Do Business Owners Really Want Balance?

Hello everyone. Welcome to the 21 Hats podcast. I'm your host, Lauren [music] Feldman. Most business owners say they want balance in their lives. They tell themselves they just need to get through this [music] one crisis, this one launch, this one quarter, and then life will settle down. But what if that's not actually the goal? This week, [music] Mel Gravely, Lena Maguire, and Ted Wolf talk candidly about what it really takes to build a business and about whether balance is something owners are truly striving for or simply something they feel they're supposed to want. I got to tell you, says Mel, I just don't know if people were really honest that they'd say that they'd be one to spend their time as their [music] kids' parent teacher conference. Lena stresses that it's not about right or wrong. It's about owners making the choice that's right for them. You have to make yourself happy first. She says it's kind [music] of we always use that put your oxygen mask on yourself first and then you can help others. [music] The owners agree that there's a seasonality to entrepreneurship. There are periods when the business demands [music] more and owners have few real options. That pressure can intensify when a company is struggling. [music] But intriguingly, it can be just as intense when the business is growing fast. Even in good times, owning and running a business can be a lonely pursuit. Our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges. In fact, that's the whole idea behind the 21 Hats community, engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insight only another owner can offer. If you're interested in learning [music] more, you can sign up for the Morning Report newsletter, which offers examples every day of owners confronting challenges and seizing opportunities. Just search the 21 Hats Morning Report to subscribe. Joining me this week on the podcast are Mel Gravely who is chairman of Traversity Construction, a construction firm based in Cincinnati, [music] Lena Magcguire, CEO of Spoka Kitchen and Bath, which is based near Syracuse, New York, and designs and manages home remodeling projects, and Ted Wolf, who is CEO of Guidewise, which helps businesses implement AI, and is based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The episode is titled, "Do business owners really want balance?" Welcome, Mel, Lena, and Ted. It's great to have you here. Before we get started, I just want to note that I recently announced that the next 21 Hats live event will take place in Cincinnati from May 13th to May 15th, where we will be hosted by Mel Gravely at the Tiversity headquarters. First, thank you, Mel. >> It's a pleasure. >> Maybe you could tell us what we should know about Cincinnati. >> Let me just tell you that um first, the weather will be perfect in May. So, I promise you every single day will be sunshiny, low humidity. It'll be perfect. >> I I've got a guarantee from you uh on that in writing, right? >> Guarantee on the weather. We've got the coolest downtown um that I've been in in any city in the country. And I really do mean that and I'm sure I'm biased, but but imagine a downtown that doesn't have any chain restaurants. Every single restaurant is a unique experience, unique to Cincinnati, bringing you flavors from all over the world, but unique to Cincinnati. It's a walkable city. We've got great entertainment. We've got cool businesses that we'll visit. Uh maybe a drive-thru on the Cincinnati Reds or um an ice cream factory for Grers, a family-owned ice cream company. So Lauren, we it's just going to be a wonderful experience and I just hope that folks are um coming to hang out with us. >> That sounds pretty good to me, Mel. All right, so let's get to the topic of the day. As I warned all of you, I want to talk about an aspect of owning a business that I'm not sure gets enough attention. Uh my interest in this topic was sparked recently by a Substack newsletter written by a friend Josh Patrick who owned a vending machine business for many years and who worked as a consultant to business owners for many years. So has had a lot of experience with business owners. I'll I'll just read the beginning of what Josh wrote. You know the pattern cuz you've probably lived it. You start a business with big dreams. You're going to build something meaningful, create financial freedom, maybe even change your industry. and you're going to do it without becoming one of those workaholics who missed their kids' childhood. Then reality hits. The business demands everything. There are fires to put out, deals to close, employees to manage, and customers to satisfy. You tell yourself it's temporary, just this quarter, just this year, just until we get past this crucial growth phase. Except the crucial phase never ends. There's always another milestone, another crisis, another opportunity that demands your complete attention. Your spouse starts making comments about how you're never around. Your kids stop asking you to come to their events because they've learned not to expect you to come. You miss birthdays, anniversaries, school plays, and quiet bedtime conversations. And when you are physically present, you're mentally somewhere else, checking your phone, thinking about work, half listening while planning tomorrow's meetings. The really insidious part, you justify it all as providing for my family or building something for our future. You tell yourself they'll understand someday that the sacrifice will be worth it. But here's the brutal truth. I've learned both from my own experience, that's Josh talking, and from watching hundreds of other business owners. Your kids don't need a bigger house or fancier vacation. They need you. And by the time most of us figure that out, we've missed the years we can never get back. So, how do we work differently? Let's stop there. Does that pattern that Josh described sound familiar to any of you? >> It does to me. Absolutely. >> Tell me about it, Ted. >> Started a business. I was young. I was single, so I could put all kinds of time into it. And it was my dream, etc. Learned an awful lot about myself. Finally did get married and had three children. And I found out that it wasn't really a time challenge. It was a design challenge. How do I want to design my life and use my time to get the best quality that I can. And what I came up with and what I tell clients today is there's four areas I need to balance. I needed to. That is mental health, emotional health, physical health, and financial health. If I didn't have those four things, I didn't consider myself successful or have a happy life. So, I had to completely redesign what I was doing with the business and prioritize things in a different way. It paid off in the long run, but in the beginning, you don't have any quality of life. It's all the business. And in many respects, you have to do that. >> Did you figure that out the hard way, Ted? Did Did it Things have to get bad before you started redesigning? >> Didn't get really bad. um always on a search for how could I become a better leader within the business which then translated into personal development self-awareness as I grew in that area I could understand people better so the mental emotional thing came together I would say of the four probably physically working out and physical health was the one that I kind of ignored the most but didn't have any difficulty in doing it but probably would do it differently if I had it to do over >> how about you Mel for me Personally, of course, I've had [clears throat] episodes, actually, even whole businesses in my life that got me out of balance. But I got to be honest with you, this this article made me think uh because I think the the author may have missed or failed to establish the basic premise. His basic premise was that the business owner wants to spend time with their family. And I'm not exactly sure that's true. And sometimes it's just time to be honest with yourself that you'd rather be doing what you're doing than doing the other thing. And that's never been the case for me. But I've seen people when if they got naked and they got truthful that they're actually spending time doing the thing that they want to be doing and it fulfills them in a way that's different and it sounds horrible. So, no one ever wants to admit it, but um I I I just more and more I think it's true. If that premise is not true, let's make the the assumption that the author's premise is true that people really do want a balanced life, then I think the way he articulates a plan and the way Ted just laid out kind of having these parameters presents an opportunity for success. But I got to tell you, I just don't know if people were really honest that they'd say that they'd be one to spend their time at their kids parent teacher conference. What drove you to that conclusion, Mel? If if if people I I happen to think you're right. Uh but if people are so reticent about acknowledging that, how did you figure out that your businessowning peers were really thinking that way? So, I had these multiple conversations with with various people and and when you start talking through what they say is their challenge and then talking through what they're willing to do to change it, you realize that it's a priority problem. And if you listen long enough, people will tell you the truth with by accident. And the truth is is that if you if if over and over you get these opportunities to make different decisions, yet you keep making the same ones. you've been made aware that they're options and you keep making the same ones. Um, I just kind of think that maybe you you really don't want what you say you want. And I see that in a lot of people about a lot of topics, not just this one. People say they want one thing, but their behavior, their continuous behavior lets me know that's really not what they want. >> Was this something that you had to figure out for yourself, Mel? >> No, I I Oh, I didn't I didn't get it right, but I always knew I wanted it. And and I'm back with Ted on this. I think businesses go through seasonality like children do. They they mature in in ways that at times they demand more of you. Um they worry you more. They're more calicky, if I can use all of those terms. And then you're back in that kind of intensity for a season. But overall, if you really do uh want to have balance, I think you find a way to to structure your life differently so that you start to have balance. And as the author points out, that may mean that you grow differently or you grow a little slower. And I I hope we get a chance to talk about this. I think this also depends on the kind of business you've got. You know, some businesses are more like practices, think medical practice or design practice. And you know, to grow faster and bigger, you got to do more because you're building by the hour or by the project. Other businesses provide for better scale. And some businesses are never going to be successful. And so those people are grinding away at something that no matter how hard they work, it's just the business model is broken somewhere. And I hope we spend some time on that. >> I would like to come back to that. But but first, Lena, what's your experience been like? >> I think I I agree with both Ted and Mel. Um, I I think that the whole process of that life work balance, that's the question because it's not 50/50 and it changes seasonally. So, if you're a young business, there's so much work you have to put in it. You're probably going to be 2 3 years before you break even and start taking a regular paycheck. And then once you start making the money, you can hire people and you can grow. So, your business is going to grow just like a child grows. And I think that as a business owner, you're going to grow and change and your needs will change and your definition of success is going to change. Um, if or like my husband and you don't like changing baby diapers, you might want to stay at work an extra little bit to make sure the baby's going to be in bed sooner. Or if your children are a little bit older and you want to sit at that baseball game and you love that practice, then, you know, maybe you want to cut out of work a little bit earlier so you can go see that practice. So, I think it does change a lot. And for me, I when I was in college and when I was first out of college, I worked in retail and you had no control over your calendar. So for me, when I started a business, I started it so that I could have control. So I've always had the flexibility. It's always buil been built in. And then it does change what I need to do, how much time I put into the business, when I want to be there, when I don't want to be there. So I I think everybody's going to approach it differently. And I think the real question is designing your life. How do you want to live your life? What makes you happy? What makes your family work? What makes your business work? And you have to really think about those things. And then you have to think about them a lot because times change and you have to adjust those. Strategic planning for your life. >> It sounds Lena like you kind of figured this out fairly early and designed your work life uh the way you wanted it to be kind of from the beginning. Is is that right? >> That is right. I'm not saying I got it right. Uh there have been times uh I I had a computer crash on New Year's Eve and I had to cancel party plans and work for like 72 hours straight. Was a horrible 3 days. But, you know, I had the support system to get me through that. And there were other times when um when I had a graphic design business, I worked 32 weeks a year because I wanted to have those vacation times and the time off in the summer to be with my children. So, I scheduled my work to work that way and I scheduled my projects around it. So, yeah, I have been that way pretty much from the get-go. >> Well, and there were probably trade-offs there, right? Um, you know, uh, working 32 weeks a year has its trade-offs to it. And some people don't want to make those trade-offs. So, it goes back to priorities. I I would suggest. >> Yeah. And then I think there's another element that comes into it when you're running a business. Um, a lot of business owners are always working in the business and not on it. That's a problem which means they're probably not going to delegate a lot of uh work and then train people to work on their own. Also, I think in making decisions um you can't be the final arbiter as an owner and grow and scale a business and have time for your own life if you can't train and build a team around you that can make decisions that you have confidence in. Finally, I think the ultimate thing then is the culture because culture is what runs the business while you're not there. Put a good culture in place. get it implemented so people use it, you can make decisions and get some free time because time with your kids is going to change. When they're young, they need you. When they're teenagers, they don't want you around. And then when they go out in careers and everything, it's a different time commitment again. So, I think all those things mix together, but it's an echo chamber that's kind of tough to get out of and get out of your own head, so to speak. >> You know, we we've had these conversations in these podcasts before. Um, and I even hear some of the podcast participants who I think there's just no way they'll ever get their heads out of working in the business because their personalities and their unwillingness to uh broaden that kind of thinking won't allow it. And I'm with you, Ted, if you are always working in the business and not enough on it, you will always be um pressed or the business will suffer. one of the two things because no one around there will be able to um step up and and lead and make decisions and drive the business in your absence. >> Yeah, it's really a mindset change and that's the key thing. You have to understand that there are people who do things better than you, that you don't have to do everything and that it's okay to pay somebody else to do something that you want off your plate. >> And I think what you just said there's real key. There are people in your business right now that probably can do things better than you, but you've got to change your identity. It is a mindset shift. You've got to be able to say, "I'm going to trust they're going to do it. We'll learn from it. We have to build it." And you got to give up this dream that everything's going to be perfect. You're looking for continuous improvement, not perfection, from yourself and others. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. And I I I don't know if I I uh maybe I agree that there's probably someone else in there that that knows better. My my challenge with that is is that smart, capable people don't stay in an organization where the leader doesn't delegate. They move on to an organization where they can get increasing levels of responsibility and opportunity. And so they may be smarter than you in the short run or more able than you in the short run, but [clears throat] those really top talented people, they don't want to work for a person that's not giving them any leeway to make calls. And so I think that mindset shift drives a different level of talent opportunity. you may have to compensate in different ways because top talent wants to be paid and appreciated as top talent. Um, but I think if you're really a work in the business person and you have to make all the decisions, I think your talent's going to be depleted over time because no one want the very best don't want to work in that kind of environment. >> Now, I think you have to offer challenges to people. It's they want a purpose and they want to grow. If you don't allow them to grow, they're going to stagnate and they're just going to drift off. So, you have to plan your business a certain way and you have to have your your mental >> um acuity going too so that you can see what's going on and when people need to stretch a little bit. >> I think that when you focus on a business, you got to live at that intersection. You got business requirements and cash flow requirements and all kinds of things that you have to pay attention to in the business. But then you got your own personal life and you got people. Those two things you got to balance out. How do I attract the best people? Put them around me. Train them so that I have a life, they have a life, they have a future. we all do. And then the final thing that comes in is technology. How do I manage technology to increase productivity and make everybody more productive and effective but do it in a controlled manner? Len, not only do you have your own experience, I know you know a lot of other women business owners. I'm curious how different do you think this conversation would be if there were three women on with me? >> Uh, if there were friends of mine, um, [laughter] they would be saying the same thing I am. We've gone through the same coaching groups. We swim in the same ponds. So, uh, we have the same mindset because that's what we're looking for. We are looking to empower women to have successful businesses, to not be afraid of success. So, the women that I know, um, they would be all in on this and understand that, you know, you have to make yourself happy first. Uh, it's kind of, you know, we always use that, put your oxygen mask on yourself first and then you can help others. Well, I have to say I I know women business owners who would not have made the choice you made to work 32 weeks a year who are, you know, just as driven as >> but the the the the empowerment is for people to have the choice. I don't think 32 weeks is better than working really hard every week. I'm sure during those 32 weeks, Lena was was was cranking it pretty hard. I think the empowerment is the opportunity to make that decision for yourself to define your own success matrix and pursue it that way. So I'm sorry I jumped in there. Absolutely. That's right. Because if the freedom to choose how to use your time and your resources, I mean that's my my whole reason for being if I can't have that freedom, why do I bother? So yeah, like right now if I only worked 32 weeks a year, I think I would drive myself crazy. That's not enough. But when I had small children, that was perfect. >> I'm curious, how'd you come up with the 32 weeks? >> Uh, I was working as a graphic designer and I had [clears throat] publication schedules that I was working with. So, the 32 weeks fit that publication schedule and four of the weeks, um, I actually worked 80 hours. Um, but the other like 26 I worked 8 to 12 hours a week. So, and when I knew those four weeks were coming up, I had vacations planned for after those uh weeks of 80our so working was done because I needed that little RNR to really get back into it. >> That's an interesting design. How did you really come to terms with that saying this is what I have to do to make my life work? Is there one event that triggered it? >> It might have been when one of my bosses come to me and actually confront me right to my face and say, "I own you." >> Wow. >> And I just shut down. That was the moment I was like, "Nobody owns me. I am working for you to make your business successful, to make you look good in your boss's eyes. You don't own me." So, yeah, that was the turning point for me. >> Lessons in leadership. >> Yeah. >> I want to go back to what Mel brought up uh with the issue of a business perhaps not performing well and how that changes the the calculation. And I think this is something that, you know, I would kind of maybe look at the other side of what Mel pointed out in terms of Josh's article. Mel pointed out that there are some owners who just prefer to be at business. And I don't doubt for a second that's true. I think there are also some owners who aren't doing it, as Josh put it, because they think their kids need a bigger house or fancier vacations. They're doing it because they're not sure their business is going to make it. they would like to be home, but they're sometimes just impossible tradeoffs. And sometimes they make the choice that they're happy with in the end, sometimes they don't. But it's it can be a really difficult choice if the business isn't doing well. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. I want to clarify what I said, though. Um cuz, you know, God knows I've I've run businesses that were not doing well. I'm talking about businesses with a business model that suggests it's never going to do well, that its economic engine doesn't create the the kind of uh velocity to lift it off. >> In that case, Mel, do you think the business owner knows that? Usually, >> I I think they don't, which is my point, right? Um and so when they don't know that, they're working harder and harder, and what they don't realize is it will never end. And I and maybe this is acutely on my mind because I talked to a business owner this morning who said to me that they're still in the same grind that they were in six years ago and I thought, hm, this guy reorganizes every 60 days. It seems like I'm exaggerating, but it's probably every few months. And um and yet he's still not able to make his engine turnover. Well, he's never built a business plan. He's never really looked at his economic engine and his business model. He's never really clarified his market. He's never really hunkered down and looked at the orc design. He's never really defined who the exact best customers are for him and the and the services that they should provide. And so, it's always something different, something new, trying to make it happen. And Lauren, this young man in 6 years is going to be in the same place he is today because he's not willing to go back and make those other kind of assessments, build out a business model that works. But yet, he's stressed. He's working a lot of hours. His wife is worried about him. all the things that this article suggests. And I see that more often than you might think. >> That's a hard life. >> Yeah, >> it's a horrible life. >> Did you give this business owner any advice, Mel? >> Lauren, you know me. So, what do you think? Of course, I did. And And I've offered to sit with him and walk through the This is the third time though, so it's the last time to walk through. Let me Let me spend a few days with you walking through a planning strategy, you know. Let's just take a look at the business. >> That's a generous offer. >> And um yeah, I'll get to it. But I'll get to it. Oh, okay. I've given him books to help him through it. And so I don't know what else to do other than watch that. I don't know what else to do. >> So how do you think his I can use the term marital situation, his spouse >> is supporting or how are they being calculated into this time for things other than work? Because you know at the end of the day the economy changes, people change, your business changes, people come and go. You got to learn how to manage that change. But at the same time, your spouse has to be able to support that. >> Yeah, I I do see him taking time with his spouse. She she seems to be very very important to him, and I think that's great. I worry about how that quality could be with his mind always worried about, you know, payroll every other Friday. Um but but he it seems to be important to him to answer your question question. He seems to spend time against it. He does take vacation time, but I can't imagine what that looks like with the angst that he feels, as Lauren pointed out, that the business just might not make it. And um he's already in a tough uh business. I I won't name it cuz it might disclose who he is. But, you know, I worry about folks like that. So, when I see an article like this, I think this sounds really really easy, but if I've got a business that sucks at its very core, I'm not so sure this is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about maybe a business that we should say, "Hey, maybe that's not the right business and maybe we should start over or go do something else." >> Do you really think this sounds easy? >> It sounds It sounds not easy. It sounds um I won't even call it simple, but you when I can write it down point by bullet point, at least there's a script I can follow. So, no, it's not the discipline of it is not easy. I guess it's it sounds easy in the sense that there are a lot of common sense suggestions that you can follow. The the difficulty is in applying that to specific situations where it's not obvious to you which way to go. >> And you know, when people aren't um around others, I I heard Lena mention that, you know, her friends are all a part of the same kind of mentoring groups. And when people aren't in those kind of circles, that's where you get stuck, >> right? >> Yeah. And I I think who you're associating with um you know the fi I think I heard that the five people that you hang out with the most are going to be the ones that influence you the most. And you have to break out of your comfort zone and try new things and meet new people. Um I'm always telling my kids that, you know, creativity comes at the intersection of curiosity and and intellect. So that when you have two different disciplines and and they're talking at dinner or over lunch, somebody will say that they're struggling with something and the other person will have this like look in their eyes like what's wrong with you? It's so obvious that this is what you need to do. It's because they've come from a totally different perspective. And if you're not having a circle where there are enough perspectives, you might stay stuck. >> So true. So true. You know, I think it's my bad luck that I've managed to bring together a group of extremely welladjusted business owners here, [laughter] >> well, let's be let's be clear about this, though, Lauren. I think what you're hearing us say is, of course, we've had periods in our lives where we may not have had it had it figured all out or, you know, we realize there's a tough period. But if it's always that way, um, there's something wrong. There's either there's just something wrong if it's always that way. The other thing is just as he's defining it in preamble you read, you know, there's always a new crisis always uh that's just a part of the nature of what we've got here. But I don't know any jobs that are easy either. You know, people that have their jobs, they've got crises and things that come up. The difference is the level of ownership and and the level of support and resources you might have around you to help you solve it, >> right? I also think a business each business takes on a life of its own. Someone earlier said the seasons of a business. I mean, if you have a business that's really scaling quickly, I mean, really quickly, and you can't build a team around you fast enough to delegate and everything, it's just going to eat up your time. And perhaps you don't have the right product market fit. Um, I think really what you need to be able to look at is say, okay, where's the business going and how fast do I want to scale it? But a lot of times you don't have say in that. And God knows I've lived that more than once in my life. >> Yeah. I've never been in the tech space where, you know, or the innovation space where that tends to happen a lot more. But, you know, when we when we grow more than 12% a year, there's scorch marks to pay for it. And um we've just learned that 8 to 12% a year is really healthy. Last two years we grew 24%. And it is scorch marks everywhere. But we have a chance to control that a bit. Maybe not completely, but a little bit. my own life experience. I had a business that grew real fast. My brother and I owned it. It's technology consulting and staffing. And I was on a plane literally 3 weeks out of the month traveling to 12 different sites throughout the United States. The one week I came back, I was exhausted. And once we were acquired and got out of the business, I made a decision to actually get out of the business simply because I wanted my kids to know me as their father and I wanted to know them as my children. But that was a tough decision to make. I mean, I had an identity crisis I had to go through. I was a father. I can remember I was probably three, four weeks into it. And my wife was saying, she was teaching me how to clean a diaper better. Let's put it that way. [clears throat] That was a big change. >> Were you literally a stay-at-home dad at that point? >> No. My wife basically was responsible for the kids. I'm going to say daytoday. She politely told me afterwards uh after I got out of the business, it was probably two, three months later, she said, "You know, the house is my office. I think you should get an outside office to [laughter] go to." And you know what? She was right. And I fought it internally at first, but she was right. >> So, so what did you do then? Did you start another business? >> Took about a year off, pulled out at that time a yellow legal pad and started writing notes on what did I learn in this adventure of building this business and scaling it. And those notes just took on a life of their own and I still do it to this day and give me a lot of information to look back on, see patterns in myself. But um it was a big adjustment to say the least. But it was worthwhile. Totally worthwhile. >> Yeah. Ted, what you're you're talking about is reflecting. And I think a lot of people don't do the belly button gazing anymore. As a kid, you'd go out in the on the backyard just stargaze or just, you know, watch the clouds go by and use your imagination. And as adults, we kind of lose that habit. And it's really, really important to reflect on what you did right, what you did wrong, what confused you. And if you keep those notes and you take notice of what's going on, then you can really design and draft a life that works better for you. >> Actually, my doing that led to today's product platform that we have for change management and change adoption. Where what is it? it prevents people from processing and adjusting and adapting to change. So, if I wouldn't have had that reflection period and kept that up throughout my life, I would have never been able to help design and implement or build a product like that. >> If you have a business that isn't successful, uh it doesn't mean you're never going to be successful cuz there's always something that you did right, something that made you happy. So, reflecting on failures and successes, I think it's critical to do both. >> Yeah. and reward yourself. >> Yeah, totally agree. >> You know, I remember once Lauren I I made a statement and I forgot what the statement was and you replied it's it's kind of easy to do that when you've you know you've got a business at a particular scale and and I never forgot you saying that to me. So I never I never want to forget that I do have this privilege of I've got a business at some level of scale. >> I I hope I said it nicely. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You said it kind of kind of nicely but it was true because I think sometimes the angst we feel I is is real angst like something could be lost my home my income. Other angst we feel is reputational angst or aspirational angst. There's just a higher level. And I think some of the ideas we're talking about today come from a place of a bit of um of of privilege of some kind of level of economic I won't say security but um you know it's it's it I I don't know if houses were on the line at some periods of time. So just something to think about there because as you said when someone is worried about absolute failure as in I put my house up on the line this business fails I lose my house the whole nine there's a level of anxiety around that that uh can be crippling for sure and not leave much room for reflection and consideration and you know all the healthy things we'd like to do. >> Mel earlier were talking about um this person whose business is going to be in the same position it was 6 years ago. Do you think there are warning signs that people can pick up on to notice um they're trying something and it's not working? Are there signals that people can pick up on to notice that the business or what they're trying to do isn't quite working and that they need to do something different? I think a lot of people who are spinning their wheels, they keep trying the same things over and over again. >> Yeah. Yeah, that is a great question. >> It is a great question. >> I am sure there are some things I can only tell you what I see. uh from the outside looking in, that makes me realize that's just not going to work. When I see people making trading off um long-term assets for short-term needs, when I see people having to um what they call reorganize multiple times, when I see people who are uh leaning on others in the supply chain in a way that's not normal, for example, not paying suppliers or asking them to do things for free or, you know, um uh trying to find partnerships that allow them to get more done without using any resources. I start seeing a model that I say, well, how can that ever work if you're trying to operate it that way? Where's the where's the economic opportunity in that? So, I guess I see signs, but no, I [clears throat] I think that's a great question. We should ponder that harder for sure. >> And then my other question is if you are successful, like with your business, you said you you're trying to keep that growth to like 8 to 12%. Um, what are you seeing in the pipeline that says, "Well, we need to put the brakes on or oh, we better like, you know, hustle a little bit so we can stay in this healthy range." >> Yeah. Well, that's all about our backlog. We're a construction company, so you know, if we don't see things in our backlog and on our in our lead log, um, we [clears throat] should be concerned. Um, quite honestly, over the last seven years or so, eight years or so, the opposite has been our challenge. How do we service our ongoing clients without violating the grow 8 to 12% uh role? And that's why the last two years we've grown 24%. Coincidentally, the two years since I've been CEO, they've grown 24%. And um [clears throat] it's because, you know, they wanted to go after the additional revenue, I guess, and they paid for it. It's been painful for them. Mel, when you grow 24%, does that mean you have to hire 24% more employees? >> Not quite 24% but a lot more. So, we think we can grow the capacity of our existing people about 10% a year. So, you eat some of that up with that. Um, but the rest are new hires. Yeah, >> that's a lot of work. >> It's a lot of work. So, it wears out our HR team. You hire too fast. So, you hire people that then you turn over later. So, your turnover goes up. your customer satisfaction goes down because they're new people and they don't know the the Traversity way. It's just you give people projects and opportunities that you're not sure they're ready for. Their resume says they are, but you've not seen them do it before. Um leadership gets stretched because they got to do more, you know, patching holes. I mean, it's just a and I haven't even started talking about the financial strain on the organization. Do it that way, too. Margin compression happens. It's just a tough thing to grow too fast. And everybody's company's different on what rate you can grow, but um 8 to 12 just seems to work for us. >> I have a question for everyone and that is how do you manage change and see it coming? What I mean by that is in you know 2020 2021 we had co radical change everybody had to work harder in many respects if they owned a business. All of a sudden tariffs come in changes the entire game again. These things are consistent. They seem to be a trend now. every couple years major train change coming. How do you manage change and still have a quality of life? [laughter] >> That seemed to be a tough question. [laughter] >> We know there's going to be change. That's that's the definition. You know, death and taxes, changes happen. Yeah, that's a given. But it's how do you adapt your business to pivot? Like when COVID came, I had to stop going into people's homes to have meetings. So, Zoom was available. uh all these video conferencing programs are there. So really quickly you had to be able to decide how do you pick quickly and efficiently a piece of software to learn really fast and use it and get your team up to par on it so you can start using it with your client. It's kind of like onboarding a new person. How do you do this at the pace that they can at the the rate that you can afford? So I think if you could put together an SOP uh you know standard operating process for how you're going to adapt to change if you need to have additional resources well what does that require me to have in reserve or where can I cut corners from first so that you know you have like an emergency plan. So I think being prepared helps you be ready for the change and I think knowledge is power. And how did you or how would you suggest others actually work through that change? Because sometimes you can change quickly but your employees can't change as quickly as you. So you're kind of dragging them along so to speak and that's a lot of anxiety there. How did you manage that? >> Well, first I don't have employees. That was pretty easy. I trained myself but I do have a good support system. So when I needed to find a new way to video conference with people, I had a support group where I could call and just, you know, get everybody on a group call and say, "Hey, I need to do this. Do you have any experience with this?" And somebody in the group suggested this software, somebody else suggested that. We had a conversation. So I had two or three pieces of software to look at, evaluate it, and just pick one. And and just know that it doesn't have to be perfect. You just have to pick one the best that you can do at the time and deal with it. And if you're going to switch it later, that's okay. You have to be okay with making a decision. Sometimes decision fatigue is a real issue. It you you just have to pull the trigger and go. And I know because I am very bad at pulling the trigger. >> Ted, you you are uh much more versed of change management than I am. So I hesitate to even try to even weigh in on this. Here's what I will say. Um I am a huge advocate of having both a a strategic and an annual plan. And my premise behind that is is if you have a plan, you know what you're changing to or from. Um, if you don't have a plan, I'm not exactly sure how you manage change. If you have a plan, uh, and you can communicate the need to change, I think communication and then pacing through the change management process becomes I don't want to call it, it's not routine, that was the word I was going to use. That's not what I mean. But it it becomes a process now more than a crisis. Um because there's a plan in place. But I I would turn that question to you and ask you to answer it. [laughter] >> Yeah. I I think that's the perfect thing. Yeah. >> Number one, have different scenarios similar to what you're just saying, Mel. If scenario one happens, this is what we do. Scenario B, scenario C, here's what we do in different scenarios. That requires a lot of critical thinking and not not everybody has time to do that. is back to what was mentioned earlier with reflection. So I think first of all you have to be able to say here's what our businesses are capable of doing. We have this orders are down or going down. You you watch your trends and then you have to really be able to make sense out of that change and figure out how can I turn this into a moneymaking opportunity or monetize it to my favor. But then you also have to be looking at the market a lot to see what your competition's doing, >> right? And that's your job as the boss. If you're working in your business all the time, you don't have the hours to dedicate to your strategic thinking. And it's critical to running a successful business. If you can't see the changes that are coming, you don't see that the people are not buying these certain things anymore that you have to shift. If you as the owner aren't cognizant of these insights, you're not going to be able to make those changes and be prepared. You you really have to be prepared. And if you can't think about it and look at your data that you have, you're sunk. >> Yeah. And I I think also it comes down to reading your people. Um it's all metrics. A lot of it's metrics. Cognitive biases always take over, fear, things like that. So if you have good metrics on your people, I mean, we've developed metrics that will tell you shifts by week, by day, teams, the entire company, their emotional patterns that they're going through. And how do you talk to somebody that's in a state of apathy? But then how do you get that person back on an even keel so they can see opportunities? Um so managing change it's mental and emotional. No question. >> Did you just say you have I've gotten distracted now. Did you just say you have metrics on all the people? >> Yeah. >> Really? >> That's what we do with clients. Yeah. We'll go in and we have a platform we can go in and monitor, if you will, emotional patterns, belief patterns, what kind of meaning are they assigning to things? And in effect, when you look at your rumor mill in a business, and every business has a rumor mill, that's what everybody's talking about. >> How are you measuring this, Ted? >> Um, we have technology built into it for um watching and monitoring tone, voice, things like that. Um, or emotions. And then we do an awful lot of pulse surveys. We bring in emotions. We ask people about their beliefs in certain things. and the way they respond. We'll tell you what their belief systems are. And we've got a pretty sophisticated set of metrics that we can go into an organization and help them understand. Here's where your people are, here's the shift over the last three, four weeks, last quarter, here's how you want to talk to them, here's the words you need to use, and here's how you guide them through this change. And the reason why we came up with this is because after someone in the business did a lot of executive coaching, I could always get leadership teams to understand the need and they would come but they couldn't bring the rest of their business along. They just couldn't get them shifting fast enough in an in a world of change. And that's why we started developing these other metrics because without metrics I'm lost. I I need metrics both financial statements but human metrics also. And it's not HR metrics. How many days did they take off? How many people are calling in sick? I mean, that's part of it, but that's not a true human mindset, if you will, that they're working out of. >> That sounds more like alignment. >> Yeah, it's exactly what it is. And that's the word we use, alignment. >> You got to get all this aligned. >> We only have a couple minutes left. I'd kind of like to try to tie this up uh by referring to some suggestions that Josh makes in that column we started with. A number of the points he makes are things that we've actually talked about here, but I think it's it's good to summarize a little bit. He he offers kind of a I guess a five or sixstep process. If if you sense that you're caught in the destructive pattern that he described that I started by reading, these are the steps he suggests you take. Starting with doing an honest assessment of yourself. Uh, and he suggests doing that by really tracking how you spend your time for 2 weeks. To pay attention to where you're spending your time and where your energy is going. >> Yeah, I think that's key because how you spend your time is how you're spending your life. Time is your number one resource. And if you don't know how you're using it and you're just wasting it and you don't even realize it's being wasted, busy is not the same as as being productive. you could be doing things that are just spinning your wheels. >> Here's Josh's second uh step, and I think this will resonate with you, Ted. He says, "Think about what success really means to you." And then he points out, "We all track metrics in our business, like revenue and profit margins. Maybe add a few metrics like the number of family dinners you actually make it to." >> Yeah. >> And and make it to mentally as well as physically. >> I think that's really smart. The third thing he he suggests is to create real boundaries and actually enforce them. Uh time boundaries, physical boundaries, mental boundaries. He says the mental boundaries are the hardest to enforce. Learning to actually stop thinking about work when you're not working and take a lot of practice. Have any of you struggled with that? >> I struggle with all of [laughter] I will tell you though something I'm doing more now is I'm reading a lot of fiction. Well, because I'm trying to write fiction, but the fiction um takes you someplace else. And so now I'm almost always reading a fiction book. Right now I'm in between cuz I'm reading CEO Excellence again, but um I'm almost always reading a fiction book. And and that has seemed to help me, you know, not focus on the things that are on my list to focus on. >> Step four on Josh's list is to show up differently at home than you do at work. Uh he points out in business you're often solving problems and making decisions quickly. At home sometimes people just need you to listen without trying to fix everything. I actually think that's probably good advice at work too. What do you guys think? >> I'm guilty of uh that sin also. And I think it's good advice and good practice to put in place. >> I agree. I think asking working on asking the question about you know trying to figure out what do they want from me and sometimes at home you shouldn't ask it so directly but trying to figure out what what do they really need right now they need me just to listen and nod my head they need a hug they I mean what do they really need and uh I think it's just good habit >> Josh says step five is the suggestion that you accept that you're going to miss some business opportunities >> wait wait wait wait wait wait I don't accept that I think if you find the things you're supposed to be doing and do them. I I just don't subscribe that you've got to do the trade-off again unless it's a business that demands you're there to deliver its value. Doctor, lawyer, accountant, you know, maybe even design like Lena is doing, that's one thing. But if it's not that kind of business, no, I don't I don't agree that I I have to give up on business opportunity. That equation is not that simple. >> Because you don't have to do it all yourself. Is that your point? >> That's correct. And if you do, then that's a different whole situation that we already talked about. >> Josh's last point is start today, not tomorrow, which I think you probably agree with. >> Yeah, I would say start yesterday. >> Yeah, yesterday. >> All right, we are out of time. Uh, I think we can all pretty much agree uh that Josh was right that these issues do not get discussed as much as they should, but the three of you have very generously taken a crack at that. Um, my thanks to Mel Gravely, Lena Magcguire, and Ted Wolf. And by the way, if you're uh impressed with what Josh has to say or if you disagree, uh either way, you can meet him. He is already registered to attend the next 21 Hats live event in Cincinnati. And Mel, if I recall correctly, [clears throat] you uh invited us all to stay at your house. Am I right about that? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. My wife will not mind. You know, it'll save your money. It'll be great. >> Excellent. Uh and if you'd like more information about 21 Hats Live, uh like the incredibly low price, just shoot me an email, lauren l o r n21 hats.com. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. One thing before you go. Everything we do at 21 Hats is created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to help us all learn together. If you get something out of listening to these podcast episodes, consider joining the conversation. You can do that by joining the 21 Hats sounding board, a Slack channel where you can tap the wisdom of a very smart crowd or by becoming a founding member and joining our monthly Zoom forum where you can be part of conversations much like the ones we have on the podcast. You can sign up for both by subscribing [music] to the Morning Report. If you have any questions, you can email me at lauren21hats.com. And if you get something out of this podcast or out of the morning report, [music] please tell a friend, tell an enemy, tell every business owner you know. Your word of mouth owner to owner will always be the most effective way to build this community for all of us. Thank you. It means a lot. This episode was produced by another entrepreneur, Jess Stubberon, founder [music] of Blank Word Productions. Thanks for listening, everyone.