September 11, 2025 • 47 mins
What does it take to build a business that lasts—without losing yourself or your family along the way?
Michael Hyatt, bestselling author, speaker, and business leader, joins Jay Owen to share his journey of turning around companies, setting boundaries, and creating a life of intentional success. From leading as CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers to building Full Focus with his daughter as CEO, Michael has lived out the “double win”—winning at work and at home.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why most people “drift” through life—and how to design yours with intention
- The turning point that helped Michael redefine success and protect his family
- Practical ways to set boundaries that create freedom, not constraints
- How to navigate parenting through every season, from kids to adults
- Where AI fits in business and life—and how to use it without losing your humanity
Michael’s story proves that lasting success isn’t about working more hours—it’s about leading yourself first, setting clear boundaries, and building a legacy that matters.
Learn more about Michael’s work at https://fullfocus.co and his new AI newsletter at https://aibusinesslab.ai.
Listen to other episodes and see videos of the podcast at http://buildingabusinessthatlasts.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever thought to yourself is it really
possible to win in business andsucceed in life?
How do I get that double win?
We talk a lot about work-lifebalance on this show, because it
matters a ton to me.
It is about building a businessthat lasts without sacrificing
family, but how to actually getthere can be really hard, and
(00:21):
finding people who've actuallydone it can be even harder.
On this episode, we interviewone of my personal aspirational
identities.
If I could pick the guy that Iwant to be 20 plus years from
now, it is this guy on thisepisode, michael Hyatt.
He has five grown children.
He's been married to his wife,gail, for 47 years.
As of the time of thisrecording, he has 11 grand
(00:43):
children.
All of them live close to home,and one of his daughters runs
his company.
I don't know about you, but forme that's a dream, and so I
can't wait to share the insights, knowledge and experience that
Michael has, not just in talkingthe talk, but walking the walk.
Without any further ado, here'smy interview with Michael Hyatt
.
Hey, michael, welcome to theshow.
(01:04):
Thanks, jay, good to be on withyou.
So I tell people all the time,but we've never actually talked
until right now, other than afew Facebook messages.
But if I had to list the topfive people who have had the
most impact on my 26 years inbusiness or my 22 years in
marriage, you are certainly onthat top five list, so it's a
real honor to have you on theprogram for everybody else.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Thank you for that, and you need to get out more.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So I was just reading back through a lot of your
stuff.
I got a big stack of your bookshere that have been influential
to me.
I'll put a link to a lot ofthose in the show notes.
People haven't read them.
They need to get out and getbasically all of them.
They've all had a big impact.
But one of the quotes that Ilove that I've heard you say
before some version of is thatmost people spend more time
planning a one-week vacationthan planning the rest of their
(01:51):
life.
Unpack that a little bit for meand tell me kind of what that
means to you and the work thatyou do.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I think that most people are drifting through
life, that most people aredrifting through life and what
that means is they're not kindof conscious of the decisions
they're making or the long-termtrajectory that they're on.
And this all came to ascreeching halt for me, a big
wake-up call, back in about 2001, where I had been asked to take
(02:20):
over this division in 2000 atThomas Nelson Publishers here in
Nashville and I've been in thepublishing business my entire
career, and so I took on thiskind of failing division that
was dead last in revenue growth,dead last on profitability, and
the CEO asked me to turn itaround.
And so he said how long is itgoing to take you?
And I thought at the time thatit would take about three years,
(02:42):
and that's what I told him andhe said well, that's kind of
what I was thinking.
I was totally making it up, Ihad no idea, but I got into it
and kind of came up with avision for where I saw this
division going.
I shared it with the team.
We rolled up our sleeves, weworked hard In fact we were
working evenings, weekends,nonstop but we turned that
division around in 18 months.
(03:03):
We went from dead last out of14 divisions to number one in
profitability, number one inrevenue, number one in employee
morale, and that was great.
And I got the biggest bonuscheck I'd ever gotten in my life
, which I was very excited about.
And I knew my wife was going tobe thrilled and would kind of
validate all the hard work andtime away from the family and
all the rest.
(03:24):
So when I bounced into the house, pretty elated from the
experience I just had and fromthe size of this check more than
my annual salary I showed it toGail, my wife, and she wasn't
that impressed.
She just kind of looked at meand she uttered the words that
no husband, probably no spouse,ever wants to hear.
And that is, honey, we need totalk.
And I went you know what whoa.
(03:46):
So we walked into the den andsat down.
She teared up a bit and shesaid to me look, I want to start
this conversation by tellingyou how much I appreciate all
that you do for our family.
It's not lost on me.
I'm grateful, but I got to behonest.
You are never here and evenwhen you are, your head's
(04:09):
somewhere else, you'redistracted, you're thinking
about work, you're just notpresent.
And then she began to cry andgot a little choked up and she
said, if I'm honest, I feel likea single mom.
Well, that was a gut kickbecause that wasn't what I was
going for.
And I said, even though mycalendar didn't reflect it, that
(04:31):
my family was my most importantthing, but I wasn't living that
out.
So I thought I need a differentplan.
So I actually hired anexecutive coach and it ended up
being Daniel Harkavy, with whomI wrote my book Living Forward,
which is all about life planning, and that was the beginning of
(04:53):
a slow turnaround for me.
It was easier to turn thatdivision of that company around,
but it was easier to turn mylife around.
That was more difficult.
But one of the first things hesaid to me is he said we've got
to get some boundaries aroundyour work because this is
bleeding into everything.
You basically do one thing, youwork, and everything else is
(05:16):
just kind of an afterthought.
And that was true.
And so he said would you bewilling to put hard boundaries
around your work so that you canopen up some space to attend to
the things that matter most?
And I said yes.
So we gave some hard times whenI would quit and go home every
day and that I committed to himthat I wouldn't work on the
weekends and committed to himthat I wouldn't work on
(05:36):
vacations.
And then he kind of asked thekiller question, which was well
then I'm sure you won't mind ifI call Gail occasionally and
check in to see how you're doing.
That was the thing that reallygot my attention and gave me the
accountability.
And one of the first thingsafter that to answer your
original question, jay, was, hesaid have you ever put together
(05:58):
a life plan?
And it was like what?
I've never even heard of that.
And so he began to walk methrough the process, and that
was one of the most importantthings I ever did.
And so in that moment when heshared that with me, I began to
make the pivot from driftingthrough life to designing my
(06:20):
life with intention.
And the problem with driftingis that nobody ever drifts to a
destination they would havechosen.
We only drift to bad places.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
You know, I have my copy of Living Forward sitting
right next to me here and I readthis book I don't know how long
ago, probably roughly wheneverit came out, whenever that was
and I remember I had not donethe exercise in it and I was
sitting in a hotel room.
I think I was up in Nashvilleat an event actually and it was
raining outside and I wassitting in a hotel room.
I think I was up in Nashvilleat an event actually and it was
raining outside and I got inthere early and I just sat and
(06:48):
started writing out and doingthe work of the book, you know.
And I remember sitting at mylaptop alone, in my computer,
you know, in my hotel room, justweeping as I wrote this thing,
because I realized the dividebetween who I desired to be, who
I said I wanted to be at theend of my life, and who I
actually was that day sitting inthat hotel room.
(07:10):
And I'll tell you, one of thebest things that ever happened
to me in my life was on mycompany's 25th company
anniversary, which was lastsummer.
We did a big company cruise,took the whole team and their
spouses and my wife the team hadbought me a very nice watch as
a gift, which was very kind.
But my wife had my five kidswrite letters to me and my
oldest son, who's now 20, he hadnever read this life plan that
(07:34):
I put together when readingLiving Forward.
But if you read his letter andif you read that plan, they are
very, very similar.
And at that moment I thought tomyself I guess I need to write
a new plan, which I've notactually done yet, so I probably
should but incredibly impactfulwork because it changed my life
and arguably, probably thetrajectory of my five kids.
(07:54):
I know you've got a bunch ofkids as well, except they're
probably older than mine.
Yeah, and how long have you andGail been married?
47 years, 47 years.
That's incredible.
So, yeah, that's great.
I love that.
And so, when thinking about youknow you deal with and have
worked with tons ofentrepreneurs.
Over time.
You've had big transition whereyou've had your daughter,
(08:15):
megan's, taken over your companyas CEO and you know what do you
see?
You know today, as you stillcontinue to coach and work with
different entrepreneurs andleaders, where do people get
stuck with this stuff?
Like, what are some key thingspeople could do to help them get
unstuck when they're thinkingwell, I have to work really hard
because I have to provide X, yand Z and I don't know another
(08:36):
way to do it, like how can theyget unstuck?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well, I think so many times we create this false
sense of urgency.
I mean, there's a lot ofstreams that feed into this
answer, but we have all thesethings that make us feel like
it's urgent that we get thisdone now.
It could come from sort of ascarcity mindset, you know, like
if I don't chase thisopportunity, there may not be
another opportunity it couldcome from.
(08:59):
You know, financially we'retrying to set ourselves up for
the long term and we can seethat.
You know, the runway is only solong that we have to do that.
I think a more subtle andperhaps sinister motivation is,
and the reason we spend as muchtime at work as we do is because
work is a place where we havemore control, more rewards, more
(09:23):
encouragement, more rewardsmore encouragement.
And home is often especiallywhen you have young kids is
often chaos and you don't seeprogress like you do at work.
There's not a lot of accolades,you know.
You kind of feel like you'recoming up short all the time.
So I think there's this kind ofavoidance, this natural
avoidance of life at home, andwe want to spend that time at
(09:46):
work where we don't have to facea lot of that stuff.
And I think just waking up tothe awareness of that is a big
step in the right direction.
But then I think that's wherewe've got to take the long-term
view and say kind of like wesaid in Living Forward, you know
, if you go to the end of yourlife and you're attending your
own funeral and what are thepeople going to say about you?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
are the key people in your life going to say about
you, and the thing that I thinkthat I dread is that they would
say you know, to be honest, Ididn't get to know him that well
because he was always at work.
You know, my dad didn't spendthat much time with us, and I
think that whatever we may gainshort term by working harder,
we're going to lose long term byrealizing that.
(10:28):
You know we were putting all ofour effort, our best thinking,
our best energy into somethingthat wouldn't matter Like.
When I left Thomas NelsonPublishers in 2011, I was the
CEO of that company.
It was a big company.
We were a public company upuntil we sold it to private
equity.
But one of the things I noticedis that when I left, all the
(10:50):
people that I thought were myfriends at work, like they, just
I didn't have any contact withthem.
They didn't call me, I didn'tcall them.
It was nobody's fault.
It's just that our friendshipwas a friendship based on
proximity, and once theproximity was gone, they weren't
(11:11):
there.
So you know they were whatArthur Brooks called deal
friends, not real friends.
And again, that's no fault oftheirs.
I don't think it's any fault ofmine, but I do think it makes
us reevaluate.
You know, the people that we'regoing to have with us long term
, if we steward it well, are our.
(11:32):
You know our family and ourfriends, and you know I have the
privilege today and boy, Ithought the wheels were coming
off many times but I have fivegrown daughters.
Three of them are married.
We have 11 grandchildren andall the grandchildren live
within five minutes of me andthat's split between three
families.
All my girls are here inNashville, where I reside,
(11:56):
within 30 minutes of me.
But that kind of thing doesn'thappen by accident.
And again, we made it's amiracle actually because we made
so many parenting mistakes andthere were just so many things
that I wish I could go back anddo a do-over.
But I remember Dr Dobson, whorecently died, said that you
know, the average kid cansurvive the average number of
(12:16):
mistakes made by the averageparent, and I think that's true.
If you just invest a little bitand give them some attention
and focus, everything's going toturn out okay.
But it does take that You'renot just going to phone it in.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, two things I'd love to narrow in on even though
I almost never talk about thisspecific stuff on this show, but
maybe that's really valuablefor people is friends and really
transition of kids in differentages of life, because I'm
dealing with a lot of this rightnow so maybe it's selfish of me
to ask these questions.
But on the friend side, I finda lot of business leaders,
especially men.
I think women generally arebetter at making friends I mean
(12:54):
that's a stereotype, but I thinkthey just generally are and men
are better at, maybe, makingdeals.
Well, that's probably not eventrue.
There's probably plenty of themthat are great at making deals.
But men struggle with truefriendship, I think, sometimes
deep abiding friendship.
So I'm curious for you, asyou've grown in business, grown
in life and go how do I get theright other men around me who
can be good friends to me?
At our church actually, ourpastor will call these people
(13:16):
mat carriers and the idea isthere's a story in the Bible
where you know friends carry aguy on the mat to Jesus and it's
like who are your mat carriers?
So for you, how have youdeveloped those friendships?
And while also doing all theother things of being a dad,
being a husband and running abusiness and all that.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, you know one way to say this and again, this
is a stereotype, but to kind offollow your lead here.
There are exceptions, I'm sure,but I think men tend to relate
to each other sort of in aprimal sense, as competitors,
and women relate to others aspotential collaborators, and so
I think, you know, we need tomove more towards that
(13:53):
collaboration kind of idea.
But I remember when I becamethe CEO of Thomas Nelson
Publishers this was back in 2005.
At that time we were publiclyheld and on the day that the
board voted for me to become thenew CEO and I was inheriting
the company, in essence, from aCEO that had been the CEO for 50
years, and so it was a big deal.
(14:14):
But John Maxwell not to drop aname, but John Maxwell is a very
famous leadership author and hecalled me on that day.
He was one of my authors and hecalled to congratulate me and
he said he said I want to giveyou a piece of advice.
And he said I wish somebodywould have given this advice to
me earlier.
And I said yeah, all ears.
What is it?
And he said you know, you'veheard that it's lonely at the
(14:44):
top.
And I said yeah, and I kind ofreconciled myself to that and he
said I want you to know that'sa choice.
That was a profound idea and anew idea to my brain and so I
started being intentional withfriendships.
At that point, you know, Ibefriended, for example, two
other public company CEOs inNashville and we got together on
a quarterly basis, whichdoesn't seem like much, but it
was a lifeline, especially as weended up managing going through
the Great Recession alltogether and different things.
(15:06):
You know, those were the guysthat understood my world and you
know we could talk through it.
I think friendships have to bereally intentional.
They're not just going tohappen by accident.
You've got to create first ofall the space for it and then
you've got to have the intention.
And I was reaching out to afriend of mine this last summer,
(15:28):
earlier this summer, and I saidyou know, one of the things I
really want to be is even moreintentional with my friendships.
And I just wonder if and it mayseem a little bit artificial,
but if we got together on aregular basis, like, say, once a
month, and just had, you know,no rush, no urgency, had
extended time to talk.
I said, would you be interestedin that, which took a little
(15:50):
bit of a risk, because it almostfelt like you know, asking
somebody out for a date.
And he said, man, I'm so gladyou asked that because he said
the truth is, I need morefriends and I need more friends
like you.
And I said, well, I feel thesame way, so we're doing that
now.
So I've got probably three,maybe people, three to four
people like that that I gettogether intentionally.
(16:13):
But if you haven't discoveredthe work I think her name is you
can fact check on this laterChasten Nelson and she's done
some.
She's written several books onfriendship, but she has a
phenomenal model on friendshipthat I won't be able to remember
, but you got to read it and itwas really inspiring to me.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, I will.
You know, one of the things mywife started with a friend that
ultimately ended up meaning mehaving really good friends over
time was about nine years ago,almost 10.
We started a thing calledSupper Club and she had an
acquaintance with another coupleor another friend and it was
kind of one of these thingswhere we all wanted to just be
around more like-minded people,that we also wanted to be a
(16:59):
little more like in someparticular way, you know.
And we ended up with thesegroup of four couples, us being
one of them, and we rotatehouses once a month and so once
a month we'll be at each other'shouse and whoever's house it's
at, we make a crazy awesomedinner.
It's themed and you know allthis.
(17:23):
It's very extravagant, it's veryfun.
We kind of try and one-up theperson from the month before you
.
We just want to make it veryfun, but ultimately it's a way
of just loving on the peoplethat are there.
And if you come to Supper Club,you're not allowed to set up,
you're not allowed to bring food, you're not allowed to clean up
, you can just bring wine andthat's it.
And it's one of the best thingsthat's ever happened to me from
a friend's perspective, becauseall these people have a bunch
of kids, they all own businesses, they're all about the same age
, they've all been married for20-something years, they all are
(17:46):
believers.
There's a lot of commonalityand so it's a lot of
shoulder-to-shoulderrelationship and that's just
been totally life-changing andlife-giving.
Whenever I see that on mycalendar coming up, I'm like, ah
, this is going to be a greatweek.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
So I can definitely.
Where I live, we had a groupthat we met every Tuesday night
and we all lived within walkingdistance of each other, and up
until the pandemic.
So we did it for about nineyears up until the pandemic, and
it was the same group offriends and we got together and
we just spent the entire evening, sometimes going later than we
(18:21):
should have, but it waslife-giving too, and
unfortunately a few of them havedied, some of them have gone to
other parts, so it just kind ofdiffused, which is why I'm
having to rebuild that now.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, it's been huge for us, though, and so I would
just encourage people that arelistening find that circle or
create it.
If you don't have it, go createit.
Build the right people aroundyou, and and I think to your
point too it doesn't have to be20 people.
It probably shouldn't be two,three, you know, maybe four,
like you know only only fourpeople to carry a mat, you know,
and so it makes a ton of senseto me.
(18:53):
I'm going back to the kids alittle bit, because I think it
all overlaps.
People talk about work-lifebalance.
I like to call it a work-lifeblender.
I always say some days you needa little bit more spinach in it,
and occasionally you need tothrow some ice cream in there,
and when it comes to kids,there's nothing that's been more
impactful to me in my life thanthe five kids who well, I only
(19:14):
have three that live in thehouse now.
Two of them have gone to collegenow, and what I'm realizing in
this season of life is I think Idid my best to prepare for the
kids at all different ages, but,for whatever reason, I didn't
really prepare or read or talkto anybody about the reality of
these children becoming adults,and I always thought about them
(19:35):
going from whatever zero to 18,but I never thought I'm going
from 18 until the rest of theirlife.
And so now that's the seasonthat I'm in right now, and so
I'd love for maybe you to kindof reflect back on and think on
those different seasons of kids'lives, from childhood into them
, transitioning to adulthood,and now them being, some of them
, married and having kids.
(19:55):
What do you wish that you hadknown in some of those seasons
that you know now because you'vewalked through them?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Well, the funny thing about parenting it's the only
job you're qualified to do whenyou're done.
That's true.
You know, if you had theknowledge back at the beginning
it would be wonderful, but mostof us don't.
You know, we try to read thebooks, we listen to podcasts and
all that stuff, but I reallyfeel like parenting is a journey
of de-parenting.
So, you know, initially, youknow when the kids are born they
(20:25):
can't do much for themselves,so it's hands-on.
You know you're directing them,you're keeping them from, you
know, getting run over andbasically destroying their lives
.
And so then it's a gradualletting go, and I think that a
big mistake that a lot ofparents make we didn't make this
mistake, we made a lot of otherones, but we didn't make this
one is they refuse to let go,and so even when they become
(20:48):
adults, they're relating to themlike they were still kids under
their roof.
And so, you know, to me there'sthe phase where you're the
parent, and then you move into aphase, probably kind of as
you're moving into, maybe later,junior high and high school,
where you're more of a coach.
You know you can accomplish alot more by asking questions and
(21:10):
helping them come to the rightconclusion than just like
over-functioning andover-directing them.
And then there comes a pointwhere, as they're moving out of
college and into adult life,that they really become friends.
You know you're there as atrusted advisor but we never
imposed our advice on the kidsin that phase.
(21:31):
You know we're like we're hereto help, but you know we also
know that you're going to do itdifferently.
And if you want our advicewe're here, but we respect
whatever decisions you make.
We had a little bit of asituation in the past.
We're with Gail's mom, who'sdeceased, but she was very, very
(21:53):
much imposed herself early on,like was constantly correcting
us you know we weren't measuringup, was constantly correcting
us.
You know we weren't measuringup and constantly correcting us
and that led to a lot offriction and unhealth in the
relationship where I just had tosit down with her at one point
and with Gail present and withGail's dad present too, and I
(22:15):
just said you know, this is notgoing to continue and here's the
ground rules going forward, andif you can't abide by these,
then we're just not going to bethat close.
And they were very respectful,really got it, and it really
changed from that point forward.
But I think this part like Iwould say today that my five
(22:38):
daughters, my three son-in-lawsI would really consider them my
best friends Like we have a lakehouse not too far from here.
We were just down there.
It's the time we're recordingthis, we're just past Labor Day
weekend.
We were all down there and Imean we just have these long,
deep conversations.
We have a text thread whereit's, you know, everybody in the
family is in that except thegrandkids, and it's, you know,
(22:59):
everybody in the family is inthat except the grandkids, and
it's just like I'll come back atthe end of the day and it's
like 60 messages in there.
But when somebody in the familytends to get into something,
whether it's pickleball orsomething else, the rest of the
family follows suit and you knowit's just a really healthy
place.
But I think it's because we'renot insisting on being the
parents.
You know, it's one of thosethings where it's kind of like
(23:27):
the upside-down world of Jesus,where you know if you want to
gain your life, you've got tolose it.
In this case, if you want toget the respect, you can't
demand it.
You know that's somethingthat's earned and I think if
there's one thing, jay, that wedid, and my daughters have told
me this.
If there's one thing that wedid in every stage that really
(23:48):
helped was we were quick torepair breaches in the
relationship.
And I think a lot of parents,frankly, a lot of business
leaders, are this way.
They feel like if they arevulnerable with their mistakes,
that they will be respected less.
And the truth is it's exactlythe opposite.
And so Gail and I have beenmarried for 47 years because
(24:09):
we're quick to make amends.
You know, if I say somethingthat's hurtful to her, you know
usually my conscience will tellme and I'll go to her.
But sometimes she'll have toconfront me and we're just quick
to, you know, not let thingsescalate.
Same thing with the girls.
You know they're quick to bringit to my attention if I screwed
up, and I do the same thingwith them, and it just keeps
(24:33):
everything healthy andwell-oiled.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
So when are you going to write a marriage and
parenting book?
That's my question.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Oh my gosh.
You know we've kind of flirtedwith it a couple of times, but
you know it's kind of like well,it's not really consistent with
my brand, but I'm kind ofwanting to write some books that
I don't.
I just want to write.
I don't really care about thebrand thing.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Well, you can put you can put my vote in for whatever
that counts.
It's very, very small, but Iwould love to read it, and my
wife and I are passionate abouta lifelong marriage as well, and
I mean the dream is that ourkids would grow up and still
want to be in close relationship, you know, and even better if
they, if they want to be closeto home, you know.
(25:15):
So how did you pull that off?
Getting them all to be so closeto home?
I mean, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
You know, I don't really know.
I mean it's kind of weird, butit's, it's really cool.
We certainly didn't demand it.
We didn't even suggest it.
You know, I just think theylove the area that we're in.
Their friends are here.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And for whatever reason, they decided to stay.
It's great, I love it.
One of the things that you havetalked about a couple of times
already on this conversation isboundaries in some form, so
boundaries of what it looks likefor work and marriage,
boundaries in relationship toyour in-laws, and then you and
Gail kind of working that outtogether, and I always think
that the right guardrails or theright boundaries actually
create a lot of freedom, not theother way around.
(26:02):
But I'm curious from you howhave you and Gail, and then you
and people in business as well,because you've had big
transitions with you know yourdaughter Megan taking over, you
know full focus.
You know how have yousuccessfully navigated those
boundaries?
Because one thing for you to gothis is what I think the
boundary should be it's anotherfor everybody else who has a
(26:23):
part in it to also agree.
That's what the boundary shouldbe.
Yeah, how have you navigatedthat?
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, I think you know, a major influence on my
life has been Henry Cloud's workon boundaries and another book
he has in addition to boundaries.
He wrote that one with JohnTownsend, but another book he
has is Necessary Endings, whichis one of the most powerful
books I've ever read.
I've read it a couple of times.
I've given it to all my clientsat some point.
(26:51):
But I think that it's importantto first of all reframe
boundaries as not somethingthat's necessarily constraint,
but it's basically the path tofreedom.
So I'm launching a new AInewsletter next week and this
(27:13):
has kind of been an area ofinterest for me, and so I was
looking at two platforms to dothat.
I was looking at one calledSubstack and then another one
that I know the guy that ownsthis company called used to be
called ConvertKit.
It's just called Kit now.
(27:34):
Well, kit has all these bellsand whistles and features and
all these things you can do.
There's literally nothing youcan't do with it.
But Substack is has lessoptions, more boundaries, and I
chose Substack because I said Ithink I'll be able to be
creative in my writing and focusthere rather than just
endlessly tweaking all thethings that I could do.
So it's a case where less ismore, and so I think, to give
(27:58):
you a practical example in thework world, one of the things
that Daniel had me do early onin our coaching relationship was
he said what time are youwilling to quit work every day?
And I said I'm willing to quitat six o'.
What time are you willing toquit work every day?
And I said I'm willing to quitat six o'clock.
Now you have to understand thatI was leaving the office at six
, but then I would go home, havea quick meal with the kids and
(28:20):
then I would crack open thelaptop and I would work till 10
or 11 o'clock at night.
So there was no boundary really.
And so he said well, I'mtalking about the boundary, I'm
talking about when you're goingto quit work and you're not
going to pick your computer backup until the next morning when
you go to work.
And I said six o'clock and hesaid, okay, great.
Well, what that forced me to dowas it caused me to manage my
(28:43):
day in a very different way.
So before, when there was noboundary, you know I would get
sidetracked, doing things that Ishouldn't be doing, have
conversations that were reallypointless, and I just wasn't
that efficient.
But suddenly now, because I hada hard deadline, I was going to
quit at six and that was goingto be it till the next morning.
(29:03):
I managed to that and it's alittle bit like.
You know, you're never moreproductive than on the Friday
before you go on a one-weekvacation, because you've got a
hard boundary, you're about tofly out to wherever you're going
for your vacation and if you'recommitted to not taking work
with you, then you've got to getit done.
And I mean you're just like,unbelievably efficient and
(29:26):
effective on the Friday beforevacation.
Well, that's the beauty ofboundaries, like during the
pandemic, as a company, wedecided because we had a lot of
people working that had smallkids, and you know it was a lot
to manage, and so we said we'regoing to go to a 30-hour work
week, which we still do to thisday.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So we work from 9 to 3.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I don't work from 9 to 3.
I work from 9 to 5, but I dofour days a week and I take off
on Fridays.
So the crazy thing about it wasI said let's try it as a
two-week experiment and see whathappens to our productivity.
I could tell no difference interms of how productive we were.
So I said, okay, let's do it.
And this was like the summer of2020.
(30:07):
I said let's just do it for theentire summer and then we'll
see.
And again, no lack ofproductivity.
It was the same, and so we'restill doing it to this day, and
there's been a lot of researcharound this and a lot of studies
done, particularly in Europe,that going to a four-day
workweek or a 30-hour work weekactually increases productivity,
(30:31):
because people are more focusedduring that time and they're
getting the rest and therejuvenation they need so that
when they show up at workthey're much more focused, much
more resourceful and just getmore work done in less time.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
You know, I've not ever tested the four-day work
week, even though people talkabout it all the time, but I
probably should.
One thing that is reallyinteresting to me is I would say
the one time that I almostalways hit inbox zero is the day
before I go on vacation.
Yeah, there you go.
It happens all the time.
I'm always able to accomplishit, but any general week we were
talking about it today as ateam it's kind of a general
(31:05):
expectation as we're workingtowards inbox zero we don't just
leave 2000 emails in our inbox.
And I thought to myself, howoften am I actually getting
there?
And the truth is it's not thatoften, you know.
I mean I'm constantly workingon it, but it's like the.
It's like the laundry with fivekids at home, you know, it just
never ends.
So this is really interesting.
I'd love to dig in on AI alittle bit of a hard turn from
(31:26):
parenting and relationships, butyou brought it up, so I'm going
to go there.
If there's two things that I'mprobably most interested in in
this season of life, one is howdo I successfully navigate
children going from in my houseto being adults and then still
having good relationships?
And two, it's AI.
I love this stuff.
It's how it's actually how wegot connected, because I was
following some different groupson Facebook that you also happen
(31:46):
to be in and I was like, isthat the Michael Hyatt?
And then we were commentingback and forth on the same post
and then I ended up sending youa message.
So, thinking about AI in thecontext of business life, we've
seen this before technologypromising to reduce our workload
, to reduce the amount of timewe're working, and yet it seems
(32:07):
like for a lot of people, that'snot actually been true.
We've got more technology thanwe've ever had, and yet most
people seem to work more thanthey ever have.
So do you think that it's truethat AI has this capacity for us
to be able to get more done ata better quality in less time?
Or is it just an oasis in thedesert?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
No, I think it absolutely does.
But and don't ask me how I knowthis it's easy to reinvest that
time back in AI and you know,just end up you end up with the
same amount of work that you'redoing.
You're just doing differentkinds of work.
So I think it's always going tocome down to the human who
makes the decision about whatthey're going to do with that
(32:47):
extra time.
And so I feel like AI is rightnow saving me roughly 10 to 12
hours a week, but I've been ableto redeploy that time in doing
things that are truly human andtruly rely on my creativity and
give me an opportunity to do thethings that only humans can do.
I'm a big AI enthusiast,there's no doubt, but not at the
expense that only humans can do.
(33:08):
I'm a big AI enthusiast,there's no doubt, but not at the
expense of humans in the loopand not at the expense of our
own humanity.
I think there's a reason why wewere created in bodies.
You know we're not disembodiedpeople.
You know, jesus wasn't a spirit.
He was the incarnate Son of Godand he was, you know, body,
(33:31):
mind and spirit.
And the bodies are important.
They're so important thatthey're going to be resurrected,
you know.
So I think that we have to livean embodied existence and I
think what the screens do andwhat too much time in the
virtual world does is itdisembodies us and we lose
connection to our five senses.
(33:51):
And if you, I've dealt with alot of anxiety and stress over
the course of my adult life andone of the best remedies for
that is just get outdoors, youknow, feel the earth beneath
your feet, take up gardening, dosomething that gets you outside
, go for a walk.
I was just talking to a guythis morning and we were talking
(34:13):
about, you know, most religionshave a physical practice Like
think of Hinduism and yoga.
What was the practice forChristians?
What was the physical practice?
Well, it was walking.
You know Jesus walkedeverywhere.
You know he walked and taughtand I just think that reclaiming
(34:34):
that is important and we can'tever let AI become a substitute
for that.
That's why I'm not reallyenthusiastic about virtual
reality, although I can see thebenefits.
I definitely can see thebenefits of augmented reality,
but you could lose yourself inthose spaces and it's not real
and you become less than human.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, I feel that too .
It's interesting when you weretalking about you know coaching
and having you know Daniel comealongside you and help coach in
a pivotal season of life.
I've seen some people and I'veeven used it in some levels of
this where AI is kind of mycoach in some way.
But the one thing I havethought about and you mentioned
this word multiple times it'saccountability.
The AI can give me a lot.
They can help me dissect myideas and help me reconstruct
(35:14):
plans and come up with all kindsof things, but it's not going
to call me and go hey, did youtalk to Claire and, you know,
ask her the thing that you saidyou were going to do.
You know, hey, can I call herand ask if you really are?
You know taking the time offthat you said you were going to
ask, if you really are, you knowtaking the time off that you
said you were going to Like it'snot going to do that.
And so it's interesting becausethere's still that place for
humans in the mix of it all.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
There definitely is, and I think we're going to have
to fight for this as we goforward.
It's just.
It's not that I'm opposed to AI, but I am very pro-human and I
think we've got to have thepriorities of that first, in
fact, I would say, because wepublished the Faux Focus Planner
, which is a physical planner ina world where, you know,
digital apps, particularly taskmanagers, are a dime, a dozen,
they're just, you know,everywhere.
(35:53):
But we really believe in thevalue of analog first.
So again, it's like I'm one ofthe most tech people you'll ever
meet and I can talk AI at adeep level, but I do have my
analog tools and I do have, youknow, my human first connections
, and those are vitallyimportant.
But it's not either or, it'sboth and and.
(36:15):
So I'm all enthusiastic aboutAI in the service of human
flourishing.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, for sure.
You know I was thinking aboutthis on the analog side because
one of the things that has beenreally helpful for me I always
tell people when I get reallystressed out.
One of the things I'll do isI'll just make a list physically
on paper of all the things thatI'm worried about and then I'll
scratch through all the thingsthat I actually don't have any
control over, like World War III.
I don't really have much impactover that, so I can just
(36:42):
scratch that one out.
But there are some things thatI could take a next step on and
I can circle those things andjust write one next step.
And then the other side of thepaper, what I do is I'll
physically write down all thethings I can think of that I'm
grateful for and there'ssomething about even right now,
as I'm taking notes on thispodcast, I'm physically writing
on paper because there'ssomething about how it engages
my brain differently, eventhough I mean I love I'm the guy
(37:06):
that waited in line for a wholeday for the first iPhone, and
so there is really somethingtangible about that physical
work On a real practical level.
What are some of the tools andthings that you're doing?
I mean, you said you'restarting a new AI newsletter.
Love to get to know more aboutthat.
And then, what are some?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
of the actual practical things that you're
using on a day-to-day basis thatare either fun and or improving
your workflow.
Well, first of all, I'm in AIalmost every day, all day, and
so primarily I'm using it forcontent generation.
So I'm using it to test myideas, to flesh out my ideas, to
challenge my ideas, and so I'vegot a whole workflow related to
(37:51):
my content creation.
That's enormously helpful.
But I'm using it in my personallife too.
So, for example, when I getmedical tests done, like blood
lab draws or an MRI and youcan't see it on camera right now
, but I just had surgery on Itore my bicep tendon earlier
this summer and I just hadsurgery on it two weeks ago.
(38:13):
So I'm in this big brace thatmakes me look bionic, and but I
can plug all that stuff into acustom GPT that I've built and I
can have it analyze all thatstuff, and the crazy thing about
it is that I will usually getanswers that are as good as I
would get from a doctor.
(38:34):
Now I always caution people andsay you know, don't just go
over what AI gives you.
You need to check with a realprofessional.
But I can't tell you how manytimes I've walked into a medical
appointment, since I've beendoing this now for a couple of
years and I'll have my chat GPTreport and especially the
doctors I have are open to AI,so they would look at it and say
(38:54):
, yeah, that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, you know it's interesting.
I was reading a recent studythat Mayo Clinic is doing.
There's a Mayo Clinic down herein Jacksonville, florida, where
I'm at, and I think there's twoother major ones in the country
Maybe there's more than that butthey were testing in the
cardiac unit this AI assistantto the doctors and it basically
(39:18):
read the patient's entire fileand in two of the locations they
were using the AI and one ofthem they were not.
So it was kind of the standardto make sure they were comparing
equally and it increased thelikelihood of a positive outcome
from like 73% to 92%.
I mean it was shocking theoutcome it created the other day
one of my little girls Ithought we thought she had
(39:39):
broken her wrist.
She loves jujitsu and she hadfallen and thought she'd broken
her wrist, took her into anurgent care, got her an x-ray
and we were waiting a very longtime for the radiologist to get
back to us but they had textedme the x-ray and so I just took
the x-ray, dropped it in, youknow, to a tool that I have, let
it read it and ask it toevaluate it for me, and it ended
(40:00):
up giving the exact samediagnosis which thankfully it
wasn't broken that theradiologist gave, and it was
even down to the thing of likethings to pay attention to.
It was amazing.
I did that with my elbow.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And I think that's you know like.
There was an article publishedin the Wall Street Journal
probably a couple months ago,but there was a big study and I
can't quote the study or thesource, but you can look at the
Wall Street Journal for this.
But in terms of diagnosis, ai isvastly superior to humans and
the reason why is because AI,first of all, it has access to
all the knowledge in the worldvirtually in the world but it
(40:34):
also is unbelievably good atpattern recognition, so it can
see the nuances, like I've evenheard people taking a picture of
some injury or whatever andthen having Chad GPT do an
analysis on it.
And because it's so good atpattern recognition, it can dial
in that diagnosis.
And again, I would cautionpeople to see a medical
(40:57):
professional just to validate it, because AI does at this point
still hallucinate.
But I'm using it in everyaspect of my life.
My wife uses it for mealplanning, for example, and in
fact a buddy of mine built acustom GPT where you basically
take a picture of what's in yourfridge and it gives you a bunch
of options of what you couldmake for dinner based on the
ingredients that are sitting inyour fridge, and it gives you a
bunch of options of what youcould make for dinner, based on
(41:18):
the ingredients that are sittingin your refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, that's what got my wife into it.
I'm the super technology-drivenguy.
I always want to try the newesttools.
I'm a little bit of a softwarejunkie to some extent Probably
not a good word usage, but I amand she's kind of the late
adopter.
So on the spectrum we couldn'tbe farther apart.
But it was a it was a recipething of figuring out how to
make a particular meal or whatit was that she really liked.
And then the other day this wasincredible.
(41:40):
I wish I had the pictures toshow people.
Maybe I could put them in theshow notes.
But she was trying to figureout how to redesign our back
patio and she had taken apicture of the area that she
wanted and then just describedthe, what she actually wanted.
And then she even found a fewdifferent pieces of furniture
but she couldn't think about howto arrange them a certain way
and it I mean it was just inChatGPT Incredibly it arranged
(42:04):
it to a way that she reallyliked.
It gave it a few bits offeedback.
And if you look at our backpatio now and you look at this
picture that ChatGPT actuallydesigned, it was the interior
designer, if you will, of herback patio, but with her
assisting and giving you knowwhat she wanted for feedback.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, it's an amazing tool.
This is why we started.
I mean, I have this thingcalled the AI Business Lab and
people can find it atAIbusinesslabai, but it's
basically where my newsletter isand it's also.
I have a mastermind withbusiness owners and so we get
together once a month Iinterview an expert on AI.
(42:39):
But the difference is we're notinterested in AI for AI's sake.
We're looking for the practicalapplications to small business
owners.
So that mastermind is allgeared around that, and I think
that it's easy to kind of justjump from tool to tool and what
is possible to experiment withit, and you know, some people
are called to do that.
(43:00):
But my interest in AI is howcan it improve my life and how
can it help me make my lifericher so that I can do the
things that only humans can do?
Speaker 1 (43:10):
For sure.
Have you done any?
Have you played around with anyof the AI app development stuff
?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Not really, but our company has quite a bit.
So you know, in our, in ourcompany, we have a full-time web
developer and so he's dealing.
He's working with lovable,which is a platform, and cursor
is another one, but I haven'tgotten into that, but it's on my
list.
I've got an expert actuallylined up for December for our
mastermind.
It's going to come in and teachus all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, if your developer's not tried it,
there's a great one calledReplit that I really love.
I've tested pretty much all ofthem.
It's one of my favorites andit's just incredible the other
day.
So I also, in addition torunning the marketing agency
here at Business Builders, Ialso help with a large church
here in town and get to lead alot of the creative and
marketing teams there.
We don't really use the wordmarketing in church, but it's
the same idea.
And we were sitting in acreative offsite the other day
(43:58):
and the lead pastor was like,well, I'd love to have some kind
of digital invite tool forChristmas where we could send
people kind of the Christmasimage with an invite but let
them text it directly to theirfriends from themselves.
And I was like, yeah, we can dothat.
And he's like what do you thinkwe can have it done in time for
when we start talking aboutChristmas?
And I was like I can have itdone by lunch.
And in all reality, this toolis built and ready to go.
(44:20):
We're actually reviewing ittomorrow.
That same day, in probably lessthan an hour, I built this tool
where you can just there's 15different campus locations with
multiple service times, so itcan get confusing.
And on this app, you just loadit up, you pick your campus, you
confusing.
And on this app, you just loadit up, you pick your campus, you
pick the service time you'regoing to, you hit share and it
pops up that little kind ofshare bubble that is on your
(44:40):
phone.
That makes it easy to textsomebody or email them or put it
on social, whatever you want,and natively inside the app and
you can just text it right toyour friend from your number and
it pre-writes a message aroundit.
That would have cost methousands of dollars in
development, even at cost, andit would have taken weeks to get
it done, and I literally had itdone in less than an hour.
It's incredible what it'scapable of doing.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah, I can't wait to get into that.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Well, we are running out of time.
I could spend all day talkingabout AI and I really appreciate
your insight and time today,but as you think about talking
to business owners,entrepreneurs and leaders who
are trying to build a businessthat lasts without sacrificing
their life and their family,what's some parting advice that
you would leave with them today?
So maybe something we haven'ttalked about, or just to
reiterate something that wealready have.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
I would say that everything flows out of your
leadership and your character,and self-leadership always
precedes team leadership, and soif you can't lead yourself,
you're not going to be able tolead anybody else, and I think
that's why integrity is soimportant, initiative is so
important, influence is soimportant, but you will
(45:47):
replicate in your business and,frankly, in your family, who you
are and what you focus on, whoyou are and what you focus on.
So I think it's important thatwe get the prototype right first
and make sure that we're livinga good life ourselves, because
that's going to be the prototypefor a lot of the people that
look up to us.
And I would say this goes rightback to parenting too, because
(46:09):
more is caught than taught, andyou know the kids are going to
replicate and imitate yourbehavior or react to your
behavior, more than anything youdo.
They won't remember the lessonsyou taught them, but they will
remember who you are and how youmade them feel, and the same is
true for your employees, andthat's what creates a great
legacy is when you have peoplethat are living a good life
(46:32):
before God.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Well, your life and example and work have had a huge
impact on me personally, on mybusiness, on the team here at
Business Builders, on my family,on my marriage and on my kids,
and so thank you for that andthanks for walking the walk, not
just talking the talk.
I'm going to go toAIbusinesslabai and sign up for
that newsletter Now.
(46:54):
As soon as I get off thispodcast, we'll put a link to it.
Anything else you'd want tolink to or send people to that
might be helpful for them.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
No, I think the bigger connection to everything
I'm doing is fullfocusco.
That's where you can find ourplanners, our courses, my books,
everything else that we'redoing All right.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Well, michael, thank you so much for being on the
show.
It's been an honor.
Thanks, jay, honor for me.
Hey, I hope this video hashelped you with some tips and
ideas to build a business thatlasts.
Make sure you subscribe to ourchannel so that you don't miss
out on the next videos that weroll out and, more importantly,
for some awesome free resources.
Head over to our website atbuildingabusinessthatlastscom.
(47:32):
You can get a free copy of mybook there, where I tell you how
I have built an agency that'sgrown year over year for the
last 20 years in a row.
So go grab that,buildingabusinessthatlastscom,
and make sure to subscribe toour channel.
Thanks, we'll see you soon.
Have you ever thought to yourself is it really
possible to win in business andsucceed in life?
How do I get that double win?
We talk a lot about work-lifebalance on this show, because it
matters a ton to me.
It is about building a businessthat lasts without sacrificing
family, but how to actually getthere can be really hard, and
(00:21):
finding people who've actuallydone it can be even harder.
On this episode, we interviewone of my personal aspirational
identities.
If I could pick the guy that Iwant to be 20 plus years from
now, it is this guy on thisepisode, michael Hyatt.
He has five grown children.
He's been married to his wife,gail, for 47 years.
As of the time of thisrecording, he has 11 grand
(00:43):
children.
All of them live close to home,and one of his daughters runs
his company.
I don't know about you, but forme that's a dream, and so I
can't wait to share the insights, knowledge and experience that
Michael has, not just in talkingthe talk, but walking the walk.
Without any further ado, here'smy interview with Michael Hyatt
.
Hey, michael, welcome to theshow.
(01:04):
Thanks, jay, good to be on withyou.
So I tell people all the time,but we've never actually talked
until right now, other than afew Facebook messages.
But if I had to list the topfive people who have had the
most impact on my 26 years inbusiness or my 22 years in
marriage, you are certainly onthat top five list, so it's a
real honor to have you on theprogram for everybody else.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Thank you for that, and you need to get out more.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So I was just reading back through a lot of your
stuff.
I got a big stack of your bookshere that have been influential
to me.
I'll put a link to a lot ofthose in the show notes.
People haven't read them.
They need to get out and getbasically all of them.
They've all had a big impact.
But one of the quotes that Ilove that I've heard you say
before some version of is thatmost people spend more time
planning a one-week vacationthan planning the rest of their
(01:51):
life.
Unpack that a little bit for meand tell me kind of what that
means to you and the work thatyou do.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I think that most people are drifting through
life, that most people aredrifting through life and what
that means is they're not kindof conscious of the decisions
they're making or the long-termtrajectory that they're on.
And this all came to ascreeching halt for me, a big
wake-up call, back in about 2001, where I had been asked to take
(02:20):
over this division in 2000 atThomas Nelson Publishers here in
Nashville and I've been in thepublishing business my entire
career, and so I took on thiskind of failing division that
was dead last in revenue growth,dead last on profitability, and
the CEO asked me to turn itaround.
And so he said how long is itgoing to take you?
And I thought at the time thatit would take about three years,
(02:42):
and that's what I told him andhe said well, that's kind of
what I was thinking.
I was totally making it up, Ihad no idea, but I got into it
and kind of came up with avision for where I saw this
division going.
I shared it with the team.
We rolled up our sleeves, weworked hard In fact we were
working evenings, weekends,nonstop but we turned that
division around in 18 months.
(03:03):
We went from dead last out of14 divisions to number one in
profitability, number one inrevenue, number one in employee
morale, and that was great.
And I got the biggest bonuscheck I'd ever gotten in my life
, which I was very excited about.
And I knew my wife was going tobe thrilled and would kind of
validate all the hard work andtime away from the family and
all the rest.
(03:24):
So when I bounced into the house, pretty elated from the
experience I just had and fromthe size of this check more than
my annual salary I showed it toGail, my wife, and she wasn't
that impressed.
She just kind of looked at meand she uttered the words that
no husband, probably no spouse,ever wants to hear.
And that is, honey, we need totalk.
And I went you know what whoa.
(03:46):
So we walked into the den andsat down.
She teared up a bit and shesaid to me look, I want to start
this conversation by tellingyou how much I appreciate all
that you do for our family.
It's not lost on me.
I'm grateful, but I got to behonest.
You are never here and evenwhen you are, your head's
(04:09):
somewhere else, you'redistracted, you're thinking
about work, you're just notpresent.
And then she began to cry andgot a little choked up and she
said, if I'm honest, I feel likea single mom.
Well, that was a gut kickbecause that wasn't what I was
going for.
And I said, even though mycalendar didn't reflect it, that
(04:31):
my family was my most importantthing, but I wasn't living that
out.
So I thought I need a differentplan.
So I actually hired anexecutive coach and it ended up
being Daniel Harkavy, with whomI wrote my book Living Forward,
which is all about life planning, and that was the beginning of
(04:53):
a slow turnaround for me.
It was easier to turn thatdivision of that company around,
but it was easier to turn mylife around.
That was more difficult.
But one of the first things hesaid to me is he said we've got
to get some boundaries aroundyour work because this is
bleeding into everything.
You basically do one thing, youwork, and everything else is
(05:16):
just kind of an afterthought.
And that was true.
And so he said would you bewilling to put hard boundaries
around your work so that you canopen up some space to attend to
the things that matter most?
And I said yes.
So we gave some hard times whenI would quit and go home every
day and that I committed to himthat I wouldn't work on the
weekends and committed to himthat I wouldn't work on
(05:36):
vacations.
And then he kind of asked thekiller question, which was well
then I'm sure you won't mind ifI call Gail occasionally and
check in to see how you're doing.
That was the thing that reallygot my attention and gave me the
accountability.
And one of the first thingsafter that to answer your
original question, jay, was, hesaid have you ever put together
(05:58):
a life plan?
And it was like what?
I've never even heard of that.
And so he began to walk methrough the process, and that
was one of the most importantthings I ever did.
And so in that moment when heshared that with me, I began to
make the pivot from driftingthrough life to designing my
(06:20):
life with intention.
And the problem with driftingis that nobody ever drifts to a
destination they would havechosen.
We only drift to bad places.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
You know, I have my copy of Living Forward sitting
right next to me here and I readthis book I don't know how long
ago, probably roughly wheneverit came out, whenever that was
and I remember I had not donethe exercise in it and I was
sitting in a hotel room.
I think I was up in Nashvilleat an event actually and it was
raining outside and I wassitting in a hotel room.
I think I was up in Nashvilleat an event actually and it was
raining outside and I got inthere early and I just sat and
(06:48):
started writing out and doingthe work of the book, you know.
And I remember sitting at mylaptop alone, in my computer,
you know, in my hotel room, justweeping as I wrote this thing,
because I realized the dividebetween who I desired to be, who
I said I wanted to be at theend of my life, and who I
actually was that day sitting inthat hotel room.
(07:10):
And I'll tell you, one of thebest things that ever happened
to me in my life was on mycompany's 25th company
anniversary, which was lastsummer.
We did a big company cruise,took the whole team and their
spouses and my wife the team hadbought me a very nice watch as
a gift, which was very kind.
But my wife had my five kidswrite letters to me and my
oldest son, who's now 20, he hadnever read this life plan that
(07:34):
I put together when readingLiving Forward.
But if you read his letter andif you read that plan, they are
very, very similar.
And at that moment I thought tomyself I guess I need to write
a new plan, which I've notactually done yet, so I probably
should but incredibly impactfulwork because it changed my life
and arguably, probably thetrajectory of my five kids.
(07:54):
I know you've got a bunch ofkids as well, except they're
probably older than mine.
Yeah, and how long have you andGail been married?
47 years, 47 years.
That's incredible.
So, yeah, that's great.
I love that.
And so, when thinking about youknow you deal with and have
worked with tons ofentrepreneurs.
Over time.
You've had big transition whereyou've had your daughter,
(08:15):
megan's, taken over your companyas CEO and you know what do you
see?
You know today, as you stillcontinue to coach and work with
different entrepreneurs andleaders, where do people get
stuck with this stuff?
Like, what are some key thingspeople could do to help them get
unstuck when they're thinkingwell, I have to work really hard
because I have to provide X, yand Z and I don't know another
(08:36):
way to do it, like how can theyget unstuck?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well, I think so many times we create this false
sense of urgency.
I mean, there's a lot ofstreams that feed into this
answer, but we have all thesethings that make us feel like
it's urgent that we get thisdone now.
It could come from sort of ascarcity mindset, you know, like
if I don't chase thisopportunity, there may not be
another opportunity it couldcome from.
(08:59):
You know, financially we'retrying to set ourselves up for
the long term and we can seethat.
You know, the runway is only solong that we have to do that.
I think a more subtle andperhaps sinister motivation is,
and the reason we spend as muchtime at work as we do is because
work is a place where we havemore control, more rewards, more
(09:23):
encouragement, more rewardsmore encouragement.
And home is often especiallywhen you have young kids is
often chaos and you don't seeprogress like you do at work.
There's not a lot of accolades,you know.
You kind of feel like you'recoming up short all the time.
So I think there's this kind ofavoidance, this natural
avoidance of life at home, andwe want to spend that time at
(09:46):
work where we don't have to facea lot of that stuff.
And I think just waking up tothe awareness of that is a big
step in the right direction.
But then I think that's wherewe've got to take the long-term
view and say kind of like wesaid in Living Forward, you know
, if you go to the end of yourlife and you're attending your
own funeral and what are thepeople going to say about you?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
are the key people in your life going to say about
you, and the thing that I thinkthat I dread is that they would
say you know, to be honest, Ididn't get to know him that well
because he was always at work.
You know, my dad didn't spendthat much time with us, and I
think that whatever we may gainshort term by working harder,
we're going to lose long term byrealizing that.
(10:28):
You know we were putting all ofour effort, our best thinking,
our best energy into somethingthat wouldn't matter Like.
When I left Thomas NelsonPublishers in 2011, I was the
CEO of that company.
It was a big company.
We were a public company upuntil we sold it to private
equity.
But one of the things I noticedis that when I left, all the
(10:50):
people that I thought were myfriends at work, like they, just
I didn't have any contact withthem.
They didn't call me, I didn'tcall them.
It was nobody's fault.
It's just that our friendshipwas a friendship based on
proximity, and once theproximity was gone, they weren't
(11:11):
there.
So you know they were whatArthur Brooks called deal
friends, not real friends.
And again, that's no fault oftheirs.
I don't think it's any fault ofmine, but I do think it makes
us reevaluate.
You know, the people that we'regoing to have with us long term
, if we steward it well, are our.
(11:32):
You know our family and ourfriends, and you know I have the
privilege today and boy, Ithought the wheels were coming
off many times but I have fivegrown daughters.
Three of them are married.
We have 11 grandchildren andall the grandchildren live
within five minutes of me andthat's split between three
families.
All my girls are here inNashville, where I reside,
(11:56):
within 30 minutes of me.
But that kind of thing doesn'thappen by accident.
And again, we made it's amiracle actually because we made
so many parenting mistakes andthere were just so many things
that I wish I could go back anddo a do-over.
But I remember Dr Dobson, whorecently died, said that you
know, the average kid cansurvive the average number of
(12:16):
mistakes made by the averageparent, and I think that's true.
If you just invest a little bitand give them some attention
and focus, everything's going toturn out okay.
But it does take that You'renot just going to phone it in.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, two things I'd love to narrow in on even though
I almost never talk about thisspecific stuff on this show, but
maybe that's really valuablefor people is friends and really
transition of kids in differentages of life, because I'm
dealing with a lot of this rightnow so maybe it's selfish of me
to ask these questions.
But on the friend side, I finda lot of business leaders,
especially men.
I think women generally arebetter at making friends I mean
(12:54):
that's a stereotype, but I thinkthey just generally are and men
are better at, maybe, makingdeals.
Well, that's probably not eventrue.
There's probably plenty of themthat are great at making deals.
But men struggle with truefriendship, I think, sometimes
deep abiding friendship.
So I'm curious for you, asyou've grown in business, grown
in life and go how do I get theright other men around me who
can be good friends to me?
At our church actually, ourpastor will call these people
(13:16):
mat carriers and the idea isthere's a story in the Bible
where you know friends carry aguy on the mat to Jesus and it's
like who are your mat carriers?
So for you, how have youdeveloped those friendships?
And while also doing all theother things of being a dad,
being a husband and running abusiness and all that.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, you know one way to say this and again, this
is a stereotype, but to kind offollow your lead here.
There are exceptions, I'm sure,but I think men tend to relate
to each other sort of in aprimal sense, as competitors,
and women relate to others aspotential collaborators, and so
I think, you know, we need tomove more towards that
(13:53):
collaboration kind of idea.
But I remember when I becamethe CEO of Thomas Nelson
Publishers this was back in 2005.
At that time we were publiclyheld and on the day that the
board voted for me to become thenew CEO and I was inheriting
the company, in essence, from aCEO that had been the CEO for 50
years, and so it was a big deal.
(14:14):
But John Maxwell not to drop aname, but John Maxwell is a very
famous leadership author and hecalled me on that day.
He was one of my authors and hecalled to congratulate me and
he said he said I want to giveyou a piece of advice.
And he said I wish somebodywould have given this advice to
me earlier.
And I said yeah, all ears.
What is it?
And he said you know, you'veheard that it's lonely at the
(14:44):
top.
And I said yeah, and I kind ofreconciled myself to that and he
said I want you to know that'sa choice.
That was a profound idea and anew idea to my brain and so I
started being intentional withfriendships.
At that point, you know, Ibefriended, for example, two
other public company CEOs inNashville and we got together on
a quarterly basis, whichdoesn't seem like much, but it
was a lifeline, especially as weended up managing going through
the Great Recession alltogether and different things.
(15:06):
You know, those were the guysthat understood my world and you
know we could talk through it.
I think friendships have to bereally intentional.
They're not just going tohappen by accident.
You've got to create first ofall the space for it and then
you've got to have the intention.
And I was reaching out to afriend of mine this last summer,
(15:28):
earlier this summer, and I saidyou know, one of the things I
really want to be is even moreintentional with my friendships.
And I just wonder if and it mayseem a little bit artificial,
but if we got together on aregular basis, like, say, once a
month, and just had, you know,no rush, no urgency, had
extended time to talk.
I said, would you be interestedin that, which took a little
(15:50):
bit of a risk, because it almostfelt like you know, asking
somebody out for a date.
And he said, man, I'm so gladyou asked that because he said
the truth is, I need morefriends and I need more friends
like you.
And I said, well, I feel thesame way, so we're doing that
now.
So I've got probably three,maybe people, three to four
people like that that I gettogether intentionally.
(16:13):
But if you haven't discoveredthe work I think her name is you
can fact check on this laterChasten Nelson and she's done
some.
She's written several books onfriendship, but she has a
phenomenal model on friendshipthat I won't be able to remember
, but you got to read it and itwas really inspiring to me.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, I will.
You know, one of the things mywife started with a friend that
ultimately ended up meaning mehaving really good friends over
time was about nine years ago,almost 10.
We started a thing calledSupper Club and she had an
acquaintance with another coupleor another friend and it was
kind of one of these thingswhere we all wanted to just be
around more like-minded people,that we also wanted to be a
(16:59):
little more like in someparticular way, you know.
And we ended up with thesegroup of four couples, us being
one of them, and we rotatehouses once a month and so once
a month we'll be at each other'shouse and whoever's house it's
at, we make a crazy awesomedinner.
It's themed and you know allthis.
(17:23):
It's very extravagant, it's veryfun.
We kind of try and one-up theperson from the month before you
.
We just want to make it veryfun, but ultimately it's a way
of just loving on the peoplethat are there.
And if you come to Supper Club,you're not allowed to set up,
you're not allowed to bring food, you're not allowed to clean up
, you can just bring wine andthat's it.
And it's one of the best thingsthat's ever happened to me from
a friend's perspective, becauseall these people have a bunch
of kids, they all own businesses, they're all about the same age
, they've all been married for20-something years, they all are
(17:46):
believers.
There's a lot of commonalityand so it's a lot of
shoulder-to-shoulderrelationship and that's just
been totally life-changing andlife-giving.
Whenever I see that on mycalendar coming up, I'm like, ah
, this is going to be a greatweek.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
So I can definitely.
Where I live, we had a groupthat we met every Tuesday night
and we all lived within walkingdistance of each other, and up
until the pandemic.
So we did it for about nineyears up until the pandemic, and
it was the same group offriends and we got together and
we just spent the entire evening, sometimes going later than we
(18:21):
should have, but it waslife-giving too, and
unfortunately a few of them havedied, some of them have gone to
other parts, so it just kind ofdiffused, which is why I'm
having to rebuild that now.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, it's been huge for us, though, and so I would
just encourage people that arelistening find that circle or
create it.
If you don't have it, go createit.
Build the right people aroundyou, and and I think to your
point too it doesn't have to be20 people.
It probably shouldn't be two,three, you know, maybe four,
like you know only only fourpeople to carry a mat, you know,
and so it makes a ton of senseto me.
(18:53):
I'm going back to the kids alittle bit, because I think it
all overlaps.
People talk about work-lifebalance.
I like to call it a work-lifeblender.
I always say some days you needa little bit more spinach in it,
and occasionally you need tothrow some ice cream in there,
and when it comes to kids,there's nothing that's been more
impactful to me in my life thanthe five kids who well, I only
(19:14):
have three that live in thehouse now.
Two of them have gone to collegenow, and what I'm realizing in
this season of life is I think Idid my best to prepare for the
kids at all different ages, but,for whatever reason, I didn't
really prepare or read or talkto anybody about the reality of
these children becoming adults,and I always thought about them
(19:35):
going from whatever zero to 18,but I never thought I'm going
from 18 until the rest of theirlife.
And so now that's the seasonthat I'm in right now, and so
I'd love for maybe you to kindof reflect back on and think on
those different seasons of kids'lives, from childhood into them
, transitioning to adulthood,and now them being, some of them
, married and having kids.
(19:55):
What do you wish that you hadknown in some of those seasons
that you know now because you'vewalked through them?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Well, the funny thing about parenting it's the only
job you're qualified to do whenyou're done.
That's true.
You know, if you had theknowledge back at the beginning
it would be wonderful, but mostof us don't.
You know, we try to read thebooks, we listen to podcasts and
all that stuff, but I reallyfeel like parenting is a journey
of de-parenting.
So, you know, initially, youknow when the kids are born they
(20:25):
can't do much for themselves,so it's hands-on.
You know you're directing them,you're keeping them from, you
know, getting run over andbasically destroying their lives
.
And so then it's a gradualletting go, and I think that a
big mistake that a lot ofparents make we didn't make this
mistake, we made a lot of otherones, but we didn't make this
one is they refuse to let go,and so even when they become
(20:48):
adults, they're relating to themlike they were still kids under
their roof.
And so, you know, to me there'sthe phase where you're the
parent, and then you move into aphase, probably kind of as
you're moving into, maybe later,junior high and high school,
where you're more of a coach.
You know you can accomplish alot more by asking questions and
(21:10):
helping them come to the rightconclusion than just like
over-functioning andover-directing them.
And then there comes a pointwhere, as they're moving out of
college and into adult life,that they really become friends.
You know you're there as atrusted advisor but we never
imposed our advice on the kidsin that phase.
(21:31):
You know we're like we're hereto help, but you know we also
know that you're going to do itdifferently.
And if you want our advicewe're here, but we respect
whatever decisions you make.
We had a little bit of asituation in the past.
We're with Gail's mom, who'sdeceased, but she was very, very
(21:53):
much imposed herself early on,like was constantly correcting
us you know we weren't measuringup, was constantly correcting
us.
You know we weren't measuringup and constantly correcting us
and that led to a lot offriction and unhealth in the
relationship where I just had tosit down with her at one point
and with Gail present and withGail's dad present too, and I
(22:15):
just said you know, this is notgoing to continue and here's the
ground rules going forward, andif you can't abide by these,
then we're just not going to bethat close.
And they were very respectful,really got it, and it really
changed from that point forward.
But I think this part like Iwould say today that my five
(22:38):
daughters, my three son-in-lawsI would really consider them my
best friends Like we have a lakehouse not too far from here.
We were just down there.
It's the time we're recordingthis, we're just past Labor Day
weekend.
We were all down there and Imean we just have these long,
deep conversations.
We have a text thread whereit's, you know, everybody in the
family is in that except thegrandkids, and it's, you know,
(22:59):
everybody in the family is inthat except the grandkids, and
it's just like I'll come back atthe end of the day and it's
like 60 messages in there.
But when somebody in the familytends to get into something,
whether it's pickleball orsomething else, the rest of the
family follows suit and you knowit's just a really healthy
place.
But I think it's because we'renot insisting on being the
parents.
You know, it's one of thosethings where it's kind of like
(23:27):
the upside-down world of Jesus,where you know if you want to
gain your life, you've got tolose it.
In this case, if you want toget the respect, you can't
demand it.
You know that's somethingthat's earned and I think if
there's one thing, jay, that wedid, and my daughters have told
me this.
If there's one thing that wedid in every stage that really
(23:48):
helped was we were quick torepair breaches in the
relationship.
And I think a lot of parents,frankly, a lot of business
leaders, are this way.
They feel like if they arevulnerable with their mistakes,
that they will be respected less.
And the truth is it's exactlythe opposite.
And so Gail and I have beenmarried for 47 years because
(24:09):
we're quick to make amends.
You know, if I say somethingthat's hurtful to her, you know
usually my conscience will tellme and I'll go to her.
But sometimes she'll have toconfront me and we're just quick
to, you know, not let thingsescalate.
Same thing with the girls.
You know they're quick to bringit to my attention if I screwed
up, and I do the same thingwith them, and it just keeps
(24:33):
everything healthy andwell-oiled.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
So when are you going to write a marriage and
parenting book?
That's my question.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Oh my gosh.
You know we've kind of flirtedwith it a couple of times, but
you know it's kind of like well,it's not really consistent with
my brand, but I'm kind ofwanting to write some books that
I don't.
I just want to write.
I don't really care about thebrand thing.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Well, you can put you can put my vote in for whatever
that counts.
It's very, very small, but Iwould love to read it, and my
wife and I are passionate abouta lifelong marriage as well, and
I mean the dream is that ourkids would grow up and still
want to be in close relationship, you know, and even better if
they, if they want to be closeto home, you know.
(25:15):
So how did you pull that off?
Getting them all to be so closeto home?
I mean, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
You know, I don't really know.
I mean it's kind of weird, butit's, it's really cool.
We certainly didn't demand it.
We didn't even suggest it.
You know, I just think theylove the area that we're in.
Their friends are here.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And for whatever reason, they decided to stay.
It's great, I love it.
One of the things that you havetalked about a couple of times
already on this conversation isboundaries in some form, so
boundaries of what it looks likefor work and marriage,
boundaries in relationship toyour in-laws, and then you and
Gail kind of working that outtogether, and I always think
that the right guardrails or theright boundaries actually
create a lot of freedom, not theother way around.
(26:02):
But I'm curious from you howhave you and Gail, and then you
and people in business as well,because you've had big
transitions with you know yourdaughter Megan taking over, you
know full focus.
You know how have yousuccessfully navigated those
boundaries?
Because one thing for you to gothis is what I think the
boundary should be it's anotherfor everybody else who has a
(26:23):
part in it to also agree.
That's what the boundary shouldbe.
Yeah, how have you navigatedthat?
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, I think you know, a major influence on my
life has been Henry Cloud's workon boundaries and another book
he has in addition to boundaries.
He wrote that one with JohnTownsend, but another book he
has is Necessary Endings, whichis one of the most powerful
books I've ever read.
I've read it a couple of times.
I've given it to all my clientsat some point.
(26:51):
But I think that it's importantto first of all reframe
boundaries as not somethingthat's necessarily constraint,
but it's basically the path tofreedom.
So I'm launching a new AInewsletter next week and this
(27:13):
has kind of been an area ofinterest for me, and so I was
looking at two platforms to dothat.
I was looking at one calledSubstack and then another one
that I know the guy that ownsthis company called used to be
called ConvertKit.
It's just called Kit now.
(27:34):
Well, kit has all these bellsand whistles and features and
all these things you can do.
There's literally nothing youcan't do with it.
But Substack is has lessoptions, more boundaries, and I
chose Substack because I said Ithink I'll be able to be
creative in my writing and focusthere rather than just
endlessly tweaking all thethings that I could do.
So it's a case where less ismore, and so I think, to give
(27:58):
you a practical example in thework world, one of the things
that Daniel had me do early onin our coaching relationship was
he said what time are youwilling to quit work every day?
And I said I'm willing to quitat six o'.
What time are you willing toquit work every day?
And I said I'm willing to quitat six o'clock.
Now you have to understand thatI was leaving the office at six
, but then I would go home, havea quick meal with the kids and
(28:20):
then I would crack open thelaptop and I would work till 10
or 11 o'clock at night.
So there was no boundary really.
And so he said well, I'mtalking about the boundary, I'm
talking about when you're goingto quit work and you're not
going to pick your computer backup until the next morning when
you go to work.
And I said six o'clock and hesaid, okay, great.
Well, what that forced me to dowas it caused me to manage my
(28:43):
day in a very different way.
So before, when there was noboundary, you know I would get
sidetracked, doing things that Ishouldn't be doing, have
conversations that were reallypointless, and I just wasn't
that efficient.
But suddenly now, because I hada hard deadline, I was going to
quit at six and that was goingto be it till the next morning.
(29:03):
I managed to that and it's alittle bit like.
You know, you're never moreproductive than on the Friday
before you go on a one-weekvacation, because you've got a
hard boundary, you're about tofly out to wherever you're going
for your vacation and if you'recommitted to not taking work
with you, then you've got to getit done.
And I mean you're just like,unbelievably efficient and
(29:26):
effective on the Friday beforevacation.
Well, that's the beauty ofboundaries, like during the
pandemic, as a company, wedecided because we had a lot of
people working that had smallkids, and you know it was a lot
to manage, and so we said we'regoing to go to a 30-hour work
week, which we still do to thisday.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So we work from 9 to 3.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I don't work from 9 to 3.
I work from 9 to 5, but I dofour days a week and I take off
on Fridays.
So the crazy thing about it wasI said let's try it as a
two-week experiment and see whathappens to our productivity.
I could tell no difference interms of how productive we were.
So I said, okay, let's do it.
And this was like the summer of2020.
(30:07):
I said let's just do it for theentire summer and then we'll
see.
And again, no lack ofproductivity.
It was the same, and so we'restill doing it to this day, and
there's been a lot of researcharound this and a lot of studies
done, particularly in Europe,that going to a four-day
workweek or a 30-hour work weekactually increases productivity,
(30:31):
because people are more focusedduring that time and they're
getting the rest and therejuvenation they need so that
when they show up at workthey're much more focused, much
more resourceful and just getmore work done in less time.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
You know, I've not ever tested the four-day work
week, even though people talkabout it all the time, but I
probably should.
One thing that is reallyinteresting to me is I would say
the one time that I almostalways hit inbox zero is the day
before I go on vacation.
Yeah, there you go.
It happens all the time.
I'm always able to accomplishit, but any general week we were
talking about it today as ateam it's kind of a general
(31:05):
expectation as we're workingtowards inbox zero we don't just
leave 2000 emails in our inbox.
And I thought to myself, howoften am I actually getting
there?
And the truth is it's not thatoften, you know.
I mean I'm constantly workingon it, but it's like the.
It's like the laundry with fivekids at home, you know, it just
never ends.
So this is really interesting.
I'd love to dig in on AI alittle bit of a hard turn from
(31:26):
parenting and relationships, butyou brought it up, so I'm going
to go there.
If there's two things that I'mprobably most interested in in
this season of life, one is howdo I successfully navigate
children going from in my houseto being adults and then still
having good relationships?
And two, it's AI.
I love this stuff.
It's how it's actually how wegot connected, because I was
following some different groupson Facebook that you also happen
(31:46):
to be in and I was like, isthat the Michael Hyatt?
And then we were commentingback and forth on the same post
and then I ended up sending youa message.
So, thinking about AI in thecontext of business life, we've
seen this before technologypromising to reduce our workload
, to reduce the amount of timewe're working, and yet it seems
(32:07):
like for a lot of people, that'snot actually been true.
We've got more technology thanwe've ever had, and yet most
people seem to work more thanthey ever have.
So do you think that it's truethat AI has this capacity for us
to be able to get more done ata better quality in less time?
Or is it just an oasis in thedesert?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
No, I think it absolutely does.
But and don't ask me how I knowthis it's easy to reinvest that
time back in AI and you know,just end up you end up with the
same amount of work that you'redoing.
You're just doing differentkinds of work.
So I think it's always going tocome down to the human who
makes the decision about whatthey're going to do with that
(32:47):
extra time.
And so I feel like AI is rightnow saving me roughly 10 to 12
hours a week, but I've been ableto redeploy that time in doing
things that are truly human andtruly rely on my creativity and
give me an opportunity to do thethings that only humans can do.
I'm a big AI enthusiast,there's no doubt, but not at the
expense that only humans can do.
(33:08):
I'm a big AI enthusiast,there's no doubt, but not at the
expense of humans in the loopand not at the expense of our
own humanity.
I think there's a reason why wewere created in bodies.
You know we're not disembodiedpeople.
You know, jesus wasn't a spirit.
He was the incarnate Son of Godand he was, you know, body,
(33:31):
mind and spirit.
And the bodies are important.
They're so important thatthey're going to be resurrected,
you know.
So I think that we have to livean embodied existence and I
think what the screens do andwhat too much time in the
virtual world does is itdisembodies us and we lose
connection to our five senses.
(33:51):
And if you, I've dealt with alot of anxiety and stress over
the course of my adult life andone of the best remedies for
that is just get outdoors, youknow, feel the earth beneath
your feet, take up gardening, dosomething that gets you outside
, go for a walk.
I was just talking to a guythis morning and we were talking
(34:13):
about, you know, most religionshave a physical practice Like
think of Hinduism and yoga.
What was the practice forChristians?
What was the physical practice?
Well, it was walking.
You know Jesus walkedeverywhere.
You know he walked and taughtand I just think that reclaiming
(34:34):
that is important and we can'tever let AI become a substitute
for that.
That's why I'm not reallyenthusiastic about virtual
reality, although I can see thebenefits.
I definitely can see thebenefits of augmented reality,
but you could lose yourself inthose spaces and it's not real
and you become less than human.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, I feel that too .
It's interesting when you weretalking about you know coaching
and having you know Daniel comealongside you and help coach in
a pivotal season of life.
I've seen some people and I'veeven used it in some levels of
this where AI is kind of mycoach in some way.
But the one thing I havethought about and you mentioned
this word multiple times it'saccountability.
The AI can give me a lot.
They can help me dissect myideas and help me reconstruct
(35:14):
plans and come up with all kindsof things, but it's not going
to call me and go hey, did youtalk to Claire and, you know,
ask her the thing that you saidyou were going to do.
You know, hey, can I call herand ask if you really are?
You know taking the time offthat you said you were going to
ask, if you really are, you knowtaking the time off that you
said you were going to Like it'snot going to do that.
And so it's interesting becausethere's still that place for
humans in the mix of it all.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
There definitely is, and I think we're going to have
to fight for this as we goforward.
It's just.
It's not that I'm opposed to AI, but I am very pro-human and I
think we've got to have thepriorities of that first, in
fact, I would say, because wepublished the Faux Focus Planner
, which is a physical planner ina world where, you know,
digital apps, particularly taskmanagers, are a dime, a dozen,
they're just, you know,everywhere.
(35:53):
But we really believe in thevalue of analog first.
So again, it's like I'm one ofthe most tech people you'll ever
meet and I can talk AI at adeep level, but I do have my
analog tools and I do have, youknow, my human first connections
, and those are vitallyimportant.
But it's not either or, it'sboth and and.
(36:15):
So I'm all enthusiastic aboutAI in the service of human
flourishing.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, for sure.
You know I was thinking aboutthis on the analog side because
one of the things that has beenreally helpful for me I always
tell people when I get reallystressed out.
One of the things I'll do isI'll just make a list physically
on paper of all the things thatI'm worried about and then I'll
scratch through all the thingsthat I actually don't have any
control over, like World War III.
I don't really have much impactover that, so I can just
(36:42):
scratch that one out.
But there are some things thatI could take a next step on and
I can circle those things andjust write one next step.
And then the other side of thepaper, what I do is I'll
physically write down all thethings I can think of that I'm
grateful for and there'ssomething about even right now,
as I'm taking notes on thispodcast, I'm physically writing
on paper because there'ssomething about how it engages
my brain differently, eventhough I mean I love I'm the guy
(37:06):
that waited in line for a wholeday for the first iPhone, and
so there is really somethingtangible about that physical
work On a real practical level.
What are some of the tools andthings that you're doing?
I mean, you said you'restarting a new AI newsletter.
Love to get to know more aboutthat.
And then, what are some?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
of the actual practical things that you're
using on a day-to-day basis thatare either fun and or improving
your workflow.
Well, first of all, I'm in AIalmost every day, all day, and
so primarily I'm using it forcontent generation.
So I'm using it to test myideas, to flesh out my ideas, to
challenge my ideas, and so I'vegot a whole workflow related to
(37:51):
my content creation.
That's enormously helpful.
But I'm using it in my personallife too.
So, for example, when I getmedical tests done, like blood
lab draws or an MRI and youcan't see it on camera right now
, but I just had surgery on Itore my bicep tendon earlier
this summer and I just hadsurgery on it two weeks ago.
(38:13):
So I'm in this big brace thatmakes me look bionic, and but I
can plug all that stuff into acustom GPT that I've built and I
can have it analyze all thatstuff, and the crazy thing about
it is that I will usually getanswers that are as good as I
would get from a doctor.
(38:34):
Now I always caution people andsay you know, don't just go
over what AI gives you.
You need to check with a realprofessional.
But I can't tell you how manytimes I've walked into a medical
appointment, since I've beendoing this now for a couple of
years and I'll have my chat GPTreport and especially the
doctors I have are open to AI,so they would look at it and say
(38:54):
, yeah, that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, you know it's interesting.
I was reading a recent studythat Mayo Clinic is doing.
There's a Mayo Clinic down herein Jacksonville, florida, where
I'm at, and I think there's twoother major ones in the country
Maybe there's more than that butthey were testing in the
cardiac unit this AI assistantto the doctors and it basically
(39:18):
read the patient's entire fileand in two of the locations they
were using the AI and one ofthem they were not.
So it was kind of the standardto make sure they were comparing
equally and it increased thelikelihood of a positive outcome
from like 73% to 92%.
I mean it was shocking theoutcome it created the other day
one of my little girls Ithought we thought she had
(39:39):
broken her wrist.
She loves jujitsu and she hadfallen and thought she'd broken
her wrist, took her into anurgent care, got her an x-ray
and we were waiting a very longtime for the radiologist to get
back to us but they had textedme the x-ray and so I just took
the x-ray, dropped it in, youknow, to a tool that I have, let
it read it and ask it toevaluate it for me, and it ended
(40:00):
up giving the exact samediagnosis which thankfully it
wasn't broken that theradiologist gave, and it was
even down to the thing of likethings to pay attention to.
It was amazing.
I did that with my elbow.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And I think that's you know like.
There was an article publishedin the Wall Street Journal
probably a couple months ago,but there was a big study and I
can't quote the study or thesource, but you can look at the
Wall Street Journal for this.
But in terms of diagnosis, ai isvastly superior to humans and
the reason why is because AI,first of all, it has access to
all the knowledge in the worldvirtually in the world but it
(40:34):
also is unbelievably good atpattern recognition, so it can
see the nuances, like I've evenheard people taking a picture of
some injury or whatever andthen having Chad GPT do an
analysis on it.
And because it's so good atpattern recognition, it can dial
in that diagnosis.
And again, I would cautionpeople to see a medical
(40:57):
professional just to validate it, because AI does at this point
still hallucinate.
But I'm using it in everyaspect of my life.
My wife uses it for mealplanning, for example, and in
fact a buddy of mine built acustom GPT where you basically
take a picture of what's in yourfridge and it gives you a bunch
of options of what you couldmake for dinner based on the
ingredients that are sitting inyour fridge, and it gives you a
bunch of options of what youcould make for dinner, based on
(41:18):
the ingredients that are sittingin your refrigerator.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, that's what got my wife into it.
I'm the super technology-drivenguy.
I always want to try the newesttools.
I'm a little bit of a softwarejunkie to some extent Probably
not a good word usage, but I amand she's kind of the late
adopter.
So on the spectrum we couldn'tbe farther apart.
But it was a it was a recipething of figuring out how to
make a particular meal or whatit was that she really liked.
And then the other day this wasincredible.
(41:40):
I wish I had the pictures toshow people.
Maybe I could put them in theshow notes.
But she was trying to figureout how to redesign our back
patio and she had taken apicture of the area that she
wanted and then just describedthe, what she actually wanted.
And then she even found a fewdifferent pieces of furniture
but she couldn't think about howto arrange them a certain way
and it I mean it was just inChatGPT Incredibly it arranged
(42:04):
it to a way that she reallyliked.
It gave it a few bits offeedback.
And if you look at our backpatio now and you look at this
picture that ChatGPT actuallydesigned, it was the interior
designer, if you will, of herback patio, but with her
assisting and giving you knowwhat she wanted for feedback.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, it's an amazing tool.
This is why we started.
I mean, I have this thingcalled the AI Business Lab and
people can find it atAIbusinesslabai, but it's
basically where my newsletter isand it's also.
I have a mastermind withbusiness owners and so we get
together once a month Iinterview an expert on AI.
(42:39):
But the difference is we're notinterested in AI for AI's sake.
We're looking for the practicalapplications to small business
owners.
So that mastermind is allgeared around that, and I think
that it's easy to kind of justjump from tool to tool and what
is possible to experiment withit, and you know, some people
are called to do that.
(43:00):
But my interest in AI is howcan it improve my life and how
can it help me make my lifericher so that I can do the
things that only humans can do?
Speaker 1 (43:10):
For sure.
Have you done any?
Have you played around with anyof the AI app development stuff
?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Not really, but our company has quite a bit.
So you know, in our, in ourcompany, we have a full-time web
developer and so he's dealing.
He's working with lovable,which is a platform, and cursor
is another one, but I haven'tgotten into that, but it's on my
list.
I've got an expert actuallylined up for December for our
mastermind.
It's going to come in and teachus all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, if your developer's not tried it,
there's a great one calledReplit that I really love.
I've tested pretty much all ofthem.
It's one of my favorites andit's just incredible the other
day.
So I also, in addition torunning the marketing agency
here at Business Builders, Ialso help with a large church
here in town and get to lead alot of the creative and
marketing teams there.
We don't really use the wordmarketing in church, but it's
the same idea.
And we were sitting in acreative offsite the other day
(43:58):
and the lead pastor was like,well, I'd love to have some kind
of digital invite tool forChristmas where we could send
people kind of the Christmasimage with an invite but let
them text it directly to theirfriends from themselves.
And I was like, yeah, we can dothat.
And he's like what do you thinkwe can have it done in time for
when we start talking aboutChristmas?
And I was like I can have itdone by lunch.
And in all reality, this toolis built and ready to go.
(44:20):
We're actually reviewing ittomorrow.
That same day, in probably lessthan an hour, I built this tool
where you can just there's 15different campus locations with
multiple service times, so itcan get confusing.
And on this app, you just loadit up, you pick your campus, you
confusing.
And on this app, you just loadit up, you pick your campus, you
pick the service time you'regoing to, you hit share and it
pops up that little kind ofshare bubble that is on your
(44:40):
phone.
That makes it easy to textsomebody or email them or put it
on social, whatever you want,and natively inside the app and
you can just text it right toyour friend from your number and
it pre-writes a message aroundit.
That would have cost methousands of dollars in
development, even at cost, andit would have taken weeks to get
it done, and I literally had itdone in less than an hour.
It's incredible what it'scapable of doing.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Yeah, I can't wait to get into that.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Well, we are running out of time.
I could spend all day talkingabout AI and I really appreciate
your insight and time today,but as you think about talking
to business owners,entrepreneurs and leaders who
are trying to build a businessthat lasts without sacrificing
their life and their family,what's some parting advice that
you would leave with them today?
So maybe something we haven'ttalked about, or just to
reiterate something that wealready have.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
I would say that everything flows out of your
leadership and your character,and self-leadership always
precedes team leadership, and soif you can't lead yourself,
you're not going to be able tolead anybody else, and I think
that's why integrity is soimportant, initiative is so
important, influence is soimportant, but you will
(45:47):
replicate in your business and,frankly, in your family, who you
are and what you focus on, whoyou are and what you focus on.
So I think it's important thatwe get the prototype right first
and make sure that we're livinga good life ourselves, because
that's going to be the prototypefor a lot of the people that
look up to us.
And I would say this goes rightback to parenting too, because
(46:09):
more is caught than taught, andyou know the kids are going to
replicate and imitate yourbehavior or react to your
behavior, more than anything youdo.
They won't remember the lessonsyou taught them, but they will
remember who you are and how youmade them feel, and the same is
true for your employees, andthat's what creates a great
legacy is when you have peoplethat are living a good life
(46:32):
before God.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Well, your life and example and work have had a huge
impact on me personally, on mybusiness, on the team here at
Business Builders, on my family,on my marriage and on my kids,
and so thank you for that andthanks for walking the walk, not
just talking the talk.
I'm going to go toAIbusinesslabai and sign up for
that newsletter Now.
(46:54):
As soon as I get off thispodcast, we'll put a link to it.
Anything else you'd want tolink to or send people to that
might be helpful for them.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
No, I think the bigger connection to everything
I'm doing is fullfocusco.
That's where you can find ourplanners, our courses, my books,
everything else that we'redoing All right.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Well, michael, thank you so much for being on the
show.
It's been an honor.
Thanks, jay, honor for me.
Hey, I hope this video hashelped you with some tips and
ideas to build a business thatlasts.
Make sure you subscribe to ourchannel so that you don't miss
out on the next videos that weroll out and, more importantly,
for some awesome free resources.
Head over to our website atbuildingabusinessthatlastscom.
(47:32):
You can get a free copy of mybook there, where I tell you how
I have built an agency that'sgrown year over year for the
last 20 years in a row.
So go grab that,buildingabusinessthatlastscom,
and make sure to subscribe toour channel.
Thanks, we'll see you soon.
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