Ep.61 - Ego or Instinct: What Really Drives Your Decisions

In Episode 61 of Crossroad Conversations, the Lewis Brothers dig into one of leadership’s trickiest balancing acts: Ego vs. Instinct. They explore how ego can alert you to an issue—but also create blind spots—and how instinct, shaped by experience, leads to better long-term decisions. The conversation moves from dealership strategy to real-life examples of pride, overconfidence, and humility in business.

They share how unchecked ego can derail teams, why humility keeps confidence from turning into arrogance, and how leaders can channel ego as a positive driver without letting it steer the ship. From football analogies to lessons in managing expenses, delegation, and feedback, this episode reminds leaders that confidence without awareness can be costly—and that self-control, reflection, and instinct are the true signs of maturity in leadership.

Takeaways

• Ego isn’t the enemy—it’s a tool that must be managed and balanced.
• Instinct grows from experience, pattern recognition, and reflection.
• Pride can create blind spots, especially after success.
• Overconfidence often causes leaders to ignore feedback and red flags.
• Humility keeps confidence grounded and ego in check.

Chapters

00:00 – Intro – Ego vs. Instinct: What Drives Your Decisions
 00:53 – Recap of Episode 60: Filtering the Noise
 02:00 – In the Garage – Lewis Pre-Owned Inventory and Business Philosophy
 07:15 – From Auctions to Local Buys: Transparency and Trust
 09:09 – Ego Says “I Can’t Be Wrong”; Instinct Says “Something Feels Off”
 10:07 – How Ego and Competition Can Coexist
 11:22 – Balancing Ego with Humility and Teamwork
 13:10 – Confidence vs. Instinct: When Leaders Confuse the Two
 15:47 – The Value of Experience and Knowing When to Pause
 17:07 – Pride and the “Captain Goes Down with the Ship” Mentality
 19:20 – Learning from Failure Without Letting Ego Define You
 21:02 – Re-Evaluating Old Ideas Instead of Scrapping Them
 22:54 – Ego as a Barrier to Innovation and Team Input
 23:33 – Working on the Business vs. In the Business
 24:14 – Harnessing Ego as Fuel, Not Fire
 25:19 – Leaders Make 400 Decisions a Day—How to Delegate Wisely
 27:59 – Ego Creates Blind Spots After Success
 31:24 – Case Study: Growth vs. Expenses and Expectation Management
 35:14 – Communicating Finances Without Discouraging the Team
 38:04 – Humility in Leadership and External Training
 41:37 – Overconfidence and Ignoring Red Flags
 43:06 – Listening Before Speaking: The Power of Silence
 45:13 – Confidence and Humility in Balance
 46:02 – Stay Humble by Staying Around Those Who Challenge You
 47:02 – Using Ego Productively to Fuel Excellence
 48:34 – MythBuster: Ego Is Bad and Should Be Eliminated
 49:21 – Ego as Horsepower: Channeling Drive with Discipline
 50:38 – Leading with Instinct and Experience
 52:20 – Trusting Gut vs. Data: When Instinct Wins
 55:34 – Listening Inwardly and Outwardly as a Leader
 57:16 – Final Thoughts – Humility Is the Highest Form of Strength

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!

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_04 (00:00):
Ego will pop up the awareness of a situation.
And it should be the alert, likea light going off of, hey, I
need to dig into this.
Let me see if there's somethinghere I should handle or
something here that I shouldpraise or whatever it may be.
And if you'll pause and notreact based upon your ego, let
your ego identify the issue,calm, pause, and then let your

(00:25):
instinct come in so you canhandle it correctly.
Hey everyone, welcome toCrossroad Conversations with the
Lewis Brothers, where we aim toshare real stories about running
a successful family business,working through adversity, and
pouring back into the communitythat keeps our door open.
We're your host, Matt, Shelby,and Taylor, and we bring you

(00:46):
relevant local business adviceand automotive insights that are
sure to change the way you lookat running a business.
And maybe even throw in a plugfor you to do business with us.
Welcome to CrossroadConversations with the Lewis
Brothers, episode 61 today.
And what are we talking about?
Ego or instinct?
What really drives yourdecisions?

(01:08):
This was going to be a fun oneto unpack today.
You know, every leader has tomake big calls.
Now, sometimes they're spot on,but sometimes they're way off.
But what really drives thosedecisions?
Ego or instinct.
You know, ego says, I knowwhat's best.
Instinct says I feel what'sright.
The problem is, you know what,they sound a lot alike in the

(01:31):
moment.
They really do.
Today we're going to unpack howleaders can tell the difference
and why that difference can makeor break your business.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
Absolutely.
Recapping last week, we talkedabout noise versus signal, how
to tune out leadership advicethat doesn't apply to you.
And we really dove down off of,you know, listening to podcasts,
letting it pour into you.
So it's one to really go backand listen to, not being
overwhelmed from the get-go,really taking time, making sure

(02:01):
you're diving into it.
So great episode, episode 60 ofgoing over that.
Always check us out for thefreshest specials at Lewis
Superstore.com and all thecontent we talk about online at
every platform I think it can beon, but at Crossroads
Conversation Podcast.com.

SPEAKER_02 (02:17):
I love it.
All right.
What's in the garage today?
Today I want to mix it up alittle bit.
I'm not talking about one car.
I'm talking about 26 acres worthof cars.
Oh, this is going to take awhile.
No, no, no.
I'll I promise.
I know I say here real quick andthen I go long, but I'm talking
about our pre-owned inventory.
And so currently we're close to400 pre-owned vehicles in stock.

(02:38):
Uh what you might not know aboutour pre-owned inventory is we
don't go buy it from amanufacturer sale.
We're not just going to theauction and raise our hand.
But another key part that youmight not know is majority of
our inventory.
In fact, yesterday the stat was54% is non-core.
Okay, what the heck is that?
Yeah, excuse me.

(02:58):
Not Ford, not a Chrysler, not aDodge, not a Jeep, not a RAM.
Okay.
54% is non-core.
So let me tell you, makes as ofthis morning, we have 34
different makes.
So BMW, Buick, Chevrolet, uh,Genesis, Honda, Jaguar, Kia,
Lincoln, Mercury, Nissan, Ram,Subaru, Tesla, Toilet, Evolvo,

(03:21):
Porsche, and models.
I won't go over those, butthere's over 78 different
models.
Why is that important?
Well, I'll tell you why, becausewe treat people differently
here.
It's not about a transaction,it's about an experience.
And we said, hey, if someone'sgonna buy a car, let's not just
be limited to what themanufacturer that we have new is

(03:41):
across the elements.
And we do research every singleday of what the current highest
registration in our area is,what the most hand raiser I want
this vehicle is, and we seekthat out and buy it from
individuals, people like youguys that have for sale in the
marketplace, or we trade forthat vehicle and we'll give a
little bit more so you get somemore value, but then we'll put
it on the money, and so you geta Lewis guarantee on that car.

(04:05):
So it might be a little bit outof warranty or might be at the
end of its warranty.
We stack up to a five-year,60,000 mile powertrain warranty
on that car.
And so you can buy fromInconfidence, you can buy with a
car that's been inspected, youcan buy from a place that's been
in business for almost 80 years,and we have so many of those to
pick from.

SPEAKER_04 (04:23):
I just I I got a couple questions I want to make
sure that the audience heardhere.
So even if it's not our brand,which we call core, so even if
it's not a Ford, a Jeep, a RAM,something like that, and you
trade for a Subaru or you tradefor a Volvo, you're telling me
you still put a guarantee on it?

SPEAKER_02 (04:38):
Yeah, so I keep that car, but before I say, hey, I
want to put my guarantee, stampit out in the box and send it
down the road, I ran it througha 132-point inspection, make
sure that it's ready to go.
It's road-worthy, it's passedall the safety inspections, the
emissions, all those things.
And then I put the Lewisguarantee, no matter what brand
it is, and put it on that car.
There are a few exclusionsthere, but uh majority, like 95%

(05:01):
of the cars get that Lewisguarantee from here, and it
starts the day you buy it.

SPEAKER_04 (05:07):
Okay, true term, true mileage.

SPEAKER_02 (05:08):
True term, true mileage.
It's not like an ex like, hey,we started back at in-service
day.
And so, yes, all those models,so that's a big deal there.
Over 54% of our inventory isnon-core.

SPEAKER_04 (05:18):
Hey, and and and I want to pause one more time here
because I think it's importantfor everybody to hear, including
myself, and we're in thebusiness, and I've got to be
reminded about it, how big adeal it is that all those
pre-owned over 400 you'retalking about, we either traded
for or we bought from an owner.
Now, the difference is, and andsome of y'all may be in the same

(05:39):
boat here, and I'm not callingyou out, I'm trying to educate
you, is hey, I got a buddy andwe'll go to the auction to buy a
vehicle, or let's go to theauction and do this.
And I'm just gonna peel back thelayer.
And I've been to the auctionmany times, just like all of us
in here.
In fact, I I worked for theauction for a while.
The auction, you you are thelast person that has your hand

(06:01):
raised.
In order to win it, yeah.
In order to win it, which meansyou've got to give more than
everybody else.
Yes.
Okay.
And then on top of that, there'sauction fees.
I was just talking um to ourused inventory manager right
before we came up here, and hehad bought a vehicle for a
customer.
And he said, Matt, you won'tbelieve what the auction fees

(06:22):
went up to.
He said, On this vehicle I justbought, he bought it from
Dallas, so not crazy far away.
The the auction fees and theinspection came up to almost
$2,000.
Plus, we still have to ship itfor another five or six hundred.
So that means you were the lastperson with your hand raised and
you were$2,500 on top of that.

SPEAKER_02 (06:47):
That's why that's a small percentage.
And I I I bought about an F-250for a customer this morning.
Um, and it was an additional$1,750.
And when you need that one offand a customer needs it, come to
us, we'll get it.
Yeah, exactly.
And then we're gonna sell it asleast expensive as possible.
But our philosophy, and so farthis month, we talked about it
yesterday morning, over 180vehicles we've either traded for

(07:11):
or purchased off the road to beavailable for everyone.
So if you showed up here onOctober 1st, we have 180 new
used vehicles that you didn'tget to see.
180.
So of that 400, over half of it,or close to half of it, is brand
new.
It's pressed.
That's new.
You know, it's less than 28 daysold.

(07:33):
So uh that's why we buy thestuff locally around here,
because if we're gonna givemore, might as well be able to
test drive it, know the story,know the history, sure, and be
able to get it here for lessmoney.

SPEAKER_04 (07:43):
And I know we were just talking about like what's
in the garage, but this isreally a business practice, too.
That's some people out there,this little bonus content.
And when we peeled back thoselayers of, hey, pay the auction
$1,700, two grand, we said,let's just offer check writing
on the spot for somebody thathas a car for sale locally.
Let's pay our salespeople tohelp us collect those so they

(08:05):
can make a better living, we cangather better inventory, pay the
customer more, and still be init below market value.
Everybody wins within ourorganization, our database, not
a company that's out of state.

SPEAKER_02 (08:17):
So with some of our money savings by not going to
auction, we were able to giveyou a check in hand for a local
seller and our buyers, our team,we were able to incentivize
them, pay them a luxury to helpthem out.

SPEAKER_04 (08:30):
Yeah.
And then one of the things, andand you guys will know this
because we went over thisyesterday morning, but weekly we
look at how many trades do wehave, how many do we purchase
off the road?
And that number is great, but byitself, it doesn't really mean
anything.
What we then compare that to ishow many used have we sold so
far this month?
So, how are you replenishingyour inventory to keep that
momentum going?

(08:50):
Like you said, we had 180 so farof this month.
We had sold 165 Us.

SPEAKER_03 (08:55):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (08:55):
So we were surplus to replenish our inventory.
Yep.
So hopefully you guys enjoyedthat little bonus content there.

SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
Absolutely.
Deep dive into the garage.
That wasn't just surface level,pop the garage door open, and
that's in there.
So great content there.
Hey, diving into andunderstanding the difference
between ego and instinct.
So let's kick it off with egosays I can't be wrong.
Instinct says something feelsoff.
You know, of going into and ofsaying just ego definitely seeks

(09:27):
validation or instinct seekstruth.
So really dive into of splittingthose two because sometimes, as
we talked about, it can sound alot of the same, but they'll
cross paths very easily.
Yeah, and I just want to saythat ego is not necessarily a

(09:49):
bad word.

SPEAKER_04 (09:50):
No, it just has to be harnessed.
Because ego is a lot of timeswhat drives, including each of
us in this room, to becompetitive, to be successful,
but you gotta be, you gotta keepit in between the grades so it
doesn't get you out of beinghumble and you start becoming
arrogant.

SPEAKER_02 (10:08):
You know, in my simple mindset, if you said ego
or instinct, when it says Ican't be wrong or something
fills off, I think thedifference to me is that one has
much more feelings and your ownopinion in it.
You know, the ego is like, Ican't be wrong.
Instead of the situation is,hey, there was a problem here,
ego says, I can't be wrong.

(10:28):
The first thing they did waslooked at themselves to say, I
couldn't make a mistake.
Or the instinct person sayssomething feels off.
They didn't take blame or makeblame, they just said
something's wrong and we need tofigure it out.
So the ego has feelings andtheir personal opinion about was
it me or not, right?
Yeah.
So that's my initial thought.

SPEAKER_04 (10:48):
No, I no, and I agree with you.
Um, you know, the one thing Idid want to make sure everybody
knew is like you can't just likedownplay say, hey, no egos, no
egos, no egos, because that isagain what pushes you.

SPEAKER_02 (10:59):
It's a little bit, and we have competitive, we have
a sales leader board.
Sure.
We need kind of need that ego.
Now you got to find that fineline.
Yeah.
Uh we have a technicianperformance board who's turning
the most hours because generallyproducers are competitive and
the ego is their driver of theircompetitiveness.
So you gotta have that, but thenit's like, hey, be humble, like

(11:20):
have an ego, but be humble,right?
You're not like I beat youagain, I beat you again.
Like no one likes you, no onewill help you.
Yeah, it's like, all right, yourego is pretty lonely.

SPEAKER_04 (11:30):
I think um, and we like talking about sports
because I think a lot of peoplecan relate to sports.

SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
I like that we talk about it because I don't know
jack about it.
It makes us sound like we did.

SPEAKER_04 (11:38):
All right, let's go.
We're here with 94-9 SportscastRadio with my headset.
I think when you look at a teamand you start, because there's a
lot of ego in sports.
I understand that part.
Okay, there's a lot of egosports.
I can't tell you names or theirstats, but if if the running
back or the quarterback had thishumongous ego and didn't care
about the rest of the team,they'd never win.

SPEAKER_02 (11:56):
You've seen it in movies after movies with a
running back with an ego thatwon't show up and practice hard
or won't do the same workouts.
Sometimes they'll have enoughand they'll say, Hey, let that
guy through.
Yeah, exactly.
Right?
They'll let him through and hewill demolish.
And then they check on him inthe huddle, like, how you doing?
Yeah.
And he's like, block your guy.
He's like, you do your job.
And so see, like, hey, did heget it?

(12:17):
Or let's let him through again,right?

SPEAKER_04 (12:19):
So then what you need the ego for him to be
competitive, but you still gottaremember which team you're on.
Gotta have some humble, gottahave some respect, right?
You really do.
So, how do you balance that?
And I'll tell you, you've heardit before.
You've heard it before, and thisthis will not be a surprise to
you guys.
How do you switch from ego, butthen make a decision, you know,

(12:40):
with kind of instinct?
Ego will pop up the awareness ofa situation, and it should be
the alert, like a light goingoff of, hey, I need to dig into
this.
Let me see if there's somethinghere I should handle or
something here that I shouldpraise, or whatever it may be.
And if you'll pause and notreact based upon your ego, let

(13:02):
your ego identify the issue,calm, pause, and then let your
instinct come in so you canhandle it correctly.

SPEAKER_01 (13:11):
Absolutely.
So why leaders often chooseconfidence with instinct,
especially after success?
Why does that happen?

SPEAKER_04 (13:22):
Why do leaders often confuse confidence with
instinct?

SPEAKER_02 (13:27):
You know, confidence instinct or confidence
arrogance.
Like confidence is veryimportant, right?
But then you look at theinstinct or the arrogance, like
you you've gone too far.
And why why leaders confuse thatis I don't know.
They don't see the real driverof what actually got them
complete through the task orwhat allowed that to be

(13:50):
successful.
I think their head gets tied upin some of the wrong details or
how it happened.
The running back says, hey,Travis Kelsey uh tied for the
most touchdowns ever at 83touchdowns last night.
Uh he has to understand he can'tdo that without a good
quarterback, without a goodline, without a good coach,
without a good offensivecoordinator.
You have to understand that.

(14:10):
But if you stand on an island,I'm by myself, then you get
super tied up in yourconfidence, but you lose the
instinct of I needed the wholeteam to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
Yeah, and it's let's go back and talk.
It's it's by no mistake.
Take football, take business,take anything else.
The reason he was able to attainthat, he never is one that you
see.
He's out there saying it's myteam, I do it all by myself.
He's pretty much in the middleof it.
Yeah.
Now it gets wound up and isexcited and doesn't ego, but a
perfect example of showing thatif you balance both of them,

(14:45):
you'll achieve success.

SPEAKER_04 (14:46):
And I think so.
And I think especially, youknow, if you talk about, we we
can talk about males, yeah, youknow, and in men, we we are
wired to be solution-based to tofigure it out and to move on.

SPEAKER_00 (14:59):
Yep.

SPEAKER_04 (15:00):
Okay.
Now we know as leaders that wewe must instill confidence when
we're telling somebody aboutsomething.
If not, they're not gonna followthat.
So in our mind, our instinct istelling us here's the solution.
We're wired to besolution-based.
Hey, go ahead and tell themthat.
That's gotta be the solution, sothen you guys can move on.

(15:20):
So a lot of time our instinctwill kick in and we're confident
about that, so then we willrelease it.

SPEAKER_02 (15:26):
That's that's so right.
And I guess that's not everyperson, but generally in the
mass of a male, is if you're adoer or type A mentality, you're
gonna say, yes, absolutely, wecan handle that.
And then if you don't know it,then you're gonna go find
somebody or gonna research thatand then figure it out.
So, rule number one, confidenceis so important.

(15:47):
Now, sometimes you need to say,mm-hmm, we're not specialized in
that because you might get in anarea that you have no business
to be in.
If there's special license orspecial um specifications or
training that had to get youthere.
But more often than not, the egoand the instinct is gonna say,
I'm confident that we can figurethat out.
Right?
We've done that 10 times now of10 new areas that we've never

(16:10):
been in, and we've won most ofthem.
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (16:12):
I think the the point you just hit on there,
that helps to be one of thefilters which we talk about in
here of like, okay, when do Iknow when I can just press
forward and I'm my instincts arecorrect and I'm confident, or
when do I need to pause and domore research?
Well, if you've been in thesituation 10 times, like you
just said, and the outcome waspositive, you can be confident
based upon stats and trackrecord there.

(16:35):
Make the decision, confidentlysay it, and go forward.
If it's a new area, you you needto pause for just a second and
do a little bit of research.

SPEAKER_02 (16:42):
Yeah, and and it's important to be transparent in
those situations.
But one of the things I'll tellyou, real deal business, so
we're not just toppinghypothetically, is that we
learned this is perfect withwhat's in the garage, of if 54%
of our vehicles that we sell arenon-core, and a customer
generally trades every threeyears and they change their oil

(17:04):
three times a year, we're gonnasee them nine times to the one
time that they purchase it.
We need to be able to work onthose things.
Right.
And a lot of times ourtechnicians are like, no, I'm
Ford certified or I'm Solantacertified.
And we're like, let's hire someemployees that are GMAC or GM
certified or import certified.
Yeah.

(17:24):
But then we got to the pointthat we had to train the team to
say, if we have trained andworked hard and created that
community that you can bringanything here, then let's get a
good relationship with the Hondashop.
Let's get a good relationshipwith the Chevy shop.
You don't have to hire and ownall things.
You can just be the liaison.
It's no different than if you goto a nice hotel and they offer

(17:47):
laundry service, they'reprobably farming out your dry
cleaning.
They're just offering a service.
Do you realize that they areprobably don't have a complete
in that building?
Now they have laundry, but to beable to press your clothes, to
be able to dry clean it, theydon't have that.
They just teamed up with acompany.
So we've had to train that tosay if someone shows up here,

(18:10):
say yes.

SPEAKER_03 (18:11):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (18:11):
And then let's figure out the details so that
we can get it.
We can be a concierge, we canget it back here and say, here's
what we got done.
We take good notes, and thenhere we go, ma'am, sir.

SPEAKER_01 (18:20):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
No, that's picked there.
And then we started to talkabout this and go down, but the
role of pride coming in, and yourun into the sometimes of
saying, Hey, I'm gonna doubledown on this, even whenever
signs point otherwise.
And it's so easy to sometimes goon there, like, hey, I'm gonna
put more gas on the fire.

(18:40):
It's gonna be okay.
I'm gonna power through this.
It'll be all right whenever yousee your signs, your gut's
telling you, whoop, whoop, holdon on the trail, or oh hit the
brakes.

SPEAKER_04 (18:50):
You know, and and this is like the the old saying
out there, kind of relates hereof, you know, the the captain
goes down with a ship.
And and too many times, and alot of times we just ride it to
the ground.
And then we look up, and when westart, once we get out of the
forest so we can work on thebusiness, we are just stuck in

(19:11):
the business, which you gotta doboth.
You gotta do both.
Um once we step back and welooked at businesses that were
wildly successful, like take aWalmart, yeah, you know, take an
Rvest, take a Walgreens, and youlook and you see you're like,
well, just the other day,weren't they delivering with
drones?
Yeah.
And now they're not.
Yeah.
They didn't ride it to theground.

(19:32):
They they they tried somethingnew.
If it didn't work, then boom,they scrapped the idea and they
moved on.
I know, uh, and I'm guilty ofthis, is I'll just keep riding
it, going, hey, and and you doneed some persistence in that.
Like you can't give up when thefirst you know, stumbling block
comes along your way.
You got to keep pushing forwardbecause a lot of times you're
just a couple other hammeringaway from breaking that rock

(19:56):
loose.

SPEAKER_02 (19:56):
A few tweaks, a few adjustments to get it there.
On the other side of that,because yes, you need that
resilience and that grip.
I laugh anytime that someonesays they went to the casino or
they bought a scratch off, orlike, hey, how are you doing?
Right.
And they're like, um, I'm up alittle, I'm about even.
Like they just keep doing thesame thing and the same thing,
hoping for a different outcome.

SPEAKER_00 (20:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (20:17):
Right.
So if you're not changing thealgorithm or how you're
approaching it, even if you'rein business, stuck on it, like,
no, let's try it from this otherside, let's change this process.
You're just sitting at the tableputting more things down on more
money and hoping that theoutcome changes.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (20:34):
You know, our marketing team was uh was
bringing this idea, you know,we're coming up on Thanksgiving.
So they were talking about, youknow, test drives and giving out
turkeys, you know, this type ofstuff.
And my mind instantly went to,hey, last couple times we tried
to do that, it just it justdidn't work.
You know what I mean?
It just wasn't successful.
And as I'm sitting there, I'mlike, okay, why was it not

(20:57):
successful?
Do I just need to scrap thisidea again?
Or how long ago was that?
And then I'm like, that was justa few years ago.
No, it wasn't a few years ago,it was 10 or 15 years ago.
Yeah.
Maybe the structure wasn'tright.
Maybe we didn't have the rightmarketing and media that we do
today.
Maybe it could be successful.
So I think it's important therethat just because something

(21:19):
happened in the past, I thinkyou should pause and be
cautious, but you shouldn't justshut the door.

SPEAKER_02 (21:23):
Yeah, because that would be a complete different
team that would execute it.
Uh, and so you could getcompletely different outcome.
And I'm I'm guilty of thatoften.
They're like, hey, this, this,and like, not good, not good,
don't do that.
But it's like, why, you know,like Taylor said last week, why?
Sure.
And how?
Like, why would you do that andhow would you do that, and how
would that benefit?

(21:44):
And they like, oh, this, this,and this.
Here's how we're like, ooh, youknow, we tried to give away
turkeys, but I never thoughtabout it at that angle.
Let's go, you know, or whateverit is.

SPEAKER_04 (21:52):
So and I think we're gonna keep talking about
football here.
It's football season.
So you may have ran a playmultiple times and it just
didn't work and didn't work anddidn't work, but then all of a
sudden, you got a differentreceiver.
Yeah, you got a a differentlineman, different defense, a
different whatever it may be, soit could change the outcome.
Maybe it wasn't a wrong play.
We just had the wrong players.

SPEAKER_03 (22:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (22:14):
Wrong execution there.
That's that is great to knowthat you can have great ideas
and remember those great ideas,table them, keep them over to
the side.
And yes, different personnel, nodifferent than a top performer
sales professional, manager,office clerk, whatever it would
be, they can handle differentsituations.

(22:35):
So when you don't have them, yougot to pivot and be able to do,
I'm gonna do A and B.
But then whenever you get thatother person, you can add it to
it.
That's a great thing to rememberthere, that don't scrap an idea
completely.
Always keep it in the bank andthe toolbox to be able to pull
out whenever you do have peoplearound that can help.

SPEAKER_04 (22:52):
And you say, well, how does that relate to ego?
Well, that is your ego.
Yes.
You know, because your ego isgoing in the past of like, hey,
I gave it all I had, I'm thebest at it, and it didn't work.
We're not trying it again.
Yeah.
And then that's that's notcorrect.
You gotta hang on, push thatdown, listen.
It may still not be a good idea,but at least let them talk about
it.

SPEAKER_01 (23:11):
Yes, that's what makes you great building in
business as an entrepreneur, asa business owner, that you
continue to build this monstertoolbox that you can grab parts
and pieces from and just add itall together.

SPEAKER_04 (23:24):
You know, I was I was reading an article uh the
other day on LinkedIn, and theywere talking about it happened
to pop up that they were talkingabout working on your business
or in your business.
You know, which is we've talkedabout that a bunch.
And there there were somemisconceptions out there, and
there was a lot of opinions onbusiness people.
But what I think that a lot ofthese people that got their ego

(23:46):
involved and opinionated, theywere one side or the other.
I I think that is a balance tome.
You can't unless you're just asilent investor or a board
member, you you gotta be able todo both.
You gotta be in your business toknow to identify what needs to
be worked on, but you gottaremove yourself from the
business outside to actually seethat and those solutions.

(24:09):
So I think, you know, nodifferent than we're talking
about here, like you still needyour ego.
You need both sides.
You've just got to funnel itcorrectly, have the right
filters in place to be able touse it as a horsepower and a
driver to move your businessforward.

SPEAKER_01 (24:24):
That's really good.

SPEAKER_04 (24:26):
All right, time for our fun fact quiz.
Hey, this is a good one righthere.
Question.
Okay.
Studies show leaders make howmany decisions on average per
day?
Per day.
Now, since we all have an egoinvolved, you want to say the
biggest number.
I know you do.

(24:46):
A is 50.
Ain't no way, it's more thanthat, okay?
So there's the ego.
B is 200, we're getting better.
C is 400, all right, and D is700.

SPEAKER_01 (24:58):
It's a lot, and I could tell you it happens early.
It's kind of like this meme thatI saw last night that showed
basically you uh launching oneof your kids on a tube, and
they're set back on it, and theysaid, When you just have your
coffee in the morning ready togo, and the first wave just
catapults them into the air, andit says, Buckle in and welcome

(25:19):
to the day.

SPEAKER_02 (25:20):
This is probably an average.
It probably doesn't have a wholelot figured in there for kids.
Because it would be I I knowwith my kids, probably with your
guys, I mean, they'll they'llask some questions.
I I'm the king of silenttreatment, generally to
everybody.
Uh, but now my kids are like, Soyou're not gonna answer that?
Like, you've used all yourquestions for the day.

SPEAKER_04 (25:42):
You know, I'm I have the same feeling that you have,
but then I'm thinking about itlater.
I'm like, at what point in timedid kids go into adults and they
lost some of that?
Because I need our salespeopleto ask some more questions.
I need our service advisors toask some more questions.

SPEAKER_02 (25:57):
So there, you know, at Taylor's got a youngster,
ours are growing a little bitmore, but there is a time when
they ask all the questions ofwhy, why, why, why, why, why.
And like you got to feed them alittle bit, right?
And then now kids start asking alittle more purpose-driven
questions, like you're talkingabout.
And so I have to be careful thatmy ego of gummit, these kids

(26:19):
are, you know.
But I'm like, hey, one, theywant to talk to me.
Yeah, two, they want to bearound me.
And three, if I don't answertheir question, the internet
will.
So I'm like, all right, Shelby,time to put your dad hat on.
Just, you know, becausesometimes it's after all and
all.
But so yeah, that would be atleast a thousand.

SPEAKER_04 (26:36):
If at least a thousand, but well, the answer
is C 400.

SPEAKER_02 (26:40):
And we've, you know, it's higher than that's 400
questions.
That's a lot.
Or decisions.

SPEAKER_01 (26:47):
And a lot of environment autopilot like that
you're just used to of going,because you're callous.
You just have some that arelike, whoa, hold on just a
second.

SPEAKER_02 (26:56):
But well, and that's good.
Sometimes when you take yourselfout of your current ecosystem or
atmosphere, like going to a 20group or going to a meeting or
working out of a differentoffice, it changes up your
rhythm of like, no, I do thisand this and this.
And then you're like, why do Ido that?
That's not productive, or why doI do that?
That's a waste, or I paysomebody to do that.
Why am I doing this?

(27:18):
Right.
And so you can mix up thosenormal, non-thoughtful decisions
that you're making.

SPEAKER_04 (27:23):
I I think that what you hit on there, and as we all
sat here, we're like, no, I makeway more decisions than that,
including myself.
I bet I'm a thousand or twothousand.
Then I'm sitting here thinkingabout like what I'm saying in my
brain, and my ego has takenover, because what you just said
is if I'll push down thedecisions that don't require me,

(27:46):
whether it feels good or notthat I'm making those decisions,
that then opens me up to makeless decisions, the harder ones,
which then allows me to do adeeper dive and not just make
decisions based upon ego andmake better ones.
You know, so and we're goingthrough that right now as an
organization.
I know we've talked about that,and it's gonna take us a while,

(28:07):
but every day we're trying togo, okay, I don't have to make
that decision.
That the person underneath me,they can make that, they're
highly capable.

SPEAKER_02 (28:16):
You know, and sometimes it's because we hadn't
told them it would be.
All right, next phase of thiswhen ego drives the decision.
So think about that.
When your ego drives thedecision, your thoughts and your
feelings, or your past, or yourhistory.
So think about this ego createsblind spots.

SPEAKER_04 (28:32):
Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 (28:34):
Especially after success.
So, what blind spots do you guysthink you've been a part of,
have seen, or have experiencedin business or in your life
after success or after a failurewhere ego created a complete
blind spot?

SPEAKER_01 (28:49):
I'll go into because you're winding up, I can tell.
I can see it was starting tocome out there.
But let's drink my coffee.
Yeah, get your coffee.
I'm down.
I'll tell you, even since movingover here, of an uptick in
business of new car sales, thatwe see, hey, it's ramped way up.
And I'm like, whoa, okay, thisis starting to go.
All right, this is comingtogether.

(29:11):
And it creates a blind spot ofmanaging your daily task of the
underperformers because theoverperformers, your top guys,
your middle guys are taking thatnew traffic that's coming in,
and they're just down here idle.
And you're so busy of goingthrough.
So it took six, eight monthsbefore we started to see, okay,

(29:35):
it dipped down a little bit.
Okay, adjust there and start tomove back up.
But it definitely put blinderson of I don't need to watch and
pay attention to my team that'sunderperforming because my
numbers were doing so good uphere.
But really, they could have beenthat much better if I would have
had my whole team helping andmoving forward.

SPEAKER_04 (29:54):
Yeah, I think I think that's good.
All right, I gotta go tofootball first and then I'll
come back to business.
Okay.
It just it just makes sense.
Okay.
Gotcha.
So let's talk about blind spots.
So uh I think it was blind sidewas the name of the movie.
That's the name of the movie.
Okay.
But I gotta tell you how thisthis hit me with a blind spot.
So so I'm out there coaching mymy fifth grade son's team, okay,
and calling the plays.

(30:15):
And we're out there and we'vegot this this widescreen with a
formation of three receivers onthe left side.
And so we run it once,successful.
Run it twice, successful.
All right.
So my ego's getting pretty goodon this.
You know what I mean?
I'm like, yeah, I designed thisplay, here we go.
Run it a third time, defensejumps it, pick six.

(30:38):
Ego was in the way and becameblinders for me watching what
the defense was doing.
Now I know that's in sports andthat's easy to relate.
So let's talk about business.
So when we first moved overhere, we really there were a lot
of unknowns, and I'm not blamingit on that, but I'm just saying
there were some unknowns.
We didn't know are we going tohave a different clientele?

(31:00):
Are the newer, bigger, fancierbuildings gonna attract
different customers?
And at first we we saw thatcoming out.
So uh on the Jeep side, I didn'tdouble.
I 10xed down on grand wagoneersand wagoneers, going, hey, that
client's coming in, they needthis selection.
And we usually would keep eightto 12 of those in stock between

(31:24):
the two.
I looked up and I had over 50 ofthose in stock at an average
cost to us of over$90,000.
That was$4.5 million sitting outthere that that my blinders were
on there.
And I said, Oh, if if a littlebit's good based upon success,
10x that sucker.

(31:44):
Oh yeah.
And they built them for me andbuilt them.

SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
I guarantee you.

SPEAKER_02 (31:49):
Right, that's so funny.
So both you said on moving overhere of where success and the
expectation.
It's funny when Taylor saidthat, I was thinking, so
naturally, without reallymicromanaging or really looking
at the details, we saw an upliftin everything, right?
As we said we should, we better,right?
Sure, yeah.
So we saw an uptick in new andan uptick in use, and majority

(32:13):
of the management team had beena part of the old team, right?
So then they saw an uptick.
The thing that not many tookinto account was we also had an
uptick in one other area, andthat was expenses.
Yeah.
And that's purely by design,right?
You can't get a new car withoutpaying for it, right?
Can't get a new place withoutpaying for it.

(32:33):
So it's tricky to have a teamthat is performing well, but you
know we're not one at where weneed to be, or at their
potential of they're performingbetter than they were, but
saying it's not because you'reputting much more effort in,
it's because we have spentumpteen money to drag people in,

(32:56):
whether it be in marketing orfacility or location.
So being able to not let yourego get in and say, yeah, you
know, we're averaging 500 unitsa month.

SPEAKER_03 (33:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (33:07):
Hold on, you didn't break even.
Or hold on, you didn't coverexpenses and service, or hold
on, you didn't cover parts costbecause you had to hire more and
you had to put a bunch more oryour wagone ears.
Like, hold on, your boardingcost was astronomical.
And so it's tough to be able tocheck your ego and say, look at
this, our numbers are great,especially if you compare them

(33:28):
to year over year.
It's like, this is so muchbetter, this is so much better.
Well, that was on the the incomeside.
If you look at the expense side,it's like, whoa, whoa, hang on.
So set your ego aside and lookat your instincts of like, hey,
if that's good, we need to lookat the other side because
something else is probablycoming.
And so when you're saying that,I was laughing, thinking, like,
you got to high five of them andsay, hey, you're leading the

(33:49):
board and you're looking good.
Can I get a little more from youbecause of this, this, and this?
Isn't that nice?
You got a delivery specialist,isn't that nice?
You've got a finance departmentand you've got a built-in
delivery bay, and you've got theconcierge and you got a greeter
at the front door, and you'vegot more sales managers.
Like, yeah, like, shouldn't thatmean that we should get some
more production out of you?
You have to kindly be able tocorrectly manipulate that to see

(34:12):
that because otherwise it'd belike, I got my 12, I'm good.
Yeah, I clocked 300 hours thismonth, I'm good.
It's like, well, notnecessarily.
Either I'm gonna need to takeone of your bays back out of the
shop or I'm gonna need at least400 hours from you, right?

SPEAKER_01 (34:26):
You know, you go add if you're bond up there, I'll
come back.

unknown (34:29):
I'll come back.

SPEAKER_04 (34:30):
You know, as as you're talking about that, I I
can visualize myself, andprobably you guys can as well,
standing in in in front of ameeting, whether it's a cake day
or an employee appreciation, orwe're having a manager meeting,
and talking about the themetrics on the sales side, on
the revenue side, and talkingabout the increases from since
we moved, you know, and how allthat stuff, but knowing deep

(34:53):
inside of me that either thebusiness we're talking about is
not profitable in the red rightnow, or is making less money
than it did across town, youknow, when we did less business.
And you're sitting therethinking, I mean, I could just I
I could visualize myself goingover these numbers and everybody
clapping and going through it.

SPEAKER_02 (35:14):
Well, hey, what are they thinking when you go over
that?

SPEAKER_04 (35:17):
They pop the hood and they they are thinking that
you have doubled and tripled theamount of money you've made.

SPEAKER_02 (35:23):
That you're making.

SPEAKER_04 (35:24):
That we're making the business.
And then they're thinking, hey,why aren't you paying me more?
On the other end, I just lookedat the financial and the bottom
was written in red ink.

SPEAKER_02 (35:36):
It's not good.

SPEAKER_04 (35:37):
It's not good.

SPEAKER_02 (35:38):
So that that's so tricky.

SPEAKER_04 (35:41):
Like, so then But but so so then you're like,
well, Matt, why didn't you justtell them that?
Tell them that.
Well, one, that's that's someuncharted territory force.
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (35:52):
One, they're not gonna believe you.
They're not gonna believe it's alot of people.
They're not gonna believe you.

SPEAKER_04 (35:56):
Because we had to re- and then I had to start
looking at examples out there ofstartup businesses that had to
weather the storm of why you'rebuilding your clientele and your
people and your inventory toride through that storm.
Okay, we're not trying to ridethe ship to the ground, but you
got to ride through that storm.
So then that red turns intoblackie.

SPEAKER_02 (36:15):
Yep.
And also in those meetings,that's a meeting of positivity,
encouragement.
So I'll tell you on the otherside, because I felt that exact
pressure.
Okay, what do I talk about inthis meeting that's different?
It's not on repeat.
So last month or the monthbefore, I instead of talking, I
talked like the winners and thehey, here who grew the most in

(36:35):
this area and grew in this.
But then I was like, you knowwhat?
To give them a little bit underthe hood, I shared with them our
expense growth, yeah, which isnot something you have on your
board, right?
You're not saying, hey, we grewin expenses.
So in that particular month, ourexpenses for the Ford store was
up$178,000.
So I said, hey, we this, this,this, this.

(36:56):
So year over year versus thisyear and last year, which was
new store and new store, right?
So think about that.
That's new store and new store.
Sure.
We were up$178,000, but my spinto it was, I don't know if it's
right, wrong, or indifferent,but it's the best I could come
up with, was of$178,000.
I don't quote me exactly, but itwas at least 160,000 was

(37:17):
vacation pay, was employee pay,was bonuses, or was spiffs, it
all went to employees of thedealership.
So of expenses that were up, weeither hired more people, we
paid more on vacation, we paidmore in spiffs or paid in
bonuses.
So to tell them we did pay youmore, yeah, and we were able to
hire more people, uh, so goodjob of producing more.

(37:42):
And can we get a little more?

SPEAKER_04 (37:43):
I think that actually ties in because I'm
thinking about like, hey, allthis is great content, but how
does that tie into ego?
Well, what here's where it tiesinto ego.
If somebody that has blinders onand just has a really big ego,
they're gonna bring all theiremployees together and be like,
listen, we're losing money orour profit is down and blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.

(38:04):
And what they're doing isthey're talking to people that
have no control over it.
Right.
The only expense part that youshared with the non-managers,
okay, just the whole team.
Just the whole team, was theexpense on where we had invested
in our employees.
Then a different meeting happenswith your department heads
going, hey, we got to get aprofit up in your department.

(38:26):
They're in control of expenses.

SPEAKER_02 (38:28):
They can control it.
They have the ability to filterthat and use it correctly.
Because if you come off with theegos, like, listen, whole team
Jim and Jack Wagons, we're inthe red.
This ain't working.
We got to turn the ship around.
And then three minutes later, acustomer walks in and you expect
them to be able to greet themand serve them at the highest
level.
There's no way that everyone canproperly do that.

(38:49):
You just have to so your ego,our egos, we check each other
and say, like, hey, whoa, thatwas pretty harsh to the wrong
people.
They can't do jack about it.
And so then you learn that tosay, okay, spin it properly and
sell the sizzle.
Like when you run out of chickenand all you've got's bolognays,
like, hey, here's our bolognaspecial today.

SPEAKER_04 (39:07):
And I think too, you know, you think about if if you
come out and if I if we told allof our employees, like, hey, we
got to tighten up on somethings, the, you know, the PL is
not looking like it should.
How many people do you think wewould have during their lunch
hour updating their resume andlooking on, you know, indeed and
all the rest of that stuff,because they're not in a

(39:27):
position to handle any of that.
So I think your ego can't getinvolved, and your instincts got
to tell you who to share whatinformation with.

SPEAKER_03 (39:36):
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (39:37):
Absolutely.
And you got to remember, too, ofhumility of that's obviously
what keeps your ego in checkthere.
I love this when we werelistening to this yesterday.
And I love whenever people areaccepting in your workplace that
you bring in outside trainers,vendors, whatever else that
you've vetted, they they meetyour same core values, they
teach everything the same.

(39:57):
We were sitting and listening.
Um, we had a trainer inyesterday, and he was going over
phone skills of anything else.
And he's going over.
I love that he had sat in ourmanager meeting.
You probably didn't intend forthis to happen.
Yeah.
But I had forgot to tell youabout.
He pulled up and he said, guys,I'm a little concerned.
There's only six or seven ofy'all in the whole group of them

(40:18):
that are at your goal and youset your goal.
And this wasn't one of us'smanagers saying that.
So I'm like, oh man, this isdriving home.
And he said, if you're at six oreight cars, you're choosing to
do so.
You know, we talked about thebusiness elevating here and
everything else.

(40:38):
20 is easier to do than ever atthis new location.
It's not hard to do.
You just got to come to work towork and be diligent in your
process.
And that's what he was goingover.
But he'd hit home of, and weonly let this happen because we
had humility.
We said, Hey, we need help ofsomebody coming in and going
over this.
We don't have to teach all.

(40:59):
Our ego doesn't have to be theone to say, you're doing this,
you got to do it this way.
And he was like, What are youdoing with your time?
And I was like, aha, yes.
So it was a great thing ofhaving somebody, we've already
seen success from that.
So have humility.
You don't have to do it all.
Have people help you, whetherit's your other trusted board of

(41:20):
advisors that you bounce thingsoff of, or a great trainer that
you bring in.
Yeah, most certainly.
That's good.

SPEAKER_02 (41:26):
All right.
Overconfidence.
So the overconfidence in things,whether it's your ego or
whatever, leads to ignoringfeedback or red flags in your
business or your dailyoperations.
Yeah.
You know, so thinking aboutthat, are there any certain red
flags or ignoring feedback whenyou're overly confident that you
guys, it just comes to mind?

SPEAKER_04 (41:46):
Well, what happens if you're overconfident and you
don't ever show anyvulnerability and you don't ever
encourage feedback, and yougotta do it in the in the right
atmosphere.
Yeah.
Um, what happens is your teamwill never bring red flags to
you because they're like, What'sthe point?
He's not gonna listen.

(42:07):
He's never open to that.
And you know, we learned this uha while back where just because
we're in the meeting, we don'thave to lead the meeting.
And we learned this from anotherpodcast we'd listened to, but if
you're asking for opinions on asubject, you need to be the last
one to give the opinion.
Um, if not, that's a red flag.

(42:28):
Yeah.
Because then everybody else isscared to give what they're and
they could have some really goodopinions where they're closer to
the issue than we are.

SPEAKER_02 (42:37):
Yeah.
Most certainly.
Um, so thinking of the, youknow, conf overconfidence leads
to red flags or completelyblazing past someone who could
have helped you.
Uh also the illusion of control,believing you always are the
smartest person in the room.
You know, and that's god, that'sone of those things that and I
said it last Monday in themeeting, and there was a guy

(42:59):
that was just talking so much,and it was just like perfect.
Like, listen, you only know whatyou know, right?
And if you're around someoneelse that could possibly elevate
what you know were a way to dosomething, you should probably
be quiet and listen.
So the ego will generally say,and that's totally a personality
thing.
You're either, hey, let me showyou my PL, or let me show you my

(43:21):
growth, or let me show you myRolex, or let me show you how I
got here.
Or you're the humble guy that'slike, hey, you're that business
guy, right?
Hey, how did you do this, this,and this?
And they're like, Who am Italking to?
It's like, oh, my name's Shelby.
We we have a car dealership.
Uh it's like, oh, okay.
And then you go through it.

(43:42):
The two complete differentpeople and how you react, and
probably very much so twodifferent reactions.
Yeah.
You know, outcomes of how ofinformation you get.

SPEAKER_04 (43:53):
That's so good.
And I'll just tell you that,like, with some age, as long as
you're around the right people,that becomes easier of putting
your ego aside, you know,knee-jerk reactions aside, those
red flags.
Yeah.
As long as you've been aroundthe right people.
You know, you you need to besmart enough and successful

(44:15):
enough to get in the right room.
Yeah.
But when you get in that room,you need to hush and you need to
learn from others.
Um, and then it because thenthat's what grows you.
It is really what grows you.
Because it can, it can really bebad for a team dynamic for sure.

SPEAKER_02 (44:29):
You know.
It's one of those things, andyou said with age, and it's
probably was we were talkingabout kids.
They start off, as soon as theycan talk, they're talking a lot,
and they're asking all thequestions.
Maybe as you get older, thattames down.
I know it does, right?
But you have to be careful thatyou're not completely diluting
your your ability to speak andto navigate and talk through and

(44:51):
network, you know, that you'restill asking those questions,
but you tend to learn to listenmore.
Now, some people just like to bethe ones talking, uh, and their
ego just completely runs overthat.
You talked about humility andunderstanding like when to say
when, that you don't have to bethe one holding the trophy, or
don't have to be the one leadingthe charge.
Humility is what keeps ego incheck without killing

(45:12):
confidence.
Yeah.
That's that's such a gooddefinition of saying like
humility is so important.
Like we gotta keep people incheck.
Yep.
Right?
And you gotta make sure thattheir ego is not their driver,
but you gotta have humility.

SPEAKER_04 (45:27):
Yeah, I think the balance of those two, that's
where you find people that arewildly successful.
And I think the proof's in thepudding there is when then you
go ask the employees or you askthe people that they've
influenced, and they say, Yeah,they're very confident, have a
great track record, but they'rethere to help me.
They're humble enough to, youknow, to pour into me and to

(45:50):
listen to me.
Um, where you just get otherpeople to just run over the top
of them.

SPEAKER_02 (45:54):
What do you think keeps leaders staying confident
but humble?

SPEAKER_04 (46:02):
Here's uh the easiest way for me to put this
the leaders that are able tostay confident but humble, they
continue to elevate themselvesto be around people that are
more successful than them.
Absolutely.
Nothing will humble you morethan, hey, you think you've
killed it.
We go to a 20 group and they'relike, okay, look on page three,
call them 11, line B.

(46:22):
It's like, okay, dang it.
I wanted to be on top there, butyes, I'm in the right room.

SPEAKER_02 (46:28):
You have to be confident to push and be a
leader.
But then when it's time, you canswitch and be super spongy of a
humble to say, I should probablybe quiet in this room.
I should take a lot of notes.
I should start writing downnames and who's good at what.
But that's that's where you setyour confidence aside.
You're still confident in whatyou do.
And so when someone calls onyou, then you can say, here, I

(46:51):
don't know that this is perfect,but here's what works for us.
And if you guys have advice,please let me know because I'm
here to listen and learn.

SPEAKER_04 (46:58):
You know, there there's a I'm gonna flip ego a
little bit here.
There, there's a way you can usean ego to your advantage.
And if you'll a lot of peopleuse ego without thought, which
then humble doesn't come in, andthen they look like a buffoon.

SPEAKER_03 (47:14):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (47:14):
Okay.
If you'll use an ego to go,okay, I I'm I'm very confident,
I want to be the best in thisarea, but I need to make sure
that I know what I'm talkingabout, and the people I'm around
don't know even more before Ispeak.

SPEAKER_02 (47:32):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (47:33):
You know, I always like to stick a thermometer in
things.
I don't just walk into a roomand be like, let me tell you
what I know, and blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, you guys are the sameway.
Yeah.
It's like we're taking it allin.
It's like we're asking thequestions, we're surveying who
we're around, who can we canextract from, who can we can
pour into too.
It's got to be a two-way street.

SPEAKER_03 (47:51):
Yes.

SPEAKER_04 (47:52):
You know.
Um, but I think it's just andthat's something that you're not
born with.
You got to be around the rightsuccessful people to learn how
to balance that, how to stayhumble, how to have an ego to
drive with your confidence, youknow, to be competitive, yet not
miss areas where you need to behumble and you need to be quiet.

SPEAKER_01 (48:14):
Absolutely.
Being able to check thetemperature and being able to
gauge of learning to start,stop, listen, and then that's
good.
There's a lot to be said aboutthat.
Absolutely.
Hey, diving into Mythbustertime, ego is bad.
You should get rid of itcompletely.
I think we just answered that ofgoing through absolutely beat it
over the head.

(48:34):
That's busted.
Ego isn't the enemy, it's atool.
It's a tool that drives you,moves you forward.
The trick is keeping it inbalance with instinct and
self-awareness.
So it's channeling that.
And that's that's what makes itfun, and that's what makes it
where everyone isn't successfulat that.
They either completely diminishit and then there's no
self-drive left, or they let itgo way off the top and no one

(48:58):
wants to work with them.
So the guys that balance it areare the ones that you want to be
around because they help elevateyou.

SPEAKER_04 (49:05):
You know, I see ego as this, like if we were looking
in in engines or or tools, likeego is is high horsepower.
Engine is, I mean, ego is anexplosive.

SPEAKER_03 (49:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (49:18):
And you need those.
Yep.
Like, like if we're doing that,we got to bust up some rock.
You want an explosive.
You know, if you're driving acar, you want something with
high horsepower.
But our track is not straight.
This isn't the drag strip.
And you got curves to make.
And and the old saying of, youknow, slow down to speed up, if
you just stayed hammered down onthe gas, you're gonna overshoot

(49:38):
the corner.
You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 (49:40):
Yep.
You're gonna miss opportunities.
You're gonna miss, what wasthat?
Was that a shortcut?
Hey, was that an opportunity forgrowth?
So that's so good.
Like, you know, and they say,hey, this engine lasts forever.
Well, it makes no horsepower,right?
Like it's like, hey, man, youcan count on this employee.
He's outstanding.
It's like, yeah, but he's notproductive at all.

(50:03):
Like, yeah, he's always here anddoesn't create any friction, but
he does not bring value to youor your team or your customers.
So, yeah, I mean, this engine isoutstanding, but it you can't
hook it up to totally anything.
You can't really trust it to beable to, hey, let's hook the
camper, let's go split somewood.
It's not gonna outrun anythingor anyone.
So you have to have somethingwith some horsepower.

(50:25):
Yeah, you just have to be ableto balance that.

SPEAKER_04 (50:27):
That's really good.
Okay, our last subject here isabout, you know, leading with
instinct.
We've talked a bunch about theego, leading with instinct and
not losing any of ourconfidence.
Inner of our confidence.
So instinct grows fromexperience, which I think we
talked about, that ageexperience, you can put those in
the same category.
You know, it's your patternrecognition, not your emotion.

(50:50):
You know, so Shelby, what youtalked about earlier of we've
been in this situation 10 times.
That's a pattern.

SPEAKER_03 (50:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (50:56):
We know the outcome.
My emotion's really not involvedhere.

SPEAKER_02 (51:00):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (51:00):
You know, my instinct is based upon
experience.

SPEAKER_02 (51:03):
Yeah, so you you definitely have to have that of
leading with instinct ofknowing, hey, I've had this
experience, or I found onlinewhere someone else has had that
experience and this has workedfor them, or hey, I've talked to
these people, and the data saysthis, right?
So understanding the instinct,you you need to make sure that
they understand that it is aninstinct-driven decision, that

(51:27):
it's not a whim decision.
Because they'll know if it's notego decision.
Sometimes you can deliver aninstinct decision with some ego
and confidence.
But if it's just like, hey guys,I've researched and there's a
lot of people doing it likethis, I don't know much about
it, but the data says it works,they might not fully buy in or
believe it because it's notdelivered with your general ego

(51:49):
of confidence, right?
So you have to make sure to mixthat in, that it's good to make
decisions based on facts, butthen deliver it properly.

SPEAKER_04 (51:59):
No, I think that's good.
And I think that that leads intoyou started to answer this
question, but you know, what wasa time when your gut was right,
even when the data disagreed.
So when you think about that, oflike the data says one thing,
but you your instinct or yourgut says, I've been here before.
And I'll I'll start this one offwhile y'all are thinking about

(52:19):
it.
Uh, I had the the our Jeep repcall me the other day, and he
said, Hey, we got a big push onWranglers for the end of the
year.
I need you to order about 20 to30 more of them.
And I was like, okay, tell memore.
I wanted to just say no, you'renot writing a check, but tell me
more.
And he's like, I don't knowexactly what HQ is gonna do, but

(52:40):
they got a big push to try totake some more of Bronco's
market share back.
And I said, I I love, I love thegame plan, but you're gonna have
to tell me more before I buy 30more Jeeps.
Yeah.
He said, I don't know.
I said, okay, well, do this forme because right now, and I'm
looking at the data, right nowit shows that I have enough in

(53:02):
stock.
I said, I need you to pull whatsales history was last November,
December, January, February forWranglers and compare them to
September, October, March,April.
And he calls me back and hesends it to me.
He's like, you're right.
He's like, during those fourmonths, when it's colder or when
the weather's more in inclinat,that the sales go down.

(53:26):
Yep.
And I said, okay, your data issaying this.
My gut is telling me this basedupon in the past.
So that was a time where the gutwas right, even when Detroit's
data said something different.

SPEAKER_02 (53:40):
Yeah.
And so I'll tell you, based onthat or any other decisions that
have come off, that if someoneis asking you for something and
you kind of like check who isit, what what's the ask?
Your ego of if you're in it forthe wrong thing, for the wrong
time or the wrong outcome, yourego will say, Yep, do it.

(54:02):
Buy those Wranglers.
You need to appease themanufacturer.
When the uh electric chargercame out, said, Hey, we need to
buy that.
That's it.
And but if you can see a littlebit further down the tracks, the
instinct says, Hold on.
You looked at the data of whatthe time of the year said, hold
on.
Your ego will generally say,Yeah, I'll go to that, yeah,

(54:25):
I'll do this, yeah, we need todo that, yeah, sign up for this.
And then you look up, it's like,well, did that replace something
else?
Why did you add that?
Like you already have a systemthat's doing that.
You know, so ego will generally,if you don't check that with
your instinct to say, you know,or your gut, your gut says, hang
on, don't let your ego make thisdecision or your emotions make

(54:45):
this decision.
Go with what you think works.
Like you've been managing yourinventory for how many years and
you know when it's up and whenit's down, don't let someone
else, because chances arethey're getting spiffed or
they're getting an attaboy forselling us.

SPEAKER_04 (54:59):
Then you know what comes to my mind says you're
saying that because we talkedabout it a couple episodes ago,
is our, you know, our uh ourother mutual colleague that we
know that's a Ford dealer thatwas at the show, they came up to
you and he was like, Hey, I justsigned up for this.
Have y'all signed up for this?
Like, what does it do?
I don't know, but it's free.

(55:19):
Like, nothing's free, dude.
Yeah.
His ego was involved.
He was just like you know, justlike sign up, sign up, sign up.
Like, what are you signing upfor?

SPEAKER_02 (55:28):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (55:29):
You know?

SPEAKER_02 (55:30):
Yeah, so your gut and your instinct will generally
tell you those things.

SPEAKER_04 (55:33):
It really will.
What about, you know, confidentleaders listen inwardly and
outwardly.
So y'all think about that for asecond.
I mean, listening inwardly andoutwardly.

SPEAKER_02 (55:46):
I think you're listening to yourself, what you
know, what you've experienced,what you've been a part of.
And then the outwardly issaying, hey, what is someone
else saying that they've been apart of or they've seen, or
what's their pitch on it?

SPEAKER_04 (55:57):
Okay.
You know, we we've talked aboutthis a bunch, and none of us are
where we wear our elocio, our uhemotions and thoughts on our
sleeves.
All right.
Like some people that are justunfiltered just keep talking.
And and we've joked about thisbefore.
Like if everybody could hearwhat goes on in our mind and
ideas and this and that, they'dbe like, oh my gosh, that dude's

(56:19):
crazy.

SPEAKER_02 (56:20):
Well, let me tell you that before you uh unpack
the rest of that.
So I've said this before on thepodcast that every night when I
leave, I call my wife and she'slike, Hey, do you have a good
day?
And the answer is always yes, itwas a good day, right?
Because whether it was orwasn't, I get to choose what I'm
gonna do with that.
So my oldest son that startedhunting, and so I've taken him
hunting, and so every time wecome back from hunting, which is

(56:42):
watching a bunch of squirrelsand rabbits run around, right?
Uh, there's much more of a trickto figure out to get him to hold
still well enough uh in his ADDof so, anyways, every time we
get home, she's like, Hey, how'dyou guys do?
And so my power of positivity isgenerally good.
Or Oliver will say, Hey, it wasgreat.
She's like, Okay, so did youkill something?

(57:05):
Uh-uh.
She's like, We're gonna have towork on our signals here because
when I ask how it went, and yousay great, I assume great, you
guys were able to find somethingand shoot it.
And so that's funny you saythat.
If I'm we're not aware in ouremotions, like we're not
dragging the now.
He did shoot a squirrel theother day and he brought it home
and wanted to bring it in thehouse.

(57:25):
I was like, no.
So, you know, generally theemotions are not on the sleeve
of exactly what's going on, iswhat you see.

SPEAKER_04 (57:31):
Yeah, I think so.
So there's a lot of times whenyou need, and I think the the
reason we bring up that questionis you need both.
Yeah.
Like, like there's tons of stuffthat needs to, you need to
listen inwardly, yeah, and justprocess it.
And you may not need to bring itto the table.
And then outwardly listening, alot of that has to do with you
make sure when you you speakoutwardly to other people,

(57:53):
you're asking questions so youcan listen.
You know, and it it it's themtalking for sure.
How do you guys think aboutbuilding trust in your gut while
staying open to input?
So so that's that's a two-waychannel, right?
Is like, okay, we've gotinstantly what our gut says to

(58:14):
do, but you're still leaving itan open door to hear from
outside input.

SPEAKER_01 (58:19):
That's that's never closing yourself down.
Now, I I'm not gonna put myselfin a situation voluntarily that
is something that doesn't alignwith whatever I want to be
involved with, but it's alwaysleaving yourself open, no matter
the circumstance of anythingthat is around.

(58:41):
So don't instantly excuseyourself or take yourself away
from a situation wheneversomeone's talking about, because
there might be a good piece weknow different than we talk
about managers, that I can sitdown normally and sometimes in
30 seconds if the guy's juststaring straight down or nothing
else, and I can't get him toengage and we start extracting

(59:03):
other useful bits of informationfrom them.
So always know that there'sdifferent angles to be able to
get information and don't closethat door right off the bat.

SPEAKER_02 (59:12):
You know, you talked about it a little bit of as you
grow older, we're gonna callthat wisdom.
The wisdom is understandingokay, my gut says this, but
always saying yep, both.
Let me at least listen andlearn.
Like Taylor was talking about.
You just with wisdom, whichcomes with time and with reps,

(59:33):
you learn that like there couldbe some type of growth
opportunity.
You talked about a sales trainerbeing here, and so I said in the
meeting because I wanted to knowwhat was being taught to the
team.
I was not there to say a word.
As a matter of fact, there wastimes I wanted to say a word and
say that's not exactly how we doit.
And we've learned that withtraining, and we talked about a
couple weeks ago how ourtraining manual has so many, but
they're bringing their personalopinion, right?

(59:56):
They're bringing the outsideadvice and they're going over
all this stuff, and he's super.
Sharp to say, hey, this mightnot be exactly how you do it,
Lewis Automotive.
So he's not saying my way or thehighway.
There's some ego people that dodo that.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
That this is the only way thatit could be done.
Well, news flash.
There's a lot of different waysto skin a cat.
So, but then understanding thatthat, okay, there was something
good to be extracted there.

(01:00:17):
So ego is important, but alsoinstinct of hearing someone
else's opinion because you mightbe like, green light.
Yep.
Right?
Like, networking is not mynatural talking to people I
don't know is not my naturalinstinct.
In business, I can do it, right?
And but I love when I create agood connection with someone.

(01:00:38):
We have uh a guy here with uh afinance company.
I was talking to him thismorning and I was telling him,
let me give you a tour.
So 10 years, 100 differentdealerships, let me make this
short, but it's an hour.
And so I hit him with the wholething and I said, hey, when we
did this, we toured a bunch ofdifferent places.
He's from Dallas, so I wascreating common ground.
And once I can find somethingwhere we can connect, then I'm

(01:01:02):
all about it.
And so I've learned with mywisdom, instead of just
listening and being part of it,that now I can earn some
opportunity to ask some.
And I was like, well, like wewent to some of Sam Pax's
source.
He's like, Oh, Sam Pack, he'slike, he's a mentor of mine.
He said, we talk every singleweek.
I said, I've got a favor to askof you.
He said, Oh, yeah, because thenhe wanted, he wanted to get

(01:01:22):
buy-in from me.
Yeah, he wants to bring it up.
I want something, he wants tobring value.
I was like, hey, we had uh areally good worker of ours.
It was a friend of Sam Pax who'spast.
I said, but we he was alwaysgonna take us and show Sam Pac's
collection.
He's like, I'll get you inwhenever you want.
And I was like, absolutely.
I said, Well, have to schedule atime.
I said, I've talked to Sam Packa couple different times, but

(01:01:42):
he's talked to a million people.
Sure.
He's like, oh no, he's a goodfriend of mine.
So then he started tellingstories.
So I'm okay to get outwardadvice, and especially if Taylor
said in 30 seconds you canrealize this is worth a lot.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:54):
Yes.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:55):
And then you start taking notes and creating common
ground, bringing value to thatperson, then they'll start
giving you value back of outwardoutward advice that your gut
would never have.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:04):
Uh-huh.
I got I gotta tell you too, isbecause sometimes you'll slip
up.
I I slipped up the other day andI I talked about the start of
this, but I want to tell youthen what I did when I realized
that.
And this is a real ego check, isyour gut and your instinct, you
may fire off on something basedupon past experiences.
But then all of a sudden thewisdom might come over and say,

(01:02:26):
hang on, maybe I should slowdown here.
But you've already said it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:29):
So with our marketing team the other day,
and I think they would agreethat this is how I handled it,
was I came out of my mouth and Isaid, No, the turkey test drive
won't work.
That wasn't successful before.
I'm saying this outwardly.
And then, like, I'm sittingthere and I'm like, but hang on,
what if there's a better deal?
So then I paused right in themiddle of that and I said, But

(01:02:51):
you know what?
I'm open to listening to youguys because there may be a
better way to do it, and we mayhave not just executed it
correctly.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:58):
Sure.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:58):
So you guys please give me your input, and I want
to be open to at least listeningon how this may work.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:05):
It's funny you say that about you paused.
I saw an interview one time whensomeone asked Steve Jobs a
question, and it was like himand another guy up on a stage,
and there was a live audience ofpeople, and they asked him a
question, and instead of justverbally vomiting what might not
be the whole hundred percentproper answer, correct answer,

(01:03:26):
he said, that's a really goodquestion.
And it was an awkwardly longpause, like over a minute, maybe
two minutes.
Oh wow.
So the person, the moderator,was like, Oh gosh, what do we
do?
Didn't say a word because hestill had to ask a question.
Audience is like, Did Steve justfall asleep?
And then he said one other thingthat was like, that is a really

(01:03:50):
good question.
And then he finally, becausewhat he had done was to slow
down and actually process tobring value back in his thoughts
and feelings.
So it's like he went back intohis filing cabinet and is like,
back in 98, we did that.
That's a person that you canlearn from and understand.
You're not just you didn't evenslow down the list.

(01:04:11):
Oh, yeah, yeah, I got that.
Is that that's annexation?
Puerto Rico's like, no, I askedwhat player played in '96.
And I was like, well, that'swisdom right there.
Like that guy, you'd be quietwhen he talks, you know?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:26):
That's good.
That is good.
Yeah, that's really good.
Hey, diving into this question,I want both of y'all to think
about this.
It's not, don't worry, Craighadn't put really good quite
like you love his questions thathe puts in there.
But how do you personally tellthe difference between when it's
your gut leading you and whenit's your ego trying to take
over?

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:49):
There's a mixture because gut and ego share the
same, right?
I feel like gut and ego havesome similarities.
How do you tell the differencebetween gut and ego?
Like, have you been therebefore?
Yeah.
Have you made that decisionbefore?
How did it go?
My gut's gonna tell me that,right?
Have I been there before?
Have I made that decisionbefore?
How did it go?

(01:05:11):
But then whenever I'm startingto take over has my ego just
quickly said, no, this is how wedo it, this is how we get there
and go.
You know, it's quickly saying,Hey, I got this bad CSI from
this customer.
Why didn't we deliver this?
Why didn't we pick it up when Ionly got one side?
My ego quickly says, run overthe top.

(01:05:33):
And so you have to ask aquestion first.
Hey, have you guys seen the Mr.
Smith's survey that camethrough?
Or I might not even mention thesurvey.
Hey, Mr.
Smith came in to get his vehicleservice.
How did that go?
And they generally be like, Oh,are you talking about the
surveys?
Like, oh, I hadn't seen thesurvey.
Did he submit a survey?
And they're like, Yeah, thesurvey came in.

(01:05:53):
It's like, oh, okay, how didthat go?
Like, did we do everythingcorrectly, or was there
something we dropped the ball?
So my gut says, slow down, get,you know, those three three
things I asked.
Ego says, stop getting badsurveys.
If we tell somebody we're gonnado it, do it, do it right, and
do it on time.
The ego says that to do that.
Gut says, slow down, get thefacts.

(01:06:15):
So that that's one of thosethings that say, slow down.
And then you might end up inthat same conversation if ego is
like, I told you, but you haveto stop.
And because they might be like,dude, won't answer his phone.
Yeah.
We've, you know, here's wherewe've texted him 18 times,
here's where we've called theguy.
We offered a mobile servicewe've offered, pick up and
delivery.
No, we've gone and got it fourtimes.

(01:06:36):
Like, okay, that guy's crazy.
Yeah, right.
But oftentimes my ego or justego in general will say, your
team's still screwing up.

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:44):
Yeah.
When they're not.
Yeah, no, that's that that'sgreat advice.
I got two things, kind of checksand balances to make sure that
it's that your ego's not gettinginvolved there.
And and one is is what you'regetting ready to say or what
you're getting ready to leadyour team to do, does it line up
with what the overall goal is?

(01:07:04):
You know, where you're headingtowards, if it's growth, if it's
this, if it's that, does it lineup with that?
And then number two, if this isaccomplished, who does it
directly put the spotlight on?
And if if the spotlight isdirectly on myself, my ego's too
much involved.

(01:07:24):
If it's on the teamaccomplishing it, or an
individual within our company,then it's more of gut and
confidence because we know thatthe producers on our team, the
more successful they are, thenwe'll be successful.
You know, instead of, hey, lookat me, look at what all I did,

(01:07:45):
so on and so forth.
So I think those two checks andbalances are is it is it I don't
worry about a goal from lastyear or last decade that we were
trying to accomplish, but wherewe're going, is it taking us
there?
And then who would initially getthe credit for it?

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:01):
Those are both really good.
Hey, great wrap up of Ego orInsteak.
What really drives yourdecisions?
Make sure check out that, all ofthat previous episodes on
Crossroads ConversationPodcast.com and always our
specials we have going on.
What's going on at thedealership at Lewis
Superstore.com.

(01:08:22):
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to give it a like, share it
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questions about what you wouldlike to know about the
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Send it them our way, and we'lldo our best to answer any
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Thank you again, and we'll seeyou in future shows.