March 25, 2025 • 54 mins
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Companies Rolling Back DEI:
- PepsiCo: Confirmed ending some DEI initiatives, including eliminating the Chief DEI officer role and representation goals in hiring.
- Meta: One of the largest tech giants to publicly announce DEI rollbacks.
- Google: Has been reported to be among the companies that have pared back or removed references to DEI in their annual reports.
- Target: Is among the organizations choosing to rollback diversity initiatives.
- Amazon: Faced boycotts from customers protesting changes to DEI programs.
- McDonald's: Has also been reported to be among the companies that have retreated from DEI.
- Walmart: Has also been reported to be among the companies that have retreated from DEI.
- Disney: Scaled back its DEI initiatives.
- Goldman Sachs: Has also been reported to be among the companies that have retreated from DEI.
- Nestlé: Faced a boycott over DEI changes.
- Other companies: Forbes reported that more than a dozen companies have pared back, or removed altogether, references to DEI in their 2024 annual reports to investors, including GM, GE, Intel, PayPal, Chipotle and Comcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Keaton Turner, and this is the Perdianpodcast.
We're back.
We're back, folks.
We're doing it again.
Another beautiful day spinning around on thisrock.
Thanks for joining.
Thanks for tuning in.
(00:21):
Thanks for being loyal.
A lot of you guys, man, it's amazing.
The loyalty.
Some of you guys showing up every single day tolisten to this thing.
Listen to me ramble.
I know I've been promising to have some guests,and, and I haven't had many on yet.
So it's just you guys listening to me ramble,And I appreciate that.
(00:47):
I really do.
It's kinda wild.
Couple things I wanna talk about today quickly.
It's first of all, it's it's sunny.
It's a beautiful day.
I'm still here in Indiana.
No travels this week, although, although someof the team is out.
I'll talk about that a little bit.
But beautiful day.
I feel like golf season is just right right onthe tip of my tongue, right there.
(01:15):
If I'm lucky, maybe this Friday, I get to playaround the golf with the boys.
I don't know.
It's still just cold enough.
It's been really windy, and it's just coldenough that it would probably be slightly
annoying.
But I don't know.
We'll see.
We'll see what this week holds.
Got a lot of things to get done this week.
(01:36):
Had an awesome one on one coaching call todaywith my coach, Corey.
You guys have heard me talk about Corey.
Shout out to him.
You know, the one thing a coach will do I'm notgonna talk about coaches a ton, but the one
thing a coach will do is is motivate you evenwhen you're not you know, I before I even
talked to Corey today, I knew I didn't get myhomework done.
(02:00):
And you guys probably remember having teachersin school.
Right?
The bigger, the meaner the teacher was, themore motivated you were to get your homework
done.
So you didn't have to hear about it.
Corey's obviously not big and mean.
He's the nicest guy in the world.
But I I've been slipping on my homework alittle bit.
Last week got away from me.
(02:20):
I kinda took Friday off even though I was inthe office.
I was preoccupied with basketball.
And so I didn't get my I've not I've not madeanywhere near enough progress on some of my
action items, some of my to do items that Italked through with with Corey.
And so, that is the one thing that I think Iwill I'll I'm kinda noticing will help me drive
(02:42):
action is having an accountability partner anda coach to say, hey, we said two weeks ago we
were gonna get these things done.
We don't have them done.
What what are we doing?
So that's that's one cool aspect of of havingCorey in my life.
But but then the rest of my day was filled withmeetings.
(03:06):
It's, it's that time of year where we're kindof in the in between of the chaos of the
holidays and not quite fully ramped up on someof our seasonal operations, that are kinda
coming right around the corner.
So so we're kind of at that weird spot.
But I do have a big time shout out.
I'm gonna start doing these, every monthbecause these shout outs are massively,
(03:30):
massively deserved.
And, and I haven't done this yet.
So so I I apologize.
I have to go back and look to see who the thethe January, winner was and the February
winter.
But the March winter for our core employeeprogram, we do at Turner Mining Group, which is
(03:53):
a core employee for those of you guys thataren't familiar with the program.
We have four core values, an eye for safety, amind for innovation, an attitude for
excellence, and most importantly, a heart forpeople.
Those are our very simple four core values.
Every month, all of the managers and the peersvote on who which employee has embodied these
(04:17):
core values, and then we give them a you know,we nominate someone, we give them a big, you
know, bowling alley sized check.
We print it off, give them $500, and they getto take a picture and post it all over social
media.
It's just a cool thing we do, to reward peopleliving our core values.
This month's winner, Mike Rodriguez.
(04:41):
Shout out, Mike.
I don't know if he listens to this or not.
If his teammates listen to this, give him ashout out.
Give him a pat on the back.
He's at our, our our operation down in La Mesa,Texas.
So big shout out to Mike Rodriguez, and thecore value he embodied was a heart for people.
So the picture that I'm looking at, I wish Icould share it, and then we will share it all
(05:05):
over social media, but it's really cool.
It's you know, he's got people around him,people smiling.
Big time shout out to Mike.
And I'll I'll read what I'll read what theywrote about him.
We dropped this in our heart channel.
We use Slack for some of our staffcommunications, and, they dropped this in the
(05:27):
heart channel today, and and it says, Mike hastruly stepped up his game and it hasn't gone
unnoticed.
He used to feel like he was always being passedover.
Believing his role as a haul truck driverwasn't significant.
After a conversation with his manager about howevery role is important and that standing out
comes from effort and engagement, Mike tookthat to heart.
(05:47):
February is stepped up by taking on additionalresponsibilities, including running the water
truck and grader.
His mindset at work has completely shifted.
He's actively helping his team, and his effortshave not gone unnoticed.
His teammates are regularly praising him overthe radio for things he's caught or ways he's
helped, and the difference in his attitude andwork ethic has been remarkable.
(06:10):
If you're at La Mesa and you see Mike, give himsome praise and thank him for his amazing work.
So so huge thanks, Mike.
I cannot tell you guys how important it is torecognize your role on the team, whatever role
that may be.
So many times, and I and I see this because I'ma coach in basketball and I coach kids.
(06:34):
I'm coaching baseball now.
Now the basketball season's over.
So many times, you see a kid that gets bummedout or a bad attitude or low effort, low energy
because he didn't get to play the position hewanted.
Right?
If I if I if I had a kid that normally startedin basketball, one of the starting five
(06:55):
players, and for some reason, I did not starthim that game, all the time, I saw their head
go down.
Their attitude would go down.
Their motivation would go down.
Their energy would go down.
But every once in a while, when you don't starta kid, they get more motivated.
They get more aggressive.
Their energy goes up.
(07:16):
Their attitude improves because they wanna getback to being a starter.
Same thing's true in baseball.
If you move a kid to the outfield or the youknow, it's there is there is something really
unique that happens when you don't get to playthe role you want, whether that's in career or
sports or whatever.
You can either have a good attitude, positiveenergy, positive mindset, work harder to go get
(07:43):
the role you want, or you can choose to have abad attitude.
You can choose to not bring the energy.
You can choose to be cynical.
You can choose to blame the company and thecoworkers and everybody else.
The choice is up to you.
So I love this story because it sounds like hehe took some feedback and has been killing it.
(08:05):
And so I love that his his peers recognized himfor that.
I think the best teams out there, whether it'ssports or business, whatever, the best teams
out there have people up and down the rosterthat know their role and embrace their role.
And and and even if they don't love the currentrole they're in, maybe they say, I am not in
(08:27):
this role forever, but while I'm in this role,I'm gonna kill it.
Right?
If I'm at the very end of the bench and I'm thewater boy, dude, I'm gonna be the best water
boy on the planet.
Some of you guys that follow collegebasketball, you'll know the story of McNeese
State.
They now just go by McNeese.
They drop the state off their name.
(08:48):
But they have a manager, a water boy, if youwill, who has been posting these viral viral I
mean, I'm talking, like, viral reels and clipson Instagram, on TikTok.
He will walk the team out, and he'll walk themout with, like, rap music playing.
(09:14):
He's like the ultimate hype man.
He's the first team manager in NCAA history toget a NIL deal, name, image, likeness.
Basically, they get a contract.
Someone's paying this guy.
There are three companies that signed him to acontract because of one thing.
(09:35):
It's not that he serves water better than therest of the water boys.
It's not that he, like, is a magician with atowel and keeps his guy like, there's one
reason why this guy is getting paid to be awater boy and all the other water boys haven't.
One reason and one reason only.
(09:57):
I think it's because of his attitude and hiseffort.
His the two things he can control, attitude andeffort.
I think he is maximum attitude, maximum effort.
He brings the energy.
Like, you can watch him in shoot arounds.
He's, like, out on the floor.
You know?
Like, it's attitude and effort.
(10:17):
And and that guy at the very end of the bench,you know, he's not athletic.
He's not tall.
He's not even good looking, to be honest withyou.
But he knows his role, and he's focused onplaying his role better than anybody else.
And what that does is lift the rest of the teamup.
Because I guarantee you that if that guy at theend of the bench who's a water boy, if he's got
(10:40):
a positive attitude in his role, the guy that'sone or two seats ahead of him who's a
basketball player near the end of the bench,it's impossible for that guy to have a bad
attitude.
That guy's sitting there like, there's no way Ican have a bad attitude if Jimmy's down here at
the end of the bench and serving me water andgetting me a towel, and he's got a ridiculously
(11:04):
positive attitude.
So it just lifts the whole team up.
Like, it just I I think energy edit you know,energy and and attitude and the amount of
effort you put in says everything.
And and so many times, it's easy to watchteams, whether it's in business or sports, it's
easy to watch teams who the guys down at theend of the bench or on the low end of the totem
(11:28):
pole have the worst attitude, and it makes awhole it brings a whole team down.
The whole team suffers versus you compare thatto a team that's high functioning.
Every single person on the team knows theirrole.
May not be content in their role forever, butthey know their role currently.
(11:48):
They're giving maximum energy, maximum effort,positive attitude, and they're excited about
their ability to help lift the whole team up.
So that's my that's my piece on this coreemployee program.
Again, huge shout out.
Mike Rodriguez, thanks for all your thanks forall your energy.
(12:08):
Thanks for your attitude.
Thanks for your effort, brother.
That's awesome.
I wanna give another shout out real quick.
Again, one of our own.
This is mister Carl Moniz.
Carl, I've heard really good things about you.
Carl's also down in Texas.
He joined the team here sometime around the NewYear, shortly after the New Year, I think.
(12:31):
Carl sends me some messages every so oftenabout the podcast.
And he, you know, he I I love first of all, Ilove getting messages from my people,
especially guys I haven't met or guys I don'tget to talk to very often.
Send me a message on Slack.
Send me a text message.
(12:52):
I love it.
It's the best thing in the world.
Makes me feel like it makes me feel like I'veactually, you know, done something when when it
you know, when my people that are working outacross the country for us repping my last name
makes me feel like I've actually accomplishedsomething, when they message me.
(13:13):
And so Carl sent me a message this morning.
He said, Hey, Keaton.
Been busy grinding in West Texas and pulled agraveyard shift to cover for my foreman who
needed a day off, but I just caught up on thelast podcast.
I got my wife hooked on per diem, so her reasonfor staying hooked is she gets to hear about
the life that I have joined and gets to stayconnected to me until she moves out this way.
(13:38):
We love the podcast and really like thedirection.
Thank you again.
Dude, I love it.
I love it to death.
I you know, it's it's amazing when a woman, andthis is a huge shout out to Mrs.
Moneys, whoever she may be, when she's actuallyinterested in her man enough to listen to a
podcast about the business he's in.
(14:00):
That's amazing.
Most women don't care that much.
So the fact that she listens, Carl, first ofall, tells me you probably got a really good
one.
Don't screw that up.
But it's it's really cool that that you guysare listening, and she's listening because she
cares enough about you and your job and what'sgoing on at work and getting some inside
(14:23):
glimpses.
So I'm gonna hopefully, hopefully, I don'tscrew this up for you.
I'm I'm gonna bring the, you know, bring theheat, so they say, and, continue to keep her
engaged and keep her listening.
And I and I'll tell you, missus Moniz, ifyou're listening, I've never heard and he's
only been here a short time.
But in the few months he's been here, I'venever heard one person say one negative thing
(14:46):
about Carl.
Tucker thinks the world of you.
He Tucker was actually shocked to learn thatyou're here, or when you got here.
He was like, man, I I had really, really goodthings to say about that guy before before he
ever joined the team.
So pumped to have you and others other peoplethat I've talked to have said really good
(15:07):
things.
So love having you on the team.
Let's see.
I wanted to I wanted to shout you out.
Another guy again, giving a few shout outstoday.
Another guy I have to shout out.
I got a box.
Nancy, I'm I'm on a I'm on a call today, on avideo call.
Nancy walks into the office.
Nancy is kind of the gatekeeper, the oracle ofof the Bloomington office, if you will.
(15:31):
People don't mess around with Nancy.
She's like our she's like our Doberman pincheraround the Bloomington office.
Nancy walks in, hands me this big box.
She's like, I don't know what's in it.
I shake it a little bit.
I open it up.
It is a it's an awesome looking hat with theAutoGuard logo on it.
(15:51):
AutoGuard is the company that mister Caden Copestarted, founded, here recently in Caden's a
young killer, young dude, that I met down inWest actually, I've met you I think I met you
in Arizona, Caden.
And so, yeah, thanks for the hat, dude.
I love it.
He wrote me a handwritten note.
(16:13):
He also is a listener to the podcast.
So I'm gonna fill that box back up with someTurner swag, and I'm gonna send it back your
way, Gaiden.
So thank you for the thank you for the hat.
It's sweet.
I love it.
Let's see.
I have not checked in on my reviews on thepodcast app.
(16:35):
Some of you guys have left reviews.
Oh, we're still all five stars.
I have not seen anything less than five starsyet.
So let me let me read a couple just so I canstay up to date.
I'll I'll I'll read a couple, and then we'llmove on.
We're already fifteen minutes in.
Jeez.
Let's see.
This one, mister Luke Thompson, five stars.
(16:58):
I've been give I've been following TurnerMining Group for a few years now, and I've
really enjoyed seeing everything you'veaccomplished.
While I'm not starting a business, I like tothink of my department as if it were my own,
taking ownership and driving results.
This podcast has been a great resource, a greata great source of inspiration for me on my
commute, and I'd highly recommend anyonelooking for insight into the broader side of
(17:21):
the mining industry beyond just boots on theground operations.
Thank you, Luke.
You know, it's funny you say that.
You he says, I'm not starting a business, but Ilike to think of my department as if it were my
own.
I think this is the one big misconception thatpeople that listen to this podcast have.
(17:43):
A lot of people think, oh, I gotta go start myown business.
Oh, if I wanna get ahead and real make realmoney, I gotta go start my thing.
Oh, I I I can't work for somebody else if Iwanna be the man.
I'm telling you right now, I fully believethis, 99% of all the people that are gonna
start a business would be so much better off ifthey stayed an employee and treated their
(18:10):
current team, their current role like it wastheir own business.
I think you would make more money as anemployee.
You would have better peace of mind.
You'd have better quality of life.
You'd have a better marriage if you treatedyour current job like it were your own
business.
% believe it.
(18:31):
I I've said this for years now.
I I've said this most recently on a on a perdiem episode.
I I believe this even for our own company.
If my guys treated our business like it wastruly their business and every dollar was their
dollar and, you know, they were grinding theirface off just like it was their own business,
(18:52):
Instead of Turner mining, it was Timmy miningor Jimmy mining or Johnny mining or whoever.
If they would treat it if it was their ownbusiness, I without a doubt, it might take a
year or two, might take three years, might takefive, they would make so much money because the
results they would deliver for us could not beignored.
(19:14):
We would see them produce result after resultafter result, day after day, week after week,
month after month, year after year, And andthere would be times, because I've, again, all
this stuff, I I'm a firm believer, cream risesto the top.
Tucker'd walk in one day.
Jeff would walk in one day.
Patton's one of my guys would walk in and say,dude, this guy is just killing it.
(19:38):
He's just producing results.
He's taking ownership.
He's leading the teams.
He's solving problems.
The customers love him.
They're asking for him by name.
I don't forget those names.
We don't forget them come bonus time.
Like, we give more responsibility.
Like, it just works.
(19:58):
I think one of the reasons why I've even I'veeven been able to do what I'm doing now is
because of the attitude I had and the ownershipI treated my role when I was working for my
uncle.
Now, ironically, the company's name was alsoTurner.
It was Turner Contracting, not Turner MiningGroup, but I treated it like it was my own
(20:22):
company every single day.
I treated it like those were my own teammates,that was my own p and l, that was my own
customer.
I never once even considered that I wouldn't bethere until the very end.
And so I just I I firmly believe the onlyreason I was able to catapult from that into
(20:42):
what I'm doing is because I just thought I wasan owner well before that.
Hold on.
Patton's calling me.
Might be an emergency.
Well, let's freaking go.
I'm glad I answered that phone call.
Normally, he calls me with terrible freakingnews.
(21:04):
No.
I mean, normally, he calls me, and and thiswasn't terrible news.
This was this was good, bad news is what hetold me.
This was good, bad news, which is differentthan bad news.
Good, bad news means that something good ishappening in a bad way.
(21:29):
And so this was one of the I told you guys afew days ago, this was one of the contracts
we're waiting to hear.
It's not official.
We didn't get the we didn't get the greenlight, but we got the we got the kinda
yellowish light.
Yellow maybe turning green.
So, yeah.
(21:49):
It's good, bad news.
And short short ramp up window, probably gonnamake Tucker's hair go gray, or or maybe make
him go bald this year, but that's okay.
That's what that's what this that's what thisindustry is all about, taking big swings and
big bites and figuring out how to chew them.
(22:10):
I honestly have zero clue what I was talkingabout.
That phone call lasted longer than I thought,and my mind went to all the things we need to
now go do.
So let me see what the heck was I talkingabout.
I was giving Luke thanks for the oh, I wastalking about taking ownership.
(22:31):
Yeah.
Luke Luke's taking ownership.
I I just think you guys some of you guys, ifyou apply the same level of tenacity you would
if you started your own company, think how hardyou would work, how many, like, sleepless
nights, and, how much passion, how much care.
You know, if it were your logo and your name,if you just tried it for a year or two in your
(22:53):
current role, man, I'm telling you the resultswould the results would blow you away.
I know people that are making a million dollarsa year.
This is true.
As I I swear to you, this is a fact.
I could tell you the guy's name right now.
I know people that make over $1,000,000 a yearthat are w two employees.
(23:17):
So don't tell me you can't make a ton of money.
Now he grinds his face off.
He would think I mean, he basically treats itas his own business, but it's not his own
business.
He's not an owner.
He's got no equity.
He he literally is a w two employee, and, andit's doable.
People can do it.
So, you know, I I think the issue is too manypeople think, well, it's not my it's not my
(23:42):
company.
I'll never get rich doing this.
I need to go work for myself.
And then reality is, man, if you can make theowner rich, the owner will help make you rich.
Promise you.
Promise you.
There are people in my business.
I I was sitting through a meeting What istoday?
Today's Monday.
I was sitting through a meeting this morning,and some graph pulled up some graphs on the on
(24:09):
the screen, and I asked one of these guys.
I said, hey, whose whose work is this?
And there was a name mentioned, and I was like,you know what?
That's awesome.
It's great stuff.
It's great work.
Love it.
Guys going above and beyond, pushing theenvelope.
Love it.
I will not forget that guy's name.
(24:29):
He will not get forgotten at bonus time.
He will not get forgotten when it's time togive more responsibility out.
That's the cool that's the cool stuff.
So anyway, sorry for the little micro rantthere.
Luke Thompson, thank you for the review,brother.
I really appreciate it.
(24:49):
Another five star review, Throttle Wide Open.
This is from More, More, and More.
And and I don't know if that's a play on words,if that sounds like a law firm.
More, More, and More, either sounds like a lawfirm or me at dinner time.
This amazing podcast feels more like anunfiltered conversation with an old friend.
(25:15):
Listening to Keaton share his experiences,thoughts, and lessons learned in real time
creates a sense of connection.
Keep up the great work and throttle wide open.
That's amazing.
I have no idea who this is more, more, andmore.
I don't know if we're old friends or not, butif we're not, I appreciate the heartfelt
review.
Really do.
(25:37):
So now I'm back to driving.
I'm gonna stop reading the reviews.
But thank you guys for leaving a review.
If if you're one of the people, and I I justlooked today, we're like 80 plus thousand
downloads, almost 90,000 downloads now.
If you're one of those people that's downloadedand you've got any value I'll put it to you
(25:58):
this way.
If you've listened to more than 10 episodes ofthe 90 plus and you haven't left a review,
you're dead to me.
Okay?
How's that for a challenge?
You guys like a challenge?
If you listen to more than 10 episodes, there'ssome of you guys that are I know you're feeling
convicted right now.
(26:19):
Some of my own people that sit right next to meevery single freaking day and look me in the
eyes, I know you've listened to more than 10episodes.
If you haven't left a review on the ApplePodcast app, you're dead to me.
Okay?
Moving on.
Moving on.
Two other things I wanna cover real quick.
(26:40):
We have some of our people out this week at AgOne.
Ag One is an annual expo, hosted by NSSGA,National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association.
I think they're in St.
Louis.
If any of you guys are listening, you're at AgOne.
Shout out Thomas Hahn.
(27:02):
I think he's there representing TurnerStaffing.
Maybe Joe Lord.
I'm not sure if the legendary Joe Lord is thereor not.
I know Jake Hubbell is there.
I know Cade Chutty, our marketing guy is there.
So so look some of those guys up.
I think Paul Moran is also even there.
So we got a we got a little, motley crew, atthat event in St.
(27:24):
Louis this week.
It it kicks off if you're listening to this,the morning it drops, kicks off today, Tuesday.
And it's always been a fun event.
I've got really good memories from back when itwas hosted in Indy.
We've also then been to Nashville.
My very first expo ever my very first expo everwas Ag One in Houston, the the year I started
(27:51):
Turner Mining Group.
And man, talk about the early days.
It felt like selling CDs out of the trunk of acar because it was me standing at a booth by
myself.
I don't even think I had any employees at thetime.
Terrible backdrop, terrible marketingmaterials.
(28:12):
But back then, it was do whatever we can tomake a sale and get the business off the
ground.
So huge shout out to Ag One, World of Concrete,World of no.
It's not I might be getting my events mixed up.
World of, Ag1, World of Concrete.
I don't know.
Shows you guys how much attention I pay to someof these things.
(28:32):
So, so big shout out.
The last thing I want to talk about, again, Iknow some of these have been jumbled up
episodes recently, and they haven't stuck to aconsistent theme.
I promise I'll get back to my regularlyscheduled programming.
But I've had some kind of micro topics I wantedto touch on.
(28:53):
This one's interesting.
I got some wild news this morning.
One of one of the well known executives out inthe world is no longer an executive for this
company.
And and one of my guys messaged me and said,hey, did you see the news?
(29:16):
And I said, no, I did not.
So I got on LinkedIn, which is where you getnews on executives and where they're going.
And my my first comment was like, I wonderwhere he's going.
I thought maybe he got recruited away andlanded somewhere.
And I read the kind of manifesto or the failfarewell letter that this guy left on, on
(29:39):
Instagram.
And one of the one of the kind of themes of theletter was this, like, diversity and inclusion
comment.
And I know this is a hot topic.
This is gonna maybe get me in some hot water,But I also got in on kind of a keyboard warrior
(30:03):
argument with some folks on LinkedIn a fewweeks ago about the same topic.
And it was during, you know, it was I forgetexactly who posted it.
I'll have to go back up and look.
But this person was basically asking questionsabout how do we get more people included?
How do we get our teams to be more diverse?
(30:26):
How do we include women and minorities?
And all these things.
And I have a pretty simple approach, and I gotchastised for it.
And it's an unpopular opinion with with currentday boardrooms, current day executives, a lot
of them have been trained on corporate speakand buzzwords, and they touch on all these they
(30:48):
touch on all these things that sound reallygood in a in a boardroom.
They sound really good in a press release, butthen they don't know how to actually run a
business.
And I'm I'm just I'm saying all this.
I know I'm gonna get myself in trouble.
I'm gonna get hate mail from this.
(31:10):
But if if organizations spent half as much timeevaluating their current talent as they do
evaluating their current diversity andinclusion targets, I think they'd solve a lot
of their problems.
(31:31):
Straight up.
I can't say it anymore plainly.
So many companies, and a lot of them are bigcompanies, big corporations that have got tons
of bureaucracy and red tape.
I'm I'm all for diversity.
I love it.
There is nothing I just said on a most recentpodcast, there's nothing more that I love than
a female in mining who can hold her own and getrespect from her peers.
(31:56):
There's nothing more I love.
You know, there there have been some people inmy life that didn't fit the mold of what
someone should look like in their role, butthey were happy to swim upstream and go against
the grain.
I love those people.
Rule breakers, you know, love them to death.
(32:18):
But so many times, these high paid executivesin these big organizations are focused on the
wrong thing, and that's talent.
Regardless of race, regardless of religion,regardless of if you have pink hair or not,
what talent is going to move my businessforward?
(32:40):
And, you know, where I got chastised in mycomments recently was was someone saying, well,
yeah, but you don't understand.
It's so much harder for these people to get alook.
Right?
Then these companies aren't looking at them ifwe don't have DEI targets.
They'll, you know, these companies will neverhire they'll only hire middle aged white male
(33:02):
if we don't have these targets.
And I would say, you know what?
If your company's made up of middle to lateaged white males and that's it, it's probably
not a super creative company anyway.
Again, cream rises to the top.
If you don't have anybody young, well, youknow, I I attribute a lot of our success.
(33:26):
You guys have heard me talk about this.
I attribute a lot of our success to our brand.
Our brand was the brainchild of a team ofpeople, three of them being women, by the way,
who were all in their twenties.
I I I believe, actually, we created anunbelievable brand by super talented people who
(33:55):
were not part of any DEI strategy.
They were just talented.
They were the they were the most talentedpeople I could find at the time.
They were the most talented people we couldconvince to come work for our company.
Like, if if if one of them had pink hair or,you know, one of them was a different,
(34:18):
different religion, different race, whatever,it's talent.
And when when some of these folks in these bigimportant roles that have ultimate P and L
responsibility for a billion dollar thing, whenthey refer to diversity and inclusion, I just
(34:46):
wonder, if I could take a peek behind thecurtain, do they have the most talent on the
team regardless of and again, I'm not antidiversity and inclusion.
That's that's the important thing.
I think it's so wild the this day and age,especially with religion, politics, all the if
you draw a line, you have to be on one side orthe other of this line.
(35:12):
I'm not anti diversity.
I I'm not I you know, not anti diversity atall.
I'm not anti inclusion.
I'm pro talent.
Pretty simple.
I'm pro talent.
What moves our business?
(35:33):
What moves our industry forward?
Now is there a gating process that makes itunfair for some of these minorities to be given
a fair shot?
I'm sure there are.
Right?
I'm sure there's a ton of companies, especiallyhistorically, that have have created a gating
(35:53):
process, a funnel that's choked for some ofthese people to be taken seriously.
I would tell you the Internet and today and thethe access that people have today to showcase
themselves, their talents, I would say it'sbroken down a ton of those barriers.
(36:16):
Maybe not all of those barriers.
But if a 13 year old African American littlegirl can make a million dollars a year on
YouTube opening gifts, opening presents, andfilming herself, Anything's possible for anyone
(36:36):
in any job regardless of your race, religion,or color, regardless of your background,
regardless of your pink hair.
Like, we have all the tools.
And so many times, I think people rely on, youknow, these mandates that only and it's funny.
(36:57):
You see so many of these companies reeling thisback, reeling these DEI mandates back.
Why are they doing that?
You have to ask the question, why are theydoing that?
It's not just Keaton Turner sitting here sayingthis.
I'm looking at what's happening, macro.
Massive, massive companies are reeling thisback.
(37:17):
Why?
I think they're pumping their companies full ofpeople who are not the most talented.
It's talent.
It's a talent conversation.
It is absolutely a talent conversation.
If I could find the most legit people, the mostlegit people pause.
(37:42):
Sorry.
Somebody walked up to my window.
If I could find the most legit people that hadthe most talent that would best fit what we're
trying to do as an organization.
If I could find them, like, by the dozens insome far off land, and they could jump in and
(38:07):
embody our culture and live our values and movethe needle for I would absolutely do it.
%.
Hundred %.
I think most business owners would do itregardless of race and religion, regardless of
sexual preference.
Like, regardless of if they vote Democrat orRepublic.
(38:29):
Like, if you can help me make more money for meand I can help make more money for the families
of people that I employ, dude, come on board.
You got pink hair?
I don't care.
You know, I and you're seeing people like MarkZuckerberg roll this back.
(38:52):
You're seeing Fortune 50 companies roll thesetargets back because they don't have the right
talent game.
It's not because they're racist organizationsor they're homophobic or any of these things.
They're actually the opposite of that.
But they're stuffing people in the organizationthat are not qualified and that are not the
(39:13):
most talented.
And in this day and age, to be the mostcompetitive company, you have to have the
talent.
You have to have the people.
We're all still people companies, even with AI.
Meta is swapping out people for more talentedpeople.
(39:37):
And so when I when I saw this executive kind ofno longer in his role and I saw this nod to
DEI, I thought to myself, man, how much timeand effort and energy have they spent on DEI
when they could've and should've spent it ontheir business?
Like, in the tactical nooks and crannies oftheir business.
(39:59):
Did they have the most talented people in everycorner?
And again, I I know some people are gonna hearthis, listen to this, and think, man, Keaton
Turner.
Dude's racist.
Dude's anti DEI.
Dude doesn't want women in his business.
And that's fine if you wanna believe thatstory.
If that's the story that you hear from me,that's totally fine.
(40:20):
I got thick enough skin to handle a few morehaters.
The reality is, if you sit where I sit, thecompanies depend on talent.
The the companies depend on if you're reallytrying to build something, and and by the way,
(40:43):
it's hard to build anything.
But if you're really trying to build something,don't you want the most talented team possible?
Some of you guys that listen, I know, have beenstuck with people you would have never hired.
I hear it all the time.
Some friends of mine work for big companies,you know, Fortune probably Fortune 50, Fortune
(41:07):
100 companies.
They manage teams of people, And we'll be, youknow, we'll have conversations over dinner or
whatever, and they'll say, Hey, you're nevergonna believe what I have to deal with.
I'm like, Why?
I don't know.
Tell me.
They're like, Oh, well, we had to hire x, y, z.
Like, okay, what's the issue with that?
Well, they've never done the job.
(41:29):
And they took the spot of Jim, forty two yearold white Jim, who was great at his job.
But we had to get rid of him because we hadthis target, we had this quota we had to hit by
the end of the quarter.
And one way we do it is we get rid of Jim, andwe hire three of these other names.
(41:57):
And now what happens is you take Jim'sworkload, you try to distribute to the three
other names, and the workload doesn't get splitequally between the three other names.
What happens is the workload doubles for thewhole team because people now have to manage
(42:17):
these three other names who don't know how todo Jim's job.
It's wild.
It is wild, wild, wild.
Now I think to tie a bow on this and land thisplane before I get myself in any more trouble.
I I don't know where it started.
I don't know which company coined this term.
(42:40):
I haven't done enough homework, I'll admit.
But I think it started off as a really goodthing.
It was probably a company that was old andstale with a with a board of directors full of
white, old, stale, stuffy guys.
And they probably looked around at their teamsand said, man, we don't have one female here.
(43:01):
We don't have one person with a differentbackground and upbringing.
We don't have any different ethnicity in ourteam.
All these ideas we're circulating around arekind of all the same, old, stale, dusty, we
should probably get some diversity in ourorganization.
You know what?
And and we should probably think aboutequality.
(43:25):
How do we get, equal pay for equal talent?
Guarantee you, this started equal pay for equaltalent.
And then it probably went further from there.
And how do we include people in our hiringprocess that otherwise wouldn't get included,
wouldn't get considered?
I think DEI started as a really good thing.
(43:47):
My the optimist in me says it probably startedoff positive.
And then just like the telephone game, onecompany hears it from one company, hears and
you get down this list of companies thatimplement DEI ten years later.
And we're left with people getting stuffed intothe system that have no clue what they're
(44:10):
doing, people getting paid equal who arenowhere near equal talent, and companies
hitting quotas and goals and not hiring peoplebecause they're talented, but instead hiring
people because they hit a minority goal.
I think it drove it's it's driven some reallywild decision making from executives.
(44:39):
Now, when an executive's comped on certain KPIsand DEI is one of them, of course, they're
gonna go fulfill their obligations.
They're gonna hit their KPIs.
But, man, I I just have to wonder sometimes,and I and again, I'm you're seeing it every
day.
(44:59):
Just look just do a quick Google search.
Look at companies that are rolling this back.
Are people thinking about talent?
That's the question.
A meritocracy.
Are companies running a meritocracy?
The best talent should play.
(45:20):
Male, female, black, white, old, young.
I think companies are actually more sexist andageist than they are anything else.
Too many companies don't let the young peopleplay and compete and bring fresh ideas.
You know?
I think a lot of companies include all kinds ofdifferent folks, but miss the young part and
(45:46):
and miss the younger generation coming in withnew ideas and being taken seriously.
And so, I'm gonna get off my soapbox a littlebit, but it got me thinking, and again, I I'm
not gonna name the name.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna call the guy out.
There's tons of them.
I mean, you can look at a you just Googleexecs, you know, recently fired executives.
(46:08):
And I guarantee you, if you put all 10 of themup together with their farewell speech from
LinkedIn or from whatever, they all have thesame corporate buzzwords, same corporate
buzzwords.
And they're proud of this initiative and thatinitiative, and they're proud of the diversity
(46:29):
and inclusion on their teams and their, andit's all I think it's all meant well, but
they're getting passed up by by small teams,small companies who understand talent and
deploy talent rapidly and get people on theteam who do not want to be dumbed down.
(46:57):
They want a meritocracy.
They want to be paid for their talent.
They don't wanna wait fifteen, twenty years forseniority, And they definitely don't wanna sit
and work shoulder to shoulder with someonegetting paid the equal amount of money if
they're not equal from a results perspective.
(47:19):
If they're not producing equal results for thecompany, why are they getting paid the same?
Unpopular opinion, I know.
And and, you know, to be honest with you, twoyears ago, I couldn't have said any of that
because I would have been crucified.
Would have been crucified by people.
But again, to clarify, I'm not anti DEI.
(47:43):
I'm I'm actually pro DEI.
I'm pro diversity.
I want young people and old people.
I want every ethnicity.
I would love some more pink hair in ourcompany.
We got guys with face tattoos and piercings.
I bring it on.
But you better be freaking talented.
(48:06):
%.
If you're gonna wear it loud and proud and bedifferent, I'm all for it.
I love it.
You better be talented.
I I just fully believe the culture of companiesin these competitive spaces are changing, and
people want talent.
(48:28):
You can't rest on being just a a marginal teammember anymore.
You can't rest on, you know, sitting around,standing in the corner, hoping the company
forgets you exist and just keeps paying yourpaycheck.
I think there's a whole culture change coming,and you're seeing it.
You're seeing it across the government.
(48:50):
You're seeing it in companies that historicallyhave been very woke.
You're you're seeing it all over the place.
And and to boil it all down, it's very simple.
It's it's business principles.
Companies run on talent.
The most talent the most the the companies withthe most talent are the companies that
(49:14):
generally win.
Their product improves.
Their service improves.
To be honest with you, their culture improves.
I think it's a talent play.
And so I can't wait for the day where companiescome out and openly admit we're very prejudiced
(49:35):
in our hiring practice, but it's all prejudicearound talent, nothing else.
We don't care about anything.
We don't care about how young you are, how oldyou are.
We don't care about your experience here orthere.
We don't care if you went to college.
We don't care what color your hair is, yoursexual orientation.
(49:56):
We don't care who you believe in.
We care about your talent, and we care how muchyou can come into our organization and impact
positive change and help us achieve our goals.
Help us make money.
Help us impact the industry.
Help us impact the world.
There's a company I'm I'm just gonna go onrecord.
(50:19):
I think that there is going to be a CEO in thenext couple years that comes out and publicly
proclaims we care about talent more thananything.
There's probably already been some, butsomeone's gonna come out and make a splash and
say, you know what?
I'm over this DEI stuff.
(50:41):
I'm over the woke.
I'm over the politically correct.
I'm over the right wing, left wing, straight,gay, all the I'm over all that.
I want the most talent.
And when that guy or girl comes out and saysall that, I'm gonna come back on the podcast.
(51:03):
I'm gonna remind everybody because it's atalent game.
That's business.
It's a talent game.
So that is a rant.
I went way longer than I was supposed to.
I probably lost a few listeners, maybe maybe afew dozen listeners.
You know, I probably am gonna get called somenames.
That's okay.
You gotta be willing to stand up for what youbelieve in, and I believe talent wins.
(51:28):
I believe talent wins.
And it's funny.
You can see this in sports, Right?
Dennis Rodman can look like a goofball, but bethe most talented rebounder of all time.
He gets praised for it.
Right?
You can be Kobe Bryant at 18 and skip college,come out of high school, and be one of the
greatest of all time and get praised for it.
Right?
You you can I mean, look at Olympic teams?
(51:50):
Look you can do this in sports.
For some reason, we haven't quite made thistranslation to business.
For some reason, we still have these processes,procedures, protocols where the best talent
doesn't necessarily get to play.
That's true in startups.
A lot of startups have young talent.
(52:12):
Lot of startups have some wild looking folks onthe staff that are super talented that run fast
and break things.
But as companies get bigger and older, morebureaucratic, more smart people, they start to
implement these things that don't make anysense.
DEI didn't get you where you are.
Talent got you where you are.
(52:34):
You know?
It's simple as that.
And so yeah.
I don't know.
I again, I'm only regurgitating to you guys ona podcast that I drop every single day.
I'm only regurgitating stuff that's happeningin my life, stuff that I'm seeing, stuff that
I'm reading, stuff that I'm hearing orwatching.
(52:54):
And when I read this today about thisexecutive, I thought, man, he just needed more
talent on the team.
He needed a little less man, I I don't know.
I don't know how diverse his team is.
I I don't know how I hate to say the word wokebecause I think it's overused, but I I don't
know.
I I think maybe some of the issues could havebeen talent issues.
(53:16):
And so business is hard.
That might be me one day sending a farewellletter on LinkedIn.
And you some of you guys will stomp on thegrave and celebrate.
But that's my take.
I think that's where the current state of,business is at on this topic.
And let me know what you think.
(53:37):
If you absolutely fundamentally disagree withme and feel passionate about it, I would love
to have a conversation.
We can even do it for everybody to hear.
We can do it on the podcast.
If you think I am if you think I've lost it andI'm way out of bounds and I don't know what I'm
talking about or I'm insensitive to all thepeople that deserve a fair shot like, whatever
(54:01):
your stance is, if you are opposite ofeverything I just said, I welcome the
opportunity to have some civil discourse andtalk about it.
And maybe I maybe you can educate me and I canlearn something.
But for now, until happens, that is my take,albeit a hot one.
(54:23):
And and appreciate you guys listening.
We're praying you're getting your per diem.
We're praying you're killing it.
We're praying that you show back up tomorrow.
We'll see what tomorrow's topic is.
Hopefully, it's a little softer than this one.
Hopefully, it's a little colder than this one.
This was fairly this was fairly hot take.
So thanks guys for listening.
(54:43):
We'll do it again tomorrow.
I'm Keaton Turner, and this is the Perdianpodcast.
We're back.
We're back, folks.
We're doing it again.
Another beautiful day spinning around on thisrock.
Thanks for joining.
Thanks for tuning in.
(00:21):
Thanks for being loyal.
A lot of you guys, man, it's amazing.
The loyalty.
Some of you guys showing up every single day tolisten to this thing.
Listen to me ramble.
I know I've been promising to have some guests,and, and I haven't had many on yet.
So it's just you guys listening to me ramble,And I appreciate that.
(00:47):
I really do.
It's kinda wild.
Couple things I wanna talk about today quickly.
It's first of all, it's it's sunny.
It's a beautiful day.
I'm still here in Indiana.
No travels this week, although, although someof the team is out.
I'll talk about that a little bit.
But beautiful day.
I feel like golf season is just right right onthe tip of my tongue, right there.
(01:15):
If I'm lucky, maybe this Friday, I get to playaround the golf with the boys.
I don't know.
It's still just cold enough.
It's been really windy, and it's just coldenough that it would probably be slightly
annoying.
But I don't know.
We'll see.
We'll see what this week holds.
Got a lot of things to get done this week.
(01:36):
Had an awesome one on one coaching call todaywith my coach, Corey.
You guys have heard me talk about Corey.
Shout out to him.
You know, the one thing a coach will do I'm notgonna talk about coaches a ton, but the one
thing a coach will do is is motivate you evenwhen you're not you know, I before I even
talked to Corey today, I knew I didn't get myhomework done.
(02:00):
And you guys probably remember having teachersin school.
Right?
The bigger, the meaner the teacher was, themore motivated you were to get your homework
done.
So you didn't have to hear about it.
Corey's obviously not big and mean.
He's the nicest guy in the world.
But I I've been slipping on my homework alittle bit.
Last week got away from me.
(02:20):
I kinda took Friday off even though I was inthe office.
I was preoccupied with basketball.
And so I didn't get my I've not I've not madeanywhere near enough progress on some of my
action items, some of my to do items that Italked through with with Corey.
And so, that is the one thing that I think Iwill I'll I'm kinda noticing will help me drive
(02:42):
action is having an accountability partner anda coach to say, hey, we said two weeks ago we
were gonna get these things done.
We don't have them done.
What what are we doing?
So that's that's one cool aspect of of havingCorey in my life.
But but then the rest of my day was filled withmeetings.
(03:06):
It's, it's that time of year where we're kindof in the in between of the chaos of the
holidays and not quite fully ramped up on someof our seasonal operations, that are kinda
coming right around the corner.
So so we're kind of at that weird spot.
But I do have a big time shout out.
I'm gonna start doing these, every monthbecause these shout outs are massively,
(03:30):
massively deserved.
And, and I haven't done this yet.
So so I I apologize.
I have to go back and look to see who the thethe January, winner was and the February
winter.
But the March winter for our core employeeprogram, we do at Turner Mining Group, which is
(03:53):
a core employee for those of you guys thataren't familiar with the program.
We have four core values, an eye for safety, amind for innovation, an attitude for
excellence, and most importantly, a heart forpeople.
Those are our very simple four core values.
Every month, all of the managers and the peersvote on who which employee has embodied these
(04:17):
core values, and then we give them a you know,we nominate someone, we give them a big, you
know, bowling alley sized check.
We print it off, give them $500, and they getto take a picture and post it all over social
media.
It's just a cool thing we do, to reward peopleliving our core values.
This month's winner, Mike Rodriguez.
(04:41):
Shout out, Mike.
I don't know if he listens to this or not.
If his teammates listen to this, give him ashout out.
Give him a pat on the back.
He's at our, our our operation down in La Mesa,Texas.
So big shout out to Mike Rodriguez, and thecore value he embodied was a heart for people.
So the picture that I'm looking at, I wish Icould share it, and then we will share it all
(05:05):
over social media, but it's really cool.
It's you know, he's got people around him,people smiling.
Big time shout out to Mike.
And I'll I'll read what I'll read what theywrote about him.
We dropped this in our heart channel.
We use Slack for some of our staffcommunications, and, they dropped this in the
(05:27):
heart channel today, and and it says, Mike hastruly stepped up his game and it hasn't gone
unnoticed.
He used to feel like he was always being passedover.
Believing his role as a haul truck driverwasn't significant.
After a conversation with his manager about howevery role is important and that standing out
comes from effort and engagement, Mike tookthat to heart.
(05:47):
February is stepped up by taking on additionalresponsibilities, including running the water
truck and grader.
His mindset at work has completely shifted.
He's actively helping his team, and his effortshave not gone unnoticed.
His teammates are regularly praising him overthe radio for things he's caught or ways he's
helped, and the difference in his attitude andwork ethic has been remarkable.
(06:10):
If you're at La Mesa and you see Mike, give himsome praise and thank him for his amazing work.
So so huge thanks, Mike.
I cannot tell you guys how important it is torecognize your role on the team, whatever role
that may be.
So many times, and I and I see this because I'ma coach in basketball and I coach kids.
(06:34):
I'm coaching baseball now.
Now the basketball season's over.
So many times, you see a kid that gets bummedout or a bad attitude or low effort, low energy
because he didn't get to play the position hewanted.
Right?
If I if I if I had a kid that normally startedin basketball, one of the starting five
(06:55):
players, and for some reason, I did not starthim that game, all the time, I saw their head
go down.
Their attitude would go down.
Their motivation would go down.
Their energy would go down.
But every once in a while, when you don't starta kid, they get more motivated.
They get more aggressive.
Their energy goes up.
(07:16):
Their attitude improves because they wanna getback to being a starter.
Same thing's true in baseball.
If you move a kid to the outfield or the youknow, it's there is there is something really
unique that happens when you don't get to playthe role you want, whether that's in career or
sports or whatever.
You can either have a good attitude, positiveenergy, positive mindset, work harder to go get
(07:43):
the role you want, or you can choose to have abad attitude.
You can choose to not bring the energy.
You can choose to be cynical.
You can choose to blame the company and thecoworkers and everybody else.
The choice is up to you.
So I love this story because it sounds like hehe took some feedback and has been killing it.
(08:05):
And so I love that his his peers recognized himfor that.
I think the best teams out there, whether it'ssports or business, whatever, the best teams
out there have people up and down the rosterthat know their role and embrace their role.
And and and even if they don't love the currentrole they're in, maybe they say, I am not in
(08:27):
this role forever, but while I'm in this role,I'm gonna kill it.
Right?
If I'm at the very end of the bench and I'm thewater boy, dude, I'm gonna be the best water
boy on the planet.
Some of you guys that follow collegebasketball, you'll know the story of McNeese
State.
They now just go by McNeese.
They drop the state off their name.
(08:48):
But they have a manager, a water boy, if youwill, who has been posting these viral viral I
mean, I'm talking, like, viral reels and clipson Instagram, on TikTok.
He will walk the team out, and he'll walk themout with, like, rap music playing.
(09:14):
He's like the ultimate hype man.
He's the first team manager in NCAA history toget a NIL deal, name, image, likeness.
Basically, they get a contract.
Someone's paying this guy.
There are three companies that signed him to acontract because of one thing.
(09:35):
It's not that he serves water better than therest of the water boys.
It's not that he, like, is a magician with atowel and keeps his guy like, there's one
reason why this guy is getting paid to be awater boy and all the other water boys haven't.
One reason and one reason only.
(09:57):
I think it's because of his attitude and hiseffort.
His the two things he can control, attitude andeffort.
I think he is maximum attitude, maximum effort.
He brings the energy.
Like, you can watch him in shoot arounds.
He's, like, out on the floor.
You know?
Like, it's attitude and effort.
(10:17):
And and that guy at the very end of the bench,you know, he's not athletic.
He's not tall.
He's not even good looking, to be honest withyou.
But he knows his role, and he's focused onplaying his role better than anybody else.
And what that does is lift the rest of the teamup.
Because I guarantee you that if that guy at theend of the bench who's a water boy, if he's got
(10:40):
a positive attitude in his role, the guy that'sone or two seats ahead of him who's a
basketball player near the end of the bench,it's impossible for that guy to have a bad
attitude.
That guy's sitting there like, there's no way Ican have a bad attitude if Jimmy's down here at
the end of the bench and serving me water andgetting me a towel, and he's got a ridiculously
(11:04):
positive attitude.
So it just lifts the whole team up.
Like, it just I I think energy edit you know,energy and and attitude and the amount of
effort you put in says everything.
And and so many times, it's easy to watchteams, whether it's in business or sports, it's
easy to watch teams who the guys down at theend of the bench or on the low end of the totem
(11:28):
pole have the worst attitude, and it makes awhole it brings a whole team down.
The whole team suffers versus you compare thatto a team that's high functioning.
Every single person on the team knows theirrole.
May not be content in their role forever, butthey know their role currently.
(11:48):
They're giving maximum energy, maximum effort,positive attitude, and they're excited about
their ability to help lift the whole team up.
So that's my that's my piece on this coreemployee program.
Again, huge shout out.
Mike Rodriguez, thanks for all your thanks forall your energy.
(12:08):
Thanks for your attitude.
Thanks for your effort, brother.
That's awesome.
I wanna give another shout out real quick.
Again, one of our own.
This is mister Carl Moniz.
Carl, I've heard really good things about you.
Carl's also down in Texas.
He joined the team here sometime around the NewYear, shortly after the New Year, I think.
(12:31):
Carl sends me some messages every so oftenabout the podcast.
And he, you know, he I I love first of all, Ilove getting messages from my people,
especially guys I haven't met or guys I don'tget to talk to very often.
Send me a message on Slack.
Send me a text message.
(12:52):
I love it.
It's the best thing in the world.
Makes me feel like it makes me feel like I'veactually, you know, done something when when it
you know, when my people that are working outacross the country for us repping my last name
makes me feel like I've actually accomplishedsomething, when they message me.
(13:13):
And so Carl sent me a message this morning.
He said, Hey, Keaton.
Been busy grinding in West Texas and pulled agraveyard shift to cover for my foreman who
needed a day off, but I just caught up on thelast podcast.
I got my wife hooked on per diem, so her reasonfor staying hooked is she gets to hear about
the life that I have joined and gets to stayconnected to me until she moves out this way.
(13:38):
We love the podcast and really like thedirection.
Thank you again.
Dude, I love it.
I love it to death.
I you know, it's it's amazing when a woman, andthis is a huge shout out to Mrs.
Moneys, whoever she may be, when she's actuallyinterested in her man enough to listen to a
podcast about the business he's in.
(14:00):
That's amazing.
Most women don't care that much.
So the fact that she listens, Carl, first ofall, tells me you probably got a really good
one.
Don't screw that up.
But it's it's really cool that that you guysare listening, and she's listening because she
cares enough about you and your job and what'sgoing on at work and getting some inside
(14:23):
glimpses.
So I'm gonna hopefully, hopefully, I don'tscrew this up for you.
I'm I'm gonna bring the, you know, bring theheat, so they say, and, continue to keep her
engaged and keep her listening.
And I and I'll tell you, missus Moniz, ifyou're listening, I've never heard and he's
only been here a short time.
But in the few months he's been here, I'venever heard one person say one negative thing
(14:46):
about Carl.
Tucker thinks the world of you.
He Tucker was actually shocked to learn thatyou're here, or when you got here.
He was like, man, I I had really, really goodthings to say about that guy before before he
ever joined the team.
So pumped to have you and others other peoplethat I've talked to have said really good
(15:07):
things.
So love having you on the team.
Let's see.
I wanted to I wanted to shout you out.
Another guy again, giving a few shout outstoday.
Another guy I have to shout out.
I got a box.
Nancy, I'm I'm on a I'm on a call today, on avideo call.
Nancy walks into the office.
Nancy is kind of the gatekeeper, the oracle ofof the Bloomington office, if you will.
(15:31):
People don't mess around with Nancy.
She's like our she's like our Doberman pincheraround the Bloomington office.
Nancy walks in, hands me this big box.
She's like, I don't know what's in it.
I shake it a little bit.
I open it up.
It is a it's an awesome looking hat with theAutoGuard logo on it.
(15:51):
AutoGuard is the company that mister Caden Copestarted, founded, here recently in Caden's a
young killer, young dude, that I met down inWest actually, I've met you I think I met you
in Arizona, Caden.
And so, yeah, thanks for the hat, dude.
I love it.
He wrote me a handwritten note.
(16:13):
He also is a listener to the podcast.
So I'm gonna fill that box back up with someTurner swag, and I'm gonna send it back your
way, Gaiden.
So thank you for the thank you for the hat.
It's sweet.
I love it.
Let's see.
I have not checked in on my reviews on thepodcast app.
(16:35):
Some of you guys have left reviews.
Oh, we're still all five stars.
I have not seen anything less than five starsyet.
So let me let me read a couple just so I canstay up to date.
I'll I'll I'll read a couple, and then we'llmove on.
We're already fifteen minutes in.
Jeez.
Let's see.
This one, mister Luke Thompson, five stars.
(16:58):
I've been give I've been following TurnerMining Group for a few years now, and I've
really enjoyed seeing everything you'veaccomplished.
While I'm not starting a business, I like tothink of my department as if it were my own,
taking ownership and driving results.
This podcast has been a great resource, a greata great source of inspiration for me on my
commute, and I'd highly recommend anyonelooking for insight into the broader side of
(17:21):
the mining industry beyond just boots on theground operations.
Thank you, Luke.
You know, it's funny you say that.
You he says, I'm not starting a business, but Ilike to think of my department as if it were my
own.
I think this is the one big misconception thatpeople that listen to this podcast have.
(17:43):
A lot of people think, oh, I gotta go start myown business.
Oh, if I wanna get ahead and real make realmoney, I gotta go start my thing.
Oh, I I I can't work for somebody else if Iwanna be the man.
I'm telling you right now, I fully believethis, 99% of all the people that are gonna
start a business would be so much better off ifthey stayed an employee and treated their
(18:10):
current team, their current role like it wastheir own business.
I think you would make more money as anemployee.
You would have better peace of mind.
You'd have better quality of life.
You'd have a better marriage if you treatedyour current job like it were your own
business.
% believe it.
(18:31):
I I've said this for years now.
I I've said this most recently on a on a perdiem episode.
I I believe this even for our own company.
If my guys treated our business like it wastruly their business and every dollar was their
dollar and, you know, they were grinding theirface off just like it was their own business,
(18:52):
Instead of Turner mining, it was Timmy miningor Jimmy mining or Johnny mining or whoever.
If they would treat it if it was their ownbusiness, I without a doubt, it might take a
year or two, might take three years, might takefive, they would make so much money because the
results they would deliver for us could not beignored.
(19:14):
We would see them produce result after resultafter result, day after day, week after week,
month after month, year after year, And andthere would be times, because I've, again, all
this stuff, I I'm a firm believer, cream risesto the top.
Tucker'd walk in one day.
Jeff would walk in one day.
Patton's one of my guys would walk in and say,dude, this guy is just killing it.
(19:38):
He's just producing results.
He's taking ownership.
He's leading the teams.
He's solving problems.
The customers love him.
They're asking for him by name.
I don't forget those names.
We don't forget them come bonus time.
Like, we give more responsibility.
Like, it just works.
(19:58):
I think one of the reasons why I've even I'veeven been able to do what I'm doing now is
because of the attitude I had and the ownershipI treated my role when I was working for my
uncle.
Now, ironically, the company's name was alsoTurner.
It was Turner Contracting, not Turner MiningGroup, but I treated it like it was my own
(20:22):
company every single day.
I treated it like those were my own teammates,that was my own p and l, that was my own
customer.
I never once even considered that I wouldn't bethere until the very end.
And so I just I I firmly believe the onlyreason I was able to catapult from that into
(20:42):
what I'm doing is because I just thought I wasan owner well before that.
Hold on.
Patton's calling me.
Might be an emergency.
Well, let's freaking go.
I'm glad I answered that phone call.
Normally, he calls me with terrible freakingnews.
(21:04):
No.
I mean, normally, he calls me, and and thiswasn't terrible news.
This was this was good, bad news is what hetold me.
This was good, bad news, which is differentthan bad news.
Good, bad news means that something good ishappening in a bad way.
(21:29):
And so this was one of the I told you guys afew days ago, this was one of the contracts
we're waiting to hear.
It's not official.
We didn't get the we didn't get the greenlight, but we got the we got the kinda
yellowish light.
Yellow maybe turning green.
So, yeah.
(21:49):
It's good, bad news.
And short short ramp up window, probably gonnamake Tucker's hair go gray, or or maybe make
him go bald this year, but that's okay.
That's what that's what this that's what thisindustry is all about, taking big swings and
big bites and figuring out how to chew them.
(22:10):
I honestly have zero clue what I was talkingabout.
That phone call lasted longer than I thought,and my mind went to all the things we need to
now go do.
So let me see what the heck was I talkingabout.
I was giving Luke thanks for the oh, I wastalking about taking ownership.
(22:31):
Yeah.
Luke Luke's taking ownership.
I I just think you guys some of you guys, ifyou apply the same level of tenacity you would
if you started your own company, think how hardyou would work, how many, like, sleepless
nights, and, how much passion, how much care.
You know, if it were your logo and your name,if you just tried it for a year or two in your
(22:53):
current role, man, I'm telling you the resultswould the results would blow you away.
I know people that are making a million dollarsa year.
This is true.
As I I swear to you, this is a fact.
I could tell you the guy's name right now.
I know people that make over $1,000,000 a yearthat are w two employees.
(23:17):
So don't tell me you can't make a ton of money.
Now he grinds his face off.
He would think I mean, he basically treats itas his own business, but it's not his own
business.
He's not an owner.
He's got no equity.
He he literally is a w two employee, and, andit's doable.
People can do it.
So, you know, I I think the issue is too manypeople think, well, it's not my it's not my
(23:42):
company.
I'll never get rich doing this.
I need to go work for myself.
And then reality is, man, if you can make theowner rich, the owner will help make you rich.
Promise you.
Promise you.
There are people in my business.
I I was sitting through a meeting What istoday?
Today's Monday.
I was sitting through a meeting this morning,and some graph pulled up some graphs on the on
(24:09):
the screen, and I asked one of these guys.
I said, hey, whose whose work is this?
And there was a name mentioned, and I was like,you know what?
That's awesome.
It's great stuff.
It's great work.
Love it.
Guys going above and beyond, pushing theenvelope.
Love it.
I will not forget that guy's name.
(24:29):
He will not get forgotten at bonus time.
He will not get forgotten when it's time togive more responsibility out.
That's the cool that's the cool stuff.
So anyway, sorry for the little micro rantthere.
Luke Thompson, thank you for the review,brother.
I really appreciate it.
(24:49):
Another five star review, Throttle Wide Open.
This is from More, More, and More.
And and I don't know if that's a play on words,if that sounds like a law firm.
More, More, and More, either sounds like a lawfirm or me at dinner time.
This amazing podcast feels more like anunfiltered conversation with an old friend.
(25:15):
Listening to Keaton share his experiences,thoughts, and lessons learned in real time
creates a sense of connection.
Keep up the great work and throttle wide open.
That's amazing.
I have no idea who this is more, more, andmore.
I don't know if we're old friends or not, butif we're not, I appreciate the heartfelt
review.
Really do.
(25:37):
So now I'm back to driving.
I'm gonna stop reading the reviews.
But thank you guys for leaving a review.
If if you're one of the people, and I I justlooked today, we're like 80 plus thousand
downloads, almost 90,000 downloads now.
If you're one of those people that's downloadedand you've got any value I'll put it to you
(25:58):
this way.
If you've listened to more than 10 episodes ofthe 90 plus and you haven't left a review,
you're dead to me.
Okay?
How's that for a challenge?
You guys like a challenge?
If you listen to more than 10 episodes, there'ssome of you guys that are I know you're feeling
convicted right now.
(26:19):
Some of my own people that sit right next to meevery single freaking day and look me in the
eyes, I know you've listened to more than 10episodes.
If you haven't left a review on the ApplePodcast app, you're dead to me.
Okay?
Moving on.
Moving on.
Two other things I wanna cover real quick.
(26:40):
We have some of our people out this week at AgOne.
Ag One is an annual expo, hosted by NSSGA,National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association.
I think they're in St.
Louis.
If any of you guys are listening, you're at AgOne.
Shout out Thomas Hahn.
(27:02):
I think he's there representing TurnerStaffing.
Maybe Joe Lord.
I'm not sure if the legendary Joe Lord is thereor not.
I know Jake Hubbell is there.
I know Cade Chutty, our marketing guy is there.
So so look some of those guys up.
I think Paul Moran is also even there.
So we got a we got a little, motley crew, atthat event in St.
(27:24):
Louis this week.
It it kicks off if you're listening to this,the morning it drops, kicks off today, Tuesday.
And it's always been a fun event.
I've got really good memories from back when itwas hosted in Indy.
We've also then been to Nashville.
My very first expo ever my very first expo everwas Ag One in Houston, the the year I started
(27:51):
Turner Mining Group.
And man, talk about the early days.
It felt like selling CDs out of the trunk of acar because it was me standing at a booth by
myself.
I don't even think I had any employees at thetime.
Terrible backdrop, terrible marketingmaterials.
(28:12):
But back then, it was do whatever we can tomake a sale and get the business off the
ground.
So huge shout out to Ag One, World of Concrete,World of no.
It's not I might be getting my events mixed up.
World of, Ag1, World of Concrete.
I don't know.
Shows you guys how much attention I pay to someof these things.
(28:32):
So, so big shout out.
The last thing I want to talk about, again, Iknow some of these have been jumbled up
episodes recently, and they haven't stuck to aconsistent theme.
I promise I'll get back to my regularlyscheduled programming.
But I've had some kind of micro topics I wantedto touch on.
(28:53):
This one's interesting.
I got some wild news this morning.
One of one of the well known executives out inthe world is no longer an executive for this
company.
And and one of my guys messaged me and said,hey, did you see the news?
(29:16):
And I said, no, I did not.
So I got on LinkedIn, which is where you getnews on executives and where they're going.
And my my first comment was like, I wonderwhere he's going.
I thought maybe he got recruited away andlanded somewhere.
And I read the kind of manifesto or the failfarewell letter that this guy left on, on
(29:39):
Instagram.
And one of the one of the kind of themes of theletter was this, like, diversity and inclusion
comment.
And I know this is a hot topic.
This is gonna maybe get me in some hot water,But I also got in on kind of a keyboard warrior
(30:03):
argument with some folks on LinkedIn a fewweeks ago about the same topic.
And it was during, you know, it was I forgetexactly who posted it.
I'll have to go back up and look.
But this person was basically asking questionsabout how do we get more people included?
How do we get our teams to be more diverse?
(30:26):
How do we include women and minorities?
And all these things.
And I have a pretty simple approach, and I gotchastised for it.
And it's an unpopular opinion with with currentday boardrooms, current day executives, a lot
of them have been trained on corporate speakand buzzwords, and they touch on all these they
(30:48):
touch on all these things that sound reallygood in a in a boardroom.
They sound really good in a press release, butthen they don't know how to actually run a
business.
And I'm I'm just I'm saying all this.
I know I'm gonna get myself in trouble.
I'm gonna get hate mail from this.
(31:10):
But if if organizations spent half as much timeevaluating their current talent as they do
evaluating their current diversity andinclusion targets, I think they'd solve a lot
of their problems.
(31:31):
Straight up.
I can't say it anymore plainly.
So many companies, and a lot of them are bigcompanies, big corporations that have got tons
of bureaucracy and red tape.
I'm I'm all for diversity.
I love it.
There is nothing I just said on a most recentpodcast, there's nothing more that I love than
a female in mining who can hold her own and getrespect from her peers.
(31:56):
There's nothing more I love.
You know, there there have been some people inmy life that didn't fit the mold of what
someone should look like in their role, butthey were happy to swim upstream and go against
the grain.
I love those people.
Rule breakers, you know, love them to death.
(32:18):
But so many times, these high paid executivesin these big organizations are focused on the
wrong thing, and that's talent.
Regardless of race, regardless of religion,regardless of if you have pink hair or not,
what talent is going to move my businessforward?
(32:40):
And, you know, where I got chastised in mycomments recently was was someone saying, well,
yeah, but you don't understand.
It's so much harder for these people to get alook.
Right?
Then these companies aren't looking at them ifwe don't have DEI targets.
They'll, you know, these companies will neverhire they'll only hire middle aged white male
(33:02):
if we don't have these targets.
And I would say, you know what?
If your company's made up of middle to lateaged white males and that's it, it's probably
not a super creative company anyway.
Again, cream rises to the top.
If you don't have anybody young, well, youknow, I I attribute a lot of our success.
(33:26):
You guys have heard me talk about this.
I attribute a lot of our success to our brand.
Our brand was the brainchild of a team ofpeople, three of them being women, by the way,
who were all in their twenties.
I I I believe, actually, we created anunbelievable brand by super talented people who
(33:55):
were not part of any DEI strategy.
They were just talented.
They were the they were the most talentedpeople I could find at the time.
They were the most talented people we couldconvince to come work for our company.
Like, if if if one of them had pink hair or,you know, one of them was a different,
(34:18):
different religion, different race, whatever,it's talent.
And when when some of these folks in these bigimportant roles that have ultimate P and L
responsibility for a billion dollar thing, whenthey refer to diversity and inclusion, I just
(34:46):
wonder, if I could take a peek behind thecurtain, do they have the most talent on the
team regardless of and again, I'm not antidiversity and inclusion.
That's that's the important thing.
I think it's so wild the this day and age,especially with religion, politics, all the if
you draw a line, you have to be on one side orthe other of this line.
(35:12):
I'm not anti diversity.
I I'm not I you know, not anti diversity atall.
I'm not anti inclusion.
I'm pro talent.
Pretty simple.
I'm pro talent.
What moves our business?
(35:33):
What moves our industry forward?
Now is there a gating process that makes itunfair for some of these minorities to be given
a fair shot?
I'm sure there are.
Right?
I'm sure there's a ton of companies, especiallyhistorically, that have have created a gating
(35:53):
process, a funnel that's choked for some ofthese people to be taken seriously.
I would tell you the Internet and today and thethe access that people have today to showcase
themselves, their talents, I would say it'sbroken down a ton of those barriers.
(36:16):
Maybe not all of those barriers.
But if a 13 year old African American littlegirl can make a million dollars a year on
YouTube opening gifts, opening presents, andfilming herself, Anything's possible for anyone
(36:36):
in any job regardless of your race, religion,or color, regardless of your background,
regardless of your pink hair.
Like, we have all the tools.
And so many times, I think people rely on, youknow, these mandates that only and it's funny.
(36:57):
You see so many of these companies reeling thisback, reeling these DEI mandates back.
Why are they doing that?
You have to ask the question, why are theydoing that?
It's not just Keaton Turner sitting here sayingthis.
I'm looking at what's happening, macro.
Massive, massive companies are reeling thisback.
(37:17):
Why?
I think they're pumping their companies full ofpeople who are not the most talented.
It's talent.
It's a talent conversation.
It is absolutely a talent conversation.
If I could find the most legit people, the mostlegit people pause.
(37:42):
Sorry.
Somebody walked up to my window.
If I could find the most legit people that hadthe most talent that would best fit what we're
trying to do as an organization.
If I could find them, like, by the dozens insome far off land, and they could jump in and
(38:07):
embody our culture and live our values and movethe needle for I would absolutely do it.
%.
Hundred %.
I think most business owners would do itregardless of race and religion, regardless of
sexual preference.
Like, regardless of if they vote Democrat orRepublic.
(38:29):
Like, if you can help me make more money for meand I can help make more money for the families
of people that I employ, dude, come on board.
You got pink hair?
I don't care.
You know, I and you're seeing people like MarkZuckerberg roll this back.
(38:52):
You're seeing Fortune 50 companies roll thesetargets back because they don't have the right
talent game.
It's not because they're racist organizationsor they're homophobic or any of these things.
They're actually the opposite of that.
But they're stuffing people in the organizationthat are not qualified and that are not the
(39:13):
most talented.
And in this day and age, to be the mostcompetitive company, you have to have the
talent.
You have to have the people.
We're all still people companies, even with AI.
Meta is swapping out people for more talentedpeople.
(39:37):
And so when I when I saw this executive kind ofno longer in his role and I saw this nod to
DEI, I thought to myself, man, how much timeand effort and energy have they spent on DEI
when they could've and should've spent it ontheir business?
Like, in the tactical nooks and crannies oftheir business.
(39:59):
Did they have the most talented people in everycorner?
And again, I I know some people are gonna hearthis, listen to this, and think, man, Keaton
Turner.
Dude's racist.
Dude's anti DEI.
Dude doesn't want women in his business.
And that's fine if you wanna believe thatstory.
If that's the story that you hear from me,that's totally fine.
(40:20):
I got thick enough skin to handle a few morehaters.
The reality is, if you sit where I sit, thecompanies depend on talent.
The the companies depend on if you're reallytrying to build something, and and by the way,
(40:43):
it's hard to build anything.
But if you're really trying to build something,don't you want the most talented team possible?
Some of you guys that listen, I know, have beenstuck with people you would have never hired.
I hear it all the time.
Some friends of mine work for big companies,you know, Fortune probably Fortune 50, Fortune
(41:07):
100 companies.
They manage teams of people, And we'll be, youknow, we'll have conversations over dinner or
whatever, and they'll say, Hey, you're nevergonna believe what I have to deal with.
I'm like, Why?
I don't know.
Tell me.
They're like, Oh, well, we had to hire x, y, z.
Like, okay, what's the issue with that?
Well, they've never done the job.
(41:29):
And they took the spot of Jim, forty two yearold white Jim, who was great at his job.
But we had to get rid of him because we hadthis target, we had this quota we had to hit by
the end of the quarter.
And one way we do it is we get rid of Jim, andwe hire three of these other names.
(41:57):
And now what happens is you take Jim'sworkload, you try to distribute to the three
other names, and the workload doesn't get splitequally between the three other names.
What happens is the workload doubles for thewhole team because people now have to manage
(42:17):
these three other names who don't know how todo Jim's job.
It's wild.
It is wild, wild, wild.
Now I think to tie a bow on this and land thisplane before I get myself in any more trouble.
I I don't know where it started.
I don't know which company coined this term.
(42:40):
I haven't done enough homework, I'll admit.
But I think it started off as a really goodthing.
It was probably a company that was old andstale with a with a board of directors full of
white, old, stale, stuffy guys.
And they probably looked around at their teamsand said, man, we don't have one female here.
(43:01):
We don't have one person with a differentbackground and upbringing.
We don't have any different ethnicity in ourteam.
All these ideas we're circulating around arekind of all the same, old, stale, dusty, we
should probably get some diversity in ourorganization.
You know what?
And and we should probably think aboutequality.
(43:25):
How do we get, equal pay for equal talent?
Guarantee you, this started equal pay for equaltalent.
And then it probably went further from there.
And how do we include people in our hiringprocess that otherwise wouldn't get included,
wouldn't get considered?
I think DEI started as a really good thing.
(43:47):
My the optimist in me says it probably startedoff positive.
And then just like the telephone game, onecompany hears it from one company, hears and
you get down this list of companies thatimplement DEI ten years later.
And we're left with people getting stuffed intothe system that have no clue what they're
(44:10):
doing, people getting paid equal who arenowhere near equal talent, and companies
hitting quotas and goals and not hiring peoplebecause they're talented, but instead hiring
people because they hit a minority goal.
I think it drove it's it's driven some reallywild decision making from executives.
(44:39):
Now, when an executive's comped on certain KPIsand DEI is one of them, of course, they're
gonna go fulfill their obligations.
They're gonna hit their KPIs.
But, man, I I just have to wonder sometimes,and I and again, I'm you're seeing it every
day.
(44:59):
Just look just do a quick Google search.
Look at companies that are rolling this back.
Are people thinking about talent?
That's the question.
A meritocracy.
Are companies running a meritocracy?
The best talent should play.
(45:20):
Male, female, black, white, old, young.
I think companies are actually more sexist andageist than they are anything else.
Too many companies don't let the young peopleplay and compete and bring fresh ideas.
You know?
I think a lot of companies include all kinds ofdifferent folks, but miss the young part and
(45:46):
and miss the younger generation coming in withnew ideas and being taken seriously.
And so, I'm gonna get off my soapbox a littlebit, but it got me thinking, and again, I I'm
not gonna name the name.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna call the guy out.
There's tons of them.
I mean, you can look at a you just Googleexecs, you know, recently fired executives.
(46:08):
And I guarantee you, if you put all 10 of themup together with their farewell speech from
LinkedIn or from whatever, they all have thesame corporate buzzwords, same corporate
buzzwords.
And they're proud of this initiative and thatinitiative, and they're proud of the diversity
(46:29):
and inclusion on their teams and their, andit's all I think it's all meant well, but
they're getting passed up by by small teams,small companies who understand talent and
deploy talent rapidly and get people on theteam who do not want to be dumbed down.
(46:57):
They want a meritocracy.
They want to be paid for their talent.
They don't wanna wait fifteen, twenty years forseniority, And they definitely don't wanna sit
and work shoulder to shoulder with someonegetting paid the equal amount of money if
they're not equal from a results perspective.
(47:19):
If they're not producing equal results for thecompany, why are they getting paid the same?
Unpopular opinion, I know.
And and, you know, to be honest with you, twoyears ago, I couldn't have said any of that
because I would have been crucified.
Would have been crucified by people.
But again, to clarify, I'm not anti DEI.
(47:43):
I'm I'm actually pro DEI.
I'm pro diversity.
I want young people and old people.
I want every ethnicity.
I would love some more pink hair in ourcompany.
We got guys with face tattoos and piercings.
I bring it on.
But you better be freaking talented.
(48:06):
%.
If you're gonna wear it loud and proud and bedifferent, I'm all for it.
I love it.
You better be talented.
I I just fully believe the culture of companiesin these competitive spaces are changing, and
people want talent.
(48:28):
You can't rest on being just a a marginal teammember anymore.
You can't rest on, you know, sitting around,standing in the corner, hoping the company
forgets you exist and just keeps paying yourpaycheck.
I think there's a whole culture change coming,and you're seeing it.
You're seeing it across the government.
(48:50):
You're seeing it in companies that historicallyhave been very woke.
You're you're seeing it all over the place.
And and to boil it all down, it's very simple.
It's it's business principles.
Companies run on talent.
The most talent the most the the companies withthe most talent are the companies that
(49:14):
generally win.
Their product improves.
Their service improves.
To be honest with you, their culture improves.
I think it's a talent play.
And so I can't wait for the day where companiescome out and openly admit we're very prejudiced
(49:35):
in our hiring practice, but it's all prejudicearound talent, nothing else.
We don't care about anything.
We don't care about how young you are, how oldyou are.
We don't care about your experience here orthere.
We don't care if you went to college.
We don't care what color your hair is, yoursexual orientation.
(49:56):
We don't care who you believe in.
We care about your talent, and we care how muchyou can come into our organization and impact
positive change and help us achieve our goals.
Help us make money.
Help us impact the industry.
Help us impact the world.
There's a company I'm I'm just gonna go onrecord.
(50:19):
I think that there is going to be a CEO in thenext couple years that comes out and publicly
proclaims we care about talent more thananything.
There's probably already been some, butsomeone's gonna come out and make a splash and
say, you know what?
I'm over this DEI stuff.
(50:41):
I'm over the woke.
I'm over the politically correct.
I'm over the right wing, left wing, straight,gay, all the I'm over all that.
I want the most talent.
And when that guy or girl comes out and saysall that, I'm gonna come back on the podcast.
(51:03):
I'm gonna remind everybody because it's atalent game.
That's business.
It's a talent game.
So that is a rant.
I went way longer than I was supposed to.
I probably lost a few listeners, maybe maybe afew dozen listeners.
You know, I probably am gonna get called somenames.
That's okay.
You gotta be willing to stand up for what youbelieve in, and I believe talent wins.
(51:28):
I believe talent wins.
And it's funny.
You can see this in sports, Right?
Dennis Rodman can look like a goofball, but bethe most talented rebounder of all time.
He gets praised for it.
Right?
You can be Kobe Bryant at 18 and skip college,come out of high school, and be one of the
greatest of all time and get praised for it.
Right?
You you can I mean, look at Olympic teams?
(51:50):
Look you can do this in sports.
For some reason, we haven't quite made thistranslation to business.
For some reason, we still have these processes,procedures, protocols where the best talent
doesn't necessarily get to play.
That's true in startups.
A lot of startups have young talent.
(52:12):
Lot of startups have some wild looking folks onthe staff that are super talented that run fast
and break things.
But as companies get bigger and older, morebureaucratic, more smart people, they start to
implement these things that don't make anysense.
DEI didn't get you where you are.
Talent got you where you are.
(52:34):
You know?
It's simple as that.
And so yeah.
I don't know.
I again, I'm only regurgitating to you guys ona podcast that I drop every single day.
I'm only regurgitating stuff that's happeningin my life, stuff that I'm seeing, stuff that
I'm reading, stuff that I'm hearing orwatching.
(52:54):
And when I read this today about thisexecutive, I thought, man, he just needed more
talent on the team.
He needed a little less man, I I don't know.
I don't know how diverse his team is.
I I don't know how I hate to say the word wokebecause I think it's overused, but I I don't
know.
I I think maybe some of the issues could havebeen talent issues.
(53:16):
And so business is hard.
That might be me one day sending a farewellletter on LinkedIn.
And you some of you guys will stomp on thegrave and celebrate.
But that's my take.
I think that's where the current state of,business is at on this topic.
And let me know what you think.
(53:37):
If you absolutely fundamentally disagree withme and feel passionate about it, I would love
to have a conversation.
We can even do it for everybody to hear.
We can do it on the podcast.
If you think I am if you think I've lost it andI'm way out of bounds and I don't know what I'm
talking about or I'm insensitive to all thepeople that deserve a fair shot like, whatever
(54:01):
your stance is, if you are opposite ofeverything I just said, I welcome the
opportunity to have some civil discourse andtalk about it.
And maybe I maybe you can educate me and I canlearn something.
But for now, until happens, that is my take,albeit a hot one.
(54:23):
And and appreciate you guys listening.
We're praying you're getting your per diem.
We're praying you're killing it.
We're praying that you show back up tomorrow.
We'll see what tomorrow's topic is.
Hopefully, it's a little softer than this one.
Hopefully, it's a little colder than this one.
This was fairly this was fairly hot take.
So thanks guys for listening.
(54:43):
We'll do it again tomorrow.
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