June 15, 2025 • 33 mins
Cut The Tie Podcast with Thomas Helfrich
Episode 267
Scott Morris knows what it’s like to win on paper—and still feel completely lost. In this powerful episode of Cut the Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with the exited founder, investor, and startup advisor to talk about cutting ties with identity, ego, and the illusion that achievement equals fulfillment.
Scott opens up about what happened after he sold his company and had the money, title, and resume most entrepreneurs dream of—only to discover he was still stuck in old patterns, unresolved trauma, and a relentless need to prove himself. What followed wasn’t another startup—it was a total reset.
About Scott Morris:
Scott is an exited founder, investor, and startup advisor who now focuses on helping entrepreneurs navigate the emotional and psychological challenges of leadership. After selling his company, Scott embarked on a personal transformation journey that included therapy, psychedelic exploration, and deep mindset work. Today, he blends his background in entrepreneurship with trauma-informed coaching to help founders build companies—and lives—that are sustainable, conscious, and aligned with their values.
In this episode, Thomas and Scott discuss:
- Why hitting the exit didn’t feel like freedom
Scott explains how building and selling his company brought temporary validation, but left him with burnout, confusion, and a crisis of identity. - The hidden cost of overachievement
When your worth is tied to output, you never stop grinding. Scott shares how his drive masked deeper emotional wounds—and what it took to start healing. - How psychedelics and therapy changed his trajectory From plant medicine to inner child work, Scott talks about his journey through modalities that helped him face fear, find clarity, and break his own patterns.
- Rebuilding a life after burnout
No more hustle for hustle’s sake. Scott now helps founders build with alignment, not just ambition—and it’s created more impact than ever. - Why success isn’t about proving anything
Scott’s new lens on life: it’s not about impressing others, it’s about coming home to yourself.
Key Takeaways:
- Your exit doesn’t erase your trauma
Business success can’t solve emotional pain—you have to do the inner work. - True alignment requires discomfort
Facing yourself is often harder than building a company. Do it anyway. - The best founders know when to pause
Slowing down is how you build something that lasts. - Service starts with self-awareness
You can’t lead others well if you haven’t faced your own story. - Identity is not your LinkedIn bio
Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be. Lead from who you actually are.
Connect with Scott Morris:
💼 LinkedIn: Scott Morris
Connect with Thomas Helfrich:
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cutthetie/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
🌐 Website:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast.
Hi, this is your host again,thomas Helfrich.
We're on a mission to help youcut ties to whatever it is
holding you back, to become thebest version of yourself, the
best entrepreneur within you.
And today I'm joined by ScottMorris.
Scott, how are you today?
I'm great.
How are you, thomas?
I'm good.
Where are you?
Were you zooming in or streamyarding in or videoing in from,
yeah, my home in Denver, denverColorado, denver Colorado,
(00:21):
denver, colorado.
Everyone knows you just gethigh in that state.
You're probably not going tomake the cut floor.
Well, here we go, scott.
Take a moment to introduceyourself and your business.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, so 25 years in the profession of HR, about 20
of those in a C-level role inorganizations ranging from
startups to billion-dollarenterprises, 15,000-plus
employees.
I am currently CEO and founderof a company called Propulsion
AI.
I am currently CEO and founderof a company called Propulsion
AI and we help managers thinkabout the connection between
individual roles and corporatestrategy.
We help them to make theconnection between that role and
the broader good that the roledoes, define the outcomes,
define the critical successmeasures, turn those into
targeted results and definegrowth paths for people to go
(01:01):
into those jobs.
And we do that all withartificial intelligence, Not
four to six hours of effort thathumans take, but in as little
as 15 minutes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's crazy.
I always ask people the powerstatement.
Why should they work with you?
In this plethora of AI that'sout there?
Why should they work with you?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah Well.
So, first of all, everybody'stalking about AI right now, and
I think you've got to be acareful consumer when it comes
to artificial intelligence.
There are a lot of companiesthat are slapping AI as a word
on the outside of their techdebt and calling it AI, and it
doesn't really do anything butthe old ERP version of whatever
they created.
It's not really AI at the core.
So that's one reason you wantto work with us is that we're
(01:38):
truly an AI-driven system.
We are built on frameworks thatare used by the top
professionals in the businessand we build AI into that
framework.
Second thing is you got to be acareful consumer of the
difference between an agentic AIsystem, which is one that you
totally hand off to, and aco-pilot system, which is one
that helps you be better atbeing you and gets expertise out
(01:59):
of your head.
That's the principal reason youwant to work with us.
We are not a shortcut.
We are.
We are a cheat code, but we'revery much a human in the loop
system.
It helps bring your expertiseto the table faster and easier.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Describing automation plus AI.
I love that because at somepoint that there's a role for
that.
I don't think there's a wholelot of use cases even defined
that do that really really well.
Yet I think maybe small, minor,but not on anything major
business and specifically thingsaround human and, let's say,
culture or things that go withHR right, like the people and
the kind of the protection ofthe company versus the employee
and all the things that go withthat.
(02:34):
That is such a nuanced rolethat your AI is a good assistant
to kind of help you stay withinlegal frameworks, company,
corporate and you guys.
It's like, hey, this is therules you kind of need to hear
by in this situation.
Here's some things you could do.
I think that is a.
I assume that's kind of whereit kind of helps you manage
where you need to with thatwithin HR as well, or is it.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It does manage the compliance aspects for you.
She's not going to.
We have a digital human, by theway, when I make reference to
she.
Her name is Athena and she actsand processes like a human
would process, because that'show we built her.
It's not a form filler, it'snot chat GPT.
She's actually going to ask youquestions and draw answers out
of you and in the course of thatinterview for lack of a better
(03:15):
term that's where she deliversher greatest value, which is
clarity.
See, one of the things that'shappened in HR over the years is
that the HR team has assumed alot of responsibilities that
actually are better placed withmanagers, but they were too hard
for managers to do on their own, so we jammed the HR people in
there and we said here, you dothis for the manager, but in
doing that, hr actually robbedthe manager of the real critical
(03:38):
value that they needed, whichis to have clarity.
When you're clear about how arole fits your strategy and what
the outcomes you need and whatkind of success measures you
have, it's not just that youattract better candidates, but
you manage that role differentlyand effectively.
You become a talent magnet, andthat's what we're really trying
to help managers do.
We want them to be the managersthat everybody wants to work
(03:59):
with?
But to do that, you've got tounderstand the strategic nature
of that role and you've got tounderstand how to grow the
person in it In your own journey.
Describe it a bit how you gothere and what kind of the major
tie was that you had to cut toget there.
Well, so I'm going to give youa little bit of the longer
version, but only because thereare a couple of things that are
not obvious.
If you look at my LinkedInprofile, you're not going to see
things like.
I started my actual first job.
(04:20):
I was a working actor.
I grew up in Los Angeles and Iwas a working actor.
I have a handful of filmcredits, a bunch of commercials,
a little bit of television,some voiceover work, but as I
left college, I had no idea whatI wanted to do, and it was a
huge struggle for me.
I felt like I was talented, Ihad a lot of things that I could
offer, but I had zero conceptof what I wanted, and so I did
(04:40):
what was, I think, natural formost people, which is I became a
police officer with the LosAngeles Police Department and I
thought yeah, I'll find it inthere.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I'm going to pause you just real quick.
The timeframe you were there,given your age, was an
interesting time to be a policeofficer in LA.
Did you just call me old?
I didn't, but I can give youthe perspective of there was
turmoil, probably right beforeyou entered.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You're guessing my age, right, yeah, there was some
turmoil.
I came in right after theRodney King incident had
happened in Los Angeles and itwasn't sure at what time, but it
was also.
It was a good time.
Los Angeles Police Department'sthe finest department in the
nation and I was proud to havebeen there.
And I'll tell you one of thethings that I learned, and there
are a couple of lessons that Itake away.
I've never been as an HRprofessional.
I've never been a person thatpractices a sort of policing or
(05:28):
the compliance function.
I don't disrespect the need forthat, it's just never been my
focus.
I've always been focused on howdo we better enable
productivity, how do we enhancemanager effectiveness, those
aspects of the profession, ofthe profession.
But one thing I learned in thedepartment was that you could
have four people that stand onfour different corners of the
(05:49):
same intersection, watch thesame exact accident and have
four very different perspectivesabout what happened.
And that's kind of like everyorganizational dynamic that I
experienced in the last 25 years.
People shape, color, understandthings and react to them based
on their own point of view, andso helping them to be in touch
with that point of view becomesreally important to creating
(06:09):
organizational success.
And it's a surprising lessonthat I took out of a very a sort
of non, you know, likenon-traditional connection to to
to work.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So so so I think that's funny.
I mean sorry just to just tobring it back.
So you have this crazybackground, yeah, a little, and
then non-trivial, it sounds likeyou have lots of ties you've
cut along the way, so pleasecontinue.
I just like it's crazy thatyou're, I was an actor and I was
a police officer.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, Well, I mean, you know what?
There's an interesting storythough behind it that goes to
kind of the thrust that you getto in your show, which is that I
had to make a choice to walkaway from the police department,
and I did it because I was Iwas really idealistic.
I went into it.
I I think I went into it forthe right reasons, but what I
found was, you know, and I and Ithink this is not, this is not
(06:56):
other people's problems, this ismy problem Like I had this
perception that everythinginside was good and everything
in the neighborhoods that wepoliced was bad, and it was a
total flaw in my own thinking.
And what I realized was thathumans are humans, and there are
some humans that wear thatuniform that are not necessarily
(07:17):
the good guys, and there aresome people that get referred to
as bad guys that really aren't,and so at some point, I made a
decision to walk away from that,and it was a hard decision
because I loved it as a career,but I knew that it wasn't going
to fit with what I wanted tocreate in the world, even though
it was an opportunity to dogood every day, and you do in
that job you get to see yourimpact on a regular basis.
(07:39):
But that was the first tie Icut was the decision to walk
away from that and walk backinto well, back into, because it
was among my first jobs butinto the world of business and
into entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I mean it's interesting too, because it's
also your personal brand.
So there's like I brought upthat because if the group has a
negative connotative to it,you're like that's not me and I
don't want to be known as that.
like and it's not aligning towhat your beliefs are.
That's not me and I don't wantto be known as that like.
And it's not aligning to whatyour beliefs are.
And this can be true.
I'm sure this transposes toyour corporate career of getting
to the right companies because,like well, this company acts
like this but has thisperception.
(08:11):
I don't like that.
I should ask did that drive youto?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I've walked away from stages of my corporate career
because I just got to the pointwhere either I didn't believe it
anymore, which I think is areally important thing and
translates.
I know a big part of youraudience are entrepreneurs and I
think every entrepreneur isprobably shaking their head when
they hear me say you have toreally believe it If you're
(08:38):
going to be successful as anentrepreneur.
You've got to really be a bitlike beyond what you have to do
in a corporate setting where youactually get feedback about
things and you have other peopleto rely on for decisions.
You've got to believe it as anentrepreneur and I've certainly
walked away from stages of mycareer because I wasn't
believing what I was selling.
The line that was kind of theBS line between oh it's creative
(09:00):
marketing and we actually don'tdo that, but I've got to sell,
that walks away.
And in part because my job wasto bring in top talent and when
I started to make a reallycompelling case to work in an
organization that I had somequestions about, it was just
it's time to go, and so thoseare some other ties that I've
cut.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, what's up, you know.
Do you remember the last onebefore you launched Propulsion
AI?
Do you remember what was that,ty?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
This was Tell me about it for a moment, e-ty, if
you asked me, like, tell me atime in your life that you had
to pick, that you like cut it.
The decision for me was do I goto work?
I was failing out of the jobthat I was in and the decision
was do I go and find another jobor do I go and launch my own
endeavor?
And found a company and toprovide a little background the
(09:52):
way I got into it.
I was working in amanufacturing company in Costa
Rica which was amazing, amazing,like probably the smartest boss
I've ever worked for, amazing,like probably the smartest boss
I've ever worked for.
But I wanted to be in the USand I went into the job with
kind of the nod, nod, wink, wink, handshake of you only have to
travel 25% of the time, and Irealized quickly that that
(10:13):
wasn't the case.
So I was traveling about 75% ofthe time.
Costa Rica is a great place,but I wanted to be in the US and
a recruiter came knocking andsaid can you help me to network
and find somebody for this rolethat I'm trying to fill in
Denver?
And I did everything I couldand she finally got to the point
where she's like you shouldprobably talk about this role
because I think this soundsperfect for you and the money
was obscene and the location wasperfect and just, and there was
(10:36):
a component of experience thatI didn't have before.
And so the short version ofthat is I got the job, but after
the first two months.
First two months were great,but then I started to see that
every way that I was composedlike I have the worst potty
mouth in the world I meanprobably maybe second to yours,
but the, the it's just like.
You know my, the way Iexpressed myself was not a fit
(11:01):
with the organization and theplaces where I was either going
to be tolerant of things that Ithought were mediocre or
unyielding about things that Ithought were mediocre were off
by about five degrees.
The places where I just wantedus to have some intestinal
fortitude and really provoke wasnot what the leadership team
wanted to do.
It's every factor that couldpossibly be off was off, and by
(11:25):
the end of the first year Ihated it, like seriously hated
it.
But the idea of stepping outinto something and not having a
safety net and not havinganybody I mean lack of anything
like nobody else to blame inwhen you found a company, there
is no one.
You know it's really easy.
When you're inside, you're like, oh my god, our marketing team
(11:46):
is like horrible.
Then you get out and you domarketing.
You're like, oh my god,marketing's hard and I could say
that about sales or product orengineering or quality or like
any of the things.
They're really hard when you're, when you're the one that has
to do them and as anentrepreneur, you have no guide.
So like that choice was loomingso big of like I know that this
is out here, by the way heshortcut.
(12:08):
I had no idea it was like onsteroids.
Like I saw how hard it wasgonna be, but I had no idea how
hard it really was.
And so that choice was loomingbig.
When I realized that like Icould not stay, I had to leave,
and it was the first time ever,I was just like I do not care.
I've had other situations whereI was like I don't really like
(12:30):
this, I'll go find another jobhere.
It was like I have to be outand I have to be out now.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah Well, I mean, I've said to people like it's
not that I would never take ajob with somebody.
If it was the right situationwhere, like hey, if it paid well
, I enjoyed the people I waswith, I felt like I was an owner
in it, like I was, I investedequity in it, I wouldn't just go
work for something I'd want togo build.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's when you're mindlesslydoing something you hate every
day and it's that's when you gotto take a step out on your own
(12:56):
journey.
The impact talk about that torelationships, the financial,
the and then maybe the benefitson the other side.
What tell me?
Just what was this crater?
How big was it?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I mean I?
I mean I think that the, thejourney like the.
The first hallmark of thejourney is just loneliness, like
you sit alone for most of thetime and ideate, and in the
beginning it's all ideation andthen it becomes ideation and
execution and then it becomesabout 50 other things.
But it's a lonely journey andbeing on your own I make a joke
(13:27):
about marketing is hard.
And then you have to startdoing it.
You realize what marketingteams go through, or sales teams
or engineering teams orwhatever, but you're all alone.
And the other dynamic that Ithink is missing is in a
corporate setting you getfeedback, like you make a
decision and you get your handslapped for it if it's a bad
(13:48):
decision or you getcongratulated for it if it's a
good decision.
When you're an entrepreneur,you don't get any of it, and so
you're potentially making somebad decisions, but there's no
feedback loop to that andthere's similarly nobody to pat
you on the back and reinforceyou when you've made a good
decision.
So the signals get messed upand weird, and the reason I
think that's significant is itcomplicates the path right.
(14:12):
You don't have the, the.
The signals are guardrails to acertain extent and they.
They sort of guide you down thepath.
Even though you may havecontrol over the path, it's
still keeping you kind ofcentered, and when you're an
entrepreneur you still get that.
So it's a lonely experience, andit was.
It's a, it's a sort ofinformationless void some days,
but yet you're making the mostimportant decisions, because if
(14:35):
I don't, if I didn't do X or Y,we're not eating, we're not
paying mortgage and you know,getting to the point where
you're like, oh my God, where isthe money for next month's
bills coming from?
That's scary, it is.
Or knowing that you need toclose a sale, but recognizing
that if you look desperate,you're not closing that sale.
(14:56):
How do you strike that balance?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
What was the impact to your family during and during
this?
Like for these, I mean, I havea sword host.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I have a really supportive spouse.
He's incredibly supportive, infact I, he has all your math
errors from.
Yeah, it's like not being ableto remember your anniversary
like it's, that's a, that's akiller.
Every year I'm like he's at thethird or the sixth right, but
you know he I mean he actuallysaid to me I was moping around
the house soon after, like thedebacle had happened with my
(15:24):
last corporate job.
He's like why don't you juststop being such a baby, just
stop complaining about thingsand go do something and worry
about you?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
were those the exact words?
Was he like stop being a little.
It was a little bit moreexpletive I just didn't feel the
feel, the vibe that wasactually.
I feel like maybe he was alittle more explicit to you like
, listen, he was a freak, rightabout it, but, and I don't know,
maybe that was that's that'shim cutting ties with me being
an emotional person yeah, youlook off camera.
He's here now, just don't sayanything.
(15:54):
Right, I guess we'll make thecut, for I want you to give me
some advice, or give thelisteners advice.
What's's, what's the advice tothe listener?
Well, I mean, I so I depend I.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
You have a variety of listeners, I will.
I will tell you, I'll give youtwo pieces of advice, I think,
to the entrepreneurs.
I mean actually several piecesof advice, I think, if I look
back over things that I didn'tdo really well I I thought too
much of myself in the verybeginning and the reason I think
that's a significant comment iswhen you, when you think it's
about you, you start to executethat way, not realizing no one
(16:31):
cares, no one is seeing thisstuff.
So don't worry about the cringefactor, move faster.
The other thing I didn't reallyfully internalize, like
everybody can tell you thelessons about, like move fast,
break things and pivot, and whatI think I didn't recognize back
in the day, like I thought Ihad to get the website right.
Right, I'm on like the 15thversion of the website right now
(16:53):
and like, so it didn't matterwhat I had on the first one.
What mattered was did I have afirst one?
You've got to get to thosethings really fast.
So I think the advice that Iwould give, one of the pieces of
advice I would give to theentrepreneurs is move really,
really fast and lose the cringefactor that anybody cares about,
all of the things that aren'tgoing to look right for you.
The second piece of advice thatI would give to entrepreneurs is
(17:16):
test the ideas early.
I'm super afraid of being fullof shit, and so I was really
afraid to go put things out intothe world that I didn't know I
could deliver.
But if you don't put thosethings out there, you also miss
the signals on who's going toreally be interested in it and
who will buy it.
And I'll confess I think we'rebehind right now.
(17:36):
We don't have the market voice.
I still have an emptymicrophone to a certain extent
as I'm trying to argue the casefor how we make managers' lives
better, employees' lives better,because we help them make
connections.
On the manager's side, managerswant people that take initiative
and act with ownership andembrace accountability, and yet
(17:57):
they think about jobs in termsof tasks and activities.
And on the employee side,employees want jobs with meaning
, and if you aren't articulatingthe purpose of that job rather
than just the tasks associatedwith it, you're never going to
connect to it.
So there's a loss on both sides.
But test the ideas early,because that helps you build
(18:18):
things, helps you build thingsand because I recognize that
your audience is broad.
If you're in a company andyou're thinking about what are
you going to do with AI, youbetter start that journey now.
And my advice is you've got tofind really quick wins, both for
agentic systems meaning theones that you completely hand
things off to and co-pilotsystems, because it's going to
(18:41):
create the bandwidth within HRthat lets you do more strategic
things.
And you've got to don't buildthose systems, buy them.
Buy them quick, implement themquick and transition the HR
people into worrying about thenew manager experience with
those systems, because youcannot hold the tiger with the
bro and the change is going tocome.
The question is, who is goingto be ahead of that change and
(19:02):
who's going to be behind it inbusiness?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I love that.
Some quick fire for you.
Here we go.
Who gives you inspiration?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
God, on what subject?
I mean, I'm massively like okay, I'll tell you one, and this is
like I listen to this everytime I get down.
Barack Obama, there's a clip ofBarack Obama and this is not
intentionally a politicalstatement, but, barack, there's
a clip on YouTube that all youhave to do is search, fired up,
(19:30):
ready to go, and you'll findthis clip and it's Barack Obama
talking about, like thishorrible experience that he had
when he was campaigning thefirst time for president and how
bleak everything was.
And he goes to this rally andthere's like 15 people in the
room and he's wanting, of course, to talk to big crowds, like
any political candidate does,and there's 15 people and it's
(19:50):
been raining and there are nastyarticles in the news about him.
And he gets in there and hesays to the audience how are you
doing?
And there is a woman in theback who says fire it up, ready
to go.
And he takes inspiration fromthat.
And I take inspiration fromthat clip and I kid you, not
every time my day gets bad, Ipull that thing up and I listen
to it because it gets me back inthe headspace.
(20:12):
So I take inspiration from thatkind of thing.
I take inspiration from peoplelike John McCain too, who stands
up at a rally and this is whenhe was running against President
Obama at the time and a womanis spouting a bunch of sort of
popular misconceptions aboutPresident Obama and John McCain
(20:35):
puts his hand, really gently, onthis woman's shoulder and takes
the microphone from her andlooks her in the eye and says no
.
She looks back at him and thisis the moment that's really
important and she looks at himwith this like very sincere look
and she says no.
He says no and she sits downand he uses that as a leadership
moment, and the reason I'm somotivated by that is that
(20:57):
leadership, whether it'sself-leadership or group
leadership, is really alwaysabout choosing the right path,
more so than it is rallyingpeople to a certain point of
view.
And I think true leaders andthe ones that I'm inspired by
are the ones that have theintestinal fortitude to actually
do that, and he did.
In that moment.
It would have been very easyfor him to just go with the
group and rile them up, and itcertainly would have served his
(21:18):
political ends, but he didn't doit.
He did what he thought was theright thing and what I thought
was the right thing to happen.
Interesting dynamic we have inpolitics, but sometimes the best
leaders don't become theleaders where you see people
without titles that are the onesthat are truly exercising
(21:41):
leadership.
In fact, that phrase comes fromRon Heifetz at Harvard, who
wrote a book with his writingpartner, Marty Winske that I
think is amazing calledLeadership on the Line.
Their differentiation is thatleadership is a verb, not a noun
, and you can only see it whenit's being exercised.
And you can exercise it withouta title or influence or
(22:01):
portfolio of any kind.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That's fantastic.
What's kind of the bestbusiness advice you've received
you?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
don't have to be the smartest guy in the room,
because I have a real problemwith that because it's an ego
thing.
And when you're, when you learnnot to be the smartest person
in the room, you find yourselfopen to listening to other ideas
and I think in general becauseI mean, I'm not surprising when
I talk a lot, but the value oflistening is huge and I think
(22:30):
that's probably the best pieceI've gotten.
Who gave you that advice?
A guy that was upset with meand I don't think he meant it
that way.
It was like sometimes there'slike really good advice to be
had.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah Well, good for the guy to be so annoyed with
you to say something.
I will tell you my second dayhad gotten this new job.
It was my early thirties orsomething like that.
Literally the second day, myboss calls me from Houston.
I'm not even sure why I'mreporting to this person, cause
he's like in development, I'm inlike some other, you know, and
he goes you second day, youshould change your personality
(23:08):
If you wouldn't be successfulhere.
And I thought go, fuck yourself.
What a stupid thing to say.
I'm like you're a man manager.
Huh, oh boy, what job did Ijust take?
It was the longest I've stayedin a role, but, honestly, the
worst, worst place I've everworked.
I'm undisciplined.
That was their seven.
I had seven bosses in fouryears.
Oof, I look back, though.
Just a side note ADHD messes uppeople's.
(23:29):
This is why there's so manyentrepreneurs with ADHD.
They cannot be successful incorporate.
It's just.
It doesn't happen.
If you have any ambition, youhave going to last.
You're going to be burnt out,thrown out or chewed out.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I think the people that don't last in corporate are
the ones that truly want tochange the way things get done.
Until you get into a smallercontext, you don't have the
freedom to really questioneverything.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
That probably won't make up why I started showing
you what is the one must-readbook.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I can't have two.
Okay, you can have two Changeby Carrie Patterson and
Leadership on the Line by RonHeifetz and Marty Linsky.
What was the one thing you gotout of each of those?
The formula for guiding changeand the secret of one behavior
out of change by CarriePatterson, and the notion of the
(24:23):
difference between an adaptiveand a technical solution that
comes out of melinsky and ronheifetz's book.
You know, there's a different,like, getting people to adapt is
a different process than givingthem a change.
You know a technical sort ofsolution.
I'll give you a more concreteexample, and I and they use this
(24:43):
in the book.
Like, if you have congestiveheart failure, right, there's
one way that you get out of that, because seven out of eight
people that have congestiveheart failure are going to die.
And now I'm not a physician,right, not my staff, but that's,
that's a huge penalty to pay,right, but the real, the real
key to staying alive is you haveto change your diet, you have
(25:04):
to start exercising, you got toquit smoking, right, you got to
make all of these behavioraladaptations.
But yet, when people arediagnosed, what they want is can
you give me an operation?
Can I take a pill?
Can I just kind of get out ofthat pain?
We even see that in our business, too.
People are like can you justwrite a job description for me?
I'm like, yes, yes, but that'snot the value that you need.
The value that you need isclarity about the role, and in
(25:27):
the same way that seven out ofeight people are looking for
that technical solution, they'regoing to die right.
That's how hard behavioraladaptation is, and so the entire
book is about how do you mapand navigate, creating the
context for that behavioralchange, and I think it's a
really good model for a lot ofthings.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
That's awesome.
If you had to start over todaywhen in your timeline would you?
I would be richer and betterlooking.
Can't do that one.
That goes back to who fatheredyou, but no.
So if you were to start today,when would you do that in the
timeline and what would you dodifferently?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
that's dude, that's like like a very sexy choice,
but I don't think I would.
But here.
Here's why I like I don't thinkI would start over, because I
think I've done a lot of reallygood things.
But I think I'm more defined bymy failures than I am by my
successes.
I've certainly learned more.
I am where I am right nowbecause I failed, not just
(26:34):
because I succeeded, and I don'tthink they're equally sized for
me.
I think I've failed way morethan I've succeeded.
But it's those failures thatcreate the opportunity for me to
have an even bigger success.
And that's what I'm trying todo.
I'm trying to have a positiveimpact.
I'm trying to be a betterperson and a better leader than
(26:56):
I was before.
But the only way you see thosethings is in the context of
failures.
So if I went back and I changedthose things, I wouldn't be
here and in the context offailures.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
So if I went back and I changed those things, I
wouldn't be here, and I don'twant that.
Yeah, that's a life of thingshappen for me and didn't happen
to me.
That's abundance mindset, sothat's.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, I mean you know what and I so I'm Peter
Diamandis was a board member atan organization that I worked at
and he is an amazing person andjust super like.
He's another influence on mejust from being around him and
interacting with me and thosekinds of things.
But things happen, period, fullstop, and then choice takes
(27:32):
over about what we're going todo about it and and that's where
I think the real magic is thatyou're referring to in the
comment you just made, right?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
what are you going to do with it?
I was on Peter Diamandis'Abundance 360 website for
quoting because I was part ofthat group for a while and I was
on their quote and had peoplecalling me like well, did you
really think it was worth it?
I'm like it's actually one ofthe yeah, well put together
networking, so I really likewhat he's done.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And we can get it.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
He's trying to raise money, and that's what.
But well done can get it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
He's trying to raise money, and that's anyway, but
well done.
But, but he's not selling snakeoil, though.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Right there we are far better stuff is a little bit
out there, but he's just in thefuture of tech.
He brands it around the futureof everything.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Everything looks out there like if you're a futurist,
every there's going to be anaspect of everything you do that
looks way too out there.
But you know, guy like raykurzweil another guy that I got
to interact with at SingularityUniversity is, you know, it's
got about an 80% prediction rate, I think, over about 30 years,
on the future of tech and Ithink he's gotten told he's
crazy a lot of times but theykeep coming true.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Oh yeah, Well listen, he is correct, I think it was
32 or so of the joining ofbiology and human and it becomes
almost inseparable.
I think that's probably prettymathematically going to be close
Publicly I think it's alreadybeing done in other places, just
to be clear.
I mean, we'll get off topic andI'm already over.
It doesn't even matter, Allright.
Last question If there was aquestion I should have asked you
(28:52):
, but I did not.
What would that question be andhow would you answer it?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
You didn't ask me who lays in bed around me every day
.
I have 175 pound great Dane.
He is sitting right down thereand, yeah, he, he sits, uh or
lays on the bed and snoresthrough most of my meetings
because he's uh, he's just asleepy guy.
(29:19):
I guess I don't know.
He's 175 pounds.
When I first brought him homehe had a bunch of bad behaviors.
He went after a bunch of dogsand, like he's just very
reactive, broke my finger.
They got hooked inside of hiscollar.
But he is a great friend and agreat companion and he lays with
me every day and he's on thisjourney, whether he realizes it
or not.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Good rule of thumb your dog should not outweigh
your partner.
Just saying that.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, for sure.
And you know where he wants tosleep In bed.
Oh yeah, In bed.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That's why I don't have a dog.
Here's why I'm going to leaveyou with this.
Thank you, friends.
This is not going to also makethe cut for you.
This in my suburbianeighborhood I see a bunch of 55
to 65 year old men walking allthe dogs they've collected
through the years, like that'swhat I see all the time.
I'm like I am not fucking that,I am not going to be the guy
that picks up the poop andbecause because, oh, I'll do it
(30:13):
like.
No, you won't, you'll go tocollege, this damn thing's gonna
be here and I'm gonna be theone.
I'm gonna be that guy walk.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
There's eight of them no dude Walking the dogs that
they've collected over the years.
That's a little uncomfortable,honey.
I'm going to take the dog for adrag.
What do?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
you mean that they've collected over the years.
You're a dog with no legs.
That's a dog with no legs.
You take it for a drag.
It was my favorite I grew up onTruly Tasteless.
I would go poop extra.
Now it's just video games.
But the truth is you'd sit thereand you'd pretend to go take a
dookie and I'd be like, oh myGod, the one that made me laugh
(30:52):
so hard as a child I don't knowwhy was what's.
I'm going to have to make surethis is what is red and
screaming, but can't turncorners.
I don't know.
It's a baby with a spearthrough it.
I was like, who comes up withthis shit anyway?
Like Anthony Jesnick.
I don't know if you know whothis comedian is.
He has very dark.
I think he wrote for Fallon forlike a year and like they use
(31:13):
none of this stuff.
But if you listen to his humor,holy cow, it's so well, well
done.
Like it's like oh, it's so dark, I love it.
It's so good coming back, ai,ai.
Just ignore that segment.
Scott, thank you so much forcoming on today.
I appreciate it.
You've been awesome.
I love what you're buildinghere.
Thank you, man.
It's been such a pleasure to bewith you.
You know it's a shameless plugtime, though, before you go,
(31:33):
tell everyone how to get aholdof you and who should get ahold
of you.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, so two ways.
First of all, I love connectingon LinkedIn and we're not
consultants and I don't offerconsulting services, but I pay
it forward.
And so if you want to connectwith me on LinkedIn, if you want
advice or help around themindset that managers need to
adopt, around artificialintelligence, or around the idea
of designing jobs to connect toyour corporate strategy, get me
(31:56):
at linkedincom slash in, slashM, scott M.
And then if you want to findPropulsion AI on the web it's
HTTPS Get Propulsionai.
Awesome, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
I appreciate you too, man.
Thank you for having me on.
It's been fun.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Loved it.
If you're still listening,listen.
I have one call to action Hitthe follow button on Spotify and
Apple.
If you're a youtuber, hitsubscribe, get out there.
Go cut a tie to somethingholding you back.
Go unleash the best version ofyourself.
Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast.
Hi, this is your host again,thomas Helfrich.
We're on a mission to help youcut ties to whatever it is
holding you back, to become thebest version of yourself, the
best entrepreneur within you.
And today I'm joined by ScottMorris.
Scott, how are you today?
I'm great.
How are you, thomas?
I'm good.
Where are you?
Were you zooming in or streamyarding in or videoing in from,
yeah, my home in Denver, denverColorado, denver Colorado,
(00:21):
denver, colorado.
Everyone knows you just gethigh in that state.
You're probably not going tomake the cut floor.
Well, here we go, scott.
Take a moment to introduceyourself and your business.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, so 25 years in the profession of HR, about 20
of those in a C-level role inorganizations ranging from
startups to billion-dollarenterprises, 15,000-plus
employees.
I am currently CEO and founderof a company called Propulsion
AI.
I am currently CEO and founderof a company called Propulsion
AI and we help managers thinkabout the connection between
individual roles and corporatestrategy.
We help them to make theconnection between that role and
the broader good that the roledoes, define the outcomes,
define the critical successmeasures, turn those into
targeted results and definegrowth paths for people to go
(01:01):
into those jobs.
And we do that all withartificial intelligence, Not
four to six hours of effort thathumans take, but in as little
as 15 minutes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It's crazy.
I always ask people the powerstatement.
Why should they work with you?
In this plethora of AI that'sout there?
Why should they work with you?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah Well.
So, first of all, everybody'stalking about AI right now, and
I think you've got to be acareful consumer when it comes
to artificial intelligence.
There are a lot of companiesthat are slapping AI as a word
on the outside of their techdebt and calling it AI, and it
doesn't really do anything butthe old ERP version of whatever
they created.
It's not really AI at the core.
So that's one reason you wantto work with us is that we're
(01:38):
truly an AI-driven system.
We are built on frameworks thatare used by the top
professionals in the businessand we build AI into that
framework.
Second thing is you got to be acareful consumer of the
difference between an agentic AIsystem, which is one that you
totally hand off to, and aco-pilot system, which is one
that helps you be better atbeing you and gets expertise out
(01:59):
of your head.
That's the principal reason youwant to work with us.
We are not a shortcut.
We are.
We are a cheat code, but we'revery much a human in the loop
system.
It helps bring your expertiseto the table faster and easier.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Describing automation plus AI.
I love that because at somepoint that there's a role for
that.
I don't think there's a wholelot of use cases even defined
that do that really really well.
Yet I think maybe small, minor,but not on anything major
business and specifically thingsaround human and, let's say,
culture or things that go withHR right, like the people and
the kind of the protection ofthe company versus the employee
and all the things that go withthat.
(02:34):
That is such a nuanced rolethat your AI is a good assistant
to kind of help you stay withinlegal frameworks, company,
corporate and you guys.
It's like, hey, this is therules you kind of need to hear
by in this situation.
Here's some things you could do.
I think that is a.
I assume that's kind of whereit kind of helps you manage
where you need to with thatwithin HR as well, or is it.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It does manage the compliance aspects for you.
She's not going to.
We have a digital human, by theway, when I make reference to
she.
Her name is Athena and she actsand processes like a human
would process, because that'show we built her.
It's not a form filler, it'snot chat GPT.
She's actually going to ask youquestions and draw answers out
of you and in the course of thatinterview for lack of a better
(03:15):
term that's where she deliversher greatest value, which is
clarity.
See, one of the things that'shappened in HR over the years is
that the HR team has assumed alot of responsibilities that
actually are better placed withmanagers, but they were too hard
for managers to do on their own, so we jammed the HR people in
there and we said here, you dothis for the manager, but in
doing that, hr actually robbedthe manager of the real critical
(03:38):
value that they needed, whichis to have clarity.
When you're clear about how arole fits your strategy and what
the outcomes you need and whatkind of success measures you
have, it's not just that youattract better candidates, but
you manage that role differentlyand effectively.
You become a talent magnet, andthat's what we're really trying
to help managers do.
We want them to be the managersthat everybody wants to work
(03:59):
with?
But to do that, you've got tounderstand the strategic nature
of that role and you've got tounderstand how to grow the
person in it In your own journey.
Describe it a bit how you gothere and what kind of the major
tie was that you had to cut toget there.
Well, so I'm going to give youa little bit of the longer
version, but only because thereare a couple of things that are
not obvious.
If you look at my LinkedInprofile, you're not going to see
things like.
I started my actual first job.
(04:20):
I was a working actor.
I grew up in Los Angeles and Iwas a working actor.
I have a handful of filmcredits, a bunch of commercials,
a little bit of television,some voiceover work, but as I
left college, I had no idea whatI wanted to do, and it was a
huge struggle for me.
I felt like I was talented, Ihad a lot of things that I could
offer, but I had zero conceptof what I wanted, and so I did
(04:40):
what was, I think, natural formost people, which is I became a
police officer with the LosAngeles Police Department and I
thought yeah, I'll find it inthere.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I'm going to pause you just real quick.
The timeframe you were there,given your age, was an
interesting time to be a policeofficer in LA.
Did you just call me old?
I didn't, but I can give youthe perspective of there was
turmoil, probably right beforeyou entered.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
You're guessing my age, right, yeah, there was some
turmoil.
I came in right after theRodney King incident had
happened in Los Angeles and itwasn't sure at what time, but it
was also.
It was a good time.
Los Angeles Police Department'sthe finest department in the
nation and I was proud to havebeen there.
And I'll tell you one of thethings that I learned, and there
are a couple of lessons that Itake away.
I've never been as an HRprofessional.
I've never been a person thatpractices a sort of policing or
(05:28):
the compliance function.
I don't disrespect the need forthat, it's just never been my
focus.
I've always been focused on howdo we better enable
productivity, how do we enhancemanager effectiveness, those
aspects of the profession, ofthe profession.
But one thing I learned in thedepartment was that you could
have four people that stand onfour different corners of the
(05:49):
same intersection, watch thesame exact accident and have
four very different perspectivesabout what happened.
And that's kind of like everyorganizational dynamic that I
experienced in the last 25 years.
People shape, color, understandthings and react to them based
on their own point of view, andso helping them to be in touch
with that point of view becomesreally important to creating
(06:09):
organizational success.
And it's a surprising lessonthat I took out of a very a sort
of non, you know, likenon-traditional connection to to
to work.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So so so I think that's funny.
I mean sorry just to just tobring it back.
So you have this crazybackground, yeah, a little, and
then non-trivial, it sounds likeyou have lots of ties you've
cut along the way, so pleasecontinue.
I just like it's crazy thatyou're, I was an actor and I was
a police officer.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, Well, I mean, you know what?
There's an interesting storythough behind it that goes to
kind of the thrust that you getto in your show, which is that I
had to make a choice to walkaway from the police department,
and I did it because I was Iwas really idealistic.
I went into it.
I I think I went into it forthe right reasons, but what I
found was, you know, and I and Ithink this is not, this is not
(06:56):
other people's problems, this ismy problem Like I had this
perception that everythinginside was good and everything
in the neighborhoods that wepoliced was bad, and it was a
total flaw in my own thinking.
And what I realized was thathumans are humans, and there are
some humans that wear thatuniform that are not necessarily
(07:17):
the good guys, and there aresome people that get referred to
as bad guys that really aren't,and so at some point, I made a
decision to walk away from that,and it was a hard decision
because I loved it as a career,but I knew that it wasn't going
to fit with what I wanted tocreate in the world, even though
it was an opportunity to dogood every day, and you do in
that job you get to see yourimpact on a regular basis.
(07:39):
But that was the first tie Icut was the decision to walk
away from that and walk backinto well, back into, because it
was among my first jobs butinto the world of business and
into entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I mean it's interesting too, because it's
also your personal brand.
So there's like I brought upthat because if the group has a
negative connotative to it,you're like that's not me and I
don't want to be known as that.
like and it's not aligning towhat your beliefs are.
That's not me and I don't wantto be known as that like.
And it's not aligning to whatyour beliefs are.
And this can be true.
I'm sure this transposes toyour corporate career of getting
to the right companies because,like well, this company acts
like this but has thisperception.
(08:11):
I don't like that.
I should ask did that drive youto?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I've walked away from stages of my corporate career
because I just got to the pointwhere either I didn't believe it
anymore, which I think is areally important thing and
translates.
I know a big part of youraudience are entrepreneurs and I
think every entrepreneur isprobably shaking their head when
they hear me say you have toreally believe it If you're
(08:38):
going to be successful as anentrepreneur.
You've got to really be a bitlike beyond what you have to do
in a corporate setting where youactually get feedback about
things and you have other peopleto rely on for decisions.
You've got to believe it as anentrepreneur and I've certainly
walked away from stages of mycareer because I wasn't
believing what I was selling.
The line that was kind of theBS line between oh it's creative
(09:00):
marketing and we actually don'tdo that, but I've got to sell,
that walks away.
And in part because my job wasto bring in top talent and when
I started to make a reallycompelling case to work in an
organization that I had somequestions about, it was just
it's time to go, and so thoseare some other ties that I've
cut.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, what's up, you know.
Do you remember the last onebefore you launched Propulsion
AI?
Do you remember what was that,ty?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
This was Tell me about it for a moment, e-ty, if
you asked me, like, tell me atime in your life that you had
to pick, that you like cut it.
The decision for me was do I goto work?
I was failing out of the jobthat I was in and the decision
was do I go and find another jobor do I go and launch my own
endeavor?
And found a company and toprovide a little background the
(09:52):
way I got into it.
I was working in amanufacturing company in Costa
Rica which was amazing, amazing,like probably the smartest boss
I've ever worked for, amazing,like probably the smartest boss
I've ever worked for.
But I wanted to be in the USand I went into the job with
kind of the nod, nod, wink, wink, handshake of you only have to
travel 25% of the time, and Irealized quickly that that
(10:13):
wasn't the case.
So I was traveling about 75% ofthe time.
Costa Rica is a great place,but I wanted to be in the US and
a recruiter came knocking andsaid can you help me to network
and find somebody for this rolethat I'm trying to fill in
Denver?
And I did everything I couldand she finally got to the point
where she's like you shouldprobably talk about this role
because I think this soundsperfect for you and the money
was obscene and the location wasperfect and just, and there was
(10:36):
a component of experience thatI didn't have before.
And so the short version ofthat is I got the job, but after
the first two months.
First two months were great,but then I started to see that
every way that I was composedlike I have the worst potty
mouth in the world I meanprobably maybe second to yours,
but the, the it's just like.
You know my, the way Iexpressed myself was not a fit
(11:01):
with the organization and theplaces where I was either going
to be tolerant of things that Ithought were mediocre or
unyielding about things that Ithought were mediocre were off
by about five degrees.
The places where I just wantedus to have some intestinal
fortitude and really provoke wasnot what the leadership team
wanted to do.
It's every factor that couldpossibly be off was off, and by
(11:25):
the end of the first year Ihated it, like seriously hated
it.
But the idea of stepping outinto something and not having a
safety net and not havinganybody I mean lack of anything
like nobody else to blame inwhen you found a company, there
is no one.
You know it's really easy.
When you're inside, you're like, oh my god, our marketing team
(11:46):
is like horrible.
Then you get out and you domarketing.
You're like, oh my god,marketing's hard and I could say
that about sales or product orengineering or quality or like
any of the things.
They're really hard when you're, when you're the one that has
to do them and as anentrepreneur, you have no guide.
So like that choice was loomingso big of like I know that this
is out here, by the way heshortcut.
(12:08):
I had no idea it was like onsteroids.
Like I saw how hard it wasgonna be, but I had no idea how
hard it really was.
And so that choice was loomingbig.
When I realized that like Icould not stay, I had to leave,
and it was the first time ever,I was just like I do not care.
I've had other situations whereI was like I don't really like
(12:30):
this, I'll go find another jobhere.
It was like I have to be outand I have to be out now.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah Well, I mean, I've said to people like it's
not that I would never take ajob with somebody.
If it was the right situationwhere, like hey, if it paid well
, I enjoyed the people I waswith, I felt like I was an owner
in it, like I was, I investedequity in it, I wouldn't just go
work for something I'd want togo build.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's when you're mindlesslydoing something you hate every
day and it's that's when you gotto take a step out on your own
(12:56):
journey.
The impact talk about that torelationships, the financial,
the and then maybe the benefitson the other side.
What tell me?
Just what was this crater?
How big was it?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I mean I?
I mean I think that the, thejourney like the.
The first hallmark of thejourney is just loneliness, like
you sit alone for most of thetime and ideate, and in the
beginning it's all ideation andthen it becomes ideation and
execution and then it becomesabout 50 other things.
But it's a lonely journey andbeing on your own I make a joke
(13:27):
about marketing is hard.
And then you have to startdoing it.
You realize what marketingteams go through, or sales teams
or engineering teams orwhatever, but you're all alone.
And the other dynamic that Ithink is missing is in a
corporate setting you getfeedback, like you make a
decision and you get your handslapped for it if it's a bad
(13:48):
decision or you getcongratulated for it if it's a
good decision.
When you're an entrepreneur,you don't get any of it, and so
you're potentially making somebad decisions, but there's no
feedback loop to that andthere's similarly nobody to pat
you on the back and reinforceyou when you've made a good
decision.
So the signals get messed upand weird, and the reason I
think that's significant is itcomplicates the path right.
(14:12):
You don't have the, the.
The signals are guardrails to acertain extent and they.
They sort of guide you down thepath.
Even though you may havecontrol over the path, it's
still keeping you kind ofcentered, and when you're an
entrepreneur you still get that.
So it's a lonely experience, andit was.
It's a, it's a sort ofinformationless void some days,
but yet you're making the mostimportant decisions, because if
(14:35):
I don't, if I didn't do X or Y,we're not eating, we're not
paying mortgage and you know,getting to the point where
you're like, oh my God, where isthe money for next month's
bills coming from?
That's scary, it is.
Or knowing that you need toclose a sale, but recognizing
that if you look desperate,you're not closing that sale.
(14:56):
How do you strike that balance?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
What was the impact to your family during and during
this?
Like for these, I mean, I havea sword host.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I have a really supportive spouse.
He's incredibly supportive, infact I, he has all your math
errors from.
Yeah, it's like not being ableto remember your anniversary
like it's, that's a, that's akiller.
Every year I'm like he's at thethird or the sixth right, but
you know he I mean he actuallysaid to me I was moping around
the house soon after, like thedebacle had happened with my
(15:24):
last corporate job.
He's like why don't you juststop being such a baby, just
stop complaining about thingsand go do something and worry
about you?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
were those the exact words?
Was he like stop being a little.
It was a little bit moreexpletive I just didn't feel the
feel, the vibe that wasactually.
I feel like maybe he was alittle more explicit to you like
, listen, he was a freak, rightabout it, but, and I don't know,
maybe that was that's that'shim cutting ties with me being
an emotional person yeah, youlook off camera.
He's here now, just don't sayanything.
(15:54):
Right, I guess we'll make thecut, for I want you to give me
some advice, or give thelisteners advice.
What's's, what's the advice tothe listener?
Well, I mean, I so I depend I.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
You have a variety of listeners, I will.
I will tell you, I'll give youtwo pieces of advice, I think,
to the entrepreneurs.
I mean actually several piecesof advice, I think, if I look
back over things that I didn'tdo really well I I thought too
much of myself in the verybeginning and the reason I think
that's a significant comment iswhen you, when you think it's
about you, you start to executethat way, not realizing no one
(16:31):
cares, no one is seeing thisstuff.
So don't worry about the cringefactor, move faster.
The other thing I didn't reallyfully internalize, like
everybody can tell you thelessons about, like move fast,
break things and pivot, and whatI think I didn't recognize back
in the day, like I thought Ihad to get the website right.
Right, I'm on like the 15thversion of the website right now
(16:53):
and like, so it didn't matterwhat I had on the first one.
What mattered was did I have afirst one?
You've got to get to thosethings really fast.
So I think the advice that Iwould give, one of the pieces of
advice I would give to theentrepreneurs is move really,
really fast and lose the cringefactor that anybody cares about,
all of the things that aren'tgoing to look right for you.
The second piece of advice thatI would give to entrepreneurs is
(17:16):
test the ideas early.
I'm super afraid of being fullof shit, and so I was really
afraid to go put things out intothe world that I didn't know I
could deliver.
But if you don't put thosethings out there, you also miss
the signals on who's going toreally be interested in it and
who will buy it.
And I'll confess I think we'rebehind right now.
(17:36):
We don't have the market voice.
I still have an emptymicrophone to a certain extent
as I'm trying to argue the casefor how we make managers' lives
better, employees' lives better,because we help them make
connections.
On the manager's side, managerswant people that take initiative
and act with ownership andembrace accountability, and yet
(17:57):
they think about jobs in termsof tasks and activities.
And on the employee side,employees want jobs with meaning
, and if you aren't articulatingthe purpose of that job rather
than just the tasks associatedwith it, you're never going to
connect to it.
So there's a loss on both sides.
But test the ideas early,because that helps you build
(18:18):
things, helps you build thingsand because I recognize that
your audience is broad.
If you're in a company andyou're thinking about what are
you going to do with AI, youbetter start that journey now.
And my advice is you've got tofind really quick wins, both for
agentic systems meaning theones that you completely hand
things off to and co-pilotsystems, because it's going to
(18:41):
create the bandwidth within HRthat lets you do more strategic
things.
And you've got to don't buildthose systems, buy them.
Buy them quick, implement themquick and transition the HR
people into worrying about thenew manager experience with
those systems, because youcannot hold the tiger with the
bro and the change is going tocome.
The question is, who is goingto be ahead of that change and
(19:02):
who's going to be behind it inbusiness?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I love that.
Some quick fire for you.
Here we go.
Who gives you inspiration?
Speaker 2 (19:09):
God, on what subject?
I mean, I'm massively like okay, I'll tell you one, and this is
like I listen to this everytime I get down.
Barack Obama, there's a clip ofBarack Obama and this is not
intentionally a politicalstatement, but, barack, there's
a clip on YouTube that all youhave to do is search, fired up,
(19:30):
ready to go, and you'll findthis clip and it's Barack Obama
talking about, like thishorrible experience that he had
when he was campaigning thefirst time for president and how
bleak everything was.
And he goes to this rally andthere's like 15 people in the
room and he's wanting, of course, to talk to big crowds, like
any political candidate does,and there's 15 people and it's
(19:50):
been raining and there are nastyarticles in the news about him.
And he gets in there and hesays to the audience how are you
doing?
And there is a woman in theback who says fire it up, ready
to go.
And he takes inspiration fromthat.
And I take inspiration fromthat clip and I kid you, not
every time my day gets bad, Ipull that thing up and I listen
to it because it gets me back inthe headspace.
(20:12):
So I take inspiration from thatkind of thing.
I take inspiration from peoplelike John McCain too, who stands
up at a rally and this is whenhe was running against President
Obama at the time and a womanis spouting a bunch of sort of
popular misconceptions aboutPresident Obama and John McCain
(20:35):
puts his hand, really gently, onthis woman's shoulder and takes
the microphone from her andlooks her in the eye and says no
.
She looks back at him and thisis the moment that's really
important and she looks at himwith this like very sincere look
and she says no.
He says no and she sits downand he uses that as a leadership
moment, and the reason I'm somotivated by that is that
(20:57):
leadership, whether it'sself-leadership or group
leadership, is really alwaysabout choosing the right path,
more so than it is rallyingpeople to a certain point of
view.
And I think true leaders andthe ones that I'm inspired by
are the ones that have theintestinal fortitude to actually
do that, and he did.
In that moment.
It would have been very easyfor him to just go with the
group and rile them up, and itcertainly would have served his
(21:18):
political ends, but he didn't doit.
He did what he thought was theright thing and what I thought
was the right thing to happen.
Interesting dynamic we have inpolitics, but sometimes the best
leaders don't become theleaders where you see people
without titles that are the onesthat are truly exercising
(21:41):
leadership.
In fact, that phrase comes fromRon Heifetz at Harvard, who
wrote a book with his writingpartner, Marty Winske that I
think is amazing calledLeadership on the Line.
Their differentiation is thatleadership is a verb, not a noun
, and you can only see it whenit's being exercised.
And you can exercise it withouta title or influence or
(22:01):
portfolio of any kind.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That's fantastic.
What's kind of the bestbusiness advice you've received
you?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
don't have to be the smartest guy in the room,
because I have a real problemwith that because it's an ego
thing.
And when you're, when you learnnot to be the smartest person
in the room, you find yourselfopen to listening to other ideas
and I think in general becauseI mean, I'm not surprising when
I talk a lot, but the value oflistening is huge and I think
(22:30):
that's probably the best pieceI've gotten.
Who gave you that advice?
A guy that was upset with meand I don't think he meant it
that way.
It was like sometimes there'slike really good advice to be
had.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah Well, good for the guy to be so annoyed with
you to say something.
I will tell you my second dayhad gotten this new job.
It was my early thirties orsomething like that.
Literally the second day, myboss calls me from Houston.
I'm not even sure why I'mreporting to this person, cause
he's like in development, I'm inlike some other, you know, and
he goes you second day, youshould change your personality
(23:08):
If you wouldn't be successfulhere.
And I thought go, fuck yourself.
What a stupid thing to say.
I'm like you're a man manager.
Huh, oh boy, what job did Ijust take?
It was the longest I've stayedin a role, but, honestly, the
worst, worst place I've everworked.
I'm undisciplined.
That was their seven.
I had seven bosses in fouryears.
Oof, I look back, though.
Just a side note ADHD messes uppeople's.
(23:29):
This is why there's so manyentrepreneurs with ADHD.
They cannot be successful incorporate.
It's just.
It doesn't happen.
If you have any ambition, youhave going to last.
You're going to be burnt out,thrown out or chewed out.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I think the people that don't last in corporate are
the ones that truly want tochange the way things get done.
Until you get into a smallercontext, you don't have the
freedom to really questioneverything.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
That probably won't make up why I started showing
you what is the one must-readbook.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I can't have two.
Okay, you can have two Changeby Carrie Patterson and
Leadership on the Line by RonHeifetz and Marty Linsky.
What was the one thing you gotout of each of those?
The formula for guiding changeand the secret of one behavior
out of change by CarriePatterson, and the notion of the
(24:23):
difference between an adaptiveand a technical solution that
comes out of melinsky and ronheifetz's book.
You know, there's a different,like, getting people to adapt is
a different process than givingthem a change.
You know a technical sort ofsolution.
I'll give you a more concreteexample, and I and they use this
(24:43):
in the book.
Like, if you have congestiveheart failure, right, there's
one way that you get out of that, because seven out of eight
people that have congestiveheart failure are going to die.
And now I'm not a physician,right, not my staff, but that's,
that's a huge penalty to pay,right, but the real, the real
key to staying alive is you haveto change your diet, you have
(25:04):
to start exercising, you got toquit smoking, right, you got to
make all of these behavioraladaptations.
But yet, when people arediagnosed, what they want is can
you give me an operation?
Can I take a pill?
Can I just kind of get out ofthat pain?
We even see that in our business, too.
People are like can you justwrite a job description for me?
I'm like, yes, yes, but that'snot the value that you need.
The value that you need isclarity about the role, and in
(25:27):
the same way that seven out ofeight people are looking for
that technical solution, they'regoing to die right.
That's how hard behavioraladaptation is, and so the entire
book is about how do you mapand navigate, creating the
context for that behavioralchange, and I think it's a
really good model for a lot ofthings.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
That's awesome.
If you had to start over todaywhen in your timeline would you?
I would be richer and betterlooking.
Can't do that one.
That goes back to who fatheredyou, but no.
So if you were to start today,when would you do that in the
timeline and what would you dodifferently?
Speaker 2 (26:10):
that's dude, that's like like a very sexy choice,
but I don't think I would.
But here.
Here's why I like I don't thinkI would start over, because I
think I've done a lot of reallygood things.
But I think I'm more defined bymy failures than I am by my
successes.
I've certainly learned more.
I am where I am right nowbecause I failed, not just
(26:34):
because I succeeded, and I don'tthink they're equally sized for
me.
I think I've failed way morethan I've succeeded.
But it's those failures thatcreate the opportunity for me to
have an even bigger success.
And that's what I'm trying todo.
I'm trying to have a positiveimpact.
I'm trying to be a betterperson and a better leader than
(26:56):
I was before.
But the only way you see thosethings is in the context of
failures.
So if I went back and I changedthose things, I wouldn't be
here and in the context offailures.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
So if I went back and I changed those things, I
wouldn't be here, and I don'twant that.
Yeah, that's a life of thingshappen for me and didn't happen
to me.
That's abundance mindset, sothat's.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, I mean you know what and I so I'm Peter
Diamandis was a board member atan organization that I worked at
and he is an amazing person andjust super like.
He's another influence on mejust from being around him and
interacting with me and thosekinds of things.
But things happen, period, fullstop, and then choice takes
(27:32):
over about what we're going todo about it and and that's where
I think the real magic is thatyou're referring to in the
comment you just made, right?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
what are you going to do with it?
I was on Peter Diamandis'Abundance 360 website for
quoting because I was part ofthat group for a while and I was
on their quote and had peoplecalling me like well, did you
really think it was worth it?
I'm like it's actually one ofthe yeah, well put together
networking, so I really likewhat he's done.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And we can get it.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
He's trying to raise money, and that's what.
But well done can get it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
He's trying to raise money, and that's anyway, but
well done.
But, but he's not selling snakeoil, though.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Right there we are far better stuff is a little bit
out there, but he's just in thefuture of tech.
He brands it around the futureof everything.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Everything looks out there like if you're a futurist,
every there's going to be anaspect of everything you do that
looks way too out there.
But you know, guy like raykurzweil another guy that I got
to interact with at SingularityUniversity is, you know, it's
got about an 80% prediction rate, I think, over about 30 years,
on the future of tech and Ithink he's gotten told he's
crazy a lot of times but theykeep coming true.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Oh yeah, Well listen, he is correct, I think it was
32 or so of the joining ofbiology and human and it becomes
almost inseparable.
I think that's probably prettymathematically going to be close
Publicly I think it's alreadybeing done in other places, just
to be clear.
I mean, we'll get off topic andI'm already over.
It doesn't even matter, Allright.
Last question If there was aquestion I should have asked you
(28:52):
, but I did not.
What would that question be andhow would you answer it?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
You didn't ask me who lays in bed around me every day
.
I have 175 pound great Dane.
He is sitting right down thereand, yeah, he, he sits, uh or
lays on the bed and snoresthrough most of my meetings
because he's uh, he's just asleepy guy.
(29:19):
I guess I don't know.
He's 175 pounds.
When I first brought him homehe had a bunch of bad behaviors.
He went after a bunch of dogsand, like he's just very
reactive, broke my finger.
They got hooked inside of hiscollar.
But he is a great friend and agreat companion and he lays with
me every day and he's on thisjourney, whether he realizes it
or not.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Good rule of thumb your dog should not outweigh
your partner.
Just saying that.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, for sure.
And you know where he wants tosleep In bed.
Oh yeah, In bed.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That's why I don't have a dog.
Here's why I'm going to leaveyou with this.
Thank you, friends.
This is not going to also makethe cut for you.
This in my suburbianeighborhood I see a bunch of 55
to 65 year old men walking allthe dogs they've collected
through the years, like that'swhat I see all the time.
I'm like I am not fucking that,I am not going to be the guy
that picks up the poop andbecause because, oh, I'll do it
(30:13):
like.
No, you won't, you'll go tocollege, this damn thing's gonna
be here and I'm gonna be theone.
I'm gonna be that guy walk.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
There's eight of them no dude Walking the dogs that
they've collected over the years.
That's a little uncomfortable,honey.
I'm going to take the dog for adrag.
What do?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
you mean that they've collected over the years.
You're a dog with no legs.
That's a dog with no legs.
You take it for a drag.
It was my favorite I grew up onTruly Tasteless.
I would go poop extra.
Now it's just video games.
But the truth is you'd sit thereand you'd pretend to go take a
dookie and I'd be like, oh myGod, the one that made me laugh
(30:52):
so hard as a child I don't knowwhy was what's.
I'm going to have to make surethis is what is red and
screaming, but can't turncorners.
I don't know.
It's a baby with a spearthrough it.
I was like, who comes up withthis shit anyway?
Like Anthony Jesnick.
I don't know if you know whothis comedian is.
He has very dark.
I think he wrote for Fallon forlike a year and like they use
(31:13):
none of this stuff.
But if you listen to his humor,holy cow, it's so well, well
done.
Like it's like oh, it's so dark, I love it.
It's so good coming back, ai,ai.
Just ignore that segment.
Scott, thank you so much forcoming on today.
I appreciate it.
You've been awesome.
I love what you're buildinghere.
Thank you, man.
It's been such a pleasure to bewith you.
You know it's a shameless plugtime, though, before you go,
(31:33):
tell everyone how to get aholdof you and who should get ahold
of you.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, so two ways.
First of all, I love connectingon LinkedIn and we're not
consultants and I don't offerconsulting services, but I pay
it forward.
And so if you want to connectwith me on LinkedIn, if you want
advice or help around themindset that managers need to
adopt, around artificialintelligence, or around the idea
of designing jobs to connect toyour corporate strategy, get me
(31:56):
at linkedincom slash in, slashM, scott M.
And then if you want to findPropulsion AI on the web it's
HTTPS Get Propulsionai.
Awesome, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
I appreciate you too, man.
Thank you for having me on.
It's been fun.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Loved it.
If you're still listening,listen.
I have one call to action Hitthe follow button on Spotify and
Apple.
If you're a youtuber, hitsubscribe, get out there.
Go cut a tie to somethingholding you back.
Go unleash the best version ofyourself.
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