May 7, 2024 • 15 mins
Have you ever considered that sometimes, to reach new levels of leadership, you might need to quit some things altogether? Our latest episode unpacks this leadership truism - "If you want to go up in leadership, there are things you have to give up to get there." What things do you need to quit to make room for the more important things in your business?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
I like how you're analog.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You got your pens and paper I just, I just uh made an
investment.
I haven't even opened it yet.
It's sitting in the chair nextto us, one of those digital
paper writing things you knowlike you should do an ad for it.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Are we sponsored by remarkable, yet maybe?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
maybe we just need to to uh name it and claim it.
Yeah, it'll happen, I do.
I will say I do like analog,like when I'm reading a book I
try to get into kindle, but Iwant to hold a real book yeah I
just love.
I love to like kind of touchand feel and write, and this
paper will most likely stayblank till the end of the
episode, or I'll start.
You'll see me doodling here,yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Just take notes of all the amazing things that we
say for later.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Ooh, that was good, Drew.
What's on your mind today?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Matthew, you know we ran through a couple episodes
that I think really impactedpeople, talking through hiring
and firing and um, this idea ofquitting came to mind, but not
in the way that I think a lot ofpeople think about quitting.
Obviously, you can leave a roleand just quit.
I think quiet quitting was afun thing that people talked
about at the end of COVID, butI'm more thinking about
(01:15):
leadership quitting.
What does it look like to stopdoing something and to start
doing something else?
So today I wanted to talk aboutthe value of quitting.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I love that, right I?
I just think this idea of what,when to start, when to stop,
when to continue, right, that'san exercise that I learned from
you.
It's a start, stop, continueexercise, and I think
intentional quitting is probablythe key to success for a lot of
leaders, because we get somarried to what worked in the
(01:48):
past what was and this is reallyeasy for me to talk about,
because I love new ideas I lovechanging things, so like of
course I love quitting stuff if,and going and starting new
things and we talked about theshiny penny thing, right?
so that's probably the oppositeof of what we're talking about
on the on the health spectrum,and you can go back and listen
or watch that episode.
Um, but yeah, saying no, youknow, saying no to things that
(02:11):
aren't bringing the revenueanymore, aren't working anymore.
So my question to you is let'sstart here how do you know, like
, how do you know when it's timeto quit something yeah, that's,
that's really good or even quitsomebody?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So, yeah, yeah, I'd have to think about that for a
second Cause.
That's a that's a greatquestion.
I think I realized, um, lookingthrough some of our reels, that
I always say I think and then Isay what I think I need to find
, like a new onboarding phrase.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I think, yeah, it's good.
It gives me a little edit point.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, I think a core principle.
I just did it again.
We may have to edit all this.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
No, I love it, keep going.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
One of my first jobs where I learned a little bit
about leadership.
The executive director of thiscompany said I want you to learn
how to replace yourself, okay.
I was like, okay, well, that'sstupid, I'm never going to do
that because I want to do my job.
So why would I quit doing whatI'm doing and replace myself?
Right?
And then the more mature youget, the more experience you get
.
You realize if you're going togo up in an organization, you
(03:12):
have to give up in anorganization.
There are things that I thoughtwere core to the work that I
did, that gave me identity, gaveme purpose, you know, made me
valuable to an organization thatif I quit doing those things,
it would give me opportunity todo some other things that were
maybe more valuable.
But it's hard to quit them whenyou think they're the right
thing, and so I think a lot oftimes you need someone to give
(03:34):
you perspective and say you needto stop doing this.
At a great leader, he hegrabbed like a bunch of expo
markers from a whiteboard.
He's like hey, I want you tohold this marker.
This marker represents a veryimportant function of your job.
Now here's another marker.
This represents anotherimportant marker of your job and
you do this too.
Each marker representedresponsibility and he kept
giving them to me.
Before I knew it, I couldn'thold any more markers in my hand
(04:01):
.
He's like your job as a leaderis to start giving markers away.
You have to quit some thingsthat are your responsibility.
Delegate them so you can holdmore important markers.
And I think that was the firsttime where it was like really
tactical.
You talked about analog.
I want to touch it, I want tofeel it Like.
In that moment I thought, ohyeah, I can't physically hold
any more responsibility becauseI feel like I'm a capable person
.
Bring it on.
I can take all the stress andthe pressure.
I can do this, give me morework to do.
But it's like, well, you can'tdo more important work because
(04:26):
you're holding all this stuff sothat I quit.
Principle in that moment wasman, I know I need to do
something because someonebrought it to my attentions and
I don't know that I would haveknown to start quitting things
until they told me to.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well, it gives you some practical language too,
like you can say, because I Iwasn't there for that
conversation, but I have heardyou say and how do you lead your
team was, is that a marker youcould give away?
Yeah, which you know?
I'm hearing this like what areyou talking about?
A marker, you know, but then I,you know, figured it out, and I
think that's a great principlefor us.
(04:55):
Just to pause for a second andsay if you're a leader,
listening to this, you can'tpunish your employees for great
delegation and giving markersaway.
That was a great leader whoactually valued and championed
and rewarded you giving thingsaway to other people, because
this leader knows that there'sno shortage or no scarcity
(05:16):
mindset of things that need tobe done in value that you can
bring to the organization, andso, as you're giving stuff away,
you're able to pick up moreleadership, higher level
leadership, and I think youshould be on the lookout as
leader for those people.
Yeah, right, those are thepeople that you say hey, I can
give you more responsibility andgive you more things, because
you know how to to manage otherpeople.
Hand this off, get this done,and the results are exponential
(05:39):
in that process.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, that's right.
Let's circle back to start,stop, continue.
So that is actually a bit of aprocess that was introduced to
us, I mean several years ago,and it's a pretty good framework
.
I don't think it's the onlyframework a leader can have, but
it's a really good tool.
If you get to, you know you'redoing your annual evaluation of
an employee.
It can't be the only thing thatyou evaluate, but it's a good
(06:00):
thing to get an employee tothink through like, hey, what
are the things that this yearyou need to start?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
What are the exponential things you need to
stop?
What are the things you have tocontinue for success in your
job?
And so you referenced that.
Where did that make sense inyour leadership?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, I almost wish it was stop, continue, start oh,
that's good, because start forme was so easy, but there's just
things.
You can't start until you'rewilling to stop or evaluate what
we should continue, right.
So my problem is I'm starting abunch of things and if I'm not
disciplined to quit and stopother things or evaluate, is
this something that even needsto keep happening?
(06:33):
Is this bringing any value?
I think in a lot of ways youhave to.
You have to be measuring, youknow, you have to kind of
whether, whether you're ananalytics person or not, you
kind of have to fall in lovewith looking at data and looking
at what's actually working,because, especially if you're an
emotional leader like me,you'll get so emotionally tied
(06:55):
up into an idea and you may loveit, but it may not be working
and so, even though you love itor it's your baby or it's like,
oh, we can't kill this, or we'vedone this this way for 10, 20
years, whatever it's wherepeople like me, who don't
naturally gravitate towards thenumbers or the data or the
metrics especially in thebusiness side that I own, where
(07:16):
we do social media for people,we see this all the time we have
to look and say, hey, you mayreally love a piece of creative
content, but if I'm looking atthe backend, the analytics, and
it's not working, then we've gotto adjust, we've got to stop
doing this, or you know, we needto continue doing the things
that work, even though you maynot want to do.
And so it's a lot of.
It's just a lot of discipline.
(07:36):
It takes a lot of discipline.
I would say, if you're my typeof personality, don't start with
.
Start, go to the stop first Likeokay before I start anything
else, what do I need to stopdoing?
I mean, even as I'm talking,I'm evaluating in my life.
There's probably things I needto say no to right now so I can
start doing.
I think the harder question forme is, on the continue.
(08:00):
Okay, I'm curious from yourperspective.
What are you looking at Likewhen you say, okay, we've been
doing?
Speaker 1 (08:07):
this thing.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Should we continue doing?
It Should we stop it so that wecan start some other things.
How should we be thinking?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
about, but let me think this is really
philosophical.
So go with me on this weirdjourney.
Leadership personality profileassessment.
Honestly, I can't remember thetitle of the assessment, but I
love the descriptor of myleadership gifts and it said
implementer, conductor.
Okay, that was like the twothings.
That resonates like okay, theidea of conducting obviously our
(08:34):
music background, youunderstand conducting.
When it comes to start, stop,continue.
I think about this, like if yougo to an orchestra and
everybody's playing at fullvolume all the time, the piece
has no dynamic.
You can't really interpretwhat's the melody, what's the
supporting parts, and so it'slike the warmup when everyone's
tuning and it's one big no, it'snot, it's not fun, but a
conductor knows when to bringpieces of the orchestra in and
(08:57):
have other pieces go downand then dynamics here and
dynamics there and it becomesthis beautiful piece of music.
And I think that can bebusiness and leadership as well,
where you know, okay, let'sbring this up, but if I turn
this up, there's probablysomething I have to turn down at
the same time.
But continuing is like thatcontinuity.
What's the piece that makes itgo from start to finish?
That feels like a set piece ofmusic.
(09:17):
I think something we couldreally talk about when it comes
to continue is the marry, themission and date, the method.
In any organization, there'ssomething you do that makes it
core to who you are.
It's like man.
We do this kind of business andin this season it looked like
this.
But that method's not working.
It's not as effective as itused to be.
(09:38):
So we need to stop doing thatmethod.
Let's do this method.
That's different.
Let's try this out.
We're still continuing ourmission.
We're still going to be onmission with our organization to
serve our clients or sell thisproduct, whatever it is.
But the methods do change.
You know that from social media, like the algorithm could be
one way for a month or two andthen it changes on a dime.
And if you're still doing theold method, you're done.
(09:59):
But if the mission isengagement, awareness,
participation, whatever thatmission is for your social media
like you can be married to that.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But your methods have to change all the time and, a
lot of times, the market itself,which is another m for you, if
you want to look into your um,the market itself.
If you're listening and payingattention to it will help you
determine what you need to do,right?
So, like when we started ourbusiness, our mission was to
help thought leaders amplifytheir message so they could help
more people.
Right, that's what we wanted todo.
(10:26):
Well, it was a.
We started a podcast company.
We were going to help podcast.
We're going to do podcasts, wecan do micro content or like
whatever.
But what we found out early inour business is that wasn't
actually the primary need of ourmarket, which we do podcast for
some clients.
But most clients are like hey,we want to tell stories on our
(10:47):
social media and it's exhaustingfor us to have to do this.
So, all that to say, we had topivot early on our company to
say, hey, if I fell in love with, I just love doing podcasts and
I just love producing those andall the you know whatever, well
then our business wouldn't bedoing what it's doing today,
because we had to say well, whatpeople actually need.
That we need to stop doing ispromoting ourselves as just a
(11:10):
podcast company.
We need to start talking abouthow we can add value to people
on their social media andcontent all that kind of stuff.
And so all that to say you'vegot to listen, you've got to be
in tune to it goes back to dataresults.
You've got to be in tune toyour market, not falling love
with you know, the like you said, the method, like, and I think
that's that's a key component asto why you need other people
(11:32):
around you, right, of course,and I think when you're, when
you're talking about continuingsomething, there's always
fatigue in business, right?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
There's always, like man, I'm really tired of doing
this same thing over and overagain because we're not getting
the results we used to, or maybewe're getting the same results,
but it's taking more people todo it now than it used to, or
you're bored.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
That's exactly right.
You know what I mean.
Sometimes it's just like I justdon't like doing this anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So continuing is a bit of a discipline.
It's like I'm going to wake upand be obedient to this mission.
I know I have to go do this.
I feel called to make thishappen, and that's that's always
tough, and I think we'recontinuing.
As a challenge is when you'reyou're not looking at the data
to support it.
You do just feel married to thediscipline, you feel married to
the way you've always done itand you're not getting the
(12:15):
results you used to get.
You know you're not getting thereturns you used to get on the
investment you're making, and soit's like, man, I better stop
doing this.
The continuing is not workinganymore.
I think it's probably reallypersonality dependent, because
there are people who justthey're wired to wake up and
grind every single day andthat's easy for them.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I was literally about to go there.
You read my mind Cause I wasthinking.
I wonder if it would be helpfuland shoot me down if this is,
if this is out of line but Iwonder it'd be helpful if you
looked around the room ofleaders that you have and you're
able to identify who is more ofa start person, a stop person,
a continue person, yeah, and tobe able to draft off those
(12:53):
strengths and weaknesses.
Because, for me, I love tostart.
But I'm really inspired aboutwhat you just said about
continue, because that is truefor me.
I have to have discipline toget in.
Continue, because that is truefor me.
Like, I have to have disciplineto get in.
But if I don't have someone onmy team that's a continue guy
that's like, hey, drew, I knowyou're getting bored with this,
but this is core to our business.
Yeah, let's just keep, let'skeep at it.
(13:13):
I gotta have that person in theroom with me.
And then there's going to bepeople that are less emotionally
tied to things.
They're like, hey, we couldquit doing that, let's just stop
.
Yeah, let's Whatever.
And then there's going to beguys like me that's like, hey,
what if we do this?
What if.
My favorite thing is what if?
Like, okay, what if?
And you need those people too.
But it's dangerous to have anyone personality in that room
(13:37):
without the others.
Yeah, there's a great book.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It's a few decades old, but it's called um
barbarians to bureaucrats.
Okay, and it's the idea thatevery business runs through a
life cycle where at some pointyou need someone to just take a
machete to the jungle and hackout a pathway right, that's your
starters, right.
And then as the businessmatures, it gets more shrewd
managers to kind of come in andrun it.
You don't need the pathwayhacked as much as you used to,
(14:02):
and usually by the end of anorganization's life cycle it's
run by bureaucrats.
They didn't start it, they'renot excited about new, they're
the continue people andeventually someone hopefully is
wise enough with the bureaucratsto be like, hey, it's time to
end this, we've drained everydrip out of this, we can
possibly get it's over.
And so, yeah, there'spersonality types to consider,
(14:23):
there's life cycle of yourbusiness to consider, for sure.
And I think like maybe one ofthe last things I want to wrap
with on this quitting episodewould be like I've got a friend
who just sold a business and sothey ran it for 10 years.
They thought, man, this is,that was a really good run.
I enjoyed it, I was passionateabout it, got a lot of notoriety
for running the business and Ialso feel like it's time for a
(14:44):
new challenge.
Like that decade mark kind ofmeant something to them and it's
time to move on.
And so they quit their business, they sold it.
Now they get to reinvest theprofits from that to try to do
something new.
And so there's some times where, um, when some people are
really passionate about dates mywife's like that.
Like her, she just has thismemory for it.
Oh, it's may, and remember maya couple of years ago.
(15:04):
X, y and Z is like no, I had noclue.
That was a thing.
So some people are you know,the calendar matters to them
emotionally and physiologicallyand all that stuff.
For me it doesn't matter.
Oh, we've been doing that for10 years.
I had no clue we were stilldoing that.
But for other people that'slike no, I'm going to do
something else now.
Yeah, I love it.
Everybody go quit.
One thing today, that's right.
I like how you're analog.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You got your pens and paper I just, I just uh made an
investment.
I haven't even opened it yet.
It's sitting in the chair nextto us, one of those digital
paper writing things you knowlike you should do an ad for it.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Are we sponsored by remarkable, yet maybe?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
maybe we just need to to uh name it and claim it.
Yeah, it'll happen, I do.
I will say I do like analog,like when I'm reading a book I
try to get into kindle, but Iwant to hold a real book yeah I
just love.
I love to like kind of touchand feel and write, and this
paper will most likely stayblank till the end of the
episode, or I'll start.
You'll see me doodling here,yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Just take notes of all the amazing things that we
say for later.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Ooh, that was good, Drew.
What's on your mind today?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Matthew, you know we ran through a couple episodes
that I think really impactedpeople, talking through hiring
and firing and um, this idea ofquitting came to mind, but not
in the way that I think a lot ofpeople think about quitting.
Obviously, you can leave a roleand just quit.
I think quiet quitting was afun thing that people talked
about at the end of COVID, butI'm more thinking about
(01:15):
leadership quitting.
What does it look like to stopdoing something and to start
doing something else?
So today I wanted to talk aboutthe value of quitting.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I love that, right I?
I just think this idea of what,when to start, when to stop,
when to continue, right, that'san exercise that I learned from
you.
It's a start, stop, continueexercise, and I think
intentional quitting is probablythe key to success for a lot of
leaders, because we get somarried to what worked in the
(01:48):
past what was and this is reallyeasy for me to talk about,
because I love new ideas I lovechanging things, so like of
course I love quitting stuff if,and going and starting new
things and we talked about theshiny penny thing, right?
so that's probably the oppositeof of what we're talking about
on the on the health spectrum,and you can go back and listen
or watch that episode.
Um, but yeah, saying no, youknow, saying no to things that
(02:11):
aren't bringing the revenueanymore, aren't working anymore.
So my question to you is let'sstart here how do you know, like
, how do you know when it's timeto quit something yeah, that's,
that's really good or even quitsomebody?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So, yeah, yeah, I'd have to think about that for a
second Cause.
That's a that's a greatquestion.
I think I realized, um, lookingthrough some of our reels, that
I always say I think and then Isay what I think I need to find
, like a new onboarding phrase.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I think, yeah, it's good.
It gives me a little edit point.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, I think a core principle.
I just did it again.
We may have to edit all this.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
No, I love it, keep going.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
One of my first jobs where I learned a little bit
about leadership.
The executive director of thiscompany said I want you to learn
how to replace yourself, okay.
I was like, okay, well, that'sstupid, I'm never going to do
that because I want to do my job.
So why would I quit doing whatI'm doing and replace myself?
Right?
And then the more mature youget, the more experience you get
.
You realize if you're going togo up in an organization, you
(03:12):
have to give up in anorganization.
There are things that I thoughtwere core to the work that I
did, that gave me identity, gaveme purpose, you know, made me
valuable to an organization thatif I quit doing those things,
it would give me opportunity todo some other things that were
maybe more valuable.
But it's hard to quit them whenyou think they're the right
thing, and so I think a lot oftimes you need someone to give
(03:34):
you perspective and say you needto stop doing this.
At a great leader, he hegrabbed like a bunch of expo
markers from a whiteboard.
He's like hey, I want you tohold this marker.
This marker represents a veryimportant function of your job.
Now here's another marker.
This represents anotherimportant marker of your job and
you do this too.
Each marker representedresponsibility and he kept
giving them to me.
Before I knew it, I couldn'thold any more markers in my hand
(04:01):
.
He's like your job as a leaderis to start giving markers away.
You have to quit some thingsthat are your responsibility.
Delegate them so you can holdmore important markers.
And I think that was the firsttime where it was like really
tactical.
You talked about analog.
I want to touch it, I want tofeel it Like.
In that moment I thought, ohyeah, I can't physically hold
any more responsibility becauseI feel like I'm a capable person
.
Bring it on.
I can take all the stress andthe pressure.
I can do this, give me morework to do.
But it's like, well, you can'tdo more important work because
(04:26):
you're holding all this stuff sothat I quit.
Principle in that moment wasman, I know I need to do
something because someonebrought it to my attentions and
I don't know that I would haveknown to start quitting things
until they told me to.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well, it gives you some practical language too,
like you can say, because I Iwasn't there for that
conversation, but I have heardyou say and how do you lead your
team was, is that a marker youcould give away?
Yeah, which you know?
I'm hearing this like what areyou talking about?
A marker, you know, but then I,you know, figured it out, and I
think that's a great principlefor us.
(04:55):
Just to pause for a second andsay if you're a leader,
listening to this, you can'tpunish your employees for great
delegation and giving markersaway.
That was a great leader whoactually valued and championed
and rewarded you giving thingsaway to other people, because
this leader knows that there'sno shortage or no scarcity
(05:16):
mindset of things that need tobe done in value that you can
bring to the organization, andso, as you're giving stuff away,
you're able to pick up moreleadership, higher level
leadership, and I think youshould be on the lookout as
leader for those people.
Yeah, right, those are thepeople that you say hey, I can
give you more responsibility andgive you more things, because
you know how to to manage otherpeople.
Hand this off, get this done,and the results are exponential
(05:39):
in that process.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, that's right.
Let's circle back to start,stop, continue.
So that is actually a bit of aprocess that was introduced to
us, I mean several years ago,and it's a pretty good framework
.
I don't think it's the onlyframework a leader can have, but
it's a really good tool.
If you get to, you know you'redoing your annual evaluation of
an employee.
It can't be the only thing thatyou evaluate, but it's a good
(06:00):
thing to get an employee tothink through like, hey, what
are the things that this yearyou need to start?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
What are the exponential things you need to
stop?
What are the things you have tocontinue for success in your
job?
And so you referenced that.
Where did that make sense inyour leadership?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, I almost wish it was stop, continue, start oh,
that's good, because start forme was so easy, but there's just
things.
You can't start until you'rewilling to stop or evaluate what
we should continue, right.
So my problem is I'm starting abunch of things and if I'm not
disciplined to quit and stopother things or evaluate, is
this something that even needsto keep happening?
(06:33):
Is this bringing any value?
I think in a lot of ways youhave to.
You have to be measuring, youknow, you have to kind of
whether, whether you're ananalytics person or not, you
kind of have to fall in lovewith looking at data and looking
at what's actually working,because, especially if you're an
emotional leader like me,you'll get so emotionally tied
(06:55):
up into an idea and you may loveit, but it may not be working
and so, even though you love itor it's your baby or it's like,
oh, we can't kill this, or we'vedone this this way for 10, 20
years, whatever it's wherepeople like me, who don't
naturally gravitate towards thenumbers or the data or the
metrics especially in thebusiness side that I own, where
(07:16):
we do social media for people,we see this all the time we have
to look and say, hey, you mayreally love a piece of creative
content, but if I'm looking atthe backend, the analytics, and
it's not working, then we've gotto adjust, we've got to stop
doing this, or you know, we needto continue doing the things
that work, even though you maynot want to do.
And so it's a lot of.
It's just a lot of discipline.
(07:36):
It takes a lot of discipline.
I would say, if you're my typeof personality, don't start with
.
Start, go to the stop first Likeokay before I start anything
else, what do I need to stopdoing?
I mean, even as I'm talking,I'm evaluating in my life.
There's probably things I needto say no to right now so I can
start doing.
I think the harder question forme is, on the continue.
(08:00):
Okay, I'm curious from yourperspective.
What are you looking at Likewhen you say, okay, we've been
doing?
Speaker 1 (08:07):
this thing.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Should we continue doing?
It Should we stop it so that wecan start some other things.
How should we be thinking?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
about, but let me think this is really
philosophical.
So go with me on this weirdjourney.
Leadership personality profileassessment.
Honestly, I can't remember thetitle of the assessment, but I
love the descriptor of myleadership gifts and it said
implementer, conductor.
Okay, that was like the twothings.
That resonates like okay, theidea of conducting obviously our
(08:34):
music background, youunderstand conducting.
When it comes to start, stop,continue.
I think about this, like if yougo to an orchestra and
everybody's playing at fullvolume all the time, the piece
has no dynamic.
You can't really interpretwhat's the melody, what's the
supporting parts, and so it'slike the warmup when everyone's
tuning and it's one big no, it'snot, it's not fun, but a
conductor knows when to bringpieces of the orchestra in and
(08:57):
have other pieces go downand then dynamics here and
dynamics there and it becomesthis beautiful piece of music.
And I think that can bebusiness and leadership as well,
where you know, okay, let'sbring this up, but if I turn
this up, there's probablysomething I have to turn down at
the same time.
But continuing is like thatcontinuity.
What's the piece that makes itgo from start to finish?
That feels like a set piece ofmusic.
(09:17):
I think something we couldreally talk about when it comes
to continue is the marry, themission and date, the method.
In any organization, there'ssomething you do that makes it
core to who you are.
It's like man.
We do this kind of business andin this season it looked like
this.
But that method's not working.
It's not as effective as itused to be.
(09:38):
So we need to stop doing thatmethod.
Let's do this method.
That's different.
Let's try this out.
We're still continuing ourmission.
We're still going to be onmission with our organization to
serve our clients or sell thisproduct, whatever it is.
But the methods do change.
You know that from social media, like the algorithm could be
one way for a month or two andthen it changes on a dime.
And if you're still doing theold method, you're done.
(09:59):
But if the mission isengagement, awareness,
participation, whatever thatmission is for your social media
like you can be married to that.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But your methods have to change all the time and, a
lot of times, the market itself,which is another m for you, if
you want to look into your um,the market itself.
If you're listening and payingattention to it will help you
determine what you need to do,right?
So, like when we started ourbusiness, our mission was to
help thought leaders amplifytheir message so they could help
more people.
Right, that's what we wanted todo.
(10:26):
Well, it was a.
We started a podcast company.
We were going to help podcast.
We're going to do podcasts, wecan do micro content or like
whatever.
But what we found out early inour business is that wasn't
actually the primary need of ourmarket, which we do podcast for
some clients.
But most clients are like hey,we want to tell stories on our
(10:47):
social media and it's exhaustingfor us to have to do this.
So, all that to say, we had topivot early on our company to
say, hey, if I fell in love with, I just love doing podcasts and
I just love producing those andall the you know whatever, well
then our business wouldn't bedoing what it's doing today,
because we had to say well, whatpeople actually need.
That we need to stop doing ispromoting ourselves as just a
(11:10):
podcast company.
We need to start talking abouthow we can add value to people
on their social media andcontent all that kind of stuff.
And so all that to say you'vegot to listen, you've got to be
in tune to it goes back to dataresults.
You've got to be in tune toyour market, not falling love
with you know, the like you said, the method, like, and I think
that's that's a key component asto why you need other people
(11:32):
around you, right, of course,and I think when you're, when
you're talking about continuingsomething, there's always
fatigue in business, right?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
There's always, like man, I'm really tired of doing
this same thing over and overagain because we're not getting
the results we used to, or maybewe're getting the same results,
but it's taking more people todo it now than it used to, or
you're bored.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
That's exactly right.
You know what I mean.
Sometimes it's just like I justdon't like doing this anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So continuing is a bit of a discipline.
It's like I'm going to wake upand be obedient to this mission.
I know I have to go do this.
I feel called to make thishappen, and that's that's always
tough, and I think we'recontinuing.
As a challenge is when you'reyou're not looking at the data
to support it.
You do just feel married to thediscipline, you feel married to
the way you've always done itand you're not getting the
(12:15):
results you used to get.
You know you're not getting thereturns you used to get on the
investment you're making, and soit's like, man, I better stop
doing this.
The continuing is not workinganymore.
I think it's probably reallypersonality dependent, because
there are people who justthey're wired to wake up and
grind every single day andthat's easy for them.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
I was literally about to go there.
You read my mind Cause I wasthinking.
I wonder if it would be helpfuland shoot me down if this is,
if this is out of line but Iwonder it'd be helpful if you
looked around the room ofleaders that you have and you're
able to identify who is more ofa start person, a stop person,
a continue person, yeah, and tobe able to draft off those
(12:53):
strengths and weaknesses.
Because, for me, I love tostart.
But I'm really inspired aboutwhat you just said about
continue, because that is truefor me.
I have to have discipline toget in.
Continue, because that is truefor me.
Like, I have to have disciplineto get in.
But if I don't have someone onmy team that's a continue guy
that's like, hey, drew, I knowyou're getting bored with this,
but this is core to our business.
Yeah, let's just keep, let'skeep at it.
(13:13):
I gotta have that person in theroom with me.
And then there's going to bepeople that are less emotionally
tied to things.
They're like, hey, we couldquit doing that, let's just stop
.
Yeah, let's Whatever.
And then there's going to beguys like me that's like, hey,
what if we do this?
What if.
My favorite thing is what if?
Like, okay, what if?
And you need those people too.
But it's dangerous to have anyone personality in that room
(13:37):
without the others.
Yeah, there's a great book.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It's a few decades old, but it's called um
barbarians to bureaucrats.
Okay, and it's the idea thatevery business runs through a
life cycle where at some pointyou need someone to just take a
machete to the jungle and hackout a pathway right, that's your
starters, right.
And then as the businessmatures, it gets more shrewd
managers to kind of come in andrun it.
You don't need the pathwayhacked as much as you used to,
(14:02):
and usually by the end of anorganization's life cycle it's
run by bureaucrats.
They didn't start it, they'renot excited about new, they're
the continue people andeventually someone hopefully is
wise enough with the bureaucratsto be like, hey, it's time to
end this, we've drained everydrip out of this, we can
possibly get it's over.
And so, yeah, there'spersonality types to consider,
(14:23):
there's life cycle of yourbusiness to consider, for sure.
And I think like maybe one ofthe last things I want to wrap
with on this quitting episodewould be like I've got a friend
who just sold a business and sothey ran it for 10 years.
They thought, man, this is,that was a really good run.
I enjoyed it, I was passionateabout it, got a lot of notoriety
for running the business and Ialso feel like it's time for a
(14:44):
new challenge.
Like that decade mark kind ofmeant something to them and it's
time to move on.
And so they quit their business, they sold it.
Now they get to reinvest theprofits from that to try to do
something new.
And so there's some times where, um, when some people are
really passionate about dates mywife's like that.
Like her, she just has thismemory for it.
Oh, it's may, and remember maya couple of years ago.
(15:04):
X, y and Z is like no, I had noclue.
That was a thing.
So some people are you know,the calendar matters to them
emotionally and physiologicallyand all that stuff.
For me it doesn't matter.
Oh, we've been doing that for10 years.
I had no clue we were stilldoing that.
But for other people that'slike no, I'm going to do
something else now.
Yeah, I love it.
Everybody go quit.
One thing today, that's right.
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