Michael Crotty - A Paramount Career Exploration

Ever wondered how the wilderness of business and the intricacies of life weave together to form a tapestry of experience worth sharing? Join me, Darren Mass, as I walk the path less traveled with Michael Crotty, the former COO and CFO of Paramount Global Premium Group, and unravel the stories that shaped his illustrious career in the media industry. Our conversation is a treasure map of insights, leading through his involvement with iconic brands like Showtime and BET, and uncovering the profound impact of mentorship, personal growth, and the often-overlooked humanity that breathes life into professional endeavors.

Our journey doesn't shy away from the rugged terrain of business strategy and leadership. We tackle the delicate balance of financial acumen with maintaining an organization's soul, diving into the essence of customer experience and the pivotal role of purpose-driven business. Our dialogue is a candid look at the dynamics of marketing mindfulness and the often tumultuous affair of marrying passion with profession. Michael and I share personal anecdotes and lessons from our respective MBA journeys at NYU, dissecting the strategies that have defined our paths in finance and beyond.

But it's not all business; our expedition ventures into the personal realms of fear, learning, parenting, and the quest for self-discovery. We discuss the confrontations with unexpected moments, the value of embracing risk, and the lifelines of support that guide us through the challenging landscapes of life and business. As we close on our hike, our conversation becomes a campfire story of transformation, a poignant reflection on finding one's way after corporate life, and the rediscovery of what it means to be truly human. So lace up your boots and let's step into the wild together for an enriching excursion that might just inspire your next great adventure.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, Michael Crotty, are you okay with being
recorded on a podcast?
Yes, there goes that liability.
This is I Took a Hike.
I'm your host, Darren Mass,founder of business therapy
group and Parktime WildernessPhilosopher.
Here we step out of theboardrooms and home offices and
into the great outdoors, wherethe hustle of entrepreneurship
meets the rustle of nature.

(00:20):
In this episode, we go off thebeaten path only to find our way
back with former COO and CFO ofParamount Global Premium Group,
Michael Crotty.
Our topics include using yourearly career to learn from
mentors, investing in yourself,creating a personal board and

(00:41):
the values of being kind,empathetic and clear.
We are blazing new trails andcreating inspiring new
beginnings.
When I Took a Hike with MichaelCrotty.
This episode is sponsored byDeFi Supplements.
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Do you need more energy for thetrail?

(01:03):
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(01:24):
So let's begin with who are you.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
So my last role was Chief Operating Officer and
Chief Financial Officer of Forddivisions that are within
Paramount Global.
Paramount Global is a hugemedia conglomerate.
A merger that occurred betweenCBS and Biocomp Spans about 25
billion in revenue, so it's abig, big media entity.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
And it has a that big 25 billion.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, yeah, and it has a lot of operating divisions
that have consolidated into itover many, many years.
So some of the assets brandsthat we're most familiar with
would be Paramount Plus,paramount Pictures, mtv, bet,
and so the organizations that Ioversaw was Showtime Networks,

(02:17):
which was a premium televisionservice that got distributed on
cable and in streaming.
The other one was BET Networks,black Entertainment Television,
older Cable Asset, who has nowbeen morphing into additional
revenue streams in digital andin new media, so they have a

(02:37):
streaming platform.
And then Paramount TelevisionStudios, which makes Jack Ryan
Reacher effectively televisionproperties that we sell both to
streamers and use for ourinternal streaming services.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Okay, so let me ask you a poor rising question and
if you're not comfortableanswering it, please don't.
But did you find when you werein charge of BET that you
weren't the right fit for therole?

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh no, so the opposite.
Oh, I love, I love BET and Ithought it was a gem of an asset
.
I mean, I love Showtime andParamount Television Studios as
well.
I got very, very intimatelyinvolved with the brands, but
BET was one that I wasparticularly inspired by, and
the reason is I grew up in NewYork urban environment.

(03:30):
I'm Ecuadorian descent but Iwas let's put it this way I was
much more urban than I was SouthAmerican and in the process of
doing that, I watched BETreligiously, really.
Yeah, a lot of rap.
I grew up in 90s hip hop and itwas amazing to live in New York
while that was happening, youknow.

(03:51):
And now, at the time I didn'trealize the significance of it,
but it was just fun, but I wasin there and I was seeing.
You know, my family came fromEcuador, lived in the projects
right next to where NAS wascoming out, nas Sardamas and you
know it was just insane thatall of these artists were coming

(04:14):
out of the housing projectsthat we all used to hang out in
and it was just fun.
And so, fast forward, 20 yearslater, that still stuck with me.
That experience stuck with me.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Was that part of your interviewing process?
No, no, that never came up.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Never came up.
No, bet was more about.
That actually was justserendipitous in that, as they
were consolidating divisionsthat had like approaches to
their business models, bet andShowtime had similarities
because BET was launching astreaming service and Showtime
had been about five years inthat, and so, yeah, we were able

(04:53):
to kind of riff through ideasand really, really support each
other and there was even sharingof content between the two
brands because it was importantand it was something that
television consumers, streamingconsumers still want, right,
they want this richrepresentation of content and

(05:13):
not necessarily stereotypical innature, and so Showtime BET
were able to kind of bring thathome.
We had a show called the Shy,which was a representation of
basically the South Side ofChicago, but in this beautiful
family-centric way that alsotalked about its challenges but
also its uplifting communitynature.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, that won several awards.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, and it was such a strong performer for Showtime
, and so what I loved about thatexperience is that it's a brand
that has stood the test of timeand it has enormous market
power because it still has thisaggregated television audience
and it's generating asignificant amount of revenue,

(05:59):
and so it can really be a bigcultural influence as all this
disruption is occurring, becausewith disruption comes
opportunity, and I dofundamentally believe there's a
great opportunity in increasingthe amount of black content, or
black inspired content, acrossmultiple streaming platforms,

(06:22):
and we're seeing success instars.
We saw success at Showtime,obviously at BET+, so it was
really really great.
But back to purpose, what Iloved about that experience was
knowing that I had a very smallpart in helping a larger
community and that I was usingwhat I had been trained to do to

(06:44):
propel that brand and to propelthat purpose.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And all of that was under your own umbrella, that
you managed essentially andoversaw it.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Don't know how many divisions they have, but they
break up the divisions,optimizing revenue opportunities
, cost cutting opportunities,and so the reason why those
groupings made sense at the time, showtime was a subscription
service that was mobilizingtowards streaming, bt,

(07:15):
traditional cable that was alsomobilizing towards streaming.
Both had studios also wherethey made original content, and
then Paramount TelevisionStudios is a studio.
So it made sense to bring thatover some common leadership to
figure out how we couldsynthesize and merge for
efficiency.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
So before I ask you my next question, I'll ask you
this one.
It's pretty challenging hikingand talking at the same time,
huh, oh yeah, the premise of theshow.
We are on the.
What is this?
The Otter Hole Trail.
It is up in Harriman State Park.
It is a beautiful background,beautiful scenery, especially
with the foliage this year.

(07:55):
So what is it like becauseyou've confused me a little bit,
because this is a veryconfusing title to have Chief
Operating Officer and ChiefFinancial Officer?
Those two usually don't go handin hand, so answer that while
you cross these rocks.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well, you know I think both roles are.
You know, have had these broadspectrums of how you can be
influential and add value.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
But totally different skill sets, though.
One is really responsible forexecution of the board's plan
and the CEO's plan the missionleading, managing and holding
people accountable, and theother is responsible for the
financial well-being andoversight of an organization.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, and you know you can't necessarily take both
on at the same time early inyour career, because you want to
develop a good base andgrounding of either of those two
skill sets more operationallycentric or more financially
centric and so I've graduatedover time to that.

(09:01):
But I was showing interest inthose kinds of things early on.
So what I mean by that is thefirst couple of years was really
about solid financial training,and what I did there is I
worked for Arthur Anderson,which is still around, by the
way.
Well, I changed names.

(09:22):
So Anderson Consulting has someof the same people that we're
involved with.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
It's your traditional .
You know.
Let's have a scandal and changethe name, but change it back
because we're proud of the nameand then confuse everyone.
Here we are again.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
A wild adventure.
That was, and I was three yearsinto my career at Arthur
Anderson when the crisisoccurred.
Did you have any?

Speaker 1 (09:45):
involvement?
No, thankfully not.
And that crisis beingreferenced as Enron for those
who aren't in the know whichhappened to be, you know, in the
financial classes I took one ofthe case studies was on Enron
and it happened to be one of themost complex orchestrated fraud

(10:07):
schemes that has ever existedin finance.
It took almost 10 years tounravel it and figure it out by
the world's leading financialand economic scholars.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, it was crazy and it was, I think, the first
of its kind because of how itpermeated across multiple
industries.
You know, it affected,obviously, the industry I was in
, which was in the assuranceindustry, but the tentacles that
it had on energy, the tentaclethat it had on these huge
pension assets, and so and itwas complicated because at the

(10:43):
time I was very, very junior andit was the actions of,
effectively, one office Ibelieve it was out in Texas,
yeah which was local to Enron,which was, yeah, and it was
effectively the actions of asmall office not maybe not a
small office, but a specificoffice which then affected a

(11:05):
global organization thatultimately lost its license to
practice assurance and thereforewent bankrupt.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
And it's the lack of oversight I think that was part
of.
I don't I might bemisunderstanding, but I don't
think Arthur Anderson createdthis scheme.
I think they just ignored andlooked beyond certain of the
black and white requirements ofa maker checker in that industry
.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, and it's what gave birth to Sarbanes Oxley,
it's what gave birth to so manyregulations that basically said
how could you be objective inproviding security for an
organization if, at the sametime, you're you're a public
company that needs to growrevenue and is selling

(11:54):
additional services and so?

Speaker 1 (11:57):
the.
The oversight that's providedby an assurance company needs to
actually be held to aresponsible, regulated body,
which is where socks came from.
But you know, based on opinion,do you think socks is catching
them all?

Speaker 2 (12:15):
No, I don't think so.
I mean learning so many of theregulations at the time,
especially when they all camedown, is what it did do?
Is it put a tremendous amountof concentration on ethical
approaches to financialmanagement meetings that forced
conversations about?
You know, looking at people eyeto eye and just hearing them

(12:40):
say do you feel comfortable withhow things are being
represented?
And there was a psychologicalvalue that we put in for an
example at showtime of quarterly, asking those questions and
making that eye contact, hearingthose voices, because most

(13:02):
people want to do the rightthing.
They just get caught in asystem that maybe they don't
think they can speak up in.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Well, we, especially in big corporate America.
I experienced this myself.
I was a president in a Fortune500 company and, even though I
knew the right thing to do, Iwould raise my hand and I was
told put your hand down.
Yeah, and that's when I took myleave, right, coming from a
small business operating worldwhere I can affect change right,

(13:28):
my words do have weight into abig world where, all of a sudden
, my weight means nothing,despite title yeah, that's a
wake up call.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
It is, it is, and so you do create these oversight
procedures, which are helpful.
So, for example me, I was a CFOof a few different entities and
I knew that on a quarterlybasis, the people that directly
reported to me were going to beasked in a private room or in a

(13:58):
private Zoom later on, postCOVID, around how I make them
feel in their, in theperformance of their job, and
whether there's anything thatthey need they feel they need to
kind of bring up.
And you have objective lawyerswho then will filter that
information and if they feellike it's necessary to go a

(14:20):
little further in questioning,then they can't.
And just knowing that has value, because it really makes it to
the point where there isabsolutely no point in playing
any games, because it will allcome back at some point in time
and it all has.
We've seen from these crises,you know.

(14:41):
We've seen from the housingsituation.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Hey listener, thanks for hiking along with us.
Discover more episodes athightokahikecom, or to recommend
an adventurous guest, apply tobe a sponsor or to simply drop
us a line.
Let's see, there's a trail mark.
All right, so yeah, we can goaround this way.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
This is miss marked or that's the adventure part of
this.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
All right, we'll just go up and around.
Yeah, use your job as on thejob, training for the career
that you want.
So you were able to get infront of these high profile
executives at such a young age,ask the questions that you
wanted, knowing that they can'tjust kick you out or fire you
yes, and that gave you theexperience you needed to really
rise above.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, and then you get to you know, and then you
get to use your own internalmentors.
In this case it was themanagers on the job to discuss
what you learned.
So you got it from both sides.
You got it from somebody whohas primary access to the
information, but then you getalmost like a counselor with you
who works with you to helpdiffuse the information, filter

(15:56):
it, try to better understand it,and that practice it can be
really fun because if you lookback and you take inventory on
all the things you didn't know amonth ago and now you do, it
adds up.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
See the next marker.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Don't oh marker here, here, that's straight so that
one told us to go this way.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
This is a pretty poorly marked trail, guys, and
this is telling us to go left,right.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, so I'm guessing it's through there.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yep All right until we find it little, a Little path
here.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
I think the leaves are making it a little.
The leaves are killing, butthat's the joy of hiking much
like your career.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
We are going to navigate a Windy path at times.
So the on-the-job training,what was almost a valuable thing
that you took with you, becauseeventually you had to leave
Anderson, yep, all right, wecould talk about that in a
second.
What was the most valuablelesson that you gained from one
of your clients where you wouldconsider them a mentor?

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Well, what I wow, let's see there's so much there.
I mean the risk of sounding alittle corny If you're in the
business of businesses,understanding revenue and
expense, really understanding itis so critical, but it's more
than understanding it from fromthe perspective.

(17:24):
I remember this one partner atArthur innocent who was really,
really Obsessed over the conceptand this was when it wasn't so
popular at the time concept ofunit economics, which was and
this is pre private equity,right pre VC Blowing up in the

(17:44):
way that it did.
Now this is kind of par for thecourse, but it's understanding.
How do you really generate thatdollar of revenue?
Is it sustainable?
How much does it cost you toreally generate that dollar of
revenue?
And it's not a perfect sciencebecause obviously you need to be
thinking about brand and youneed to be thinking about
Clients and partners in a bigway.

(18:06):
It's not all about individualtransactions.
That's sometimes where we getlost.
Maybe we can go go to thatlater.
We see that we forget the valueof an organization because we
reduce it to these like well,little bits and pieces.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
So, yes, we will definitely bookmark this,
because that is a challenge thatmany business owners startup
business owners Especially chaseis the single dollar, the
transactive dollar, and not thatrecurring revenue.
And Sometimes I hear, well, wedon't have a business that
generates recurring revenue, butyou do.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
You can turn a client into a recurring client exactly
you can start to think ofannuities, you can start
thinking about additionalservices that you didn't realize
you weren't performing.
And it's very difficult whenyou speak to a lot of and we'll
go into why I went intooperations but when you speak to
people who are literally solelytrained to do that ie Marketers
, as an example, even researchprofessionals, their whole thing

(18:59):
is I don't really necessarilyUnderstand the unit economics.
All I understand is that thisclient has complained about
these three things.
Wouldn't it be cool if we couldsolve that problem for them?
Yeah, and Now if you're like,oh, I generate a hundred dollars
out of that client, well,someone on a spreadsheet might
say I got a great way, let'sgenerate 110 and, and, and, and,

(19:21):
and, you know, charge them tendollars for this service.
So you can do it in uniteconomics, but it loses its soul
.
It loses its, its its Realpurpose, which is no, let's
solve what the problem is forthem.
Then we can figure out how tocreate a rate card or how to
assess how much value that is ona per unit basis.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, you hit a very strong word and one of the you
know, one of the few words thatdefine this show is Is purpose.
Purpose, success, balance.
Those are the three words thatsummarize this show.
Right, when you are focusingonly on, as you are saying, unit
economics, there is no soul toa unit, there is no purpose

(20:02):
behind a unit.
Right, it's.
It's very myopic and oftenbusinesses fail to understand
what is that balance, thatpurpose and that, that, that
success metrics behind thoseunits.
Right, and I think this isreally important concept for all
businesses, especially big ones, to learn is you're not making

(20:23):
a sale, you're making arelationship.
And if we're only looking atunit economics, it's too myopic
to black and white.
So you definitely haveexperience on the finance unit
side, but then pivoting tooperations, this is why even I
was confused how are you inoperations and in finance at the
same time?
Because operations requires youto have more soul it does, it

(20:48):
does and and.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, it helps you think of the customer at least
it let.
It lends itself to more lucidthinking, but you still bring
your spreadsheets with you rightin your brain, still bring all
the financial acumen, but youthink about things that becomes
secondary.
The first part of it is youstart to think about the
customer.
The customers experience yourbrand, what it stands for, why

(21:16):
people will pick yours overanother.
And Is that true?
You can almost feel the soul ofan organization in its
employees so you can Check inwith what customers experiences
are.
But what I have found is peoplethat have positive customer
experiences.
They're using the same languagethat your intern organization

(21:37):
is using.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
They better be.
Yeah, well, that's a balancedorganization.
Yeah, otherwise.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Maybe you got lucky, maybe people are like oh my god,
I loved, I loved our experience, but you create your own luck
yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
Put ourselves in lucky situations yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Or you're an initial or you take the over, I go the
under, you know, or you're in anindustry that's just like you
know.
You found a quick solve thatnobody, you know, maybe you're a
new entrance or a monopoly inan industry where you have
solved something very quicklyfor someone, but as soon as new
entrants come in, the purpose iswhat has to drive the growth of

(22:14):
the company.
So why did I go into operations?
Well, like I went and got myMBA at NYU and I deliberately
took and this was a pivot here.
So at NYU there were kind ofthese three big roads.
Road number one go heavy intothe corporate finance game.

(22:35):
They try to pare down who cancut it there very quickly based
on the difficulty of the classes.
And if you survive there, theidea is you try to break into
private equity at the time,investment banking, hedge funds
et cetera.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yep, that requires you to have a really cool vest.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah, patagonia properly.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Like weight Patagonia vest over your sweater.
Yes, now sneakers and you knowa lot of Not a stereotype, when
it's true.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh my God, it's so interesting, I'll tell you about
that the players should be.
When we were raising money, oneof our existing investors said
you might want to buy a vest.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
You're good, but you're wearing a suit and we
bros-.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
We're a vest.
Yes, our VC bros, we're a vest.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
We're so much more chill it says business, but
casual and ready to play.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, exactly, can play golf, or I can like raise
capital, whatever you want me todo today, and these sleeves
will not hold me back.
So went for my MBA and Ideliberately took a bunch of
courses in well, met mywonderful wife, probably the
most successful thing I've everdone in my life.
Here it is.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
So please don't say she's your muse.
I've heard that three times onthe show.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
No, muse is muse is a little mystical for me.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
You know what it is.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
We'll go back on muse when we want to get to the
spiritual part of our journey,cause muse feels ephemeral and
organic and flighty Right in thesense that, whereas I don't
know, just sustained love, she'syour person.
Yeah, it's awesome, right.

(24:22):
And so we got to meet her andwe actually took a few courses
together, but we took a bunch, abunch of marketing courses in
conjunction with leadershipcourses, and the idea there was
learn more about the customer,learn what it is that customers
want, how to speak to them in anauthentic way.

(24:44):
And then how do you influencechange in organizations?
Because they're so political innature.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
That's right and I knew what I was saying.
My organization isn't political, Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Every organization has politics, yeah it's just a
different version of it.
When I've been at corporate andI've been at startups, politics
are there.
They just present differentlyyeah, at the startup level, the
politics presented as passion.
Who's the?

Speaker 1 (25:17):
most passionate, and passion is a politics.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, who's the most willing to make this more
important than anything else intheir life Trail?

Speaker 1 (25:28):
reset hold on Somewhere over there.
Let's go back backtrack alittle.
So this is very synonymous forbusiness.
We went off the trail a little.
We have to backtrack.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Little backtrack.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
yeah, Sometimes, as Paula Abdul says, two steps
forward, one step back.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Well, if you take inventory of what you did right
On the way back I do this withmy son I said, well, hold on,
let's.
Why did we lose our way?
Oh, we stopped paying attention.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
I think it's less us stop paying attention more that
this trail is very not markedclearly I was bringing us to
mindfulness, mindfulness is good.
I think it's back over here towork.
Let's go back this way.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Oh, there's the right there, the marker right in
front of us there.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Well, that's going towards the back.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
And that's a green here, so I guess it's back up
here.
There it is.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
See that faint little slot.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
They're picking markers that camouflage well
with the environment.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, that is a very well camouflaged marker.
All right, here we go.
All right, yeah, All right backon the trail, All right back to
what we were talking about.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
So I went and it took a bunch of marketing courses
and not to belabor the point.
The idea was all right, I havea really good understanding and
there was a lot still that I hadto learn, but I had a really
good understanding of howeconomics worked.
So that was kind of the way Isaw it is.
That was a piece of the puzzlethat I've gotten far enough on.

(27:10):
What's the next piece of thepuzzle Now?
At some point in here I toldmyself I think I aspire to be a
leader of an organization, maybea CEO, and I kind of reversed
engineered what am I gonna need?
to make that, make that, totake that new path.

(27:32):
And what kept yelling at me wasvoice of the customer, the
voice of the customer, and thenbeing able to translate that
effectively to the people thatare doing the work.
And so I went and for the pastI don't know 15 years obsessing
over the idea of marketingspeaking the same language as

(27:57):
finance and then coming to avocabulary that the organization
knows backwards and forward, soyou're bridging marketing and
finance together and thus youhave in your trail, in your path
, a much better and moreunderstood product.
Yes, because you have magicianswho are making programs but

(28:22):
they're not understanding whytheir programs in our world of
media are not getting renewed.
So you have to be able toarticulate to them return on
investment thought patterns.
Why do people keep coming backfor a show as an example?
And it's no surprise.
Most creatives, most engineers,most product specialists are

(28:47):
not thinking in those termsbecause they've built up their
career being brilliant and beinga magician at creating a
product experience.
So there was always this grayarea, this white space that I
always saw available, which wasthere was a professor, a
professor car over at NYU, whoused to say this we don't need
more marketers, we need financepeople who understand marketing

(29:11):
Well was he in marketing orfinance.
He was in marketing,international marketing.
We took him to white.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Do you think for a second he was making a play to
get financing for marketing,since that seems to be a
universal shortage.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Okay, but here's the reason.
There's nothing wrong withmarketing wanting financing.
Because well?

Speaker 1 (29:28):
no, it's in its best.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
You can't spend on marketing devils.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
So this is also a recurring theme too that
marketers, people in marketing,need to fight to get funding for
what they need to do.
And the reality is is marketingis a function of revenue.
There's a reason why Coca-Colaspends billions on marketing.
Everyone on the planet knowsCoca-Cola.
They do, but do they knowCoca-Cola or remember Coca-Cola

(29:55):
in that moment of time when theyare thirsty?
No, and that's why marketing isa function of revenue,
absolutely absolutely, and weare influenced by it.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
We are influenced by the images and the people that
are selling it.
We are now influenced by howmuch of it is environmentally
safe, how much of it stands forsomething in addition to the
product that we think we'rebuying.
Oh for sure.
So there's a whole, I wouldn'tsay, influence.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
I think at this point we are brainwashed into it.
Yeah, all right, it is thetruest form of brainwashing.
The products that you like andyou buy have been delivered to
you by fantastic marketing,coding and programs.
They deliver to you what youdidn't know that you needed
until you saw that targeted ad.
Yeah, how many things have youbought from Amazon?

(30:40):
And we're all falling into thisbucket.
You bought something on Amazon.
You never even thought youneeded a egg slicer.
Yeah, that egg slicer justhappened to show up as
recommended for you and you said, huh, $7 for an egg slicer.
I love slicing eggs.
And then you bought it.
Wouldn't it make my life so?

Speaker 2 (30:59):
much easier for you to get this in my life, yep.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
I'm laughing because I'm guilty of this all the time.
I have an obsession with tools,actual tools.
I have a tool drawer.
You would have thought that Iwas a car mechanic.
Yes, I do work on my Jeep, butI don't need every tool.
I bought them because Amazontold me I needed the Vera tool

(31:23):
set with the 38 attachmentpieces.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
And you're guilty, because it's probably, at least
in my case it's preying on thisoh, if I have a full set of
tools, my image is better or I'mmanlier, or maybe it's
relieving some bizarreunderlying anxiety that what if

(31:49):
my house flows over to Hurricane?
I'm going to fix it myself.
Well, wouldn't my tool set beburied under the house?

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Are you saying that I'm one of those anxious people?
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
I have purchased so many 2 o'clock in the morning
fitness programs.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Do they work?

Speaker 2 (32:06):
No, because you have to do the fitness program.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
You don't have the body biometric.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yes, so the most effective thing I've ever done
was P9E.
I actually did it for 90 days,but is that still around?
Still is I mean?
Yeah, I don't know that it'sactually marketed.
It took over 15 years ago.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
So back to the tools.
Here's the reason why and thisis very apropos for business too
when we have more space than wecan fill, we want to fill it up
.
Human beings do not like whitespace.
We don't like empty.
The reason why being in anempty room feels weird.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
We need furniture, yes.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Right, and when you're looking for office space
or that next office space, ifyou're going from 5,000 square
feet to 15,000, you're going towant to fill it Furniture and
then people, and sometimeshaving too much space is not a
good thing.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
No, because you want to right size.
I think a lot of times when youlook at blank space.
For me personally, it's thiswhat we're all seeking is some
form of safety, I think someform of security.
And then, when you have amoment to pause and you see an

(33:19):
empty room, you're like how do Imake this more secure?
Oh, you know what?
I don't have locks.
Oh you know what?
I don't have an extra waterfilter.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
You know you start for 15 jars of peanut butter If
you're a rapper?

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah you start thinking about.
Or, oh, you know, if I had apool, it would bring more people
to me and then that would giveme social safety.
So having a pool.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
I can tell you it is very expensive to have a pool.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
It's a lot easier to go to a public pool a town pool,
but it's better to go to apublic pool and run into people.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
If you build it they will come, but then you're the
life of the party always.
And it's like so let's takeanother reset to find the trail
again.
We're in the general vicinity,so right there, right there,
this is a tough drill guys.
Huh, it's a shirt.
Yeah, a sweater was a badchoice.
Ha, ha, ha ha.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
But yeah, so back on operations.
What happened there?
So you hit the nail on the head.
It was a labor-intensiveattempt to distill the mystery
of three components Marketinglanguage how to how to invest to
grow revenues.

(34:41):
Economic language which is well, you can't invest more than you
make, right?
There's always a relationshipbetween revenue and expense,
even though a lot of peoplethink expense is the boogeyman.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
And well no, they think debt is the boogeyman,
falsely labeling debt as an uglyword.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, which is if you look at debt as just an
interest expense that is fuelingsomething that is more short,
then you should have no problemwith that.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Debt can absolutely be applied to your advantage,
and it is not a bad thing, not abad thing at all.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
And then the third was using a vernacular that
could influence people, inspirepeople and have them feel
passionate about the work thatthey do, because we spend so
much time in it, in the work andwith the people that we do it
with.
And I do believe that it cannotfulfill all things, but it can

(35:39):
fulfill a lot.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
So what is your most inspirational thought?

Speaker 2 (35:46):
There's two that come back over time.
One of them is more of a clicheStill don't know.
I have it in my room, my sonhas taken it for a little while
and it says fear will kill moredreams than failure ever will.
I fully support that.
There are often, every day,these intuitions, these

(36:10):
inspirations, these ah momentsthat we all feel, usually when
we're not even expecting it, andthen, at least in the case of
me, there's an automatic turnthat switch off and go do the
thing you need to go do, go sendthose emails, go back to the
administrative aspect of thingsand for me, if you kind of take

(36:34):
a pause, pivot into that for asecond and say, wait, is this a
good idea or not, you might findthat it's actually a great idea
, and I've had a few in myexperience where I put to the
side what I thought I wassupposed to do and did this
instead, and then it worked out.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
But the fear is what crippled you to not take the
risk and the fear can be very,very slight.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
It can be as simple as I don't have time for that.
It's because it's disguised inthese little mini.
Well, why don't you have time?
Oh, because if I show up late,my wife's going to be upset with
me.
Oh wait, ok.
Well, can we?
So that's what's stopping yourbrilliant inspiration at the
moment.
So that's one that kind ofsticks with me a lot, because I

(37:18):
see it as something thateverybody, or most people, are
challenged by.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
I think we're all challenged by fear.
Yeah, the reason why one of ourguests the other day refuses to
ride a bike.
Yeah, she fell off a few toomany times.
Yep, fear, fear, which meansshe's going to miss out on a
whole world of bike riding.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yes, Well, so funny that you bring it to the bike
riding.
So the other thought that comesto mind all the time,
especially when I'm feelingdisoriented as to where I'm
putting my efforts am I learning?
If I can truly feel the answerto that is yes, then it was
worthwhile.
Because for me, that's the funaspect of life is to go back and

(38:05):
take inventory of all thethings you've learned.
And if you could say, yeah, Iinvested a bunch of time on that
, but I didn't know that beforeand now I do, that's pretty cool
.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
That gets me through the day.
So that, to me, is extremelyimportant and I can give you an
exact scenario where I haverepeated that mentality and it
was the first time I said it outloud.
We were selling our businessand if you've ever been through
an acquisition or any M&A, it isa lot of work, it is not easy

(38:35):
and no matter how prepared youare, unless you've done it
multiple times, it gets verydaunting.
We were probably a good 100plus hours deep into this way,
up this way.
Let the record show that thistrail is like hunting for a golf
ball, so not well marked.

(38:57):
Who picked this trail anyway?

Speaker 2 (39:00):
It's beautiful, it is , but the leaves have destroyed
any sense of damped trailmarkings.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
All right, so back to what I was saying, what I
turned to my partners, becausethere was that last minute it
might not go through.
That happens with every dealand that is strictly caused by
the buyer.
For unless you have experience,there's purpose, it's strategy.
Create last minute panic Yep,that's how you can negotiate a

(39:32):
better buy rate.
Yep, we could have a wholeepisode on buyer strategies.
That would be aha moment forsmall business sellers.
But when I turned to mypartners I said listen, if this
doesn't go through, we spent alot of time.
But here's the thing we got acrash course education in M&A

(39:52):
from both sides.
We are closer together.
We worked so well together forthese past few months and we now
know all about our business,more detail than we have ever
cared to know.
But if we don't go through withthis, we will now be able to
support a very healthy business,knowing every aspect of margins

(40:14):
, multiples, unit economics, andwe know where we can cut the
fat or grow the revenue based onan opportunity.
It's that time spent.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
That was our educator 1,000%, and you probably feel
this in your bones.
If the sale had not gonethrough, you would have been
able to successfully pivot towhatever you needed to do next.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
I would have had no choice, neither with my partners
.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
But I will tell you that would have been a you would
have had no choice, but youactually would have had now the
learning, the teachings, yes,the teaching to do it, but it
would have been a very hardemotional gut punch to overcome,
because when you are running asmall business, especially for
multiple years, that businessbecomes you.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
You have to train your brain into thinking that
you're going to let it go.
You're going to change right,you disassociate your person and
personality from your businessin order to break up with this
relationship.
So to come back to that,because all of a sudden you were
dumped or denied, it's a veryhard challenge.

(41:23):
So while I was saying the wordsout loud that this will be to
our benefit, I don't know if Ibelieved them at the time,
because it would have hurt.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
And it's hard to believe it, the only way that
you kind of can.
I had a coach who's fantastic,peter Bregman, if anybody needs
one, but he's.
What he told me was know yourpurpose, but now detach from the
outcome.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Can I improve that?
Value your purpose.
Yeah, value your purposeBecause everyone has a purpose,
and I know there are plenty ofpeople that sit behind a desk
right.
They work for guys like me oryou inspirational figures but
they don't understand their ownpurpose, their own place in the
machine, and that's where astrong leader has to help them

(42:17):
along.
Charismatic, great leaders willremind their people that they
are valuable and they havepurpose.
Because every job gets mundane.
I'm sure you, in the operationsworld or the finance world, you
had plenty of mundane moments,oh yeah.
So what did you do to stave offthe I'll make up a word here
the mundanati Sounds like yougot a case of the mundanatis,

(42:43):
mundanis.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
What would be the plural the mundane, mundanis.
That's probably something thatneeds to be coined there, you go
.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
That's a tongue twister, but what did you do to
stave off the monotony?

Speaker 2 (42:53):
of the job.
So I kept going back to how Ifelt after learning something,
and it's the only thing you cankind of like control.
A lot of times the workloadcomes at you, you have pressures
and you don't understand howyou're gonna like dedicate more
time and still get it all done.
So you get very, verydisoriented and then you end the

(43:17):
day and you feel like you justhad empty calories because you
just spent 10 hours of highstress, mundanati and let's
trademark that Get on thisbandwagon and then you think of
the, then you start projectingthat oh my God, I mean, this is
only Monday.
And then you start getting intothis tailspin of oh my God, I

(43:37):
have five days of this at least.
And then you start hoping forthe weekend, and it's a very
common practice.
So you live for your weekends,Can.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I venture to say, if you are doing anything in life,
especially work related, whereyou're saying, oh my God, it's
only Monday, then maybe weshould readjust our life.
Yes, right, look at theperspective of life, because
we're wasting time.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
We are wasting time, and what we're wasting also is
the opportunity.
For me, it was always theopportunity to learn.
Now I think my learning is notinnocent.
It's not entirely innocent.
What I mean by that is I, likemost human beings, are always,
always trying to find security,or it's trying to find safety,
and my version of that gottranslated into do.

(44:24):
I know stuff that can behelpful to others, and so my
obsession with learning is notentirely Zen either.
It's probably also heavilyfueled by the more I know, the
more valuable I can be, andthat's gonna provide safety,

(44:46):
that's right.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
And so what about?
Safety brings you the mostcaution, especially now, today,
in today's environment.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Well, that's the problem is that safety is many
ways like an illusion, right,it's not.
You don't, you're notguaranteed safety and you can
try your best to to prepare foras much as you can, but there's
a healthy amount of awarenessthat you can't protect yourself
from anything and everything.

(45:16):
So then you go back to like akind of a more balanced approach
, which is what makes me feelgood.
Okay, and safety is sure itmakes us feel good, but it's not
always assured.
You know, you don't know ifyou're gonna get sick.
You don't know if you're.
You know, I've had some healthscares, you don't know.
But what you do know is whatmakes me feel good, and for me

(45:41):
it felt, and I used to tell thisto my staff all the time.
Take half an hour, 45 minutestoday, and read something or
learn something that makes youfeel like you actually changed
your mind, changed your brain.
Maybe it's something tactical,like playing a piano, or maybe

(46:01):
it's a research report that youfind interesting.
Okay, and then the day is notjust mundane, then you haven't
wasted the day away.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Exactly, fill it with at least purpose again, in fact
a universal purpose.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yes and only you know why that thing is valuable to
you, to your point, the valuevalue, your purpose.
It could be a research reportabout what's going on in the
world.
It could be entirely aboutcurrent conflict.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
Is this something that you you coach in your kids,
or are you like me, where yourkids just don't want to listen
to?

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well with my kids.
I don't coach it yet becausethey have such an abundance of
varied experience right now.
How old is it?
13, 11 and 8.
Yeah, and you're in the thickof it.
If anything, they're probablyin the over scheduled camp of
like.
There's so many varied thingsthat are going on Daughter's in

(46:56):
lacrosse and volleyball, but sheseems to really like music.
My other son is in wrestling,but really like Spanish and math
, you know.
So there, when you're in school, actually a lot of times you
don't have to think aboutlearning, because that is the
point.
But when you become an adult itcan be easy to forget.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
So this is a first, for I took a hike.
I took a hike and we get lostmultiple times in the episode.
This is telling us straight,like symbolic there, it is Okay
yeah.
See, it's right in front of you.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
And it is on a big tree.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
This is much like the career path of many.
Okay, so let's go back, talk tome about something that has
scared you the most.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Man.
I mean, there's a few thingsI'm scared of, man.
I think one of the ones thatseems to be big is have I or am
I doing what I'm supposed to bedoing here, you know, kind of
that existential question.
And not that it's irrational toask that Obviously we're not

(48:12):
the first and won't be the lastto ask it but it is a little
irrational for it to create sucha big generalized anxiety.
Yeah, because you're putting somuch pressure when, to your
point, maybe the point is tojust have all these experiences

(48:32):
Of success and failure.
Right, you have to experiencefailure in order to appreciate
success.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
And I think you know I do not have kids in the
millennial world, right, and Ijust remember being a Gen Xer
and thinking the samestereotypes of millennials at
the time that everybody had aparticipation trophy and
everyone's a winner, and thenthose stereotypes of, well, if
you didn't know how to win andyou didn't know how to lose,
then you wouldn't appreciate it,right.

(49:02):
So those came to mind.
Obviously we don't really havethat separation anymore because
life advances.
But you know, I'm certainly notraising my kids that way.
I want my kids to know whatit's like to lose or fail in
order to push harder.
And I'm hopeful that otherparents raise their children in
that same way, in that samerespect.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
I think so, yeah, because I think the side effect
is possibly, if you haven'tfailed, chances are you didn't
really do the thing you neededto do Right.
You played potentially a verysafe route but only you can
personally know that Right.
There could be a million peoplethat challenge that and say
absolutely not.
I've only succeeded and I lovemy life and I love every

(49:44):
decision I've made.
And you know what I call you aliar.
When I was in the VC world atthe startup, I remember our
investors would come in and partof trying to instill
organizational morale, strongmorale, camaraderie.
One of the things that theykept showing us which was

(50:06):
interesting coming frominvestors, but I really
appreciate it was none of thesesuccessful startups did it in a
hockey stick.
If you actually look at whatwe're doing, what do you mean
they didn't do?

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Because that's your best growth model.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah, but if you actually, then if you scan in,
they would look at what actuallyhappened in specific points in
time.
So if you look at this from athousand feet away, it looks
like the company only went thisway.
Okay.
When you actually look at it ona monthly or quarterly basis,

(50:42):
it looks like this right thehockey stick is a 10,000 foot
view of growth.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
And for those that don't know, picture a hockey
stick right, the butt endofficial term of the end of a
hockey stick on the groundslanted up right.
You want to go a steep inclineand then you want a plateau a
little bit.
Why?
Because the plateau helps youreset, retool, create new
processes, really evaluate ifyour current process is working.

(51:08):
It allows you to catch up.
If you have nothing butstraight, diagonal growth,
you're not going to get a chanceto retool and then you can
suffocate by success.
But to your point, when youlook granularly, you do have the
peak, the valleys, the peak,the valley along that diagonal
incline, and many of those arethe moments where organizations

(51:30):
come together, talk through whatthey've learned, what you know.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
There's always a risk element to where do we go after
this?
That's right.
And so it's a muscle that,unless you're in it, you don't
understand it and it getsoverlooked.
That's something that'snecessary, that's right.
So for a lot of first timeentrepreneurs, what might feel
like a bad month might feel tothem like oh my God, my
company's falling apart.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
That's right, and that panic, that fear is so
detrimental, and that's why youneed to have a solid support
staff of people that are alignedwith you in a non-me me me
culture.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Yeah, it could just mean no, you lost the customer.
It's not when you're going tolose customers Catastrophizing
that you're losing your business.
That's not real.
Saying that you lost the lastthree pitches Okay, what can we?

Speaker 1 (52:19):
change.
It's okay, I'll make a PaulAbdul reference again, because
that was a.
I used to listen to that lyricover and over again in my head.
Every time we would win, youknow, a few customers, we would
lose an opportunity.
It's two steps, one step back.
It's just.
I just kept repeating itbecause that's how business
grows You're going to take aleap forward and a micro leap

(52:41):
back until you finally hitmomentum.
By the way, rate this trailthat one's pretty good.
Yeah, this actually might havebeen the most challenging hike
that we've done yet All right,well, I feel, not for any grade
or incline, but just simplybecause we are zigzagging back
and forth to find trail markers.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
I feel like a thumb badge of honor now tied to that.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
There is definitely a badge, I will give you that,
but not the best.
Now we have some other railexperience.
All right, so we're goingstraight up.
All right, this is a what?
800 foot incline right now.
So the top yeah, we're going tosweat a little, not 800.
400, 500.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
And the sun is coming .

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Good day to forget.
My water Power through Shouldhave a nice scenic view, so why
did you take an exit fromParamount?

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Not a, you know, not entirely my choice One of those
things where I'd say it's 50, 50.
So it's one of the situationswhere the media industry for
those that know her is in areally, really tough transition
right now.
It is being has been massivelydisrupted, much like the music

(54:04):
industry was 20 years ago, yep,and these big organizations are
taking on big losses.
And mature organizations likeDisney and Paramount had
operating models that weresustaining 20, 25%, 30% margins,
significant cash flow, and allof that is now.

(54:25):
What do you think is the numberone contributor Streaming, the
effects and growth of AmazonPrime and Netflix and, to some
extent, apple.
What has happened is, ingearing up for the future,
everybody emptied up, emptiedout their coffers and competed

(54:49):
in an arms race style way forcontent, got it and it created
this massive what I believe isan imbalance in supply demand
economics To the point where theaverage customer can't even
find the shows that everybodyelse is watching because it's
gotten so fragmented.
And in that there historicallyhave been some, some rules in

(55:18):
the way that financial marketslooks at these organizations.
So when companies like Amazonor Netflix are growing not
necessarily profits now they'reprofitable, but at the time they
weren't growing profits, butthey still have market caps

(55:40):
entirely based on their revenueprojected growth.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Well, they also had other diversified product lines
to pad the revenue.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
In fact, with Amazon, aws was a loss leader for a
long time, yeah, but there'sstill is not a lot of great
detail on that, you know,because Amazon just is doing a
very successful job of justgetting to your home.
In all ways, jeff, that's right.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
By the way, nice job on the incline and speaking
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
Thank you, we'll get back to you.
So then, now, when you look attraditional organizations like
Paramount, well, these companiesare being ranked, by cash flow
and profitability, morefundamentals.
So now that bottom line profitsmatter for this sub subcategory

(56:33):
is also the same time thatpeople are cutting their cords,
no longer subscribing to $100and $200 cable.
I am almost there, by the way.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
So close.
Yeah, I'm the last Tivo user.
I mean sports is really thelast holdout.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
And yeah, amazon now has rights and there is people
are streaming MLB games and youknow it's so streaming
everything from politics togames, and then the content that
has come out on Apple, amazon,hulu, even Paramount.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
The original content is phenomenal.
Yeah, without commercial, whichis another industry, that
marketing side of the industrydefinitely took a hit.
So so do you think we werelooking at a blockbuster moment
for the media industry?

Speaker 2 (57:22):
I do.
I do think that they're rightnow are probably too many
players, and so I think for theconsolidation is probably
inevitable.
And the reason forconsolidation is obviously
because there are many of thesecompanies are competing in some
of the same ways, so there is,of course, redundancy and costs,
and so unfortunately, that is afact, and all these companies,

(57:50):
as they aggregate, arerestructuring and eliminating
redundancies.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
You happen to be one of those individuals and I
happen to be one of the.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
I happen to be within the yeah, the operating
divisions that were engulfed byother kind of larger operating
divisions and they're goingthrough the process of
synergizing and the organizationwas great.
It was a great place to work,left on the best of terms.
Really still love the peoplethere, but it's just a.

(58:19):
It's the reality of theindustry.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
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(58:43):
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All right, are we ready?
Down the mountain, let's do it.
Talk to me about next moves.
What's your inspiration andwhere?

Speaker 2 (59:01):
do you want to be so?
I'd be lying if I said I knewentirely.
That's.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
OK.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
And I'm trying to create a paradigm to or maybe
you could call it a value system, a purpose system that can
orient me towards where I'minvesting my time.
So I'll give you an example theplaces that seem to inspire me
with a lot of energy is my Latinupbringing, coaching and

(59:29):
leading people.
And then the third place is instorytelling, which you are
doing now, which I'm doing nowand which I really lived in an
ecosystem that was economicallydriven to tell stories and it's
really really cool, and some ofthose stories I'm so glad we
told Now it's showtime the storyof Dexter.

(59:51):
It blew my mind 15 years ago,the idea that you could
understand a serial killer orempathize with a serial killer,
or even kind of fall in lovewith a serial killer, and it's
like well, obviously I don'tcondone serial killing, but I
understand the impulse to wantto do good but also have anger,
and so those are the threethings that seem to be

(01:00:16):
interesting to me.
Did you have a hand in thecreation of Dexter?
I did not, unfortunately not.
Maybe that's part of the nextjourney which is in the process
of my work.
I was able to work with acolleague and read probably 30
scripts over the past two years.
It's not something that again aCFO or CO does, but it's an

(01:00:41):
opportunity that was afforded tome because of my position and I
had this wonderful colleagueand she and I spent a lot of
time comparing notes and tryingto understand what makes for a
good story and a good character.
And you're hitting exactly themajor point, which is living in
the gray, is the part that's sointeresting, because most people

(01:01:05):
aren't so parochial that it'sjust so black and white and some
people are good, being toldthis is good, this is bad, just
follow this path.
But I think most people arealways.
They find themselves deviatingsomewhere into the gray at some
point on some decision.
We all do not most all of us.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
That's what makes us human, and unfortunately we do
rationalize bad things and werationalize good things, and
then the gray can fall on eitherside of the fulcrum.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Yeah, and we see that today.
But the gray for me is I'vebeen experimenting with the gray
.
Sometimes you don't know you'rein the gray unless you feel
into your body, becauserationalization can be really
cerebral.
So you may say, oh, this istotally what I should be doing,

(01:01:53):
but your body's not saying that,and that intuition is
interesting to pay attention to,and that's why I like
storytelling, that's why I likemedia and entertainment, because
what it's attempting to do,what the actor and writer and
everyone else involved areattempting to do is get you to
feel that gray area.
Maybe they're trying topersuade you, maybe not, maybe

(01:02:16):
they're just leaving anopen-ended question.
And I like playing in thatspace, because sometimes we kind
of know what we should be doing, but it's not what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
So are you enjoying the learning process after
corporate America?

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
You asked my wife no way.
So she's seeing too much of you.
No, she's the opposite.
So I am labeled as a type Aoverachiever, overworker-styled
individual.
That's OK, definitely have usedfear, scarcity as the fuel to
get things done, ok.

(01:02:53):
And when, overnight, you are nolonger responsible for hundreds
of people or hundreds ofmillions, or billions of dollars
or whatever it is, you loseyour way.
No, you lose your way.
You start to become human,become human.
Your brand starts to diminish,whatever that word might be,

(01:03:14):
your image starts to diminishand you become a human.
Yeah, then you decide to takehikes.
Well, that's just it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
So, on that note, michael Crotty, this was
definitely a first for the show.
We got lost.
We were off that trail.
Well, it was fun for me becauseyou were the one really looking
for the marker.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
So thank you for that .

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
I tried my best not to stare at my phone, but
occasionally I did need to lookat the map Because you know what
, sometimes we all need a guide.
But this was fun, I reallyenjoyed our conversation.
It was very high level.
This is a deep conversation,very existential at times, but
the takeaways from this are allabout taking time for self-care

(01:03:56):
for purpose, for the purpose ofself-care for purpose, for
balance, learning from the giftthat others want to teach you,
especially at a young age Don'tbe afraid to ask questions,
don't be afraid to go off thebeaten path and discover or make
your own trail, as we did, andeventually you'll wind up where
you want to go, which is wherewe are, michael Crotty, thank

(01:04:18):
you so much for your time andthis fantastic episode, aaron
thank you, appreciate it, do itanytime Next time on.
I Took a Hike.
We crush an epic mountain withthe CEO of Treble Health and
YouTube sensation, ben Thompson.