July 24, 2025 • 57 mins
Summary
In this episode, the Lewis Brothers discuss the importance of leading by example and how leaders can influence their teams to grow by embracing discomfort. They explore the concepts of comfort, growth, and panic zones, emphasizing the need to avoid complacency in business. The conversation highlights strategies for cultivating a growth culture, the significance of self-imposed challenges, and the dynamics of team interactions. The episode concludes with practical advice on nudging teams into productive discomfort to foster growth and innovation.
Takeaways
Your team watches what you do every single day.
Embracing discomfort is essential for growth.
Complacency can be a silent killer in business.
Empower others to take on responsibilities.
Seek feedback from those who are where you want to be.
Create a safe environment for your team to fail and learn.
Nudging your team into discomfort can lead to innovation.
Self-imposed challenges can help you grow.
Use data to identify areas for improvement.
Cultivating a growth culture requires intentional effort.
Sound bites
"The art of intentional discomfort."
"You have to allow yourself to reset."
"You can call your competition."
Chapters
00:00 Leading by Example: The Power of Influence
04:02 Embracing Discomfort for Growth
10:01 Understanding Comfort, Growth, and Panic Zones
17:59 The Silent Killer: Complacency in Business
23:38 Cultivating a Growth Culture
29:43 Strategies for Self-Imposed Challenges
35:45 The Importance of Team Dynamics
41:47 Leading by Example: Creating a Safe Environment
47:46 Nudging Your Team into Productive Discomfort
Feel the dynamic energy of the Lewis Brothers as they deliver real stories and lessons that keep local businesses on their toes, and share how experiences in the community inspire them to keep on driving.
Check out all our great episodes at CrossroadConversationsPodcast.com!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So your team watches what you do every single day,
whether you think they do or not, and they're either going to
they are.
They're only going to rise upto whatever you said as an
example.
And if you're growing, ifyou're pushing, if you're
talking about I'll listen tothis book, I'll listen to this
podcast, here's what I do duringlunch, here's how I reset, then
(00:23):
they'll continue to grow thatway.
But if you don't, they're notgoing to grow that way.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hey everyone welcome to Crossroads Conversations with
the Lewis Brothers, where weaim to share real stories about
running a successful familybusiness, working through
adversity and pouring back intothe community that keeps our
doors open.
We're your hosts, taylor, mattand Shelby, and we'll bring you
relevant local business adviceand automotive insights that are
sure to change the way you lookat running a business and maybe
(00:51):
even throw in a plug for you todo business with us.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Welcome back everybody to this week's podcast
, episode 45, crossroadConversations with the Lewis
Brothers.
We're your hosts, the LewisBrothers.
This week we're talking aboutthe idea of the comfort zone Not
getting hung up in your comfortzone, but actually the art of
intentional discomfort.
How leaders push themselves andtheir teams to grow in and out
(01:16):
and pass that comfort zone, howthat leads to growth, how that
leads to finding problems andissues and how you grow through
that.
So we'll fully unpack that.
Go through what makes sense,what we've learned and what we
think we should do movingforward.
So we'll fully unpack that.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That's going to be a fun subject to go over Now.
Before we do that, if youmissed last week's episode
episode 44, where we got to gobeyond the listen, it was kind
of our greatest hits so far thatwe talked about, you know, each
little snippets of some of themost responded to podcasts we've
done so far about, like youknow, creating powerful teams,
(01:51):
the culture, managing difficultemployees, keep the inventory
moving.
You know that's a favorite ofmine Is the customer always
right, and then even additionalsubjects we went over.
Always Right and then evenadditional subjects we went over
.
So if any of those you're likehey, I'm in the middle of that
right now and I could use someadvice, some help, go back and
listen to episode 44, where wecovered all those subjects again
(02:14):
and then even told you what'sthe episode to go back to, to
get the entire Unabridgedversion.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Absolutely.
Hey and dive in and alwayscheck us out online at
lewissuperstorecom, where youcan see all the freshest trades
and everything that we have tooffer online.
But transition what did wedrive today?
What did we walk?
What's fresh, new that's on thelot?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
What's going on?
What'd you find out there?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
You know we've got the new Expeditions that have
come in.
I just have to highlight thisone because they're awesome.
I haven't been able to keepthem on the ground, but I've
been waiting on this one.
We've had the Tremor, we've hadthe Platinum, we've had the
Active.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You got something new .
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's kind of the OG.
You know I like to throw itback to almost like the Eddie
Bauer days, but it's differentthan Eddie Bauer.
It's the best of both worlds,with the old west saddle
(03:21):
interior that has every finedetail made.
It is a cool rig.
Come check it out.
We're getting it cleaned up tobe put on the showroom.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Inspired by the big King Ranch down in Texas, yep.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Largest private-owned ranch in the US, so you can
have a part of that while you'redriving down the road.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Absolutely, that's pretty cool.
So come check that out.
Let's get into this week'sepisode where we talk about, you
know, kind of gettingdiscomfort.
You know kind of getting out ofyour comfort zone.
You know that's necessary inorder to grow, yeah, but it's
not what.
Everybody wakes up in themorning saying what can I do
that'll make me uncomfortable.
You know, as humans we get intothat phase of comfort, yeah,
(04:04):
and we like to hit the cruisecontrol.
We do, and I know I'm guilty ofthat.
You know I've put myself inplenty of uncomfortable or
discomfort situations.
But then you kind of getcomfortable in that discomfort
because you've tried somethingnew, you created a new habit,
and then you get comfortableagain.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
So it's like this cycle.
Let me tell you, in referenceto that of in the comfort zone
so we've talked about it beforea book that we've read by dan
martell, how to buy back yourtime, and so he talks about
things if you can scalesomething that you're doing,
that someone else can do thatfor you and, and in depth, that
you put your color code, thingsthat you do green, yellow and
(04:43):
red thing and you need to makesure that you don't pre-allocate
something that you really loveto do.
Yep, right, got to keep yourheart in it, but what happened?
He said if you are buying backyour time and then, with your
time you bought back, you go siton the beach, you're doing it
incorrectly, absolutely Right,yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Absolutely Right yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
If you buy back your time and you've delegated
everything out and then you justkick back, like let's see
what's on Netflix, like no, no,no, the whole idea was so, now
that you could work on thebusiness, and that gets you into
that next uncomfortable zonebecause you don't know, we
haven't been there before.
What does that look like?
What will that cost?
What turmoil will that bring?
(05:23):
Yeah so that look like.
What will that cost?
What terminal would that bring?
Yeah, so when you said that, Iwas like that's that's, that's
it so.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So the question there in the filter we talk about
filters like you run through inyour brain is if you hand
something off to somebody elsethat somebody else could do, it
doesn't require your talentlevel to do it's in order to
free up your time to work onsomething at a higher level that
even gets a bigger return onyour investment.
Yeah, if you replace that withjust nonsense, you might as well
(05:49):
just be a silent investor,right, you know.
So that's a great point.
I want you guys to think aboutthis, and there's three things
here.
We talk about comfort zone.
That's pretty easy to defineLike.
Comfort zone is like once we getto like where it feels like a
well old machine, which we allaspire to do okay, and that
doesn't mean throw out themachine when it's running well,
(06:11):
um, that could be the comfortzone.
And but then you have growthzone and panic zone.
Yeah, now those two could couldbe confused out there.
When you start talking aboutgetting this comfortable, I
think they coexist right.
You start talking about gettingdiscomfortable.
I think they coexist right.
You could take that worddiscomfort and you could point
it towards growth, or you couldpoint it towards panic, and it
(06:33):
would make sense.
But you got to understand.
What we're talking about hereis growth zone.
It's not comfortable when it'spanic mode and buildings on fire
, or five people didn't show upfor work today, or the wheel
fell off the car or whateverelse.
That's a fight or flight.
Fix it in the moment.
That's not discomfort forgrowth.
(06:53):
Yeah, yeah.
So so you guys dive into that,on on when you're discomfort,
but it's equaling growth versusbeing discomfort because you're
in the hamster wheel and youhaven't fixed it.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, I think you know, going to the growth stage,
I can dive into that.
We'll relate that to.
Whenever we opened up thisstore over here, sure, it was
like, and everyone was askinghey, how's it going, how's it
going, how's it going?
It was over that At the end ofthe day, you just felt whipped
like you had never been whippedbefore, like you'd ran a race
you hadn't prepared for and weweren't as prepared as what we
(07:30):
thought we needed to be.
But it was every single day.
It was stretching you fartherand farther and farther, and it
wasn't in a bad way.
We could see down there downthe road that this was building
us to something greater.
So that's a really good exampleof a growth zone that we were
stuck in moving over to this newlocation.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
There's something about that, though.
Like you say, when we movedover here and there was new
opportunity of let's up the KPIsor hire new people and delegate
, that was the thrill of thehunt, you know.
So, no longer was so much thethrill of just and don't hear me
wrong of just helping oneperson, one consumer, have a
(08:16):
good experience.
Right, like you, want that tohappen every single time without
fail, but you want to helpcreate the process that allows
every customer to add it.
So at the end of those days andthose days are are less now,
but they're still there of that,oh my gosh, what was that?
There was still really goodfulfillment within your heart oh
just like, oh, I'm whipped andit was good.
(08:38):
Like we unpacked a lot of stuff.
I'm not talking physicallyunpacked, but actually like, oh,
hadn't seen that before.
Take note of it, you know.
Like, oh, okay, that was toomany, that wasn't enough.
Whatever it was, that was goodand so you could still to grow.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I think that's probably a great indicator of
hey, you feel whipped, but wasit growth or was it panic?
You know, because we've nowI've been there before too, I've
been whipped at the end of theday and I did we accomplish
anything?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And I think, like I like to relate that to physical
things I've been in runningraces that you're in discomfort
on your past.
The lactic threshold heart rateis you can feel the heart rate
on your tongue, in your ear,yeah, like you can feel it in
your hair.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
What am I doing?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Like what in the heck ?
But you're up towards the front, where you know that you're
passing a goal that you'veworked on before and so it's
worth it.
Yeah, it's worth it.
And you just keep going, keepgoing.
When you finish you're likethat was good, like that hurt.
And then there's been on theother side what I call the panic
zone, and you're like I didn'ttrain enough for this, I wasn't
(09:46):
prepared, I didn't have a gameplan, I didn't let everyone else
know how to help, and at theend you're like that was awful.
Yeah, like I kind of felt thesame, but one.
You felt that same because youkept pushing, you were going
faster and more efficient.
The other way, you felt thatway because you weren't prepared
for it.
And that's the panic zone oflike you know, like muhammad ali
(10:08):
says, or one of those guys sayseveryone has a plan until you
get punched in the mouth.
Yeah, right, like do you have aplan.
So when you get punched in themouth, you have a plan.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Let's let's not mistake this, though, and the
audience doesn't need to thinkthat we don't ever go through
the panic zone.
Oh no, because usually.
Usually it takes the panic zoneto identify a growth area.
Yeah, so I, I know like whenI'll end up at the end of the
day and I'm whipped and all Idid was just keep the pieces and
(10:37):
the glue like together to notgo backwards, and then, like,
after my emotions settle downand it might be the next morning
after I've slept then it's likeOK, let me unpack that.
What do I do to make sure thatwe don't get in that panic zone
again and we transition togrowth zone?
Fool me once you know?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
shame on you.
Fool me twice.
Shame on me, I didn't learnfrom the first time, I didn't
unpack it.
Shame on me, I didn't learnfrom the first time, I didn't
unpack it Right.
And I think we have realizedthat the growing up third
generations in our business thatmore often than not, because of
just fight or flight, that ourbusiness has been in just
survival mode yes, right andhasn't been able to step away or
(11:20):
to allocate to the properpeople to work on growth zone
you know I'm going to say thisand, uh, you know we're blessed
to have a fantastic family andgreat mentors my dad and uncle,
you know our, our grandfather,great-grandfather but this might
resonate with some people outthere, so I'm gonna be a little
transparent here.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
some of y'all may have been in situations like we
were, that their parents had tolearn the hard way, the hard
knocks, yeah.
And nothing's wrong with hardwork, okay, but they expect you
to go through the same walk andfall on your face the same way,
just like they did to get wherethey are.
(12:02):
And one of the things we'veidentified is let's share that
with each other.
You know, if I've gone backthrough something, being the
oldest, I want to share it withboth of you guys so that then
you're elevated up.
That doesn't mean you're goingto now not go through any.
You know trials and any paniczones and growth modes, but
(12:24):
hopefully it's at a differentlevel.
So then you take back over hereand it's yeah, still go through
that hard knocks, but let'sstart at ground zero.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Let's not all go down the same path.
Right, you take the lefthallway, I'll take the right
hallway, you take the centerhallway, and then we'll
reconvene in the middle and say,hey, what'd you learn?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Because it is so silly for every one of us to go
through the same trials andtribulations just say well,
that's how I did it.
You know, it's like we'relearning on one of our still in
construction projects that wethought that we were saving
crazy amount of money by puttingup an old building that we had
and I'm just being sotransparent here and yesterday
we had another meeting that wasanother couple hundred thousand
dollars.
They were like here's what youneed.
(13:06):
And it's like no, thebuilding's already put together,
we can see, just slap a roof onit.
And they're like no, here'swhat we need.
And as we were walking backbecause we're not allowed to
drive 26 acres, we just have towalk it all I'm like we should
just take the whole buildingdown.
So what the cost is to repairthis stupid building, you could
(13:26):
buy a brand new building andthey could probably do it in
just the same amount of time.
We'd have a building from nowinstead of the building from the
70s.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Well, you talk about a growth zone there.
I had to pause during thatmeeting and you had to take over
because I was getting ready topull out the 50 pound
sledgehammer and the chainsaw atthe same time, and so then
that's of understandingdifferent things, because I
could see it and I was like no,no, this will be pointless, like
this will be because he wastomahawk and the resource that
was there.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
He's like hang on, I thought we were gonna be
presented something and then wecould make a decision.
And the guy was like, hi, I'mfred, I just wanted to like get
an introduction with our companyis like we're weird way past
speed dating.
We're on the note.
Do you want to have kidstogether?
Right?
So Matt was just like oh my, sothis is a pulpit proposal.
They pulled up their proposal.
(14:14):
I was like it is how much.
I was like I didn't say a word.
Like Matt, I just sit back.
I was just like sir, how quickcan you do this?
Do you see that there would beany other costs that would come
up?
Is there any?
Like Matt, just sit back.
I was just like sir, how quickcan you do this?
Do you see that there would beany other costs that would come
up?
Is there any, as a businessowner, any way that we could cut
costs within that withoutcutting quality?
(14:35):
He's like yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
And then Matt was back on theship.
He's like okay, I wentdownstairs, got some oxygen.
He's like okay, so how quickcan you get that done?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
But I think that's a great example.
We didn't even plan this, butthat's a great example of when
you have somebody trusted onyour team, like maybe you don't
have three brothers in thebusiness, but you've got a
right-hand person.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
You've got somebody else close.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
To you a business partner and you've got to allow
them.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
When you start feeling yourself going in that
panic zone.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
At that point in time I just shut my mouth to kind of
like just digest it, and youjumped in, Okay, and it didn't
take much time Two minutes,three minutes.
I was able then to reset and gookay, it is what it is.
We're in the middle of thisdookie.
This is our only option.
How?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
do we get out of it?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
We chose this, so that was in the moment we it
shows this.
So that was in the moment wewent from panic zone to growth
zone.
Oh yeah, and move forward.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That's a good point that you can shift halfway
through a situation of panic tomove to growth mode.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But in order to do that, you have to allow yourself
to reset.
We've talked about that inother episodes of how do you
reset.
You know when you feel thekettle's boiling okay, it's
starting.
You know it's steaming out thetop.
How do you do a quick reset?
And sometimes it's 30 seconds,two or three minutes, but the
outcome is so much better,that's, that's so big, because
(15:59):
you know both hit the nail onthe head.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
But not only learning how we do things differently,
you learn even in that.
So in future projects that wework on, that we can be able to
tell.
Because we've learned so muchjust in this two years of that
we didn't think we would change,because you analyze, you
analyze the fire out of it, outof every whiteboard that you had
from your office to the nextoffice, and then would share
(16:24):
some with us and be like, oh no,so we.
And we'd be like, oh no, so wethought we'd vetted it as much
as we needed to Sure.
But it's amazing, in the twoyears that we've been in actual
construction, how much willchange before our next project.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, from the first building they built to now the
sixth building, all that we'velearned is like no, no, no, you
need to step out here, here,here and here.
And we paid millions of dollars, frankly, for architectural
plans and we spent 10 years ofresearch, went to 100 different
buildings that we hadn't builtone of our own, and so, from the
first to the sixth, we said no,no, no, no.
Scratch all that.
(16:56):
Do not put a dishwasher here,you need four.
Cast six lines per desk, youneed to have this.
Do not do that, do not do that,do not do an open ceiling, Do
not put a high efficiency HVACsystem, just give me one that
works.
You know all these things thatwe've learned, and so that went
from panic or pain to growth.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
That's so good and just, you know I'm going to
spoil this a little bit, but atsome point in time in the next
12 months I'm printing all y'alldiplomas.
You got a very expensiveeducation in construction, but
we're getting there.
We're working on a doctoratenow, okay.
So let's switch from comfort,growth and panic.
We gave some great examplesthere of identifying what those
(17:35):
are.
Now let's talk about the nextpart, and we were frankly in
this when we were across town.
Yeah, in this when we wereacross town.
Yeah, when we start, whycomplacency is a silent killer
for businesses, especiallylong-standing ones.
Now, what I'm not saying thereis, obviously, if you're losing
(17:56):
money or you're, you're in thered, okay, it's just not working
out.
That that's pretty easy.
The ones that get you are thesilent killer.
So you're doing well.
You've maintained where youwere at last year.
Maybe you're up just a littlebit.
Maybe you added an employee oryou redid the bathroom or
something small, yeah, somethingsmall, but you're really not
(18:19):
like you're bragging about it ormaybe not, but you feel good
inside, but you're really notchallenging yourself.
Your business is doing good,but not great, because and it's
easy to do that If you've workedon a business 10 years, five
years, 15 years, and got it tothat point.
You're like, okay, it's hittingon all cylinders, it's smooth,
(18:43):
and you kind of set back alittle bit and go look what we
did.
Yeah, this thing's moving, itbecomes a silent killer it does
in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Like your employees, they see stagnation of and
everything, things not changeand so like we kind of gotta
keep our ear to the ground ofeven still not like they're a
key system.
People like this, this and thiswe're like and you have to fact
check it, you know, becauseotherwise if you bought it all
like, you'd never be able to buyyourself out of business.
Yeah, no uh so you have to becareful that that employees see
(19:14):
that you're listening and thatyou're responsive, and you know
it doesn't have to be theirsolution, but it's just.
I heard you and here's whatwe're doing.
The other side, customers.
Right, you might sit in yoursame car every single day, you
drive to and from work and wearthe same clothes every single
day and you don't really realizethat they're overly faded or
they stink or they start to gotsomething wrong.
Right, brand new person showsup, comes in your business and
(19:37):
they're like hmm, right.
So if you get stagnant andhere's the thing if, like we
talked about, in that growthzone, at the end of the day, if
you were in that hard race andthat hard day of discomfort
things and you're not like, Ilove that, it's okay, you can
(19:57):
still be a business owner, butyou don't need to be the head
leader of growth and opportunity.
You need to have a operationsmanager, you need to have that
manager, you need to have thatand you can support them, but
you have to have somebody that'shungry to say what's next?
Well, what's our next thingwe're chasing?
Okay, I delegated that.
Now let me go find a newproblem solution or process that
(20:18):
I can make better, moreefficient or a new opportunity
for revenue.
And if that's not you, I'm notsaying you have to sell your
business, unless you have areally good business and you
want to sell it, and then comesee us and we'd love to take a
look at it.
But find someone who ispassionate about it.
Chances are they're on yourteam somewhere and they'll bring
a whole new level of fire.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I want to unpack that a little bit more, because you
talked about the race.
Analogy is a great analogy,because when you're at the end
of it, you're just whipped.
Or a big day and you're justwhipped.
Now, if you're whipped andyou're not excited about your
performance okay, whether it's arace or what this month's
business looked like or whateverit is and you're whipped and
not excited about theperformance, like, let's say,
(21:01):
within a 24-hour period.
If your mind then goes to whatcould I have done different to
change the outcome, I'm okaythat you didn't have the
performance you wanted.
As long as your mind's going,how do I fix that so I have a
different outcome next time?
Then you're still in the rightbusiness.
If you just keep doing the samething and expect different
(21:24):
results, or you're just pissedabout it, blaming other people,
the industry.
it's everybody else's fault.
It's time for you to dosomething else.
You don't have the passion, andwe talk about this in some
other episodes and I've got totalk about this at the U of A
before we say if you're notpassionate about what you do,
you need to find something elseto do, because that's what
(21:44):
drives you through the not sogood times.
That's what keeps you motivatedwhen you're like this isn't fun
, or the hard times.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
So it's good for sure .
So let's talk about thepsychological benefits of
healthy challenge.
When you start looking aboutresilience, adaptability and
increased capacity.
And when we talk aboutincreased capacity, I do want
you to think about we'll go backto what you talked about in
Dan's book is a lot of times tofree yourself up, you have to
(22:20):
remove other things, you have todelegate those.
You know, you have to prune tothen to get a bigger blossom out
of it.
So when you look for increasedcapacity, it's not what else can
I put on my shoulders, it'swhat else?
What small things can I moveoff so I can put larger, more
meaningful things on my plate tocontinue us to go forward?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yeah, I mean, you just have to look at those
things and you just startranking them.
You know, like ranking yourdaily tasks and daily
responsibilities.
And are you holding on tosomething just because, like, if
you feel important, becauseyou're the only one that can run
a report or the only personthat can unlock or lock your
door, You've locked yourself?
You've locked or unlockedyourself to death, Like the
(23:04):
quicker that you can releasethat.
Like I was thinking aboutsomething earlier and there's a
system that only one personknows who the contact is for the
system that a lot of peopleaccount for.
I was like why doesn't everyonehave that in their rolodex so
that when there's an issue andI'm not saying this is why this
person hasn't released it?
(23:25):
But you know, you feel like I'mnot important anymore because
I've given that power away.
It's like now you, you get tostay important because you keep
moving the peg of what you'regetting to work on and then that
gets to circle back aroundinadvertently of how you're
helping them grow some more.
So don't put your ownership in.
I'm the only one that can dothat.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I think a good checkup for everybody out.
There is the key example and Iheard Craig Groeschel talk about
this with all of his churchestoo Show me the keys you carry
around, all of his churches.
To show me the keys you carryaround.
And if it's, if you're a leaderin the business, if it's
anything except just the key tothe front door, you have not
empowered others.
(24:07):
Now I got a drawer full of keysin my office.
Okay, it just in case, becauseit makes me feel comfortable, of
like if something happened, Icould change the toilet paper
out the key.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
But they don't need to be the only but?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
but I, everybody else is empowered with those keys.
The only key I I carry aroundis the one that goes to the
front door.
Yeah, and I don't have to bethe one to lock it and unlock it
every day.
It doesn't mean I'm not workinghard, yeah, it just means I've
empowered others to do that.
If you can't give up the key tothe janitor room you know what
(24:42):
I mean or the copier paper orany of that, stuff like that,
and some of y'all are cringingout there yeah, what are you
doing?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
it.
I'm like you, really like, ohman, you just like, I promise
you someone can properly log whogets paper.
They can Properly log who getsyour supplies.
There's someone Better than youcan you think you're doing so
good.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Oh yeah, you ain't doing good, but you're going to
miss all of it.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I'm like Taylor.
Why are you?
You know, I'm not here, forTaylor.
For certain reasons.
I'm like, why do they keepcoming to you and I'm going, hey
what are relinquish?
Control of that and thosethings just like.
Why are we the one that?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
have to give out the tissue box.
That's stupid on us because wehaven't empowered and trusted on
right.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
And so we, we've, we've got to to learn through
those.
Or like if you finally get totake a day off and somebody
texts you like, hey, how can Iget into here?
It's like didn't I teach youthat?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I think that's part of it.
I'll hit on this one last piecehere on the growth zone and
then we'll move on.
But I heard somebody else talkabout that.
I never.
I just changed this in the pastfew years.
If I come back from vacation oreven a meeting, then I'm gone a
few days.
I don't invite people in myoffice to give me a rundown of
what happened while I was gone,because if they have to come
(25:57):
back and unload all the smallthings that went on, why have I
empowered them?
Yeah, you know, I want to feelgood about that.
I want to come back and feelgood.
I don't want any manager to say, man, I'm so glad you're back.
You wouldn't believe it's justbetter when you're here and you
wouldn't believe everything thatwent on.
I was like that's notcomforting to me.
You're telling me don't gobelieve everything that went on.
(26:19):
I was like that's notcomforting to me.
You're telling me don't gospend any time with my family,
don't ever leave here, and Ihaven't done a good job training
and empowering you, which is sotricky and backwards of us of
how we were raised and justschool of hard knocks In the
past couple of years.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
We've really had to transition out of that.
We have, we have, you know,because the next score will go
on to his legion by example.
I'm not going into it, but justsaying we've always done that.
But then you like shelby, whydid you move the whole inventory
of the ford cars?
I don't know no one else woulddo it.
It's like well, did you ask?
(26:54):
anybody.
It's like, yeah, I asked acouple people, they said they
were busy, I got tired of it, Idid it myself.
It's like, well, yeah, I askeda couple people.
They said they were busy, I gottired of it and I did it myself
.
It's like, well, you fool, youknow, jimmy's been back there.
Larry's been back there eatinghis lunch, saying he doesn't
have anything to do.
So that's something we had tochange.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
That is for sure.
All right, here we go.
Here's our fun fact for the day.
Check this one out.
All right.
Incredibly gruelingmulti-continental race, first
run in 1907, involved earlyautomobiles and their brave
drivers traversing vastdistances of unpaved roads,
deserts, mountains,demonstrating the extreme
endurance and discomfortrequired for these early
(27:34):
vehicles and their crews.
Is that a NASCAR Indy 500, LeMans 24 Hours, the Rally Monte
Carlo, the Paris Motor Challenge?
Then I'm close.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I don't know, but you got Indy 500, le Mans 24 Hours,
the Rally, monte Carlo or thePeaking to Paris Motor Challenge
Back in 1907, we'll come backto that one, alright.
So next part of the discomfortis leading by example, creating
personal discomfort forleadership, evolution right.
So first you need to experience, and the experience kind of
(28:10):
travels with people seeing youdo it.
Then you get to share examplessame thing we're doing today in
these first 30 minutes thatwe've said, hey, here's what
we've learned by doing it.
Right.
So, identifying personal comfortzones and leadership.
So what, what's your like?
Hey, no worries, like somebodydoes this on this day.
And then you throw a wrench andsay actually that means at this
(28:32):
time.
And they're like whoa, why'dyou do that?
Right, like you got to mixthings up.
Like that.
Like you show up on your dayoff and then you see are people
parked in random areas, peoplenot where they're supposed to be
and not wearing what they'resupposed to wear, whatever,
right, then you find thosecomfort zones.
So kind of talk through aboutcreating personal discomfort,
(28:54):
leadership, evolution, like,what's your guys' thoughts on
that?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
revolution Like what's your guys' thoughts on
that?
So I'm going to take youthrough a couple stages here
rapidly.
But when you first started abusiness and if you're listening
out there and you just openedthis past year or last month or
six months ago, you're right nowin the just grind it out and
build it and nothing's wrongwith that.
Like it takes that, we all wentthrough that.
That gets you to the next levelyou identify because you're not
(29:20):
in any comfort zone.
You're trying to survive.
Okay.
Now let's talk about when you'vematured your business.
You're three, five, 10 years or, in our case, 79 years in.
It's very hard to identify acomfort zone in leadership if
you always stay in your bubble.
Yeah, because in our examplenow we have the three of each
(29:43):
other to hold each otheraccountable and call each other
out.
But besides the three of us andlike our dad and our CFO, she
will too nobody else is going tocall us out.
An employee is not going to say, hey, you're getting
comfortable, we're not improving.
They're not going to say, hey,you're getting comfortable,
we're not improving.
They're not going to do that.
So the best thing that hashappened for us is make sure we
(30:06):
have outside influences.
To compare against and wetalked about this is show me the
five closest people to you, theaverage of them, and you'll be
the sum of that average.
So if you want to know whetheryou're in a comfort zone or not,
go find people that are at thenext level, where you want to go
and look at what they're doing,and then how does your process,
(30:28):
how do your daily activities,how do your habits stack up to
them?
You know we've got dealergroups we do that with, and then
I'm just going to tell you guysbecause some of you are like
well, I don't have that, andwhere do you find that?
I'm going to tell you themajority of people that I listen
to or read about or thatinfluence me.
They don't know who I am, butthey've pushed me to identify
(30:48):
comfort zones and to changehabits.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
That's definitely diving into like daily
self-improvement, of being ableto go into and build off of that
.
Then I love that you pulledthat out of.
Hey, they don't know you.
It's not like I've had to setaside a time and be able to talk
to them and wait for theperfect opportunity.
No, it's taking your time,whether it's your commute,
(31:14):
whether it's at night, wheneveryou go get in bed, those
downtime pieces of waking up inthe morning, and it's inserting
that correct criteria of reading, of podcast, of morning
devotionals.
Anything else in there that isjust supercharged and
kickstarted completely changesyour whole outlook of what you
(31:34):
need to be doing.
But then it pushes you.
Because it's so easy to stay inthat comfort zone, because it's
easy to do, you can come inhere with your eyes closed, flip
the switch on.
You know, hey, I'm going to beable to do this.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I think the really good thing to your point, taylor
, is to do a fact check.
So if you listen to thosepeople, a group or a book or
whatever it is, and if you'resitting there listening, there's
two reactions you'll have to,there's probably three, and the
third one is no reaction.
So we're just going to talkactual reactions.
So if one reaction is theydon't know me, they don't know
(32:12):
my schedule, they don't know howhard my business is, that is a
negative reaction and that meansyou are not looking for, that
means you are not looking forgrowth, you are not looking for
opportunity and you're not goingto make it.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
So true.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
If you are saying no, no, no, they don't know me.
You know, like, like DanMartell, I watched a YouTube
video yesterday when I waseating my lunch and it was, you
know, a big thing on YouTube.
Right now is a day in the lifeof and, uh, he was in Austin.
You know a big thing on YouTube, right now is a day in the life
of.
And he was in Austin, texas,with his family.
He's from Canada and he startedhis day at 4 am, which I love,
and he's really good at hiscalendar, and so he had all his
(32:50):
calendar and he flew to likethree different places.
He recorded two podcasts, hedid two different speeches.
The funny thing that I love somuch that we talk about all the
time his guy interviewing waslike hey, second speech coming
out, this is 250 people, we'regoing to be there in 10 minutes.
It'll be five minutes beforeyou get on stage.
He's like, do you have yourdeck ready to go?
(33:11):
He's like, yeah.
He's like, what's it going togo?
He's like it's the wheel.
But and then he finally gothome by like 10 o'clock at night
.
He was flying home and hefacetimed his family's like, hey
, I'll be home.
And people like, how do you haveso much energy?
And he's like you don't have ordon't have energy.
You create energy.
(33:32):
So there's excitement in thatyou've created the energy.
So in your reaction, if you'relike they don't know, know me,
I've got kids, or my commute'slonger, or my employees don't
understand, then you're in anegative mindset, you're going
to have to do a state change.
But if you're on the other side, it's like, wow, I can cram a
little more in there.
Sure, I can wake up a littlebit earlier.
(33:53):
Yeah, I could multitask.
Instead of going to Arby's andthis, this and this, I could
pre-prepare my meals and thenwhen I'm eating my meals I could
listen to something.
I could speak with a couple ofmy employees, I could get to
know some people.
So in those that'll quicklytell you dang, who really am I
and what am I after.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
That's really good, those two different mindsets.
I can remember having differentemployees that would come ask
me for advice, you know, to helpthem grow, and as soon as I
would start talking, they wouldstart talking, and they ended up
talking more than I did, butthey asked you for advice, they
asked me for advice.
(34:31):
So I'm sitting there going.
Are they asking me for advice?
Or they just came to downloadon me on why they couldn't do
that and how I didn't understandtheir situation.
Guess what?
The next?
Maybe not the next time, butthe time after that.
Then, when they asked me totalk to them again, we started
off the conversation.
(34:51):
Are you here to learn or are youhere to try to explain to me
why you can't do it?
Yeah, and that happens.
Can't do it?
Yeah, and that happens.
So I'm telling you too, if youget somebody's ear, if you're
fortunate enough to see somebodyin person and have a
conversation with them, please,please, please, don't talk.
I just shut your mouth.
You're there to learn, not tryto try to prove how successful
(35:12):
you are, because the successfulperson they're not going to
battle.
It's not a contest with them.
They're going to move onbecause they understand the
value of their time.
The other thing you're talkingabout Dan there and you know
trying to figure out how can youfit more in.
I love going back to the bookabout atomic habits.
You know because James JamesClear talks about in there on
(35:34):
finding those things and nodifferent than you took
something as simple as lunch andyou go.
Okay, now when I'm eating lunch, in front of me I'm watching a
youtube.
Whatever it is that's relatableto my business or my personal
growth.
So I'm habit stacking that.
Tell her when you're talkingabout driving or in the morning.
That's where you can find these5, 10, 15 minute deals multiple
(35:57):
yes, yeah, every once in a whilecan you go to a seminar?
That's a two or three day?
Sure, yeah, but that's notfactual that you do that every
day or every month.
So you've got to find thesesmall little things, and what we
get into in the next part hereis the influence you have over
your team.
So your team watches what youdo every single day, whether you
think they do or not, andthey're either going to, they
(36:22):
are, they're only going to riseup to whatever you said as an
example.
And if you're growing, if you'repushing, if you're talking
about I'll listen to this book,I'll listen to this podcast,
here's what I do during lunch,here's how I reset, then they'll
continue to grow that way.
But if you don't, they're notgoing to grow that way and some
people will stay.
(36:43):
They'll stay.
Some people will leave.
You know who will leave yourorganization?
The top performers, becausethey want to be a part of a team
that is pushing them to growand to get uncomfortable to find
the next level.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, most certainly.
And some of them were going togive you a little bit of
superficial shade or like dude,I sell you 25 cars a month.
Why are you pushing me?
And what they're saying is Imean like, don't you think that
some of the top coaches for someof the top quarterbacks or top
running backs said, hey, thatwas amazing, I'm going to give
you the ballink and a cow onyour account?
(37:18):
He's like I just broke athousand yards.
It's been six games.
He's like so can you help uswith this or not, right?
And he's like yeah, yeah, youknow you can get on me, right?
So they need a little bit ofrecognition, but they also need
some push for some growth.
And I I don't want you to say,listen to us and be like, okay,
these guys are different, theseguys are superman.
(37:38):
I need you to know that.
Like probably through a majorityof the construction before we
moved over here, one of mylargest, largest stumbling
blocks of not getting up earlyand not exercising before work
and not even signing up for anyraces, I went like on a hiatus
for years, coming off of a supertough race.
(38:01):
Then I was like I'm too busy,yeah, and my excuse is.
I was in the bad mindset I'mtoo busy, like we have to run
the business and then we have towork on building the business
and all these constructionmeetings and I know you guys
were part of that as well.
I'm like I'm I'm too busy, gottoo've got too much.
Somewhere in there, the switchfinally flipped over and it was
(38:21):
like no, you are too busy to notprioritize getting yourself
right before you try to lead theentire team.
And so then, when that wholething was like I created more
energy right, and then I reallyhave it stacked, and then people
are just like how do you dothat?
How do you do that?
And hopefully it's inspiringsomeone and someone and someone.
(38:43):
It's like I know you could haveexcuses, but you need to turn
them into motivation.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, you know what I love about talking about atomic
habits, habits, stack andeverything else.
So many people have problemswith this.
They go to a conference.
They get so jacked up andthey'll buy everything and it's
like a water hose overload ofit's coming full, funnel down
(39:08):
the pipe at you, have it stack,have everything set up in there,
but just straight focus on oneto two things that's really
going to help you dive into anddouble down on that to be able
to really dive into it.
More times than not, we'll seepeople that get that.
A salesperson that just goesoff and is like I signed up for
this training, this training,this training, this training.
You'll go back in 90 days.
(39:28):
They don't remember anythingfrom a single one of the
trainings.
So don't overdo it and don'tstep past the boundaries.
Start with just the car driveinto and from work.
That makes all the differencein the world.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You need people in your life, though.
That will call you out, becausewe're all human and we might
get on a streak of business orself-growth or health or
whatever it is, and then we'lleither plateau or we'll come up
with those excuses.
I was in the same boat and youknow where?
I wasn't working out, I wasn'trunning because I was like I
(40:01):
gotta give that up to work onthe business and the
construction and all this stuff.
And then finally, my wife.
She's like you need to go run,you need to go exercise, which
meant you're not being the bestversion of yourself, right?
And if you hear people talkabout it, they talk about the
picture of water all the time.
(40:21):
They're like if you'reconstantly pouring the picture
of water out okay, pouring intopeople, pouring into people At
some point in time there's nomore water in there, yeah.
So if you want to keep beingable to pour into other people
in your business and influenceothers, at some point in time
you've got to turn the pitcherback over.
You've got to go back to thefaucet and refuel it, because
(40:42):
then your outcome will be betterinstead of sitting there
shaking and trying to getanother drip out.
Pause for a second.
Take care of yourself, refuelyourself, refill yourself up so
you have an entire other pitcherto keep pouring out in your
employees and in your business.
You know that's really big.
So you have to and people talkabout you know we talk about the
airplane thing all the time.
Why do they make theannouncement of hey, in an event
(41:05):
of emergency, mask will deployfrom overhead.
Put your mask on.
first Put your mask on first andyou think about that,
especially as a parent.
You're like no, I'm going totake care of my kids.
You can't take care of othersif you're not in the state to be
able to do it.
One other example I've got togive about discomfort, because
it just came to me If you lookat some of the greats I'm going
(41:25):
to talk about football for asecond If you look at some of
the greats that have achievedmassive records.
So you take Peyton Manning,okay, you take Tom Brady.
You take two iconicquarterbacks that had won Super
Bowls and MVPs and records andyards.
They kind of got in a comfortzone.
And to push themselves out oftheir comfort zone, what did
(41:47):
they do?
They went to a new team.
They said let me see if I canrepeat and make another team
successful.
You talk about gettinguncomfortable.
They completely removed theirself and went to another team to
see if they could grow theretoo.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That's a really good point.
There's some notes that saysstrategies for self-imposed
challenge.
So some of the strategies forself-imposed challenge is
volunteering for unfurl yourtask Okay Things that you don't
outwardly or inwardly know howto do.
Seeking critical feedback Becareful who you seek that from
Sure Learning new skills thatfeel daunting or embracing
(42:27):
vulnerability.
So, all of those things kind ofhelp.
You impose challenges to seewhat discomfort do I need to see
or experience in the able togrow.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
The critical feedback .
I want to give a pointer there.
Seeking critical feedback is isa great example.
You just make sure here's yourchecks and balances the person
that is giving you feedback.
Are they at a level whereyou're trying to get to?
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Yeah, what, like what?
You don't ask somebody forfinancial advice that's going
(43:01):
through bankruptcy.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Well you know what I mean.
I heard that something justlike that, yesterday in the
video I was watching and the guysaid so how do you go from
millionaire to billionaire?
And he's like well, who do youget your advice from?
He's like, if you're stillgetting your advice from a
millionaire, yeah, he said.
You said get their millionaires, create millionaire style
businesses and they createprocesses and your advice from a
millionaire.
Yeah, he said.
He said get there, millionairescreate millionaire style
businesses and they createprocesses and systems.
(43:23):
He said billionaires createbrands.
He said so it's just an oldanother step.
So you have to be careful ofwho you're getting that critical
feedback.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
I got it given on a simpler version even there too,
because that's good.
But you know that's good, butit's hard to wrap your mind
around a billion dollars.
When we first started running,we got around people that were
doing 5Ks and we got advice onhow do you put a 5K together,
how do you do this, how do youdo that.
And then we got around peoplethat were doing half marathons
(43:53):
and there was a marathon andthen it was an ultra and then it
was a 100-miler.
So we kept moving and gettingadvice from people that were
where we were wanting to go.
When we got to the 100-mile, weweren't asking the 5K people
anymore for advice.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
You got to give them advice now, yeah, and you had to
be careful where you scaledthat.
But yes, you didn't ask someonebehind you how to go ahead, but
so many people do that, I mean,I know it's a funny example,
but how many?
Speaker 1 (44:15):
people do that're asking their uncle buck.
Okay for advice on investing,or should I buy this business?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
no, I'm gonna be good and uncle buck's having a hard
time keeping a job down, yeahall right so we got that part
figured out all right, so goback to our fun fact quiz which
incredibly grew, and the ideathat this is its automotive and
that it is discomfort.
Multi-continental race first in1907 involved early automobiles
and their drivers, okaytraversing vast distances of
(44:47):
unpaved road, deserts, mountainsI would have said ball hopper,
sun in here, demonstrating theextreme endurance required for
these early races.
We had indy 500.
That's not it.
Le Mans 24 hours race well, ifyou know Le Mans, it's all on
pavement.
The Raleigh Monte Carlo or thePeking to Paris motor challenge?
I would have gone Raleigh MonteCarlo, but I would have been
(45:09):
wrong.
I've never heard of the Pekingto Paris motor challenge,
probably because it's over 100,almost 120 years old.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
But our, our producer did yeah, We've got great
producers behind us.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yes no doubt about that.
They're kind of good questions.
They go through.
I said Le Mans because back inthe day I think it was like
through Cobblestone, everythingelse.
It was pretty wild Really,because it was long Tour de
Paris.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, tour de.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
France.
Tour de France.
Yes, the Peking to paris motorchallenge told it was, hey,
diving into cultivating a growthculture, so nudging your team
into productive discomfort.
This is so big because you'vegot to be able to have that, um,
have that culture to be able todo that.
(45:54):
But it's not like on off switchso you say, go do it.
It's got to be able to shown,to be able to how to do it.
So showing your team how to dothat, but it's not like on-off
switch so you say, go do it.
It's going to be able to shown,to be able to how to do it.
So showing your team how to doit in steps that makes them
productive, efficient andsuccessful at that.
So assigning stretchassignments you know we kind of
talked through a building yourKPIs, everything else in that.
(46:15):
How do you do that and how doyou set your team?
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I really like starting there with the data and
the metrics, because they don'tlie, and whether if we can do
it within our group organizationand we're comparing the
Springdale store and theFayetteville stores and
Farmington and we can use thatdata great.
Or if we go to a 20 group andwe can bring a page back from a
composite from dealers all over.
(46:38):
The data doesn't lie and itopens your eyes to opportunity.
It's a segue.
It really is it what it does?
Is it clicks from somebodygoing I'm killing it, there's
nothing I could improve on to gooh shoot, there's somebody else
over here.
Because you need the, you needthe green light before you can
start ever getting to go.
What should we change?
How should we grow, you know?
(47:00):
So I think that's veryimportant.
You first have to establishkpis and then there's
associations out there for everysingle business that you can
get data from, find somebodyelse in a totally different
state that's not in your market.
They'll share that informationwith you.
You can share with your teamand go here's what we're trying
to achieve.
Okay, we're not doing as wellas we thought we would.
Then the conversation and youget to start nudging them on
(47:25):
what can we change.
How can we stretch?
How can we?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
achieve that.
I think that's really good.
The stretch assignments, youknow, if you look at parts and
service, they're generallysteady eddy of x amount of
technicians or x amount ofemployees to be able to have
this fill rate, to be able tohave the shop efficiency, and so
they just get in the routine ofthose things.
And so in some of our micromeetings we say, well, what if
(47:48):
right, like what if we adjustedthe matrix like this?
And what if we adjusted some ofour high ticket items by not
high take rate items in service,such as oil change?
You know alignments, and we dida study with the company that
studied all of our competitionlocally and then also nationally
.
What if we reduce the prices insome of those?
And they were like well, holdup, we're trying to make more
(48:10):
money, not less money.
Yeah, and we said no, no, no,no, this is the end caps.
Right, you have to make sureyour money's on mark or they're
going to bounce right out ofstore.
And so we stretched them alittle bit when those
assignments, and it was like,hey, let's find other matrix
that maybe complement whatyou're doing and how can we
(48:32):
challenge the warranty companyand all the other companies to
help grow that and so gettingthem out of their normal routine
initially is like what in theheck?
But then they realize you're onthe same team and it is for
growth.
You know we had thatconversation of parts matrix and
you're like that would take alot of work.
It's like, well, yeah, it's,we're getting to it.
But once you finally do it,isn't it plug and play?
Like once it's set up you don'thave to do anything.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
like yeah, like how long do you reap the benefits of
it?
Speaker 3 (48:55):
forever, right?
Yeah, so wouldn't that be wortha day or two or three or a week
or whatever?
But they were really reallyreluctant.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Well, that's a long way.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
I was like well, yeah , but if it meant that you have
to grow a percent into grossprofit when you're trying to
chase every single littlepercentage just to make the boat
float, it's worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Then let's flip over to creating a safe to fail, but
not necessarily making your teamfeel okay with failing.
You know I'm saying there likethat they're not necessarily
okay to fail all the time.
But hey, if you're running agun and you're running after
this and you fall short, we'regoing to come back and we're
(49:35):
going to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
I think the important part there is that they know
that they have that leniency tobe able to do it and you're not
going to chop their head off forit.
Okay, they're not going to becalled on the carpet, but the
checks and balances of meetingwhen you know you're going into
that space.
Open communication happensthere to help identify that.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Yeah, and we talked about those.
Uh, like walmart with their alltheir different delivery types,
they know, at some point intime you can pull the plug right
.
Hey, this is a test, we'regoing to see how it goes.
We're going to communicate alot, sure, a lot more than we
normally would, and we say, okay, don't throw out the entire
process, but let's change it.
It's like we designed it likethis, and I talked about that in
(50:18):
our delivery process when Isaid, hey, I want to make sure
there's a photo on every singledelivery bag, and I was like I
don't really like that.
We need to make sure that thephotos are in front of the store
, right, and there's been ahundred of those that I.
And when you deliver it to thethe the working team, not in the
design team you have to be soconfident and say this is
exactly how we have to do itright, because they're the
(50:40):
machines that make it work.
But then you come back to itwas like, hey, based on your
guys' feedback and what we'veseen, this doesn't work so well.
Based on your feedback, here'show we'd like to try it next.
And so you have to have theability that it's safe to fail
within these metrics.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
So I want to get some encouragement to people out
there, because maybe you're like, well, that's easy for you guys
to say you got multipledealerships.
It's easy for you to cross,compare all those metrics.
Multiple managers in the roomhave that debate.
What about for the person outthere that owns their own HVAC
company or their own plumbingcompany or roofing company or
accounting firm or whatever?
(51:15):
Can I tell you a really easyone to do.
It's whatever you're after,whatever you're after, call your
competition, have youremployees call them.
Let's say you're in the HVACbusiness, you have a meeting and
you take a handful of youremployees, maybe three of them,
and you say I want you to callthese four places and I want you
to get a quote on doing X, yand Z, and you might even we've
(51:40):
done this before we've paid foremployees to get their vehicle
serviced at a differentdealership so they could
firsthand see the experience.
You know, if you've got an HVACbusiness, you might have one of
your employees and you pay forthe bill.
They call a competitor to cometo their personal house to do a
checkup on their HVAC system.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
There's a lot to be learned, good or bad.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Both sides.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Customer service process, pricing and, if you
have, your employee do that.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
You talk about buy-in .
Speaker 3 (52:09):
Yeah, because you don't have to explain it to them
because they're the one thatexperiences it.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
And then they come back and you'll pay for it all.
Yeah, but the only requirementis they got to come back and
give a report to the rest of theteam.
Yeah, so you can call.
We do that on oil changes allthe time.
Yeah, we're not the ones thatcall.
You know Firestone and Walmartand Big O and everybody else,
but we have our service advisorsbecause they're the ones
answering the questions.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
They do a price check on how much for mountain
balance and tires, how much foran oil change, and then they
report it back and they're likedang, we are highly competitive.
Yeah, and what was the price?
How easy was it to get a holdof somebody?
Did they answer all yourquestions?
What's their schedule?
Look like, were they friendlyon their phone?
And then pricing is somewhereclose to the bottom right and
then they're like huh, they were.
They offered a lot more than wedo.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
We do the same thing.
We were trying to increase ourmarket share on a model, so
we're on RAM 1500s.
It's like we got to grow ourhalf-ton market in RAMs.
Why are we getting B by X, yand Z?
We took the dealers in theregion in Texas and Oklahoma and
Arkansas and I took themanagers and I said okay, you
get these four.
(53:19):
You get these four.
You get these four.
Send in internet leads to eachone of them with your personal
email and then report back.
Let's see how do they handlethe process.
What do they provide you with?
Where are we missing the mark?
Anybody out there can do thatfor no charge.
It's a really easy way to getbuy-in of your culture and your
team to realize that they mightnot be as good as I think they
(53:40):
are.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
It goes yeah, that's really good, really good of
cultivating culture, talkingabout leading by example uh,
awesome episode of diving intoit there, feeling the discomfort
, growing the discomfort andreally being all in the middle
that y'all have anything else inthere, that adding in the
middle that's a good discussionyeah, absolutely I'm not going
to hit you with a frequentlyasked question.
(54:02):
This week I got one for you,you do.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, okay, hit me with your most recently
frequently asked question so Iget asked by multiple people,
especially business people howdo you manage 270 plus employees
?
I don't know how you do it andlet me tell you this it's easier
(54:25):
to do that than when I wastrying to do 110, 120.
Because of what we've talkedabout, this of empowering other
people in your business andgoing off that four to eight to
one ratio, yeah, of where oneperson is only in charge of four
to eight people, yep, and thenwe really started building org
(54:47):
charts, which we never had inflow charts.
That's the way you do it,that's really big show.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
You have any good, frequently asked questions.
That's new, out of the ordinary.
No then, do you really likeworking up a four o'clock?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
I do I do like the result no no, you like the
results I like the process of itwhen my alarm goes off at 4 15.
I'll tell you just the other daymy alarm is set in my kitchen.
I wish I could hear mine in mykitchen.
We can work on an ooga horn.
So I have to get up quicklybecause I have a wife and three
(55:26):
kids, a dog and a cat.
So 4.15 it scares the heck outof me, like I forget that it's
going to go off and I keepmoving it.
It used to be 5 am and then itwas at 4.30, and now it's at
4.15, because I'm like itdoesn't really feel any earlier,
right.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
I can get more done and so then.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
I've committed, I've packed my bag, I'm not walking
through my routine, so it's allready.
My supplements are set up, allmy stuff, my lunch is packed.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
You can't fail, you cannot fail.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
But the other day I did fail that it was pouring
down rain and it was a Saturdayand I had mapped out a whole
long run and I knew such andsuch wasn't going to be there,
so it was just going to be me.
The previous Saturday it hadstormed hard and so I ended up
running 20 miles on a treadmilland that sucked.
It was good for me, the runningwas good and the mindset was
(56:18):
good, but it sucked and so itwas storming again and so I was
like you know what?
I looked at the radar realquick and my non-negotiables
don't get on your phone andsocial media, so just put them
in pocket and go.
But I just looked at the storm,because it was storming so bad
and I text a guy and we weregoing to run earlier, so this
was actually at 315 and I texthim.
Who's like hey, you running inthis?
He's like no way.
And I was like, okay.
(56:39):
He's like I'm gonna get my longrun later.
He's like, well, we gottreadmills.
And he's like, nope, I was likedang it.
So I set my alarm again for uh,4, 45 and went and got in bed,
but I put my phone next to mybed.
I woke up at seven.
I'd snooze that thing a hundredtimes.
So learn your process and don'tdeviate.
So I thought my willpower wasthere, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
That's so good, Great episode today.
Hey, make sure you always checkus out at lewissuperstorecom
and subscribe like.
Send us some comments so we canbe able to put the content in
atcrossroadsconversationpodcastcom
.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to give it a like, share
it with your friends and family,and visit our website to send
us questions about what youwould like to know about the
(57:23):
automotive industry or familybusiness in general.
Who do you want to hear from?
Send them our way and we'll doour best to answer any questions
that you have.
Thank you again and we'll seeyou in future shows.
So your team watches what you do every single day,
whether you think they do or not, and they're either going to
they are.
They're only going to rise upto whatever you said as an
example.
And if you're growing, ifyou're pushing, if you're
talking about I'll listen tothis book, I'll listen to this
podcast, here's what I do duringlunch, here's how I reset, then
(00:23):
they'll continue to grow thatway.
But if you don't, they're notgoing to grow that way.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hey everyone welcome to Crossroads Conversations with
the Lewis Brothers, where weaim to share real stories about
running a successful familybusiness, working through
adversity and pouring back intothe community that keeps our
doors open.
We're your hosts, taylor, mattand Shelby, and we'll bring you
relevant local business adviceand automotive insights that are
sure to change the way you lookat running a business and maybe
(00:51):
even throw in a plug for you todo business with us.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Welcome back everybody to this week's podcast
, episode 45, crossroadConversations with the Lewis
Brothers.
We're your hosts, the LewisBrothers.
This week we're talking aboutthe idea of the comfort zone Not
getting hung up in your comfortzone, but actually the art of
intentional discomfort.
How leaders push themselves andtheir teams to grow in and out
(01:16):
and pass that comfort zone, howthat leads to growth, how that
leads to finding problems andissues and how you grow through
that.
So we'll fully unpack that.
Go through what makes sense,what we've learned and what we
think we should do movingforward.
So we'll fully unpack that.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That's going to be a fun subject to go over Now.
Before we do that, if youmissed last week's episode
episode 44, where we got to gobeyond the listen, it was kind
of our greatest hits so far thatwe talked about, you know, each
little snippets of some of themost responded to podcasts we've
done so far about, like youknow, creating powerful teams,
(01:51):
the culture, managing difficultemployees, keep the inventory
moving.
You know that's a favorite ofmine Is the customer always
right, and then even additionalsubjects we went over.
Always Right and then evenadditional subjects we went over
.
So if any of those you're likehey, I'm in the middle of that
right now and I could use someadvice, some help, go back and
listen to episode 44, where wecovered all those subjects again
(02:14):
and then even told you what'sthe episode to go back to, to
get the entire Unabridgedversion.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Absolutely.
Hey and dive in and alwayscheck us out online at
lewissuperstorecom, where youcan see all the freshest trades
and everything that we have tooffer online.
But transition what did wedrive today?
What did we walk?
What's fresh, new that's on thelot?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
What's going on?
What'd you find out there?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
You know we've got the new Expeditions that have
come in.
I just have to highlight thisone because they're awesome.
I haven't been able to keepthem on the ground, but I've
been waiting on this one.
We've had the Tremor, we've hadthe Platinum, we've had the
Active.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You got something new .
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's kind of the OG.
You know I like to throw itback to almost like the Eddie
Bauer days, but it's differentthan Eddie Bauer.
It's the best of both worlds,with the old west saddle
(03:21):
interior that has every finedetail made.
It is a cool rig.
Come check it out.
We're getting it cleaned up tobe put on the showroom.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Inspired by the big King Ranch down in Texas, yep.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Largest private-owned ranch in the US, so you can
have a part of that while you'redriving down the road.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Absolutely, that's pretty cool.
So come check that out.
Let's get into this week'sepisode where we talk about, you
know, kind of gettingdiscomfort.
You know kind of getting out ofyour comfort zone.
You know that's necessary inorder to grow, yeah, but it's
not what.
Everybody wakes up in themorning saying what can I do
that'll make me uncomfortable.
You know, as humans we get intothat phase of comfort, yeah,
(04:04):
and we like to hit the cruisecontrol.
We do, and I know I'm guilty ofthat.
You know I've put myself inplenty of uncomfortable or
discomfort situations.
But then you kind of getcomfortable in that discomfort
because you've tried somethingnew, you created a new habit,
and then you get comfortableagain.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
So it's like this cycle.
Let me tell you, in referenceto that of in the comfort zone
so we've talked about it beforea book that we've read by dan
martell, how to buy back yourtime, and so he talks about
things if you can scalesomething that you're doing,
that someone else can do thatfor you and, and in depth, that
you put your color code, thingsthat you do green, yellow and
(04:43):
red thing and you need to makesure that you don't pre-allocate
something that you really loveto do.
Yep, right, got to keep yourheart in it, but what happened?
He said if you are buying backyour time and then, with your
time you bought back, you go siton the beach, you're doing it
incorrectly, absolutely Right,yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Absolutely Right yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
If you buy back your time and you've delegated
everything out and then you justkick back, like let's see
what's on Netflix, like no, no,no, the whole idea was so, now
that you could work on thebusiness, and that gets you into
that next uncomfortable zonebecause you don't know, we
haven't been there before.
What does that look like?
What will that cost?
What turmoil will that bring?
(05:23):
Yeah so that look like.
What will that cost?
What terminal would that bring?
Yeah, so when you said that, Iwas like that's that's, that's
it so.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So the question there in the filter we talk about
filters like you run through inyour brain is if you hand
something off to somebody elsethat somebody else could do, it
doesn't require your talentlevel to do it's in order to
free up your time to work onsomething at a higher level that
even gets a bigger return onyour investment.
Yeah, if you replace that withjust nonsense, you might as well
(05:49):
just be a silent investor,right, you know.
So that's a great point.
I want you guys to think aboutthis, and there's three things
here.
We talk about comfort zone.
That's pretty easy to defineLike.
Comfort zone is like once we getto like where it feels like a
well old machine, which we allaspire to do okay, and that
doesn't mean throw out themachine when it's running well,
(06:11):
um, that could be the comfortzone.
And but then you have growthzone and panic zone.
Yeah, now those two could couldbe confused out there.
When you start talking aboutgetting this comfortable, I
think they coexist right.
You start talking about gettingdiscomfortable.
I think they coexist right.
You could take that worddiscomfort and you could point
it towards growth, or you couldpoint it towards panic, and it
(06:33):
would make sense.
But you got to understand.
What we're talking about hereis growth zone.
It's not comfortable when it'spanic mode and buildings on fire
, or five people didn't show upfor work today, or the wheel
fell off the car or whateverelse.
That's a fight or flight.
Fix it in the moment.
That's not discomfort forgrowth.
(06:53):
Yeah, yeah.
So so you guys dive into that,on on when you're discomfort,
but it's equaling growth versusbeing discomfort because you're
in the hamster wheel and youhaven't fixed it.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, I think you know, going to the growth stage,
I can dive into that.
We'll relate that to.
Whenever we opened up thisstore over here, sure, it was
like, and everyone was askinghey, how's it going, how's it
going, how's it going?
It was over that At the end ofthe day, you just felt whipped
like you had never been whippedbefore, like you'd ran a race
you hadn't prepared for and weweren't as prepared as what we
(07:30):
thought we needed to be.
But it was every single day.
It was stretching you fartherand farther and farther, and it
wasn't in a bad way.
We could see down there downthe road that this was building
us to something greater.
So that's a really good exampleof a growth zone that we were
stuck in moving over to this newlocation.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
There's something about that, though.
Like you say, when we movedover here and there was new
opportunity of let's up the KPIsor hire new people and delegate
, that was the thrill of thehunt, you know.
So, no longer was so much thethrill of just and don't hear me
wrong of just helping oneperson, one consumer, have a
(08:16):
good experience.
Right, like you, want that tohappen every single time without
fail, but you want to helpcreate the process that allows
every customer to add it.
So at the end of those days andthose days are are less now,
but they're still there of that,oh my gosh, what was that?
There was still really goodfulfillment within your heart oh
just like, oh, I'm whipped andit was good.
(08:38):
Like we unpacked a lot of stuff.
I'm not talking physicallyunpacked, but actually like, oh,
hadn't seen that before.
Take note of it, you know.
Like, oh, okay, that was toomany, that wasn't enough.
Whatever it was, that was goodand so you could still to grow.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I think that's probably a great indicator of
hey, you feel whipped, but wasit growth or was it panic?
You know, because we've nowI've been there before too, I've
been whipped at the end of theday and I did we accomplish
anything?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
And I think, like I like to relate that to physical
things I've been in runningraces that you're in discomfort
on your past.
The lactic threshold heart rateis you can feel the heart rate
on your tongue, in your ear,yeah, like you can feel it in
your hair.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
What am I doing?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Like what in the heck ?
But you're up towards the front, where you know that you're
passing a goal that you'veworked on before and so it's
worth it.
Yeah, it's worth it.
And you just keep going, keepgoing.
When you finish you're likethat was good, like that hurt.
And then there's been on theother side what I call the panic
zone, and you're like I didn'ttrain enough for this, I wasn't
(09:46):
prepared, I didn't have a gameplan, I didn't let everyone else
know how to help, and at theend you're like that was awful.
Yeah, like I kind of felt thesame, but one.
You felt that same because youkept pushing, you were going
faster and more efficient.
The other way, you felt thatway because you weren't prepared
for it.
And that's the panic zone oflike you know, like muhammad ali
(10:08):
says, or one of those guys sayseveryone has a plan until you
get punched in the mouth.
Yeah, right, like do you have aplan.
So when you get punched in themouth, you have a plan.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Let's let's not mistake this, though, and the
audience doesn't need to thinkthat we don't ever go through
the panic zone.
Oh no, because usually.
Usually it takes the panic zoneto identify a growth area.
Yeah, so I, I know like whenI'll end up at the end of the
day and I'm whipped and all Idid was just keep the pieces and
(10:37):
the glue like together to notgo backwards, and then, like,
after my emotions settle downand it might be the next morning
after I've slept then it's likeOK, let me unpack that.
What do I do to make sure thatwe don't get in that panic zone
again and we transition togrowth zone?
Fool me once you know?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
shame on you.
Fool me twice.
Shame on me, I didn't learnfrom the first time, I didn't
unpack it.
Shame on me, I didn't learnfrom the first time, I didn't
unpack it Right.
And I think we have realizedthat the growing up third
generations in our business thatmore often than not, because of
just fight or flight, that ourbusiness has been in just
survival mode yes, right andhasn't been able to step away or
(11:20):
to allocate to the properpeople to work on growth zone
you know I'm going to say thisand, uh, you know we're blessed
to have a fantastic family andgreat mentors my dad and uncle,
you know our, our grandfather,great-grandfather but this might
resonate with some people outthere, so I'm gonna be a little
transparent here.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
some of y'all may have been in situations like we
were, that their parents had tolearn the hard way, the hard
knocks, yeah.
And nothing's wrong with hardwork, okay, but they expect you
to go through the same walk andfall on your face the same way,
just like they did to get wherethey are.
(12:02):
And one of the things we'veidentified is let's share that
with each other.
You know, if I've gone backthrough something, being the
oldest, I want to share it withboth of you guys so that then
you're elevated up.
That doesn't mean you're goingto now not go through any.
You know trials and any paniczones and growth modes, but
(12:24):
hopefully it's at a differentlevel.
So then you take back over hereand it's yeah, still go through
that hard knocks, but let'sstart at ground zero.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Let's not all go down the same path.
Right, you take the lefthallway, I'll take the right
hallway, you take the centerhallway, and then we'll
reconvene in the middle and say,hey, what'd you learn?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Because it is so silly for every one of us to go
through the same trials andtribulations just say well,
that's how I did it.
You know, it's like we'relearning on one of our still in
construction projects that wethought that we were saving
crazy amount of money by puttingup an old building that we had
and I'm just being sotransparent here and yesterday
we had another meeting that wasanother couple hundred thousand
dollars.
They were like here's what youneed.
(13:06):
And it's like no, thebuilding's already put together,
we can see, just slap a roof onit.
And they're like no, here'swhat we need.
And as we were walking backbecause we're not allowed to
drive 26 acres, we just have towalk it all I'm like we should
just take the whole buildingdown.
So what the cost is to repairthis stupid building, you could
(13:26):
buy a brand new building andthey could probably do it in
just the same amount of time.
We'd have a building from nowinstead of the building from the
70s.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Well, you talk about a growth zone there.
I had to pause during thatmeeting and you had to take over
because I was getting ready topull out the 50 pound
sledgehammer and the chainsaw atthe same time, and so then
that's of understandingdifferent things, because I
could see it and I was like no,no, this will be pointless, like
this will be because he wastomahawk and the resource that
was there.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
He's like hang on, I thought we were gonna be
presented something and then wecould make a decision.
And the guy was like, hi, I'mfred, I just wanted to like get
an introduction with our companyis like we're weird way past
speed dating.
We're on the note.
Do you want to have kidstogether?
Right?
So Matt was just like oh my, sothis is a pulpit proposal.
They pulled up their proposal.
(14:14):
I was like it is how much.
I was like I didn't say a word.
Like Matt, I just sit back.
I was just like sir, how quickcan you do this?
Do you see that there would beany other costs that would come
up?
Is there any?
Like Matt, just sit back.
I was just like sir, how quickcan you do this?
Do you see that there would beany other costs that would come
up?
Is there any, as a businessowner, any way that we could cut
costs within that withoutcutting quality?
(14:35):
He's like yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
And then Matt was back on theship.
He's like okay, I wentdownstairs, got some oxygen.
He's like okay, so how quickcan you get that done?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
But I think that's a great example.
We didn't even plan this, butthat's a great example of when
you have somebody trusted onyour team, like maybe you don't
have three brothers in thebusiness, but you've got a
right-hand person.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
You've got somebody else close.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
To you a business partner and you've got to allow
them.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
When you start feeling yourself going in that
panic zone.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
At that point in time I just shut my mouth to kind of
like just digest it, and youjumped in, Okay, and it didn't
take much time Two minutes,three minutes.
I was able then to reset and gookay, it is what it is.
We're in the middle of thisdookie.
This is our only option.
How?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
do we get out of it?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
We chose this, so that was in the moment we it
shows this.
So that was in the moment wewent from panic zone to growth
zone.
Oh yeah, and move forward.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That's a good point that you can shift halfway
through a situation of panic tomove to growth mode.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But in order to do that, you have to allow yourself
to reset.
We've talked about that inother episodes of how do you
reset.
You know when you feel thekettle's boiling okay, it's
starting.
You know it's steaming out thetop.
How do you do a quick reset?
And sometimes it's 30 seconds,two or three minutes, but the
outcome is so much better,that's, that's so big, because
(15:59):
you know both hit the nail onthe head.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
But not only learning how we do things differently,
you learn even in that.
So in future projects that wework on, that we can be able to
tell.
Because we've learned so muchjust in this two years of that
we didn't think we would change,because you analyze, you
analyze the fire out of it, outof every whiteboard that you had
from your office to the nextoffice, and then would share
(16:24):
some with us and be like, oh no,so we.
And we'd be like, oh no, so wethought we'd vetted it as much
as we needed to Sure.
But it's amazing, in the twoyears that we've been in actual
construction, how much willchange before our next project.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, from the first building they built to now the
sixth building, all that we'velearned is like no, no, no, you
need to step out here, here,here and here.
And we paid millions of dollars, frankly, for architectural
plans and we spent 10 years ofresearch, went to 100 different
buildings that we hadn't builtone of our own, and so, from the
first to the sixth, we said no,no, no, no.
Scratch all that.
(16:56):
Do not put a dishwasher here,you need four.
Cast six lines per desk, youneed to have this.
Do not do that, do not do that,do not do an open ceiling, Do
not put a high efficiency HVACsystem, just give me one that
works.
You know all these things thatwe've learned, and so that went
from panic or pain to growth.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
That's so good and just, you know I'm going to
spoil this a little bit, but atsome point in time in the next
12 months I'm printing all y'alldiplomas.
You got a very expensiveeducation in construction, but
we're getting there.
We're working on a doctoratenow, okay.
So let's switch from comfort,growth and panic.
We gave some great examplesthere of identifying what those
(17:35):
are.
Now let's talk about the nextpart, and we were frankly in
this when we were across town.
Yeah, in this when we wereacross town.
Yeah, when we start, whycomplacency is a silent killer
for businesses, especiallylong-standing ones.
Now, what I'm not saying thereis, obviously, if you're losing
(17:56):
money or you're, you're in thered, okay, it's just not working
out.
That that's pretty easy.
The ones that get you are thesilent killer.
So you're doing well.
You've maintained where youwere at last year.
Maybe you're up just a littlebit.
Maybe you added an employee oryou redid the bathroom or
something small, yeah, somethingsmall, but you're really not
(18:19):
like you're bragging about it ormaybe not, but you feel good
inside, but you're really notchallenging yourself.
Your business is doing good,but not great, because and it's
easy to do that If you've workedon a business 10 years, five
years, 15 years, and got it tothat point.
You're like, okay, it's hittingon all cylinders, it's smooth,
(18:43):
and you kind of set back alittle bit and go look what we
did.
Yeah, this thing's moving, itbecomes a silent killer it does
in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Like your employees, they see stagnation of and
everything, things not changeand so like we kind of gotta
keep our ear to the ground ofeven still not like they're a
key system.
People like this, this and thiswe're like and you have to fact
check it, you know, becauseotherwise if you bought it all
like, you'd never be able to buyyourself out of business.
Yeah, no uh so you have to becareful that that employees see
(19:14):
that you're listening and thatyou're responsive, and you know
it doesn't have to be theirsolution, but it's just.
I heard you and here's whatwe're doing.
The other side, customers.
Right, you might sit in yoursame car every single day, you
drive to and from work and wearthe same clothes every single
day and you don't really realizethat they're overly faded or
they stink or they start to gotsomething wrong.
Right, brand new person showsup, comes in your business and
(19:37):
they're like hmm, right.
So if you get stagnant andhere's the thing if, like we
talked about, in that growthzone, at the end of the day, if
you were in that hard race andthat hard day of discomfort
things and you're not like, Ilove that, it's okay, you can
(19:57):
still be a business owner, butyou don't need to be the head
leader of growth and opportunity.
You need to have a operationsmanager, you need to have that
manager, you need to have thatand you can support them, but
you have to have somebody that'shungry to say what's next?
Well, what's our next thingwe're chasing?
Okay, I delegated that.
Now let me go find a newproblem solution or process that
(20:18):
I can make better, moreefficient or a new opportunity
for revenue.
And if that's not you, I'm notsaying you have to sell your
business, unless you have areally good business and you
want to sell it, and then comesee us and we'd love to take a
look at it.
But find someone who ispassionate about it.
Chances are they're on yourteam somewhere and they'll bring
a whole new level of fire.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I want to unpack that a little bit more, because you
talked about the race.
Analogy is a great analogy,because when you're at the end
of it, you're just whipped.
Or a big day and you're justwhipped.
Now, if you're whipped andyou're not excited about your
performance okay, whether it's arace or what this month's
business looked like or whateverit is and you're whipped and
not excited about theperformance, like, let's say,
(21:01):
within a 24-hour period.
If your mind then goes to whatcould I have done different to
change the outcome, I'm okaythat you didn't have the
performance you wanted.
As long as your mind's going,how do I fix that so I have a
different outcome next time?
Then you're still in the rightbusiness.
If you just keep doing the samething and expect different
(21:24):
results, or you're just pissedabout it, blaming other people,
the industry.
it's everybody else's fault.
It's time for you to dosomething else.
You don't have the passion, andwe talk about this in some
other episodes and I've got totalk about this at the U of A
before we say if you're notpassionate about what you do,
you need to find something elseto do, because that's what
(21:44):
drives you through the not sogood times.
That's what keeps you motivatedwhen you're like this isn't fun
, or the hard times.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
So it's good for sure .
So let's talk about thepsychological benefits of
healthy challenge.
When you start looking aboutresilience, adaptability and
increased capacity.
And when we talk aboutincreased capacity, I do want
you to think about we'll go backto what you talked about in
Dan's book is a lot of times tofree yourself up, you have to
(22:20):
remove other things, you have todelegate those.
You know, you have to prune tothen to get a bigger blossom out
of it.
So when you look for increasedcapacity, it's not what else can
I put on my shoulders, it'swhat else?
What small things can I moveoff so I can put larger, more
meaningful things on my plate tocontinue us to go forward?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yeah, I mean, you just have to look at those
things and you just startranking them.
You know, like ranking yourdaily tasks and daily
responsibilities.
And are you holding on tosomething just because, like, if
you feel important, becauseyou're the only one that can run
a report or the only personthat can unlock or lock your
door, You've locked yourself?
You've locked or unlockedyourself to death, Like the
(23:04):
quicker that you can releasethat.
Like I was thinking aboutsomething earlier and there's a
system that only one personknows who the contact is for the
system that a lot of peopleaccount for.
I was like why doesn't everyonehave that in their rolodex so
that when there's an issue andI'm not saying this is why this
person hasn't released it?
(23:25):
But you know, you feel like I'mnot important anymore because
I've given that power away.
It's like now you, you get tostay important because you keep
moving the peg of what you'regetting to work on and then that
gets to circle back aroundinadvertently of how you're
helping them grow some more.
So don't put your ownership in.
I'm the only one that can dothat.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I think a good checkup for everybody out.
There is the key example and Iheard Craig Groeschel talk about
this with all of his churchestoo Show me the keys you carry
around, all of his churches.
To show me the keys you carryaround.
And if it's, if you're a leaderin the business, if it's
anything except just the key tothe front door, you have not
empowered others.
(24:07):
Now I got a drawer full of keysin my office.
Okay, it just in case, becauseit makes me feel comfortable, of
like if something happened, Icould change the toilet paper
out the key.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
But they don't need to be the only but?
Speaker 1 (24:21):
but I, everybody else is empowered with those keys.
The only key I I carry aroundis the one that goes to the
front door.
Yeah, and I don't have to bethe one to lock it and unlock it
every day.
It doesn't mean I'm not workinghard, yeah, it just means I've
empowered others to do that.
If you can't give up the key tothe janitor room you know what
(24:42):
I mean or the copier paper orany of that, stuff like that,
and some of y'all are cringingout there yeah, what are you
doing?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
it.
I'm like you, really like, ohman, you just like, I promise
you someone can properly log whogets paper.
They can Properly log who getsyour supplies.
There's someone Better than youcan you think you're doing so
good.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Oh yeah, you ain't doing good, but you're going to
miss all of it.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
I'm like Taylor.
Why are you?
You know, I'm not here, forTaylor.
For certain reasons.
I'm like, why do they keepcoming to you and I'm going, hey
what are relinquish?
Control of that and thosethings just like.
Why are we the one that?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
have to give out the tissue box.
That's stupid on us because wehaven't empowered and trusted on
right.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
And so we, we've, we've got to to learn through
those.
Or like if you finally get totake a day off and somebody
texts you like, hey, how can Iget into here?
It's like didn't I teach youthat?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I think that's part of it.
I'll hit on this one last piecehere on the growth zone and
then we'll move on.
But I heard somebody else talkabout that.
I never.
I just changed this in the pastfew years.
If I come back from vacation oreven a meeting, then I'm gone a
few days.
I don't invite people in myoffice to give me a rundown of
what happened while I was gone,because if they have to come
(25:57):
back and unload all the smallthings that went on, why have I
empowered them?
Yeah, you know, I want to feelgood about that.
I want to come back and feelgood.
I don't want any manager to say, man, I'm so glad you're back.
You wouldn't believe it's justbetter when you're here and you
wouldn't believe everything thatwent on.
I was like that's notcomforting to me.
You're telling me don't gobelieve everything that went on.
(26:19):
I was like that's notcomforting to me.
You're telling me don't gospend any time with my family,
don't ever leave here, and Ihaven't done a good job training
and empowering you, which is sotricky and backwards of us of
how we were raised and justschool of hard knocks In the
past couple of years.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
We've really had to transition out of that.
We have, we have, you know,because the next score will go
on to his legion by example.
I'm not going into it, but justsaying we've always done that.
But then you like shelby, whydid you move the whole inventory
of the ford cars?
I don't know no one else woulddo it.
It's like well, did you ask?
(26:54):
anybody.
It's like, yeah, I asked acouple people, they said they
were busy, I got tired of it, Idid it myself.
It's like, well, yeah, I askeda couple people.
They said they were busy, I gottired of it and I did it myself
.
It's like, well, you fool, youknow, jimmy's been back there.
Larry's been back there eatinghis lunch, saying he doesn't
have anything to do.
So that's something we had tochange.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
That is for sure.
All right, here we go.
Here's our fun fact for the day.
Check this one out.
All right.
Incredibly gruelingmulti-continental race, first
run in 1907, involved earlyautomobiles and their brave
drivers traversing vastdistances of unpaved roads,
deserts, mountains,demonstrating the extreme
endurance and discomfortrequired for these early
(27:34):
vehicles and their crews.
Is that a NASCAR Indy 500, LeMans 24 Hours, the Rally Monte
Carlo, the Paris Motor Challenge?
Then I'm close.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I don't know, but you got Indy 500, le Mans 24 Hours,
the Rally, monte Carlo or thePeaking to Paris Motor Challenge
Back in 1907, we'll come backto that one, alright.
So next part of the discomfortis leading by example, creating
personal discomfort forleadership, evolution right.
So first you need to experience, and the experience kind of
(28:10):
travels with people seeing youdo it.
Then you get to share examplessame thing we're doing today in
these first 30 minutes thatwe've said, hey, here's what
we've learned by doing it.
Right.
So, identifying personal comfortzones and leadership.
So what, what's your like?
Hey, no worries, like somebodydoes this on this day.
And then you throw a wrench andsay actually that means at this
(28:32):
time.
And they're like whoa, why'dyou do that?
Right, like you got to mixthings up.
Like that.
Like you show up on your dayoff and then you see are people
parked in random areas, peoplenot where they're supposed to be
and not wearing what they'resupposed to wear, whatever,
right, then you find thosecomfort zones.
So kind of talk through aboutcreating personal discomfort,
(28:54):
leadership, evolution, like,what's your guys' thoughts on
that?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
revolution Like what's your guys' thoughts on
that?
So I'm going to take youthrough a couple stages here
rapidly.
But when you first started abusiness and if you're listening
out there and you just openedthis past year or last month or
six months ago, you're right nowin the just grind it out and
build it and nothing's wrongwith that.
Like it takes that, we all wentthrough that.
That gets you to the next levelyou identify because you're not
(29:20):
in any comfort zone.
You're trying to survive.
Okay.
Now let's talk about when you'vematured your business.
You're three, five, 10 years or, in our case, 79 years in.
It's very hard to identify acomfort zone in leadership if
you always stay in your bubble.
Yeah, because in our examplenow we have the three of each
(29:43):
other to hold each otheraccountable and call each other
out.
But besides the three of us andlike our dad and our CFO, she
will too nobody else is going tocall us out.
An employee is not going to say, hey, you're getting
comfortable, we're not improving.
They're not going to say, hey,you're getting comfortable,
we're not improving.
They're not going to do that.
So the best thing that hashappened for us is make sure we
(30:06):
have outside influences.
To compare against and wetalked about this is show me the
five closest people to you, theaverage of them, and you'll be
the sum of that average.
So if you want to know whetheryou're in a comfort zone or not,
go find people that are at thenext level, where you want to go
and look at what they're doing,and then how does your process,
(30:28):
how do your daily activities,how do your habits stack up to
them?
You know we've got dealergroups we do that with, and then
I'm just going to tell you guysbecause some of you are like
well, I don't have that, andwhere do you find that?
I'm going to tell you themajority of people that I listen
to or read about or thatinfluence me.
They don't know who I am, butthey've pushed me to identify
(30:48):
comfort zones and to changehabits.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
That's definitely diving into like daily
self-improvement, of being ableto go into and build off of that
.
Then I love that you pulledthat out of.
Hey, they don't know you.
It's not like I've had to setaside a time and be able to talk
to them and wait for theperfect opportunity.
No, it's taking your time,whether it's your commute,
(31:14):
whether it's at night, wheneveryou go get in bed, those
downtime pieces of waking up inthe morning, and it's inserting
that correct criteria of reading, of podcast, of morning
devotionals.
Anything else in there that isjust supercharged and
kickstarted completely changesyour whole outlook of what you
(31:34):
need to be doing.
But then it pushes you.
Because it's so easy to stay inthat comfort zone, because it's
easy to do, you can come inhere with your eyes closed, flip
the switch on.
You know, hey, I'm going to beable to do this.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I think the really good thing to your point, taylor
, is to do a fact check.
So if you listen to thosepeople, a group or a book or
whatever it is, and if you'resitting there listening, there's
two reactions you'll have to,there's probably three, and the
third one is no reaction.
So we're just going to talkactual reactions.
So if one reaction is theydon't know me, they don't know
(32:12):
my schedule, they don't know howhard my business is, that is a
negative reaction and that meansyou are not looking for, that
means you are not looking forgrowth, you are not looking for
opportunity and you're not goingto make it.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
So true.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
If you are saying no, no, no, they don't know me.
You know, like, like DanMartell, I watched a YouTube
video yesterday when I waseating my lunch and it was, you
know, a big thing on YouTube.
Right now is a day in the lifeof and, uh, he was in Austin.
You know a big thing on YouTube, right now is a day in the life
of.
And he was in Austin, texas,with his family.
He's from Canada and he startedhis day at 4 am, which I love,
and he's really good at hiscalendar, and so he had all his
(32:50):
calendar and he flew to likethree different places.
He recorded two podcasts, hedid two different speeches.
The funny thing that I love somuch that we talk about all the
time his guy interviewing waslike hey, second speech coming
out, this is 250 people, we'regoing to be there in 10 minutes.
It'll be five minutes beforeyou get on stage.
He's like, do you have yourdeck ready to go?
(33:11):
He's like, yeah.
He's like, what's it going togo?
He's like it's the wheel.
But and then he finally gothome by like 10 o'clock at night
.
He was flying home and hefacetimed his family's like, hey
, I'll be home.
And people like, how do you haveso much energy?
And he's like you don't have ordon't have energy.
You create energy.
(33:32):
So there's excitement in thatyou've created the energy.
So in your reaction, if you'relike they don't know, know me,
I've got kids, or my commute'slonger, or my employees don't
understand, then you're in anegative mindset, you're going
to have to do a state change.
But if you're on the other side, it's like, wow, I can cram a
little more in there.
Sure, I can wake up a littlebit earlier.
(33:53):
Yeah, I could multitask.
Instead of going to Arby's andthis, this and this, I could
pre-prepare my meals and thenwhen I'm eating my meals I could
listen to something.
I could speak with a couple ofmy employees, I could get to
know some people.
So in those that'll quicklytell you dang, who really am I
and what am I after.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
That's really good, those two different mindsets.
I can remember having differentemployees that would come ask
me for advice, you know, to helpthem grow, and as soon as I
would start talking, they wouldstart talking, and they ended up
talking more than I did, butthey asked you for advice, they
asked me for advice.
(34:31):
So I'm sitting there going.
Are they asking me for advice?
Or they just came to downloadon me on why they couldn't do
that and how I didn't understandtheir situation.
Guess what?
The next?
Maybe not the next time, butthe time after that.
Then, when they asked me totalk to them again, we started
off the conversation.
(34:51):
Are you here to learn or are youhere to try to explain to me
why you can't do it?
Yeah, and that happens.
Can't do it?
Yeah, and that happens.
So I'm telling you too, if youget somebody's ear, if you're
fortunate enough to see somebodyin person and have a
conversation with them, please,please, please, don't talk.
I just shut your mouth.
You're there to learn, not tryto try to prove how successful
(35:12):
you are, because the successfulperson they're not going to
battle.
It's not a contest with them.
They're going to move onbecause they understand the
value of their time.
The other thing you're talkingabout Dan there and you know
trying to figure out how can youfit more in.
I love going back to the bookabout atomic habits.
You know because James JamesClear talks about in there on
(35:34):
finding those things and nodifferent than you took
something as simple as lunch andyou go.
Okay, now when I'm eating lunch, in front of me I'm watching a
youtube.
Whatever it is that's relatableto my business or my personal
growth.
So I'm habit stacking that.
Tell her when you're talkingabout driving or in the morning.
That's where you can find these5, 10, 15 minute deals multiple
(35:57):
yes, yeah, every once in a whilecan you go to a seminar?
That's a two or three day?
Sure, yeah, but that's notfactual that you do that every
day or every month.
So you've got to find thesesmall little things, and what we
get into in the next part hereis the influence you have over
your team.
So your team watches what youdo every single day, whether you
think they do or not, andthey're either going to, they
(36:22):
are, they're only going to riseup to whatever you said as an
example.
And if you're growing, if you'repushing, if you're talking
about I'll listen to this book,I'll listen to this podcast,
here's what I do during lunch,here's how I reset, then they'll
continue to grow that way.
But if you don't, they're notgoing to grow that way and some
people will stay.
(36:43):
They'll stay.
Some people will leave.
You know who will leave yourorganization?
The top performers, becausethey want to be a part of a team
that is pushing them to growand to get uncomfortable to find
the next level.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, most certainly.
And some of them were going togive you a little bit of
superficial shade or like dude,I sell you 25 cars a month.
Why are you pushing me?
And what they're saying is Imean like, don't you think that
some of the top coaches for someof the top quarterbacks or top
running backs said, hey, thatwas amazing, I'm going to give
you the ballink and a cow onyour account?
(37:18):
He's like I just broke athousand yards.
It's been six games.
He's like so can you help uswith this or not, right?
And he's like yeah, yeah, youknow you can get on me, right?
So they need a little bit ofrecognition, but they also need
some push for some growth.
And I I don't want you to say,listen to us and be like, okay,
these guys are different, theseguys are superman.
(37:38):
I need you to know that.
Like probably through a majorityof the construction before we
moved over here, one of mylargest, largest stumbling
blocks of not getting up earlyand not exercising before work
and not even signing up for anyraces, I went like on a hiatus
for years, coming off of a supertough race.
(38:01):
Then I was like I'm too busy,yeah, and my excuse is.
I was in the bad mindset I'mtoo busy, like we have to run
the business and then we have towork on building the business
and all these constructionmeetings and I know you guys
were part of that as well.
I'm like I'm I'm too busy, gottoo've got too much.
Somewhere in there, the switchfinally flipped over and it was
(38:21):
like no, you are too busy to notprioritize getting yourself
right before you try to lead theentire team.
And so then, when that wholething was like I created more
energy right, and then I reallyhave it stacked, and then people
are just like how do you dothat?
How do you do that?
And hopefully it's inspiringsomeone and someone and someone.
(38:43):
It's like I know you could haveexcuses, but you need to turn
them into motivation.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, you know what I love about talking about atomic
habits, habits, stack andeverything else.
So many people have problemswith this.
They go to a conference.
They get so jacked up andthey'll buy everything and it's
like a water hose overload ofit's coming full, funnel down
(39:08):
the pipe at you, have it stack,have everything set up in there,
but just straight focus on oneto two things that's really
going to help you dive into anddouble down on that to be able
to really dive into it.
More times than not, we'll seepeople that get that.
A salesperson that just goesoff and is like I signed up for
this training, this training,this training, this training.
You'll go back in 90 days.
(39:28):
They don't remember anythingfrom a single one of the
trainings.
So don't overdo it and don'tstep past the boundaries.
Start with just the car driveinto and from work.
That makes all the differencein the world.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You need people in your life, though.
That will call you out, becausewe're all human and we might
get on a streak of business orself-growth or health or
whatever it is, and then we'lleither plateau or we'll come up
with those excuses.
I was in the same boat and youknow where?
I wasn't working out, I wasn'trunning because I was like I
(40:01):
gotta give that up to work onthe business and the
construction and all this stuff.
And then finally, my wife.
She's like you need to go run,you need to go exercise, which
meant you're not being the bestversion of yourself, right?
And if you hear people talkabout it, they talk about the
picture of water all the time.
(40:21):
They're like if you'reconstantly pouring the picture
of water out okay, pouring intopeople, pouring into people At
some point in time there's nomore water in there, yeah.
So if you want to keep beingable to pour into other people
in your business and influenceothers, at some point in time
you've got to turn the pitcherback over.
You've got to go back to thefaucet and refuel it, because
(40:42):
then your outcome will be betterinstead of sitting there
shaking and trying to getanother drip out.
Pause for a second.
Take care of yourself, refuelyourself, refill yourself up so
you have an entire other pitcherto keep pouring out in your
employees and in your business.
You know that's really big.
So you have to and people talkabout you know we talk about the
airplane thing all the time.
Why do they make theannouncement of hey, in an event
(41:05):
of emergency, mask will deployfrom overhead.
Put your mask on.
first Put your mask on first andyou think about that,
especially as a parent.
You're like no, I'm going totake care of my kids.
You can't take care of othersif you're not in the state to be
able to do it.
One other example I've got togive about discomfort, because
it just came to me If you lookat some of the greats I'm going
(41:25):
to talk about football for asecond If you look at some of
the greats that have achievedmassive records.
So you take Peyton Manning,okay, you take Tom Brady.
You take two iconicquarterbacks that had won Super
Bowls and MVPs and records andyards.
They kind of got in a comfortzone.
And to push themselves out oftheir comfort zone, what did
(41:47):
they do?
They went to a new team.
They said let me see if I canrepeat and make another team
successful.
You talk about gettinguncomfortable.
They completely removed theirself and went to another team to
see if they could grow theretoo.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That's a really good point.
There's some notes that saysstrategies for self-imposed
challenge.
So some of the strategies forself-imposed challenge is
volunteering for unfurl yourtask Okay Things that you don't
outwardly or inwardly know howto do.
Seeking critical feedback Becareful who you seek that from
Sure Learning new skills thatfeel daunting or embracing
(42:27):
vulnerability.
So, all of those things kind ofhelp.
You impose challenges to seewhat discomfort do I need to see
or experience in the able togrow.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
The critical feedback .
I want to give a pointer there.
Seeking critical feedback is isa great example.
You just make sure here's yourchecks and balances the person
that is giving you feedback.
Are they at a level whereyou're trying to get to?
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Yeah, what, like what?
You don't ask somebody forfinancial advice that's going
(43:01):
through bankruptcy.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Well you know what I mean.
I heard that something justlike that, yesterday in the
video I was watching and the guysaid so how do you go from
millionaire to billionaire?
And he's like well, who do youget your advice from?
He's like, if you're stillgetting your advice from a
millionaire, yeah, he said.
You said get their millionaires, create millionaire style
businesses and they createprocesses and your advice from a
millionaire.
Yeah, he said.
He said get there, millionairescreate millionaire style
businesses and they createprocesses and systems.
(43:23):
He said billionaires createbrands.
He said so it's just an oldanother step.
So you have to be careful ofwho you're getting that critical
feedback.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
I got it given on a simpler version even there too,
because that's good.
But you know that's good, butit's hard to wrap your mind
around a billion dollars.
When we first started running,we got around people that were
doing 5Ks and we got advice onhow do you put a 5K together,
how do you do this, how do youdo that.
And then we got around peoplethat were doing half marathons
(43:53):
and there was a marathon andthen it was an ultra and then it
was a 100-miler.
So we kept moving and gettingadvice from people that were
where we were wanting to go.
When we got to the 100-mile, weweren't asking the 5K people
anymore for advice.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
You got to give them advice now, yeah, and you had to
be careful where you scaledthat.
But yes, you didn't ask someonebehind you how to go ahead, but
so many people do that, I mean,I know it's a funny example,
but how many?
Speaker 1 (44:15):
people do that're asking their uncle buck.
Okay for advice on investing,or should I buy this business?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
no, I'm gonna be good and uncle buck's having a hard
time keeping a job down, yeahall right so we got that part
figured out all right, so goback to our fun fact quiz which
incredibly grew, and the ideathat this is its automotive and
that it is discomfort.
Multi-continental race first in1907 involved early automobiles
and their drivers, okaytraversing vast distances of
(44:47):
unpaved road, deserts, mountainsI would have said ball hopper,
sun in here, demonstrating theextreme endurance required for
these early races.
We had indy 500.
That's not it.
Le Mans 24 hours race well, ifyou know Le Mans, it's all on
pavement.
The Raleigh Monte Carlo or thePeking to Paris motor challenge?
I would have gone Raleigh MonteCarlo, but I would have been
(45:09):
wrong.
I've never heard of the Pekingto Paris motor challenge,
probably because it's over 100,almost 120 years old.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
But our, our producer did yeah, We've got great
producers behind us.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yes no doubt about that.
They're kind of good questions.
They go through.
I said Le Mans because back inthe day I think it was like
through Cobblestone, everythingelse.
It was pretty wild Really,because it was long Tour de
Paris.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, tour de.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
France.
Tour de France.
Yes, the Peking to paris motorchallenge told it was, hey,
diving into cultivating a growthculture, so nudging your team
into productive discomfort.
This is so big because you'vegot to be able to have that, um,
have that culture to be able todo that.
(45:54):
But it's not like on off switchso you say, go do it.
It's got to be able to shown,to be able to how to do it.
So showing your team how to dothat, but it's not like on-off
switch so you say, go do it.
It's going to be able to shown,to be able to how to do it.
So showing your team how to doit in steps that makes them
productive, efficient andsuccessful at that.
So assigning stretchassignments you know we kind of
talked through a building yourKPIs, everything else in that.
(46:15):
How do you do that and how doyou set your team?
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I really like starting there with the data and
the metrics, because they don'tlie, and whether if we can do
it within our group organizationand we're comparing the
Springdale store and theFayetteville stores and
Farmington and we can use thatdata great.
Or if we go to a 20 group andwe can bring a page back from a
composite from dealers all over.
(46:38):
The data doesn't lie and itopens your eyes to opportunity.
It's a segue.
It really is it what it does?
Is it clicks from somebodygoing I'm killing it, there's
nothing I could improve on to gooh shoot, there's somebody else
over here.
Because you need the, you needthe green light before you can
start ever getting to go.
What should we change?
How should we grow, you know?
(47:00):
So I think that's veryimportant.
You first have to establishkpis and then there's
associations out there for everysingle business that you can
get data from, find somebodyelse in a totally different
state that's not in your market.
They'll share that informationwith you.
You can share with your teamand go here's what we're trying
to achieve.
Okay, we're not doing as wellas we thought we would.
Then the conversation and youget to start nudging them on
(47:25):
what can we change.
How can we stretch?
How can we?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
achieve that.
I think that's really good.
The stretch assignments, youknow, if you look at parts and
service, they're generallysteady eddy of x amount of
technicians or x amount ofemployees to be able to have
this fill rate, to be able tohave the shop efficiency, and so
they just get in the routine ofthose things.
And so in some of our micromeetings we say, well, what if
(47:48):
right, like what if we adjustedthe matrix like this?
And what if we adjusted some ofour high ticket items by not
high take rate items in service,such as oil change?
You know alignments, and we dida study with the company that
studied all of our competitionlocally and then also nationally
.
What if we reduce the prices insome of those?
And they were like well, holdup, we're trying to make more
(48:10):
money, not less money.
Yeah, and we said no, no, no,no, this is the end caps.
Right, you have to make sureyour money's on mark or they're
going to bounce right out ofstore.
And so we stretched them alittle bit when those
assignments, and it was like,hey, let's find other matrix
that maybe complement whatyou're doing and how can we
(48:32):
challenge the warranty companyand all the other companies to
help grow that and so gettingthem out of their normal routine
initially is like what in theheck?
But then they realize you're onthe same team and it is for
growth.
You know we had thatconversation of parts matrix and
you're like that would take alot of work.
It's like, well, yeah, it's,we're getting to it.
But once you finally do it,isn't it plug and play?
Like once it's set up you don'thave to do anything.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
like yeah, like how long do you reap the benefits of
it?
Speaker 3 (48:55):
forever, right?
Yeah, so wouldn't that be wortha day or two or three or a week
or whatever?
But they were really reallyreluctant.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Well, that's a long way.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
I was like well, yeah , but if it meant that you have
to grow a percent into grossprofit when you're trying to
chase every single littlepercentage just to make the boat
float, it's worthwhile.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Then let's flip over to creating a safe to fail, but
not necessarily making your teamfeel okay with failing.
You know I'm saying there likethat they're not necessarily
okay to fail all the time.
But hey, if you're running agun and you're running after
this and you fall short, we'regoing to come back and we're
(49:35):
going to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
I think the important part there is that they know
that they have that leniency tobe able to do it and you're not
going to chop their head off forit.
Okay, they're not going to becalled on the carpet, but the
checks and balances of meetingwhen you know you're going into
that space.
Open communication happensthere to help identify that.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Yeah, and we talked about those.
Uh, like walmart with their alltheir different delivery types,
they know, at some point intime you can pull the plug right
.
Hey, this is a test, we'regoing to see how it goes.
We're going to communicate alot, sure, a lot more than we
normally would, and we say, okay, don't throw out the entire
process, but let's change it.
It's like we designed it likethis, and I talked about that in
(50:18):
our delivery process when Isaid, hey, I want to make sure
there's a photo on every singledelivery bag, and I was like I
don't really like that.
We need to make sure that thephotos are in front of the store
, right, and there's been ahundred of those that I.
And when you deliver it to thethe the working team, not in the
design team you have to be soconfident and say this is
exactly how we have to do itright, because they're the
(50:40):
machines that make it work.
But then you come back to itwas like, hey, based on your
guys' feedback and what we'veseen, this doesn't work so well.
Based on your feedback, here'show we'd like to try it next.
And so you have to have theability that it's safe to fail
within these metrics.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
So I want to get some encouragement to people out
there, because maybe you're like, well, that's easy for you guys
to say you got multipledealerships.
It's easy for you to cross,compare all those metrics.
Multiple managers in the roomhave that debate.
What about for the person outthere that owns their own HVAC
company or their own plumbingcompany or roofing company or
accounting firm or whatever?
(51:15):
Can I tell you a really easyone to do.
It's whatever you're after,whatever you're after, call your
competition, have youremployees call them.
Let's say you're in the HVACbusiness, you have a meeting and
you take a handful of youremployees, maybe three of them,
and you say I want you to callthese four places and I want you
to get a quote on doing X, yand Z, and you might even we've
(51:40):
done this before we've paid foremployees to get their vehicle
serviced at a differentdealership so they could
firsthand see the experience.
You know, if you've got an HVACbusiness, you might have one of
your employees and you pay forthe bill.
They call a competitor to cometo their personal house to do a
checkup on their HVAC system.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
There's a lot to be learned, good or bad.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Both sides.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Customer service process, pricing and, if you
have, your employee do that.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
You talk about buy-in .
Speaker 3 (52:09):
Yeah, because you don't have to explain it to them
because they're the one thatexperiences it.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
And then they come back and you'll pay for it all.
Yeah, but the only requirementis they got to come back and
give a report to the rest of theteam.
Yeah, so you can call.
We do that on oil changes allthe time.
Yeah, we're not the ones thatcall.
You know Firestone and Walmartand Big O and everybody else,
but we have our service advisorsbecause they're the ones
answering the questions.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
They do a price check on how much for mountain
balance and tires, how much foran oil change, and then they
report it back and they're likedang, we are highly competitive.
Yeah, and what was the price?
How easy was it to get a holdof somebody?
Did they answer all yourquestions?
What's their schedule?
Look like, were they friendlyon their phone?
And then pricing is somewhereclose to the bottom right and
then they're like huh, they were.
They offered a lot more than wedo.
Speaker 1 (52:58):
We do the same thing.
We were trying to increase ourmarket share on a model, so
we're on RAM 1500s.
It's like we got to grow ourhalf-ton market in RAMs.
Why are we getting B by X, yand Z?
We took the dealers in theregion in Texas and Oklahoma and
Arkansas and I took themanagers and I said okay, you
get these four.
(53:19):
You get these four.
You get these four.
Send in internet leads to eachone of them with your personal
email and then report back.
Let's see how do they handlethe process.
What do they provide you with?
Where are we missing the mark?
Anybody out there can do thatfor no charge.
It's a really easy way to getbuy-in of your culture and your
team to realize that they mightnot be as good as I think they
(53:40):
are.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
It goes yeah, that's really good, really good of
cultivating culture, talkingabout leading by example uh,
awesome episode of diving intoit there, feeling the discomfort
, growing the discomfort andreally being all in the middle
that y'all have anything else inthere, that adding in the
middle that's a good discussionyeah, absolutely I'm not going
to hit you with a frequentlyasked question.
(54:02):
This week I got one for you,you do.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, okay, hit me with your most recently
frequently asked question so Iget asked by multiple people,
especially business people howdo you manage 270 plus employees
?
I don't know how you do it andlet me tell you this it's easier
(54:25):
to do that than when I wastrying to do 110, 120.
Because of what we've talkedabout, this of empowering other
people in your business andgoing off that four to eight to
one ratio, yeah, of where oneperson is only in charge of four
to eight people, yep, and thenwe really started building org
(54:47):
charts, which we never had inflow charts.
That's the way you do it,that's really big show.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
You have any good, frequently asked questions.
That's new, out of the ordinary.
No then, do you really likeworking up a four o'clock?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
I do I do like the result no no, you like the
results I like the process of itwhen my alarm goes off at 4 15.
I'll tell you just the other daymy alarm is set in my kitchen.
I wish I could hear mine in mykitchen.
We can work on an ooga horn.
So I have to get up quicklybecause I have a wife and three
(55:26):
kids, a dog and a cat.
So 4.15 it scares the heck outof me, like I forget that it's
going to go off and I keepmoving it.
It used to be 5 am and then itwas at 4.30, and now it's at
4.15, because I'm like itdoesn't really feel any earlier,
right.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
I can get more done and so then.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
I've committed, I've packed my bag, I'm not walking
through my routine, so it's allready.
My supplements are set up, allmy stuff, my lunch is packed.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
You can't fail, you cannot fail.
Speaker 3 (55:54):
But the other day I did fail that it was pouring
down rain and it was a Saturdayand I had mapped out a whole
long run and I knew such andsuch wasn't going to be there,
so it was just going to be me.
The previous Saturday it hadstormed hard and so I ended up
running 20 miles on a treadmilland that sucked.
It was good for me, the runningwas good and the mindset was
(56:18):
good, but it sucked and so itwas storming again and so I was
like you know what?
I looked at the radar realquick and my non-negotiables
don't get on your phone andsocial media, so just put them
in pocket and go.
But I just looked at the storm,because it was storming so bad
and I text a guy and we weregoing to run earlier, so this
was actually at 315 and I texthim.
Who's like hey, you running inthis?
He's like no way.
And I was like, okay.
(56:39):
He's like I'm gonna get my longrun later.
He's like, well, we gottreadmills.
And he's like, nope, I was likedang it.
So I set my alarm again for uh,4, 45 and went and got in bed,
but I put my phone next to mybed.
I woke up at seven.
I'd snooze that thing a hundredtimes.
So learn your process and don'tdeviate.
So I thought my willpower wasthere, but it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
That's so good, Great episode today.
Hey, make sure you always checkus out at lewissuperstorecom
and subscribe like.
Send us some comments so we canbe able to put the content in
atcrossroadsconversationpodcastcom
.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to give it a like, share
it with your friends and family,and visit our website to send
us questions about what youwould like to know about the
(57:23):
automotive industry or familybusiness in general.
Who do you want to hear from?
Send them our way and we'll doour best to answer any questions
that you have.
Thank you again and we'll seeyou in future shows.
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