Ep 31 - Steve Cadigan

Steve Cadigan is someone who helped shape the culture of one of the most impactful platforms in the world, LinkedIn. He’s been called a Talent Hacker, a Culture Strategist, and a Future of Work thought leader. But today, we’re more interested in the man behind all that, what shaped him, what he’s learned, and what he’s still figuring out.

Steve Cadigan is a rare blend of boardroom strategist and culture architect. He’s not just dug into the trenches of HR, he led those trenches. At LinkedIn, when the company was just a few hundred people, he helped scale it into thousands, shaping the very culture that made it a global icon.

Before that, he cut his teeth at tech giants like Cisco and EA, helping organizations navigate rapid growth, acquisitions, global teams and change.

Today, through Cadigan Talent Ventures, Steve advises leaders and companies around the world on how to turn talent into advantage, how to re‑think work in this era of disruption, and how to build cultures people actually want to join.

This episode was sponsored by Matthew Stevenson Insurance.

Website: https://matthew-stevenson.ca/#work

Instagram: @mattstevensoninsurance

This episode's Dad Jokes Sponsor is Spicer Landscaping and Snow Removal.

Website: https://www.spicerlandscaping.ca

The Clothing and Swag Sponsor of the show is OneBone Clothing.

Website: https://onebonebrand.com

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
This shit My Dad Taught Me episode is brought to you by an
amazing sponsormatthew-stephenson.ca.
He's wealth strategy TAC smart, estate smart, legacy smart.
Thank you, Matt. Let's do a little technology
test here. This is a this is a first for us
on the show we have done. I've got 30 episodes released
right now and every single one we've done in studio, real life

(00:25):
person, face to face. This is the first time we've
done it virtually. So the set up here will Miles
will put a little photo out or something, but you're coming to
us on a on ATV screen on a stand.
Be the first one with no black light afterwards.
Basically, yeah, You're you look, you look like, what's that
episode? Sheldon turns himself into a
little robot to roll around. We kind of got that vibe going

(00:47):
on today, so you'll bear with usif if we're new to the format.
But Congrats on being our first,Steve.
Great. Great.
He's like whoop Dee fucking dude.
Can we get this done? Yeah, it's called Zoom, Asshole.
We've been doing it. Since COVID, you're not.
Special. This isn't special.
This is my 4th 1:00 today, yeah.That's right.

(01:07):
We could speed along there, Chris.
Like I said, studs and duds, Steve.
So let's get right into it. I want to introduce you, Steve.
We do this with Chachi PT. So let me read this out.
Our guest today is someone who helped shape the culture of one
of the most impactful platforms in the world, LinkedIn.
He's been called a talent hacker, a culture strategist,
and a future of work thought leader.

(01:30):
But today we're more interested in the man behind all that.
What shaped him? What has he learned?
What is he still figuring out? Steve Caddigan is a rare blend
of boardroom strategist and culture architect.
He's not just dug into the trenches of HR.
He led those trenches at LinkedIn when the company was
just a few 100 people. He helped scale it into
thousands, shaping it into the culture that made it a Global

(01:52):
Icon. Before that, he cut his teeth at
tech giants like Cisco and EA, helping organizations navigate
rapid growth, acquisitions, global teams and change today
through Katagan, Katagan Talent Ventures.
Steve, he advises leaders and companies around the world on
how to turn talent into advantage, how to rethink work

(02:12):
in this era of disruption, and how to build cultures and people
who actually want to join. Steve, welcome to the show.
Awesome. You got it right.
Pretty much, yeah. That's.
Dude when I got to the part whenit said EA 2 I was going to do
the like EA. It's in the.
Game I wanted to, it's so bad. So welcome to the show Steve.

(02:34):
How did Judge ET. Do thanks.
Yeah, pretty good, pretty good. Got most of that right.
Most of that, right? I mean on the work stuff, right,
which is mostly what the what the LLMS can find, they can't
find the person behind all that.Right.
So let's have a podcast about it.
Tell us the person behind all that.
Give us the, give us the background.

(02:55):
Sure, I guess the son of a minister, Episcopal minister and
a mom was a social worker. When I was 2, they took my older
sister and I to South Africa andthat's where I spent the next
seven years, mostly barefoot andraised there until the South
African apartheid regime threw us out.

(03:15):
So I was 7 and we got bumped back to the states.
So my dad had to network and found someone from divinity
school had a school in Connecticut that needed a
chaplain. So my dad moved all of us and
had another brother and sister born in Africa.
We like to call them African Americans.
And that gets a few heads to go what?

(03:36):
And so we, that's where I prettymuch grew up was Connecticut.
I went to school there. My dad was the chaplain,
ultimately became the headmasterof a private school.
So I got a free private school education, which is pretty
awesome because in the states it's pretty expensive and went
to college there, fell in love with someone from California.
She went home after graduation and I was hot on her heels and

(04:00):
so moved the first sort of career move in my life was for
love and California lasted the relationship didn't she went to
law school. And I don't know if you know,
people to go to law school, but that one of the first things
they do in your orientation is say, hey, if you're in a
relationship, just so you know, it's like, you know, the failure
rate of a of a startup, like 90%of these are not going to work.
And my girlfriend and I are like, oh, yeah, we're good.

(04:21):
We're going to be totally exception here, right?
And, you know, three months later, I'm like, OK, U-Haul,
come on, I'm out. You know, she is still a friend
of mine, but that it didn't last.
I got a job. My first job was crediting
collections for a fashion company.
Those of you who are not watching right now would be, you

(04:42):
know, remiss if I didn't say that I am clearly the role model
of good fashion, but I had no interest in women's fashion at
all other than this company was really fun and they moved me
around. And probably a year into it, I
got I discovered that there was a position recruiting and I got
really lucky at that point in myjourney of find something I
loved and I loved it because I love everything about HRS about

(05:03):
sports. It's like, how do you find what
environments produce the best dot coms for certain people and
how do you match people on teamsand and so forth?
And how do you deal with someonewho was a star and they're no
longer a star? They how do they handle pressure
or failure and all that stuff? And so over the, you know, the
next 40 years, I've worked in six different industries and

(05:26):
three different countries, Singapore, Canada, US, done M
and as all over the world. While in Singapore, I had my
first son. He was born there, made in
America, but born in Canada. And then my twins were born just
outside of Vancouver in Westminster.
And you can always tell the twins because they're a little
cold of the touch. And now they just like flew the

(05:51):
nest. So I this is the first year
where all my kids are in collegenow.
So I just moved from Silicon Valley down to San Diego.
I'm just unpacking boxes here aswe speak.
It's been a few weeks. It's been great.
My first marriage ended about 10years ago and got remarried 7
years ago. And my wife is like, she is

(06:11):
never going to leave San Diego. I'm like, please, I want to go
back to Vancouver. She's like, yeah, you're going
to have to like cut my legs off before you're going to get me to
leave this place. You love San Diego so much.
But yeah, so that's sort of, I don't know what, what else I can
say The my wife has 2, two daughters, 1 is in college and
one is finishing high school andwe're just starting, you know,

(06:31):
the college application process is such a fun time.
Like if I could find a way to make money touring colleges for
a living, I would absolutely do that.
It is the most fun environment to spend your time in.
Cuz it's just like good stuff's happening here.
Fun stuff. The future's filled with
possibilities. And so I'm so sad that my
youngest stepdaughter is finishing her journey.

(06:52):
And we're just, you know, you don't used to go to the mailbox
in my younger day, but now you just go to the online to like
refresh. Did I get a notice that I'm in
that school or not in that school?
And so far all the school she's applied to, she's in.
So we're just waiting on a few more, but there you go, you end.
Up applying to and when when youwhen you guess that you're going
to end up going anyways. Like how many how many schools

(07:13):
does she apply to? She didn't apply to as many as
my boys did. Actually, one of my twins
applied to one. It was just one school.
They're going to let him play basketball.
OK, I'm going to go there. The other one applied to 30, and
I think she's applied to a dozen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's different.
Yeah, that's cool. Our one of our favorite

(07:34):
questions on the show is if if we had your kids on here and we
said tell us about your dad, what do you think they're going
to? Say, oh, my son was doing a
paper on this a few years ago for middle school.
It's like, what is the philosophy of your parent when
it comes to your education? And I go, OK, give me the
choices. Like, you know, was this
multiple choice? He goes, yeah.
I go, OK, what are they? He goes, well, there's, you

(07:57):
know, sort of like authoritarian, like wants to
know everything, every grade, every test.
There's one is sort of more likeConfucius, like ask you
questions about it, but doesn't really get in, you know, get in
your grill about it. And I go, oh, OK, well, I
definitely know which one I am. And he says, yeah, you're you
never asked me about school, Dad, like ever.
I go, you want me to. And so I, I trust you.

(08:18):
I know that you're doing it. My parents never got in meddled
in my schooling and stuff. And I was present in my class in
high school. I was the top 5% academically,
got into a good small Division Three academic school in the
States and I didn't I guess theyhad confidence in me.
So I was sort of that my imprintof how to parent through the

(08:41):
education process, which is an interesting, you know,
interesting thing to think aboutwhen I there's no class for
that, right? Like raising kids, like there's
no class for choosing your spouse.
Like this is one of the most impactful decisions of your
life. Like where are you going to get
the intelligence of that? No, we're going to go spend a
lot of time teaching you math and teaching you science and you
know, the humanities. But some of these life things

(09:03):
are you're if you got good parents, great.
If you got a good church community, even better.
They're going to offer you some some thinking around that.
But but yeah, you just kind of figure it out, you know?
But I guess my, what my kids would say.
You see, I'm stalling for time to come up with a good answer
for you, Mike. My dad procrastinator.
My dad procrastinates a little. 100% like I'm full full admit

(09:26):
that when it took me 5 years to write my first book, but I think
I they would say he's he's into fitness the sport like still
compete and I still play tennis.I played three sports in
college. I think I might have left that.
I played baseball, basketball and tennis.
I love competing. I love cheering my kids on.
Like I would drop anything to goto their events, whatever it is.

(09:50):
Definitely like my animals we got especially dogs.
My wife, I didn't realize it when I married her, but she's a
farmer. So she we've got now we've got
like bunnies and they just new bunnies start showing up every
time I come home, there's another Bunny that we have so
and then there's big drama. Naming the Bunny is really the
biggest drama we have in our relationship.
So what else would they say? I travel a lot, so travel all

(10:13):
over the world today, helping organizations and countries
think about talent and people, which is really fun.
And yeah, I don't know what elsethey'd say.
A Moody. A definitely Moody.
You know, I'm a morning person, too.
They would know that. Like, I'm up before anyone
reading my coffee. Like, do not talk to me.
I've got my coffee. I used to be a newspaper.

(10:34):
My parents, my my, my boys wouldsay, you know how that people
know there's someone old in the house.
Dad, I go, how's that They go. There's a newspaper we have
delivered like who does that? And I finally pivoted a few
years ago. I don't know if you guys ever
ever newspaper junkies, but I always love reading the
newspaper. Now I it's everything on the
phone. Like, you know, I just read
constantly. Every morning is usually my

(10:55):
immersion, immersion into AI andwhat's going on in the world for
about an hour. And then I also reserve a little
time. This is also drives them crazy.
Are you guys familiar with Duolingo at all?
Yeah, yeah. So Duolingo's a language app.
So I've been on that since the pandemic every day.
And you can buy a freeze, like if you miss a day and you like
give them a little money, they'll keep your streak alive.

(11:16):
So I've had to do that a few times, but I think I'm on like
1500 days in a row with Duolingotrying to learn Spanish.
Which. Credit card Bill's at 3 grand
for those like that's what I payfor but.
That's right. He didn't understand the
recurring revenue thing. Yeah, that's probably what
they'd say, yeah. What?
What language? What language?
Spanish. I'm trying to learn Spanish now.

(11:37):
I spent a summer in France when I was 16 and I was pretty good
with the accent, just horrific with grammar, right?
So if I needed to emigrate anywhere in the world, if things
continue to go crazy over here in the States, I mean, Quebec I
can get, I think I can get into Quebec because I can speak, I
can get by with French. You probably let me in pretty
quick, but Spanish, if you know some French and English, Spanish

(12:00):
is not a big leap. You know It's OK, yeah.
Yeah, and 40% of the people in San Diego got to speak Spanish.
You're only 45 minutes. From 100% I could see literally
if I tilted my camera, we could see Mexico right over there.
Yeah, we're not far. Yeah, I went to San Diego for a
conference and I remember all the guys were taking off because
only a 30 minute drive and you're across the border and

(12:22):
there's places to go party apparently.
But yeah, I wasn't. 30 minutes to get there in like 6 hours to
get back into the country. Yeah.
Yeah, there's always a line at the border, Yeah.
So I always like asking a guy with a bunch of kids.
And you got twins in there as well too.
Which one is your favorite childand why?

(12:43):
Definitely do. Yeah, I definitely do not have
favourites, but my oldest son, no.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
There's a funny, it's Tony Robbins that says that.
He always does it at a couple events I've been to.
He goes, he'll ask the audience because he's talking about
relationships and stuff, and he goes.
So, you know, if somebody asked you who your favorite child is,
you, you'd probably not answer that.

(13:04):
But if I asked you is 1A little easier, you'd probably know the
answer to the question, right? Yeah, yeah.
It's really interesting, you know, raising twins.
I was, I remember after I had myfirst son, I was like, Oh my
God, my life's over. You know, I can't work out.
It's like this is just, everything's crazy.

(13:24):
It's hard. And then you have one child, you
have essentially 3 relationships, mom to child, dad
to child and mom to dad. That's three.
When you have two more kids, younow don't have, you know, 5
relationships, you have 8 because every kids got a
relationship with themselves. So you're going from a three

(13:44):
relationship community to 8 relationship community.
And that's super different, right?
And I think that the biggest burden of guilt that I carry as
a parent is I definitely was much more present in my first
son's reality. Obviously he's the only one
there. And it was really hard to get
one-on-one time with your twins,like really hard.

(14:06):
And so it's just a different dynamic.
It is, it is what it is, you know, and I don't know, And I
got that advice too, you know, like, hey, if you're raising
twins, the biggest complaint thetwins have is like, hey, you
know, we're having a birthday party together.
Like my friends are not his friends, you know, like, what
are we doing here? So we would always try to be
respectful and like, hey, do youguys want a separate party?

(14:27):
You want a party together? Do you want no party?
You know, this is a thing now, right?
This whole industry is around kids parties.
Like when I was, you know, having a birthday, it was like,
here's your ice cream cake that mom sort of put together and
that's it, you know, like no friends, nothing.
And now it's like what, you know, you don't have the clown
coming and the balloon person and like, and, or the, the, the

(14:49):
video game truck that's going topull into your driveway and all
the kids are going to go consumesugar and just destroy your
house like for, for an afternoon.
Like it's such a thing now, right?
Yeah, and it's not cheap either.No, it's not.
It's not getting started like I took us.
To like McDonald's and we could have like 4 friends come with us
and like they had a little play place that had all the diseases

(15:10):
on it like happy birthday, here you go.
Right, right, right. I, I literally remember now that
you mention that, I remember themoment I went from a
cheeseburger to 1/4 pounder. That was like, that was
literally like a threshold of manhood for me.
Like I felt so big and my remember my dad's like, Oh yeah,
you go son getting that quarter pounder.
You know, it was a it was a moment.

(15:32):
You know, no one, I don't think anyone could relate to that
today, right? Because the the the cheeseburger
has become a slider and and you know the the quarter powder is
like a out of 1/4 of like a second cheeseburger.
Was. I know.
That's all right, Ronald, if you're listening, we see you.
So I want to go back to some of the work that you've put out.

(15:56):
Do you want to talk about Work Quake a little bit?
I find that one fascinating. Yeah, so, you know, I after I
left LinkedIn in after having been there for four just insane
years, I felt like 20, it was probably was a 2013.
I didn't really have much of A plan, but I started getting
inquiries from people all aroundthe world saying, Hey, can you

(16:18):
help us, you know, learn what you did at at LinkedIn?
Like how were you able to hire against Google, Apple, Facebook,
you know, Twitter, Intel? How were you able to beat those
guys because you couldn't pay them more?
You couldn't have a flashier building than them.
How were you able to do that? So when I started doing that, I
started meeting more and more business leaders and that was
probably the most fun learning for me initially going out of my

(16:39):
own was when you work for a company, like that's your
universe, right? And then and you and you get to
see other organizations. But when you're on your own and
you're just diving into so many different organizations, you're
seeing different leadership styles, different cultures,
different, you know, habits, different comp philosophies,
different, you know, all kinds of different rituals.

(17:00):
That's then you're all of a sudden like, wow, this is rich
learning for me, Really, really fun.
And what's really fun about I don't, I don't like the word
consultant, but I guess that's an easy way to describe what I
do. And I hated consultants because
I would always invite consultants into my companies
where I worked. They would say exactly what I
said. And my leaders would go, oh,
yeah, yeah, I go. I've been telling you that for
five years now. We pay all this money for some

(17:21):
knucklehead who doesn't know what they're talking about.
And you say, yes, so now I get to be that person.
I don't know anything about yourcompany.
I'm going to say a bunch of stuff.
They're going to. Oh, yeah.
And the people that have been like, we've been telling them
that like, so I'm like, I can bethe person that says what you
already know. And then, you know, you can pay
me a lot of money for that. But I, you know, that what
started happening after I started engaging with these

(17:43):
different sectors, much bigger pool of, you know, inputs, if
you will, I started seeing a lotof stuff that was broken with
the, the model work as we knew it.
Businesses were not built in. The model of business wasn't
built for the pace of change that we're seeing right now.
You know, things like new technologies are coming faster
than we can prepare people for the skills to use the
technologies. I mean, it's just an incredible

(18:05):
tidal wave of changes on so manyfronts.
And so I said, you know, I'm increasingly seeing companies
are unhappy with a relationship with employees and employees are
unhappy with a relationship withemployers.
So maybe there's a different wayof thinking about this
relationship. And that started gnawing at me
for years. And finally after about, I don't
know, the 10th time of me finishing a conference talk and

(18:26):
someone saying, hey, where's your book?
I go, it's right here in my head.
They said, maybe you should, youknow, invest some time in doing
that. And the pandemic was a perfect
time for me to sort of say, hey,things have stopped, slowed way
down. Let me go and start putting
these thoughts together. And that sort of led me to think
about, let me build a new model for the future work that is
inspiring for employers and employees, You know, and we

(18:48):
don't see. And even even with that out
there, honestly, Gallup, who runs the engagement survey that
most of the world pays attentionto, just came out with a survey
of on leader engagement. And it's an all time low right
now. 27% of the leaders in the world are engaged.
Like it's just a shit show. And what?
What do you think? So like that.

(19:09):
I mean, I think there's dozens of things.
I don't think you just put your finger on one.
I think this whole narrative of do more, go faster, save money,
eliminate jobs, use AI, it's just overwhelming people.
And oh, we're going to do another digital transformation.
It's like digital transformation, like a
transformation fatigue. Like really, I just figured out
the last system last month and now we're going to do another

(19:29):
one. I think we're and we're not
training leaders at all. So we're putting people in sort
of what I call battlefield promotions.
Like, yeah, you go run the team.Like, what can I get some
support over here? Like I don't even want to be a
manager. And now you've got me managing
and leading people. So I think the the care and the
value of doing that. And, and I, I think honestly,
it's the pace of change. I don't blame companies for not

(19:51):
investing in leaders, but I think it's a product of the
world's moving so fast. Most businesses today.
And here's a great beer conversation for those of you
that think this is interesting. How many companies they are
building to be around in 100 years, you know, really being
and if you're, if you really believe they're being going to
be around in 100 years, they're probably growing their leaders

(20:11):
because they think we're going to be around tomorrow.
Like there's a short list of companies today.
You can say, yeah, they're definitely want to be around for
a long time. Obviously the obvious ones,
Amazon wants to be around a longtime.
Google's thinking like that too,you know, But most companies,
small, medium, they're like, bro, we're going to get like out
flanked by someone in five to 10years.
Let's just build this thing, mine it, sell it, have an exit,

(20:33):
and then we'll go on to our nextadventure.
Why would we invest in leaders, right?
Because we're not going to be around in 100 years.
How, how, how dare we think thatwe're so audacious that we're
going to survive that, right, when most start-ups just don't
make it. So I think there's more and more
of that increased recognition that hey, the future is so
uncertain right now that we justdon't know.
And I think that's really disarming, honestly, to your

(20:56):
question, like what's contributing to this is like, we
used to have 5/10/20 year planning meetings in the early
part of my career. Now it's like 5-10 twenty month
planning. Like we can't even plan for five
years because come on, who who knows what's going to be there.
And I think when I was at LinkedIn, the chairman, Reid
Hoffman said something one time,which I think just nails it on
why this is so complex and so different.

(21:16):
He was asked when we were building LinkedIn in the early
days, hey, who's your biggest competitor?
Like who worries you? And he goes, oh, good question.
My biggest competitor is the company that hasn't been
invented yet, someone that's just going to come up with a new
paradigm game changer that's going to make my business model
obsolete, right? And that's, I mean, a lot of
businesses think like that. And if you think about how
little capital you need to standup a company today and how short

(21:39):
amount of time that is like thatshould be scary for all the
entrenched competitors. And the best example of that, if
you if you take a look at it, and we sure love our cars down
here in the States, the most valuable car company in the
world right now. It's not the one that's been
doing it for a century. It's not the one that has the
most engineers who've been doingmaking cars for forever.
Tesla is worth more than Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota,

(22:06):
Mercedes and BMW worth more thanthem, more than them combined.
And they're run by a lunatic who's got six part time jobs.
I forget his name. What is it, Tony Stark?
And, and they have a median tenure of two years.
That's the length of time most of their employees wind up
staying. If you, if you go, you know,

(22:26):
take a look today on LinkedIn, like what's the tenure?
And all these other car companies, it's anywhere between
5:00 and 9:00 years, you know. And so what's crazy about that
is you could make an argument that Tesla is succeeding because
they haven't been around a long time.
They don't have all these hundreds of years of policies
and procedures and myopic ways of thinking that you have to do

(22:47):
it this way. And if you don't believe me, go
watch Ford versus Ferrari. That scene where Carol Shelby
goes into Mr. Ford's office and he's holding that folder and Mr.
Ford's like, tell me why I shouldn't fire you.
He goes, well, that folder you're holding Mr. Ford that
just touched 16 hands before it touched yours.
We are not going to win the racewith 16 people contributing to,
you know, how to beat Mr. Ferrari in Lamont's, right?

(23:10):
And I think that's sort of so all that all this crazy stuff, I
think is contributing to great opportunity to like, let's make
the future work like better, like let's use AI to buy more
time for us, not eliminate people's jobs, right?
And and that's how I'm trying toreframe it so we're not
intimidated in into sort of the fetal position, which is how a
lot of people are feeling, I think because of AI.

(23:31):
Right. And how do you do that from a
planning perspective? Like let's say, if if I'm an
executive listening to this and I, I'm a little old school, I
like a three-year, I like a fiveyear plan.
Traditionally that would be something you'd sit down, you'd
put a lot of time and energy into, and you'd close the book
and it probably gets dusty on a shelf.
But the other problem with that is that a lot of people say,
well, no, that becomes the Bible, right?
Because that was our plan. We got to stick to our plan.

(23:54):
But with the pace of technology,things evolving, how would you
tell an executive or one of those medium sized business
owners, how do you plan for the future right now?
How do you create a road map? I think what you have to do is
look at it this way. Move from a we're going to know
everything to we're going to learn everything culture, which

(24:14):
means the most important employees to me are not the ones
that know everything now yesterday.
They're the ones that can learn the most about tomorrow fastest,
right? So our competitive advantage is
going to be the staff, this company with people who can
learn new stuff quickly. So that whatever pivots come,
whatever new changes come, whatever new challenges is to
say, you know, let's take the pandemic, the massive deficit of

(24:37):
supply chain availability, just put everyone upside down, right?
And so how fast you could figurethat out.
So if you take a look at let's just take NVIDIA, let's take a
look at Google, Apple, Microsoft, and a lot of these
companies that did well built cultures where crazy is kind of
expected, right? Versus let's build cultures
where nothing changes, where everything's kind of the same.

(24:59):
So you I think you have to buildthe cultures of experimentation.
That's the first, you know, thing that I would think about
is like, I want to build a placewhere we're going to have to try
new stuff because that's the only way we're going to learn.
And we're going to have to have a tolerance for like some goof
UPS and some mistakes and not about getting it perfect all the
time. Now, if you're running a
hospital, that's not a good strategy, right?
Like I don't want, you know, hey, let's try this stuff in the

(25:21):
operating room. No, but you have to appreciate
that your strength is how quickly your people are going to
be able to adapt and learn. And that takes a different way
of thinking about this. Let's just take tenure for
example, right now in North America, right?
The median length of time that someone between the ages of 20
and 35 stays in organization is 2.4 years.

(25:44):
OK? So let me ask you guys, that 2.4
year number, do you think in thefuture people are going to stay
in companies longer or do you think it's going to stay low and
possibly go lower? What do you think?
I think people are going to go lower, correct?
Correct, which is what everyone says.
So when I say that to people, it's like OK, so that's a
problem because every way you pay reward benefit people more

(26:07):
RSP, more 4O1K match, more vacation, it's all based on
tenure. And you just told me people are
probably not going to do that. So if you believe that they're
not going to stay as long, what can we do to optimize for that?
Well, we can make sure we have no jobs that take five years for
someone to learn, right? Like let's re engineer the job
so maybe two people can figure it out in six months.
OK, let's expect people are not going to stay and start

(26:29):
recruiting all the time. Like this is really, really
necessary. If you, if you, if you're a fan
of college sports in the United States right now, if you take
basketball and football, most college, top tier college
programs know their best player's gonna stay one year.
That's it, right? Look at professional hockey.
What's the median tenure for thesuperstar players?

(26:52):
Like, yes, you've got your, you know, Ovechkins and you got your
Crosby. They're sticking around.
But a lot of the top players, they're moving, right.
And so as a coach, as a company,how do I think about that?
Well, I can't teach a complex offense.
I can't teach a complex defense.I got to figure out a simpler
way for us to win. That's that's going to be
different than it used to be because I know I'm going to need

(27:12):
a new team, build a new team every year, right?
And so, and you know what, it's hard because it's not what we're
used to, right? And so when I think about to
answer your, your question, whenI think about what advice do I
have for leaders today is like, Hey, you need a simpler offense
and a simpler defense. You're going to need to re
engineer work and build the different architecture that
optimizes and expects people arenot going to stay a long time.

(27:35):
And that's OK. And by the way, if you look at
Tesla, Google, Apple, Microsoft,Airbnb, Uber, the median tenure
in those companies is around 3 years and they're crushing it,
right? So maybe that fallacy of the
best teams are the ones that stayed together the longest.
Maybe it's not as as, you know, bedrock as we thought it was,

(27:59):
right? And that, you know, getting back
to sort of the, you know, my book, which is what got me
thinking about this, is like, hey, there's so many great
companies where people are not staying 30 years.
You know, I built my, my talent career in mostly in Silicon
Valley. And the median tenure there for
software engineers is like a year and a half.
So it's like, I don't wait for the 30 year anniversary dinner

(28:19):
with you and your spouse. It's like 10 months.
You're still here. Can I give you a hug?
Like, thank you for staying. You know, it's just so
different. There's no 25 year Rolex anymore
in companies. That's right.
You'll like this story. So I was at AHR conference in,
in Texas a couple weeks ago and they have the, you know, the
convention with all the boosts of all the vendors like, oh,
payroll and immigration and law and all this kind of stuff.

(28:40):
Really cool. Well, one of the boosts was a
service recognition booth. Like, hey, we got great plaques
and pens and jackets and chairs and all kinds of cool stuff.
And there was like the whole 151015203040 and all that.
I go, I said, Hey, I got a question for you.
Are those months or years that you're celebrating for people
and they're like, get out of here, You know, like wise guy,

(29:03):
But I'm like truly like that is like, you're going to be out of
business bro. Like you should, you know, get
into sending bouquets of flowersfor someone.
They, they showed up to the second day of their job.
Like, come on, like we got to celebrate the the new reality.
But it is scary, right? Because a lot of their legacy
leaders are just like, they don't want to change.
Like, when's my retirement? Like, when am I going to hit
that? Like that date is it, you know,

(29:23):
how much more time do I have? Because for them to change in
all the ways that need to changefor us to thrive in this new
world of work, It's, it's, it's,it's a big ask for them.
You know, it's hard, Yeah. Absolutely.
And it's also, I mean, it's, it's all, it's all this
attention span and it's all thisinstant dopamine hit that is all
of the social and gaming and everything that happens right

(29:45):
now. So like you almost got to think
like that too. You know, I, I know when we're
talking to our team and, and thepeople that have been around me
the longest, like I try and findthose little ways to reward or
those little ways to bring them along, make it more of an
experience. But you got to do that on a.
It's got to be real frequent or or attention span gets lost real
quick. Yeah, and you know, if you think

(30:08):
about with that point that you just made about attention span,
you know, we've built like the the the easiest target for
frustrated legacy leaders is that young generation, you know,
the short attention span career sugar high, you know, can't stay
focused, ADD sugar high career sugar high.
They they want to get, get promoted right after they
finished new higher orientation can be like that generation.

(30:30):
And I was in, I've done this in Spain and Portugal, France
recently with big, you know, bigcompany executives.
And they always start, they wantto blame someone.
And we're really good at doing that in the US especially like
something's wrong, who's to blame?
And so I asked them, so why? Why do you think people aren't
staying in your company as long they go a young generation, you
just start getting on a roll. And I go, you mean that

(30:52):
generation of kids that you raised your children?
Is that the generation you're talking about?
And they're like, oh, no, not us.
I'm like, yeah, no, it is you. I said go back in time 40 years
ago when you started your career, you could probably
appreciate maybe there's ten different career paths right
now. Our kids, it's 10,000 career
paths, right? My kids, I hope by yours, my

(31:14):
kids, they they would kill me when I say this now because it's
definitely dated, right? But a few years ago, like, what
do you guys want to do? Dad?
I'm going to be a YouTube influencer.
That's right. I'm going to have more followers
in your lame 45 followers. I'm going to have millions.
I'm going to make so much money and I'm like, well, that's great
'cause that's all you do is lookat those fucking videos all the
time. So that's great with you.
If you can monetize that, fantastic.

(31:36):
But think about that. Making money on a platform like
a YouTube wasn't even in someone's mind's eye 30-40 years
ago. And now that's a, that's an
option, that's an alternative. You know, I can make music and
sell it on SoundCloud. I can and I do today.
I make training videos and sell it to, you know, service

(31:57):
providers who are selling video education videos.
And I make residual income from that.
Like, but that's a crazy amount of choice.
And so I go to these executives.If you could see all these
choices and like you said on social media all the way, they
get paid all the cool perks and benefits.
They have all the amazing buildings and childcare centers
and sushi chefs and Lady Gaga's coming for breakfast today.

(32:18):
And I've got my Uncle Susie coming over next week for for
eggs. Like it's impossible for you to
expect people are going to stay in the same place, you know, for
the whole they're just not because there's so many avenues
and windows to other cool thingsto do.
Right. And and if they've got any
value, they're 510 grand, they'll go get a new job at the
place next door, right? Well, there, there you go.

(32:38):
There's exhibit A of how the world of work is broken.
The world realizes now if I staythe same place, I'm losing out
50% possibly what I could make if I just went next door.
Because we as humans always thatdon't see all the faults of the,
the brand new hire, like, oh, they must be perfect.
Holy great, let's pay them more.And it's the company that's
pissed that the other companies paying the people that are

(32:59):
leaving more, that's paying new people more too.
You know what I'm saying? Like, you're part of the same
problem, right? And so that's part that's one of
the things that people have figured out.
They've also figured out that ifyou, I did a poll on LinkedIn a
few weeks ago. I said, Hey, what, where did you
have the greatest career leap inyour in your whole career?
Was it staying in the same company?
Was it starting your own business or was it going to a

(33:20):
new company? 70% said starting my own
business or going to a new company. 70 that means like, OK,
so why do you expect people are going to stay, well, you know,
in the same company for a long period of time?
They're going to make more moneymoving and they're going to have
a bigger career late. Someone's going to give an
opportunity that, you know, their own company probably won't

(33:40):
do you know, And so why don't wedesign to do that in our own
companies? Like that's the the antidote to
this. If you really believe people
staying longer is going to make you better, then you got to
match the incredible infinite perception of opportunity
outside your company. And that's really hard to do,
right? That's really hard to do.
So we can't, we can't expect people are going to stay a long

(34:01):
time. I was like, you know, and I and
I had lunch at this one company I was helping out recently.
This is a manufacturing company in Georgia.
And I sat next to the head of manufacturing.
The guy looked like he was readyto stroke out.
I'm like, bro, you OK? Like, can I get you a drink or
something like, or should I get the defibrillator off the wall?
Like what's going on? He's like, I have this one job,
Steve. It's like my head machinist

(34:22):
takes seven years and the guy that I've been training for
seven years just quit and I go. But you knew he was going to
quit. Like what job takes seven years
to learn? Why don't you hire 5 people,
give them different parts of it,and so that if someone leaves,
you've only got a few weeks to deal with.
You don't have seven years. You know, it's like that's kind

(34:44):
of on you. That's not the individual,
right? Because he wanted to blame that.
You know, I paid him enough. Like, I trained him.
I tried him, treat him like he'spart of my family.
Like, yeah. But you can see so much what's
possible other places, you know?Yeah.
And deal with the reality of it.And then when you get those
people and let's say you've created the the right systems
and adapted to what is the length of employment these days,

(35:07):
a lot of the writing you do goesaround being a talent hacker.
What do you mean by that? I mean, just let's just look at
problems differently. You know, like let's agree that
keeping people is playing defense and expecting they're
going to go is playing offense and building a new strategy,
right? Let's hack the old way of
thinking about this and come up with some new ways that are kind
of fun and exciting. The same way we need to hack

(35:28):
different ways of comping people.
Like if you guys, anyone who does what I do in human
resources, like if they're in company, the reason the
compensation is so broken is because we have a budget at the
end of, you know, our fiscal year that we're going to give
increases. It's going to be anywhere from
nothing to 10%, OK? But when we hire people, we have
no budget. We just do what we got to do,

(35:49):
OK? So there's a flaw there, right?
There's there's a huge truck that people could drive right
through where if we don't have abudget of what we're going to,
we're going to hire within the range of the position.
But we got to do what we got to do to fill that role.
Otherwise we're going to be really hurt, right?
But we don't think like that with internal things.
So that's what I'm talking aboutAs a talent hacker, it's like

(36:09):
you got to come up with different ways of addressing
some of the real broken ways that work is structured.
Like every benefits tied to, youknow, the longer you stay.
But we all know people aren't going to do that.
So let's hack some different ways of using that money in
different creative ways, you know, And I think, for example,
things that is going to happen in the future is companies are
not going to be as big in the future because you kind of

(36:33):
constantly need these new skills.
So I'd rather have an ecosystem of partners to work with than
just everyone works for me, you know?
And more and more people are wanting to have multiple jobs.
And it just so happens all the brain research says that the,
the greater diversity of work you have, the, the faster your
brain fires, the more excited itis, the more innovative and
creative it is. And if you're doing the same

(36:53):
thing all the time, you're just suffocating your brain, you
know, But that's how we've designed work.
Do the same thing. And if you think of applying for
another job, you can't do that until you've satisfied 2 years
in this role. And I've seen, I've seen
managers do this all the time, like, hey, I want to apply for a
different job in the company. Well, you don't work for the
company, you work for me. You know, like, I don't know if
you've ever worked for someone like that.

(37:14):
Like you don't work for the company, you work for me.
And if you want to go apply overthere, well, I will torpedo your
opportunity because if you go over there, then I'm screwed and
I'm going to get home in time tohave dinner with my family.
So you're here, you know, for another year or something like
that, like just just broken, youknow?
Yeah, I really like what you said earlier on about the
ability to learn quickly and howthat should be something that

(37:36):
we're teaching kids. Cuz in any of the examples you
just gave, who's the person you want on the bench, right?
You want somebody who you can call in to learn quickly, adapt
quickly, move quickly. How do you, how do you develop
that mindset? Like how do you teach somebody
to learn quickly? Yeah, there's two parts of that.
How do you teach someone to learn quickly and how do you
identify that someone has that capacity, right?

(37:57):
That's the other tricky part of this, that we're trying to make
the sausage and figure that out.I think we have to do a better
job of society. And this is not about schools.
This is at home too, right? Give people new experiences and
new ways of learning. Yes, there's reading, yes,
there's lecture, but there's also team, you know, you know,
activities that you can put people in where they, they play

(38:18):
different roles and, and they figure that out.
I think we've got to provide a greater, a much greater
diversity of learning experiences there.
There's a couple of schools now that are experimenting with
things like there's a few universities, if you will, where
non traditional universities in Europe that are experimenting
with, OK, you 3 people, we're going to throw you on the
streets of Budapest and you've got enough money to live on your

(38:41):
own for a week, but you gotta build a business so you can pay
for yourself. After a week.
You gotta go figure that out. And they're just like, what?
And then it's like, OK, no rules, no specific guidelines,
like you gotta go figure out, I don't know, maybe go buy water
in the store and then go to the beach and go sell it for twice,
like whatever you need to do, like find where the market

(39:03):
opportunity is. And that's super interesting,
right? Like now you're like, OK, I need
to solve a problem, not please my boss.
You see what I'm saying? Like we've, we've now created
some different ways. So I think those are some of the
things that I think we need to do.
And just like with the younger generation, honestly, to your
question, when I talk to a lot of business leaders, they very

(39:24):
quickly want to point to, Oh yeah, education system's broken.
I'm like, yeah, but you built the education like we all own.
It's all of our problems, right?Like, who are you going to wait
for the schools to fix the problem?
No, you're going to have to figure it out yourself, right?
So maybe you form a partnership with the school instead of go
there and just yell at how, you know, ill prepared their
graduates are to work in your company.
Right? Like, I think we all have to

(39:46):
recognize this is a big, it's a big lift and it's going to take
a lot of us to be a part of the solution.
I mean, government, schools, business, they all own a hand in
this somehow, you know? Are you talking to leaders about
this modern work environment where you got some people that
are remote and hybrid and in office?
Like how do you balance culture across that?

(40:08):
Oh, this is, this is like the, Icall it the pyjama revolution
debate, right? Like, hey, it's.
All coming back. Around now, yeah, I know.
I realized during the pandemic that not only am I more
productive at home, my life is more productive when I'm at
home, right? Like I don't have to fight for
people on Saturday for the appointment at the Barber.
I can go on Tuesday at like 9:00AM if I have that flexibility.

(40:31):
And isn't that why all of us work so that we have a fuller,
more productive life, right? And so when the businesses are,
we're more productive when you're here than there, they
haven't been able to really for the most part back that up with
data relative to profits and margin, right?
However, I mean, we just haven'tbeen in this long enough to know

(40:52):
what's the long term impact to teamwork?
What's the long term impact to culture, right?
Because the more dispersed your team is, you know, the more
uncertain your chemistry and your capacity to create and
innovate is, right? So, but you know, when I asked,
when I get asked all the time and it you know, I was asked
this last week at a conference, Hey, should we be hybrid in
person or remote? My answers.

(41:14):
I mean, it's pretty consistent. It's yes, like no, no, no, we
asked you hybrid or in person orremote and I said yes.
They go, oh, all of it. I go, uh huh.
Yeah, you're going to have to experiment.
Like maybe one team works betterlike this on these days.
And by the way, when you say hybrid, there's like that's like
going to a restaurant when someone says your wait waiter or
waitresses. What would you like?

(41:35):
You say I'd like some food like,you know, do you want cold food,
hot food? Like what day of the week, how
many hours, what location is it in?
You know, the hybrid has like thousands of different
iterations. So, you know, I think that the
cool thing is we've got more choices of ways that we can
create value as a society doesn't have to be in a
building. And the but my best, you know,

(41:57):
the best outcome that the pandemic had for those of us
who've worked in the corporate world is finally someone said
now, why is it that we're meeting together again?
Like, what's the freaking point of a meeting?
You know, here it is 2025 and westill don't know what why we're
meeting together. Do we have to be in the same
room? Because Jimmy over there is
really loud. And when Jimmy starts talking,

(42:17):
everyone else shuts down. Like when we're on zoom, Jimmy
can't do that because he gets drowned out.
So maybe, you know, there's merit to us meeting different,
you know, kind of forums. So, but I think that the base
super healthy and I tend to leave if you're asking me, Oh,
Steve, which way would you lean if it was your company?
I would definitely lean on beingmore in person.
I think there's magic when humans are together.

(42:40):
But does that mean all the time?Probably not.
But I do think, especially if you're in the earlier phase of
your company growth and you wantreal time problem solving, Well,
you know, I'm not going to wait till to set up a zoom with you.
Now we got a formal thing like I'd rather just walk over to
where you're sitting and say, Hey, I got an idea.
You got a minute, let's talk about it, right?
And that is worth a lot when youdon't have a lot of time, you

(43:02):
know, and we just don't know is chemistry is, is culture and,
and team chemistry. Is it going to dissolve with a
greater, you know, remote or, orare there hidden benefits that
maybe we didn't appreciate that we can take advantage of, you
know, in, in that domain? So it's still, it's really, it's
a great debate. I think it's, it's healthy for
us, super uncomfortable. Like a lot of these changes

(43:23):
though, you know, and. People lose their social skills.
They, they, they lose all that all that touch too if they, you
know, become too hybrid or to work from home only.
Yeah, my son had a remote internship last summer.
I mean, what a nightmare that was.
He's like, I'm like, first he's in the house all summer.
Like, no, I don't want you in the house all summer.
Like get out. And then he's like, I'm not

(43:43):
meeting anybody. Dad, there's no like potential,
you know, boyfriend, girlfriend,you know, kind of it's like it's
just not. And I'm not building a network,
you know, I'm not hanging. You know, my boss isn't seeing
me in the parking lot going. Hey, I just want to say that was
a great job in the meeting today.
Like there's no informal collisions, right?
And I agree with you. I mean, yeah, it's just
different, right? It's super different.

(44:04):
So I don't know there for some demographics.
And listen, in Europe, this is abig generalization.
The houses and the apartments inEurope are generally smaller
than North America. Just generally speaking, you go
to Europe, it's like, I don't want to work at home.
My house wasn't built for that. You know, like I want to sleep
there, but I want to go be around people.
And so it's just, it's not, there's no one-size-fits-all

(44:25):
here, I think is the the short answer, you know?
Yeah. One of the questions we ask a
lot of successful dads is how doyou balance?
Like I mean, the cliche term is,is work life balance?
What, what, what does that look like for you?
How do you how have you approached that throughout your
career and being a dad? Yeah, I definitely am not

(44:46):
someone who could say I've cracked the code on this one.
And there's a a guy who I reallyadmire named Fred Kaufman.
He's written a book called Unconscious Business.
And one of the things he says inthis book, which I think is
really true, is like, why do we,why do we say things like work
life balance? Does that mean we're not living
when we're working? I was like, it's really, oh,
yeah, that's a great question. We're not living.
Why do we work life balance? I think it's super impossible.

(45:07):
We've created technology now so that you can literally be
working all the time if, if that's what you want.
You know, I think the bigger challenge we face is how do we
give ourselves permission to turn off, to turn off the siphon
of infinite amount of shit coming at us all the fucking
time? You know, how do we and how do
we do that in a way that makes us feel like that's a strength?

(45:29):
You know, like I'm buying myselftime to think here, you know,
and you know, I remember when wewere building LinkedIn, man, it
was crazy. Like we would get emails at 3:00
in the morning on Sunday saying,hey, just, you know,
congratulations to the team, thesoftware team, they just pushed
code to the site. Way to go.
And I would just week after Week2 in the morning on weekends,

(45:50):
I'd go to my, the CEO. I was like, hey, like, this is
not sustainable. Like when are we going to know
that we've gone too far? And he didn't even want to, he
did not want to hear that question.
Like a good CEO, Like no, no, I don't want to, you know, like
we, we're started. We got to drive, you know, we
got to push. I was like, yeah, but that's,
that's going to have some, you know, some unintended
consequences. So we're going to wait for

(46:11):
someone to have a stroke, someone to quit.
And we know, or can we, you know, come up with some
guardrails, you know, around what that is.
And we never, we never solved that problem, but we did, you
know, once we got to the point where we started building a
Moat, I think we were a little more reasonable and saying, Hey,
we can't ask people we stop recruiting on weekends, for
example, like you can't call Candace on the weekend because

(46:32):
then they know you're working onthe weekends, right?
That's not a good tell. So let's not call them on the
weekends. And unless you actually are
going to be working all weekend with them, in which case that is
genuine, you know, that they're doing that.
But I think that that's that's atricky part.
You know, I guess my advice is Iwas never great at saying no
because I'm a perfectionist and I'm in a service industry and

(46:53):
they're, you know, there's no limit to providing service
sometimes so you could work all the time is I wish I did a
better job of saying no. And that's what I would offer
people like try to say no and try to find those environments.
And also the worst boss you can ever had is have is a workaholic
who has no family. Like that is the worst boss
because all they want to do is work all the freaking time.

(47:14):
And, and, and if they're a former lawyer too, apologies to
any lawyers online. If they're a former lawyer and
have no life and no kids and allthey do is love working, like
then you're screwed. Like choose a boss who has kids
who's got a life. Like they're going to
understand. If that's aboard you, they're
probably more likely to understand it.
Right. Yeah, for sure.

(47:36):
I want to talk a little bit and give you an opportunity to kind
of talk about the books, 'cause I, I think you've released three
books, right? No, just one.
Just one. It probably feels like 5 though,
honestly. Yeah, so deep.
Well, you're well authored, so tell us about that then.
Yeah, yeah. So your work week came out end

(47:56):
of 21, beginning of 22. I'd finished most of the stuff
before the ideas, before the pandemic.
What was really tricky was the pandemic was going to change so
much. And so I had to sort of
contemplate if the pandemic is going to stay with us a while
longer. And it turns out it was how do
I, you know, think about those preparing for that, you know,
going forward and what, you know, the process of writing a

(48:17):
book super hard. I was it was painful for me.
Fortunately, I had a ghost writer, this guy Tom Lee, who I
credit in the beginning of my acknowledgments, who was really
good at see, I could outline my book and but I couldn't take it
outline to first draft. Like it was just too time
consuming for me. So he could take my outline, put
in first draft, and then I couldtake the first draft and then I
could go to second draft and finish.

(48:38):
And so, you know, if you if you got a story, if you, if someone
listening is like, man, I just want to do that.
Like there are so many, you know, I did it before, you know,
AI was really a thing. So now if you want to write, you
can have an AI assistant, but there's a lot of great ghost
writers out there who are reallyhelpful at giving you feedback
and helping you express yourself.
So that was a good process for me to go through to really and

(48:59):
then to be able to sort of, I mind the heck out of podcast
too. So instead of like interviewing
hundreds of people, I found so many great quotes on podcasts
that supported a lot of my points and use that.
And it's also super easy to footnote a podcast too.
It's like, here's the URL, that's the there's the footnote.
And it saved a lot of time because sometimes trying to get

(49:20):
really important people to corner to answer questions hard.
But if you hear a podcast and they said this, there it is.
Boom, there's you're not going to bang right in.
So that saved me an awful lot oftime.
And also when you're when you'refinished with your manuscript
and you get an editor for a publishing company to go through
this, then they have to have everyone sign something saying I
said this. But if it's actually in publish,

(49:40):
you don't have to go get them tosign saying, yes, that's a quote
you can use. I will not sue you kind of kind
of stuff. A funny, but a potentially scary
situation happened when I finished my book, published the
book and I get an e-mail from a guy saying, Hey, I I published a
book with the same name. Like you stole my you stole my
name. We're quick.

(50:01):
And I was like, I knew, I knew, I knew what the book was.
And I also knew that his trademark on the name had
expired. OK, so he he he didn't say you
stole or anything, but he was really like, hey, you know, I've
used this thing. So I sent him a note back saying
hey. And by the way, his was work
Quake 2 words, mine just one word work quake.

(50:24):
So I said, Hey, I'm really, I'm sorry I said, but my
understanding was that your trademark had expired.
And I'm using one word, not 2. And so, but let me know if you
want to talk about it. You know, like I'm, I, I don't
want someone in the universe really pissed off.
I mean, right, So like, but that's my guys did their

(50:44):
homework and this is what they said.
Is that true? He goes, yes, it is.
And then he went away. So that was like that didn't
that didn't cause any problems. But that's your biggest fear,
man, when you put something out there like did I, did I get
someone's title wrong? Did I spell their name wrong?
Because I got about, there are 15 testimonials on my book and
if you get like someone's title wrong, it's just a bad look.

(51:08):
And I can't ever change that right into if they've printed
like 10,000 copies or whatever. And there was this one, there
was this one guy, he's on a board with me in Canada, in
Vancouver, Kirk Harrington. And Kirk was with a company.
Oh, his company name was Employ.OK, spelled MPLOY.

(51:29):
What do you think the editors thought the name of his company
was Employ. EMPLOY.
So they don't tell me they changed his title.
Now, that's not that. That shouldn't be something
editors should play around with.Company name, right?
Do your research. Pull the guy's name up.
It's MMM, just the letter MPLOY.Right.

(51:51):
So we're literally like a day ortwo away from to the printer and
I catch it. I don't know, 'cause you're, I
mean, you're reading the book backwards so you can see
misspellings. That's the only way to catch a
misspelling with your naked eye is to not read it in a sentence,
but read it backwards, which is another one of the hundreds of
little things. But let me, let me go sideways

(52:11):
to I think the point of your question was probably wanting me
to go a different way. But it's this is fun anyway,
which is a couple things. They don't tell you when you
write a book that it's going to probably take you a few years to
write it. And then you're going to spend
the next three years talking about it.
And by the time you finish your book, you are so done with those
ideas. Like you want to talk about
something different. You know, like now you're locked
in to talking about it. Fortunately, I do love it and it

(52:34):
and the ideas still have life, but that's not something anyone
tells you about. Second thing is publishing is
like a 1940 business model inside a black box.
I'll give you an example. I call my publisher and go, hey,
can you give me like the latest,like sales, like how we doing,
like how's it going? And they go, well, we can tell
you how many books we have in the warehouse, but we can't tell
you how many books have sold digitally.

(52:55):
I go, no, no, you must have thatreversed.
You must mean you don't know howmany books are in the warehouse,
but you know how many are digitally because it's digital,
right? You know how many books sold
They go, no, we can't because Amazon won't tell us except for
every 90 days. What Amazon won't tell you
except for every 90 days. I mean, Amazon is just like so

(53:15):
hard to deal with as an author. And then, oh, and then they'll
just price your book, whatever they want to sell it for
whatever you put on the cover. They don't care.
Like I just went on the other day.
It's like when it came out threeyears ago, 2495.
And obviously, you know, it's worth a lot more in Canada.
So it's like probably 27 bucks. And I was like told my, I told
my bunch, I want the same. I want same for Canada and the

(53:37):
US. Like I don't want to hear this
difference. I got a lot of friends up there.
Like no, rather than like, no, sorry, you know, currency
conversion. It's just how it goes.
Like, OK, so I don't have any choice in this.
No, I can't do it. So then just the other day, I go
on Amazon now and they've got itlisted for like 999 and then
they're pairing it with two other books so you can buy a
triple. And I do not like the other
books and I don't like the authors.
So I'm like, what are you? Like, what are you doing here?

(54:00):
You know, it's really. Crazy man is no, no say, no say
at all. The only thing that you can try
to do to push your sales is you try to get a lot of people to
review your book because those reviews feed the monster.
And the more reviews they get, oh, people must really like
this. Let's push the book.
Let's let's pair his book with other books, you know, and try

(54:20):
to sell it in in package deals. But it's a crazy, crazy universe
out there when it comes to publishing.
Yeah. So you've enjoyed this path so
much that you've got book #2 in the works?
With all the learnings, yeah. Yeah, no, I definitely have one
that's brewing. And, and this coming month,
November, December, I'm hoping to take it over the line.

(54:41):
I've, I've just, I've been, I'vebeen saying this for like 3
years now. Oh yeah, I've got a book.
And it hit me the other day because I went on a hike with
one of my good friends and he's like, So what are you doing?
He's like, oh, I'm almost done with this book.
He goes the same one you've beentelling me about for like 3
years. I'm like, oh God, I'm that guy
now. Yeah.
Master procrastinator. Oh yeah, I need to get it over
the line, you know, So I'm hoping for a little bit of now

(55:02):
with I've got the empty nest, you know, I'm not hustling to
kids sporting events all all thetime that I'll have some time to
go do that and. What, what stage would something
like that be at right now? Then if like the goal is to have
it at the end of the line, like at that point, like would you be
like outline's all done and now you give it to your ghostwriter
kind of thing. No, no, I've got, I've taken on
most of the stuff myself now, soI'm trying to like tough this

(55:24):
out by myself. I've got the whole thing
outlined. I've got 3/4 of it written, but
roughly written, you know what I'm saying?
And here's the thing like that. I really believe strongly in
this from, from my, for my creative process.
A lot of people said, hey, with AI, like you could just jam this
thing out. And yes, I could.
But I will tell you though, the more you sit with ideas, the

(55:47):
more you sit with my wife just came home from lunch.
Hey, baby, the more you sit withideas, the more you start
noticing stuff, right? Or more like a new article hit
and you're like, Oh my God, thatmakes sense.
So you need that percolation time really to really think
about it and to really feel goodabout it.
My first book was a not a labor of love.

(56:07):
It was a grind. Like I did not enjoy the
process. And then finally when I got
someone to write my foreword, hewrote it to me.
And I just start breaking down crying.
My wife comes in like, what's wrong?
I was like, I think I like my book finally.
Like I finally fell in love withthe book, but it was rough.
And so this one, I was like, OK,I'm going to start not have it
be a grind. Have this be really fun and keep

(56:27):
it light. And so it's probably, yeah, 3/4
done. And I could go different ways
like I will. I will say in the last couple of
months, I've rethought how I want to leverage AI AI's place
in the book because that's that's not like a cooked baked
cake AI it's changing dramatically, right?

(56:47):
So I'll give you guys the the sort of the meta.
And I've published a few pieces of of the book already in in
white papers. But the meta point is in a world
that's changing quickly, in a labor market where companies
continually struggle to find people with the right skills, I
think the biggest antidote is giving people opportunities that

(57:08):
they're not quote ready for on paper.
Like we have way over index to experience.
And I think we should way over index to talent going forward.
And if you ask anyone, I'll ask this of you guys, when's the
biggest career leap in in your lives is when you took on
something new that you probably weren't ready for.
And someone said, Hey, why don'tyou try this?
And you're like, Oh my God, that's great.

(57:28):
Well, if what if we designed to unlock that energy and
excitement, right? And so that's what I'm trying to
deliver with this book is I, I call it sort of like talent
hacking, but I don't think people are going to get that,
get that name. It's it's more like rethinking
talent, sort of stealing from Steve, Steve Jobs a little bit

(57:49):
and sort of saying, I think because we're never going to
catch up with all the skills that we need for everyone.
Like let's reimagine that and how I can use AI in that thing.
I've had some new ideas on that one.
And that's just that makes the book better.
But it's just taking time, right?
So that's why I don't think rushing through something like
that is a good idea. Yeah, for sure.

(58:10):
What else you got on the horizon?
You got any speaking engagementscoming up keto?
You know, it's we're heading towards the holiday season now
as we record this, so it's pretty slow.
I got a gig I'm going to Dallas in two weeks to record 8
courses. So I've, I've, I've that
sometimes when you produce a course for certifications, so
this is for HR certifications and also for some accounting

(58:33):
folks to, you know, get their leadership credits, you got to
refresh it every two years. So my courses are getting a
little stale. So I'm doing a refresh on it and
four courses I built and then I've got 4 new ones.
So I'm going to go to Dallas andwe're going to go visit my
stepdaughter at Baylor University in Waco, TX right
after that and visit my dad who lives in Dallas.
And then from there, I'm flying to Washington, DC and there's a

(58:55):
big conference they're, I don't know, a couple 1000 people on
the sort of like the opening keynote for that one.
So and that's fun because I got some new, I got some new
material I've been working on for that.
And then that's it, shutting it down.
My son's basketball season starts.
He's a freshman at Chapman University.
So I'm going to be, you know, happy to go see some of his

(59:17):
games in December, January. So be hopefully a little bit
slow, you know, but January is usually a huge month for me
because it's like, you know, kick off season, a lot of
conferences and stuff like that.So we haven't, we haven't had a
ton locked in yet, but we got a few lined up.
Big companies are probably looking for guys like you right
now that they're looking to planfor like March, April, May,

(59:39):
right? Mm, hmm.
Mm, hmm. Yeah.
And we've booked, I've booked 15months in advance sometimes and
I've booked Manchester United called me once on a Friday and
said, hey, we got a conference on Tuesday, can you come to LA?
I'm like, OK, sure. For Manchester United, I would
do that. And I wound up sitting in the
green room, which is like the room you sit in before you go on
stage with the head of youth development for Manchester

(01:00:00):
United for half a day. And I was like, I would have
done that gig for free. Man, that guy was, it was so
interesting. Like here's, you know, here's an
industry football. Where one of the top tier clubs
in the world has 35 academies around the world where they
identify talent before they're teenagers, right.

(01:00:22):
So name me and name me a business where that happens, you
know, other than pro sports doesn't right.
So it's like what, why, why you like in some countries, like,
you know, maybe Russia, China are identifying, you know,
Olympic athletes super young andand putting them in that.
But what, you know, that's a talent strategy like I've never
seen before, right, Which is super interesting.

(01:00:44):
Yeah. And and how they optimize for
that is like super cool. And then you got to, you know,
provide the education with that too, right.
And for sure fitness and training.
But yeah, but those so you neverknow how it's going to play like
or, or what'll land in your lap,like.
And that's the thing about what I love about what I do is like I
can talk to, I've talked to a small animal pet clinic
association for the southeasternseaboard.

(01:01:05):
I've talked to like hotel industries, I've talked to
hospital systems educate. I've talked to the Chamber of
Commerce for Canada. I've talked to, I mean, just
like the spectrum of people who are thinking about people and
talent. It's so broad.
It's just super fun for me. You know, it's a great, it's a
great campus. Yeah, that's a cool one with the

(01:01:25):
with the soccer for sure. I'm, I'm doing my MBA right now
at Queens. In our analytics class, we have
to pick a, like our cohort or 6 has to pick like a topic of
something to analyze. And because the World Cups can
be in Canada and the US, we chose to, we've got to create an
analytical platform based on how, how each country would
choose who the best team is playing in North America or some

(01:01:46):
games are going to be placed, you know, played in LA, some
games are going to be played in,you know, colder areas.
So we've, we've got to develop that.
So it's, it's, it's cool going down that path for sure.
Right. And that's something new.
Like you just lit up talking about that.
Like that's so interesting, right?
Like how fun is that? Yeah, like, and going like
really deep, right. Like, cuz it's not just about
like, you know, whether guys areplaying 234, like, you know,

(01:02:07):
whatever defense or offense they're playing or, or who
they're playing against, but youknow, elevations, temperatures,
how many games they've played inthe last six months, you know,
all all that kind of stuff. And there's a ton that that
we're going deep on. So it's cool.
And what about the weather? You know, what's the likely
weather going to be like too? For sure, yeah.
I tell my kids, my kids, a couple of my kids really like

(01:02:29):
playing fantasy sports like baseball, fantasy football,
fantasy basketball and fantasy American football is super
interesting because like, OK, this kicker is kicking at high
altitude today against a defense.
It's not so good. They're going to score a lot of
points. I want them to be on my team.
This like you get A and I said it's just like investing like
that. You know, someone like if you
want to be an investor, this is all they do.

(01:02:50):
They're looking at the whole world, of all the trends to
determine where the opportunities are.
Right. And.
And fantasy football is such a great little microcosm.
Yeah. Super fun.
Yeah. Well, Steve, anything else you
want to talk about before we start to wind it down here?
No, I'm just so impressed that I'm the first virtual guest that
you've had, and I hope this means that I get invited to the

(01:03:13):
Man Cave or whatever that is, that special place that you got
there with all the cool paraphernalia.
But but yeah, no, I think we covered a lot of ground.
It's been great. I appreciate it.
We got Yeah, you're always welcome.
Obviously, hopefully you come upto Toronto if any of your, you
know, your tour or when the bookdrops or anything, you're out.
This way we got to make sure we connect in person or.
You want to come up for the for the parade, that's fine too.

(01:03:35):
Yeah, I know, man. I, I, as someone who lived most
of my sort of adult life in San Francisco, we hate the Dodgers.
So I was so pumped. I was playing tennis last night
with a bunch of buddies and I kept between change.
I was looking and seeing that I saw the first 3 pitches, which
was just like, yeah this is great.
But the story of the story of the starting pitcher last night,

(01:03:57):
just such a great story. I just can't get enough of
stories like that. Right.
He goes, and I don't know if youguys heard after 'cause he was
interviewed on the radio and I was driving back listening to
him interview. They go, hey, apparently your
dad's really emotional. Like, have you talked to him
since since the game's over? He goes, no, but I heard my mom
yelling, so I know he's close by.
It's like such a cool, you know,here's this guy, that 22, What

(01:04:17):
did he start eight games before the World Series for the Jays
this year? Like, just are you kidding?
He only played 3. Great story.
Yeah. He's played three games.
Like I said, total. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, like. And he is 22 and he's, yeah,
it's amazing. And so that that that would that
maybe that's a paragraph or two in my book.
Like look at this. The paper said he's not ready

(01:04:38):
for this moment, right? All the scouts and everything
like he's not ready exceeded expectations on a like world
class level. Like that's just like the I'm a
big San Francisco 49er fan. We have a starting quarterback
when he's not injured, who was the last player picked in the
draft, The last like short, not your prototypical like mega

(01:04:58):
athlete, you know, you know, TomBrady sort of physique, nothing.
And he is our starting quarterback now.
He's the last guy. Taking the question, let's say
Tom Brady when he came out of university because he wasn't an
athlete. That's true.
That's true. That's a bad one.
Very good. Yeah, very good.
But still, he's not, he doesn't have that prototypical 6162
looks athletic, completely not. And now he's crushing it.

(01:05:21):
So I love stories like that because it makes you think, oh,
maybe sometimes the greatest talent is in the normal pools or
profiles that that we think about, you know, and I'd love to
follow up with you post World Cup and find out if you know how
your analytics, you know, delivered, you know, that'd be
really, really fun. Yeah.
Well, we'll touch base for sure.Yeah, yeah, And sometimes it's

(01:05:42):
timing too, right? You look at the Jays right now
and we got some old boys on there too, right?
You know, you probably see if you see Mad Max on the
sidelines, he's cheering harder than anybody.
And that guy's just about as senior as it comes, right?
In his in his 40s and he's had obviously an amazing career.
But he's, you know, he's peeking, he's about to win a
World Series, right? Like pretty.
Cool. I know, I know.

(01:06:03):
Yeah. So the hitting coach, Don
Mattingly, is another one of my childhood fan.
And then he the story of him playing with some great teams
never got to a World Series. I know 41 there. 40 years.
I know, I know. And I'm a huge Roy Holiday fan
too. So Roy Holiday.
So he's one of my he he won me many fantasy leagues, you know,
for for years and years. Yeah, Yeah.

(01:06:23):
Maybe you can help us close it out here, Steve.
We got a little tradition on theshow.
We call bring us a dad joke. Uh huh.
OK, I don't have a dad joke, butI have something that's somewhat
humorous. OK.
As I was telling you, my dad is a minister.
And one of the ways that he would regularly shock friends

(01:06:44):
and family was he would get going and curse like a truck
driver, like nobody's business. And nobody was ready for a
minister to start dropping F bombs and talking dirty jokes.
And I think what he did with that and why I think, you know,
it's definitely something that Iinherited as a dad, which is
using humor and and an occasional curse to sort of

(01:07:06):
throw people off their game. Like, oh, I'm not expecting like
human resource is not expected to be, you know, a little bit
loose with the language. You're supposed to be super
buttoned up and buy the book. And in certain places,
carefully, I will drop certain expressions and phrases.
And that just so, oh, it sort ofsends a signal like, oh, this is
not same old, same old here. Something better.
And I want to listen up a littlebit more.

(01:07:27):
Yeah. So using, using, using humor is
a good one. I'm not.
I'm not great with the jokes, but situationally I can.
I can deliver sometimes. There you go.
Yeah, that's, yeah, it's been great, Steve.
Well, Congrats on all your success, man.
It's it's cool to be able to sitdown and have a conversation
with a guy like you. Yeah, well, thanks for having
me. I love what you guys are doing.

(01:07:47):
And I think, you know, we need more community.
I think as as guys, as dads, I think it's never been harder to
be a dad. It's never been harder to sort
of try to navigate our kids. I I wish I could sit here and
say, man, I'm definitely delivering a better future for
my kids relative to the planet and all these other things.
Like it feels like it's being put to the test right now.
So giving out messages of hope Ithink is a really great thing

(01:08:08):
that you guys are delivering. So hats off to you guys.
Appreciate it, man. Thanks so much for coming on
today. Steve, take care man all.
Right, see ya.