we were in, you know, what I mean, because it’s the, the week, it’s separated from the chaff pretty quickly when it comes to that. And that’s a biblical phrase too, and it’s very, very true, man. And that’s the thing, it’s like, if you’re being asked to do something, it’s way better than you trying to seek it out. That’s one of the lessons that I learned about that. Yeah,

amen to that. And that’s,

you know, I built the

business, before I had that audience and in it, you know, now’s a different scenario and more on the boat at the end of the year-end. But boy, is that harder. It really,

Rick Jordan
it is trying to build it from the ground up versus people just naturally gravitating towards you and the right people coming towards you. For those scenarios.

And, you know, 10 years ago, coaching wasn’t in the vernacular, either. True. You know, I mean, if you think about it, it’s relatively I mean, it’s been accepted for a while, but there’s a lot more acceptance around it. I mean, that’s why you see, the, you know, the evolution of batter up and some of these other, you know, coaching online, even online coaching things. I mean, it’s, it’s, I think it’s I think boards and C suite executives are now it’s not such a dirty, you know, a lot of my early clients were boards of directors coming and saying, we’ve got our CEO, we really like him, but he’s got some problems, you know, he’s got some behavior issues we need to fix. And it’s like, okay, well, I think we’ve gone way beyond that message. That I think now it’s, it’s based on, hey, we want to, we want to pop the performance, like, performance is good, attitude is good, things are good. That’s a great time to coach and actually get even better.

Rick Jordan
Right? For sure. The other thing that I really enjoy about this, too, is because as we’re talking, you know because we mentioned David Meltzer, he has a very lucrative and successful coaching business too. And it’s awesome, because as you and I talk, and this, I think, is also what will separate it because there’s a lot of entrepreneurs in the audience that is listening to the show, a lot of actually a lot that is even looking to start a business at some point. You know, that’s a lot of the demographic that listens to all that saying, you know, I really want to do that. I really have this core of me, that’s an entrepreneur but I’m working my job right now. I’m at the age of 2021 years old, something like that. That’s the largest demographic that we’re talking to. And when you’re looking at, you know, if it’s not me, right or red, if it’s not you, it’s not David. I encourage everybody to look for somebody that’s like us in the mindset that we have to wear. We’re not out there trying to go after the market share of a different coach. We’re not out there competing with some of the other coaches, because there are people that no way I took a company public, right? I mean, that’s a pretty big thing. You had a super successful toy company and a whole bunch of other things that you’ve done. It’s a big thing. You know, David, God, you look at all, all of his accolades, right? He’s done 80,000 big things, you know, and there’s still somebody that we can always find. You meet him that we can always find that knows more than us in some area.

Every day, every day. Fine. Yeah, I see that every day.

Absolutely.

Even when I’m not looking for it, I see it. I mean, absolutely.

Rick Jordan
Oh, so when you’re looking for a coach, it’s not, don’t look for the ones that are putting down the others, don’t look for the ones that are competing against others to try to gain their audience or, you know, to pillage, their plunder, so to speak, it’s it find the right match for you, especially when somebody is willing, like you and I are right to be like, I might not be the best person for you. And there could be somebody else that has more knowledge in this particular area that could really help you accelerate faster than I ever could.

100% and I don’t, I can’t coach everybody. And you know, so much of it is a personality match. So much of it is a skill set to what they want to do, right? So much of that. I mean, I totally buy what you’re saying, because I can’t coach everybody and I. And I don’t have the skill set that gets everybody. And I’m not a match personality-wise for everybody. And, and I think that stuff’s important. When you’re talking to somebody, you know, it reminds me what you what you’re saying is, you know, we had, we did have a couple of mentors early on in the toy business, and we realize about, you know, a year in was the, their, their thinking was much smaller than ours. And so their advice was counterproductive for us. I mean, what they were saying to us was, I was thinking small, and we were thinking, probably way too big. But we had a dream, we had a vision, and that’s what we were going to do, you know, no matter what, and, and so there was just that there’s just we weren’t synched up and what you know, what we were going to be able to get from them and what we were looking for from them. And so I think that’s really important, what they’re saying is really critical.

Rick Jordan
No doubt, even if all you’re saying then that’s it. And this is probably a great place to book this today is where you start to find that personality match. Because if you’re looking for somebody to hold you accountable, but instead it feels more so like they’re actually pulling you back. Yeah, there’s a difference between accountability and somebody holding you back.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, too, to your point, Lena with Dave, right, it’s, again, we were full of cliches today. But like that the network that people that you surround yourself with, right? I want to surround myself with the Dave’s of the world, you know, with Rick Jordan, x of the world because I learn from you guys because I, you know, you’re inspiring and what you’re doing and so that pushes me harder, it pushes me to be better. And that and see, that’s what I need out of, I don’t need much from Dave except his energy. Enthusiasm is Love is like, you know, his support and I get more out of that than a contact or, you know, uh, you know, whatever. But I mean, you know what I mean? So, like, it’s really important to surround yourself with people, they’re going to make you better and push you to, to, like, follow those dreams and to like, go after what you want. So I know people talk about networks, you know, really important, and it really is, it’s

Rick Jordan
a board member of mine says Your network is your net worth. And we might just title this episode with all the cliches. It’s a great placement. Read brother, thank you for being there. Have fun in Orlando with the kids and we’ll talk soon. Sweet