EXPERIENCE 205 | Dain Johnson - Founder & Owner of Rev 0 - Engineer turned Organizational Psychologist turned Coach for Engineers turned Managers, Leaders, and CEO’s - The LoCo Experience

Episode Transcript
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(01:28):
Welcome back to the LocoExperience podcast.
My guest today is Dane Johnsonand Dane is the founder and
owner of RevZero, uh, whichtrains coaches, um, engineers
turned managers.
Yeah, that's right.
And, uh, then also the founderand co owner of Isolation
Coffee.
And thanks for bringing a coffeegift for one of our listeners.

(01:50):
Bring that mic just a littlecloser.
Sure.
How about that?
There you go.
Perfect.
Um, so, you know, obviously,let's, uh, let's talk about
RevZero, because, um, it'sreally been an evolving
enterprise for you, as we'veknown each other the last Plus
years, probably.
Yeah, it's gone through a fewiterations, a few revisions of

(02:10):
its own.
You know, revision zero, revzero, stands for revision zero.
Okay.
I got the name, but I started iteight years ago.
Uh, founded the LLC while I hadmy corporate job.
Okay.
And I had no idea what it wasgoing to turn into.
Okay.
You were just sick of workingfor the man?
Yeah, I was.
Okay.
And so I knew the writing was onthe wall, and I formed the LLC

(02:31):
in July, and by October I hadresigned, and I was working with
a small startup out of Texas asa consultant.
So RevZero became my consultingpartner.
business, the arm through whichI did consulting and that
focused on engineering projectmanagement.
Okay.
And since then it has evolved asI have as well into psychology

(02:52):
and behavior of people at work.
And so now it's primarilycoaching, which is all focused
on individual performance atwork.
So you have a niche inengineers, but probably your
toolkit isn't applicable topretty much anybody.
Is that so, or is it kind ofdesigned for that engineering
mindset, if you will?

(03:13):
Uh, the coaching experiencedoesn't change based off of the,
uh, individual's background,right?
So if I'm coaching an engineer,or a CTO, or a CEO, whether they
have a technical background ornot, the methods are the same.
The difference is my ability torelate to the engineer, um,

(03:33):
because I am one.
I was an engineer for 10 years,a mechanical engineer working in
large corporations and smallcompanies.
So I'm familiar with theirchallenges.
I'm familiar with their, theirbackground.
Uh, and so there's just.
You know, for coaching to beeffective, there has to be a
relationship and trustimmediately.
And I find that my backgroundjust helps establish that trust

(03:55):
faster.
You know, I'm not, uh, um, I'mnot coming in as a life coach,
which a lot of them assume ifyou're going to get a coach that
it's a life coach and of coursewe get into life.
But with us sharing a lot of thesimilar background, um, it just
builds that trust.
Well, with our, you know, you'veseen me present.
One million cups and differentthings about loco think tank
and, you know, our facilitatorsare, are You know, successful

(04:18):
business veterans that have beenthere, done that.
And so they already have thatkind of instant credibility with
those that are in it doing itright now.
Yeah, exactly.
And getting that credibility isso important.
Uh, it takes a long time tobuild that, but if you have a
shared experience, it's kind ofbuilt in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
So did you, like, did you learnthe toolkit of relating with

(04:38):
people and managing people andthen later pivoted to that, or
as you coached, you realizedthe.
Opportunity in the marketplace?
Uh, a very roundabout careerpath.
Okay.
Um, I joke with my wife thatshe, uh, knows people and just
knows how to relate to peoplenaturally.
I had to go to grad school tofigure that out.
Okay.
So, I have a master's degree inpsychology.

(05:00):
Okay.
So I had to go back to schooljust to learn how to work with
people.
And it really all started when Iwas working at ExxonMobil.
Largest corporation at the time.
That was my first job out ofcollege.
And here was a corporation withengineers from interns to CEO.
Every layer of management wasengineering.
And of course we were coming upwith the right technical

(05:20):
solution.
Our projects were very wellmanaged.
We had them well planned, wellcontrolled, but there was always
this element at play that Ididn't.
I didn't quite understand and Ididn't feel like most folks had
an idea of how to work with it.
And that was the people element.
And so, an example, I'd go tothese root cause analysis

(05:41):
meetings where some major pieceof equipment failed and we'd
spend the whole day talkingabout why it failed.
And so we'd break down all thecomponents.
Because that engineer doesn'tlove his job.
And this is where it would getto.
It would get to the people sideand then the analysis would
stop.
So we'd get to the point where,okay, it was operator error or
some managerial cultural thing.

(06:03):
We don't know how to work withculture and people and
operators.
So we're just going to stop theanalysis right there.
And figure out how to change ourdesign so that people aren't
factored into it at all.
Like try to engineer the peopleout of it.
And you couldn't do that witheverything.
Um, and so that just started meon this path of discovery.
Um, of one book after the next.

(06:24):
And before you know it I'mstudying psychology trying to
figure out how people work.
And I still haven't figured itout.
This is in your side hustle.
Like here's basically a bookwormon the side of your regular
engineering job where you're,what were you, what were you
doing in designing?
Yeah.
Uh, at Exxon, my job wasmachinery engineer, so I was
doing turbo machinery, which isthe pumps, compressors, uh, gas

(06:45):
turbines, anything that rotated.
Okay.
Uh, I was in the groupengineering that, and I was
working large projectsinternationally.
So I was in Korea, Angola,Norway, traveling the world to
all these.
facilities, um, you know,inspecting these multimillion
dollar pieces of equipment.
And, uh, so that was myengineering background.
And they're failing fordifferent reasons because
they're all in different kindsof environments, but also the

(07:08):
maintenance schedule is not thesame with everybody's operation
of it and different things likethat too, right?
We designed one spec and wemaybe write it for West Texas,
but then we want to install thatpiece of equipment in Siberia or
Africa.
Right.
I was working on subseatechnology, which is, we were
designing.
Um, five megawatt driven pumpsthat could sit on the ocean

(07:29):
floor for years without beingretrieved.
And so these were things thatwere, that had to work
perfectly.
It's almost like putting thingsin space.
The only difference is, uh, itcan weigh as much as you want it
to going into the ocean.
What, uh, is that used to pumpseawater out of the ocean for
something?
No.
So this was a technologydevelopment program, a project
we were looking at of, you'refamiliar with offshore oil

(07:51):
production, where you see thesebig rigs floating out there in
the Gulf of Mexico.
Um, we were looking at how doyou put some, a lot of that
equipment on the sea floor?
Could you just have it right atthe wellhead?
Um, have a separator underwater,have pumps, have compressors
underwater, do that work on theseafloor, and then just have
long, uh, pipelines, because somuch of what comes out of a

(08:15):
reservoir is water.
And so, if you could re injectit.
Without ever bringing it up tothe surface.
You could save a ton of moneyand also make it a lot safer,
right?
Right, right.
Well, and if you do makemistakes and spill stuff, it's
all the way down there.
Nobody can catch you as easyWell spilling was not something
that was tolerated and the placethat this was being rolled out,

(08:35):
especially was the north see,uh, like offshore Norway, where
it's very hazardous, veryhazardous conditions.
Um, we could barely figure outhow to bomb the Nord stream, you
know, saying I'll pump oil thateasily.
Yeah.
Uh, so it was a really cooltechnical problem.
Uh, let me see the world andwork with some really awesome
people.
But, uh, I started to realizethat this was not my career path

(08:58):
because my library was full of.
Um, philosophy, psychology, uh,theology, like all these people
things is what I ended upenjoying reading about and I
didn't have any engineeringbooks on my shelf.
But yet your, your wife is thenatural understander of people.
So you invested in, would you, Iwould say that myself, I

(09:22):
probably a better understanderof people instinctively than
many as well.
Have you got as good at her atit now, or is your more from a,
from a method at standpoint andpeeling apart the onion instead
of just understanding the onionwhen you look at it?
Yeah, I'm constantly learning.
Um, and I think why I've latchedonto coaching is because it's

(09:47):
moved away from the, um,theoretical.
And it's now focused on theindividual.
Yeah.
And I really like that.
And I get to see the impact ofmy work far more than when I was
doing, you know, changemanagement plans or
organizational development,treating people like statistics.
Now I'm working one on one withthe president of a company or
the founder, CTO of a company.

(10:09):
And.
They're navigating the peopleproblems, right?
Because they figured out atechnical issue, they figured
out how to make money with it,and now they need people to
scale it.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, but the, some of the adviceI got Early on in my career, I
was a very impatient person andI probably still am.
Uh, but the advice I would getfrom mentors over and over again
was just be patient.

(10:30):
Be patient.
And I hated hearing that.
I wanted to know what I could donext.
Right.
So, I think grad school, Istudied at CSU.
Um, I think studying psychologyfor me, it didn't necessarily
teach me how people work.
It taught me how to be patient.

(10:50):
So I've learned patience overthe years.
Fair, fair.
Um, and so describe maybe anengagement.
Like what would, Oh, I was goingto just observe, I guess, that
the, the value in, like your,your niche is pretty neat
because, you know, engineers areworth whatever, you know, a
hundred grand ish or whatever,but engineers that can manage

(11:12):
engineers are worth twice thatright?
But a lot of engineers flameout, you know, like in my
industry, I was, uh, I was abanker, I was a lender, you
know, and I was pretty much justa hired gun, go get the bank,
some more customers.
And then, you know, some peoplebecame managers, you know, bank
presidents and things like that,and other people didn't, and it

(11:32):
mattered a lot as to what yourvalue to the organization was.
Yeah.
And this is a value proposition.
Um, you know, I believe that,you know, Engineers should be
promoted into leadershippositions in technical
companies, uh, because otherengineers want to work for
engineers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Customers want to buy fromtechnical experts.

(11:53):
Yeah.
Um, and, and when something goeswrong, you want someone who
understands the technology.
If you're a manufacturer, ifyou're in IT, whatever it is,
when something goes wrong, uh,people want the leadership who
are making decisions to beintimately familiar with the
product.
Yeah.
And so.
There's great value in nothaving professional CEOs come in

(12:15):
from a retail store operationand being the boss of a
engineering company.
Yeah.
So there's definitely benefit tohiring, definitely a benefit to
hiring internally in technicalorganizations.
The problem is then that so manyof them, it's just a sink or
swim.
Um, uh, promotion, right?
It's promotion as a reward.

(12:36):
Hey, you were good at this job.
Let's promote you.
Because you'll, you'll surely begood at other managing people
who have your old job and thatdoesn't just happen organically.
And so I, I got into this lineof work so that engineers like,
like I was, stay in their jobbecause they learn how to enjoy
it.
Right.
Um, I kind of Well, you canstill be an engineer and manage

(12:58):
a team of engineerssuccessfully, uh, if you do it
right.
And, and there can be a huge,um, you know, personal benefit.
Yeah, yeah.
Like so much more enjoyable.
And so you started to ask what atypical engagement looks like.
Very few typical engagements.
That's what I was wondering,like, even, is the, is the
person paying for it out oftheir pocket?

(13:19):
Or is the company buying thiscoaching for this guy that's
starting to look like he'sfailing as a manager now?
Not quite.
So, it is the business thathires me.
Okay.
Um, however They're not hiringme for the person who needs
remedial coaching.
They're hiring me for the personwho is the future CEO of that
company.
So the people that they see ashaving high potential that they

(13:41):
want to invest in, that they'rewilling to invest in, they're,
they're saying, hey, we promotedyou not only for recognition of
what you've done, we promotedyou for anticipation of what you
can do.
And so in coaching, that's myfocus, is realizing that
potential.
Because the systems and thestructures in most companies
aren't set up to provide thatdevelopment opportunity, right?

(14:04):
And also engineers we get we getused to learning a certain way
and that's by the book and Thereare laws of physics.
There are no laws of humanbehavior.
Yeah, and so we spend our entireeducation Uh, focused in the
books, we spend our entire earlycareer focused on the technical

(14:26):
solutions, assuming that thereis a solution, um, and so
focused on the formulas and the,the plans that when you get into
management, it requires a new,new way of working in problems
rather than on them.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I, I, I dabbled in education,you know, I tried to do some

(14:48):
trainings.
I'll do workshops every now andthen, but the development of a
manager is not a knowledgechallenge.
It's an ability.
So when you mentioned thatsomebody, That could be the
future CEO is oftentimesinvested in through you by the
company.
But is that not person, notalready managing people?

(15:09):
They, they usually are.
So I do get involved, uh, whenthey're already in a position of
management, preparing someonefor leadership role is almost
like preparing someone to be aparent.
They're not going to hold ontoall that information until they
have a kid that they're tryingto figure out how to raise.
So I tell, uh, companies whenthey're working with me, it's.

(15:29):
After you've promoted someone,either I start coaching them
that exact same week and we'rejust meeting one on one.
There's no education involved.
It's just having an externalpartner to help navigate this
transition.
So it's either right after thepromotion or, or and.
It's six months, nine monthslater where they've been in a
position of management longenough that they've tried some

(15:51):
things that they've made somemistakes.
And they, they are willing tolearn.
It's not broken, but they'veeaten humble pie, maybe for the
first time.
Yes.
Yes.
They've put in place all those,uh, brilliant ideas of, of time
management and, uh, timereporting and how to run a
meeting and haven't gotten theresults they expected.
Interesting.

(16:11):
Um, and then.
These companies, are they like20 to 100 person companies, or
are they bigger than thatmostly?
Would you work with directorlevel people instead of CEO
types, I imagine, too?
Yes.
Yes.
On the low end, and this is fromactual experience over the past
couple years, on the low end itwould be around 50.
where they're starting to put into place formal leadership

(16:35):
structures.
Yep.
All right.
There's a C suite basically.
There's a C suite and it mightbe two people.
Right.
But then they're promotingsomeone else into director of
operations or manager ofoperations.
So it could be around that 30 to50 people on the low end.
On the high end, it's, it's afew thousand.
Okay.
It just depends on the evolutionof the organization and do they

(16:55):
have in house training anddevelopment.
So most of the companies thathire me don't have training and
development in house.
Or if they do I'm getting tocome in purely as a coach to,
um, to add to the training todevelop.
Right.
So I get to talk withSpecifically for this role,
probably.
Yes.
Um, I do have a program forfirst time managers and so a lot

(17:16):
of small companies will sendtheir people through this
because for a first timemanager, there are fundamental
things to learn.
Okay.
What is the job?
What does it mean to be amanager?
What are my responsibilities?
Right.
Uh, they're not often being toldthat from their boss.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
In a small company, the bossdoesn't.
Always know even.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's a interestingobservation.
Um, can we talk about like whatis the job of being a manager?

(17:40):
There's probably a lot ofmanagers out there listening to
this podcast and even smallbusiness owners that Started a
thing and now they findthemselves Managing three to
five people and sometimes notreally managing them much,
right?
Like what does it look likereally?
Uh, there's five coreresponsibilities that I, that I
talk about, but in the program,I always start with the most

(18:03):
difficult person to managefirst, and that's yourself.
So we spend the first four weeksjust talking about self
management, like what is, whatdoes that even mean?
And then we spend four weekstalking about managing other
people.
I think the expectations ofmanagers has changed over the
past few years, decades.
Uh, how Probably a much moreemotionally tipped thing.

(18:26):
Relationally.
20, 30 years ago it was like,well, these are the five things
I'm measuring you on and Yeah.
You know, that's the end of theconversation.
It'd be very transactional.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, you might bemanaging, uh, and it's, it's
different if you're managing anengineering company versus a,
uh, a restaurant or an assemblyline.
Right.
Right.
If you're, if your employees arepaid more for what they can

(18:49):
think up than what they can dowith their hands, then the style
of management is different.
It's difficult.
Very hard to measure.
It's very difficult.
So anyway, I sidetracked you.
So what was that first?
Yeah.
So the, the, theresponsibilities of a manager
and these are, these apply toeveryone.
The first one is just toestablish objectives.
People are looking to you tounderstand what is it that we

(19:09):
need to do?
Why do we exist as a team?
Um, and if you don't know whereyou're going as a manager, then
you're probably just going to bestuck in the individual
contributor role where you'rejust doing some engineering.
These people are doing someengineering.
And you're trying to bring ittogether.
Oh, and that's, and that'sdifferent than the, like the,
the mission and the vision andstuff of the company as a
manager of a team of three orfive or whatever, you've kind of

(19:31):
also got to have your own realpurpose, your objectives.
Yeah.
And I love OKRs, objectives andkey results, because they're
kind of stackable.
And I see management as acollaborative sport that the
manager is working with their.
Uh, supervisor, the director,the director CEO.
It's not a competition betweenthe, the layers.

(19:52):
Yeah, yeah.
It's an integration.
Yeah, yeah.
And so when you're establishingthe objectives as a manager, um,
what I find is they're, theobjectives aren't always
established for them.
Sure.
They're just promoted.
Right.
And it's like, hey, this wasactually some.
Do good.
Do good.
Um, I will say that some of the,when I got hired for one of my
engineering jobs and I asked, Myhiring manager, like, what is my

(20:15):
measure of success?
And he just said, don't F up.
And that was it.
All right.
So that is awesome.
Sounds like a government job.
No, it wasn't.
No, I'm just kidding.
A government job would have beenbetter.
There'd be more controls inplace.
So, um, so, but that's clutch,right?
Like just knowing what we'retrying to do here.
Yep.
Actually, that, uh, the blog I'mwriting and is due Thursday

(20:37):
morning and it's freakingalready Tuesday afternoon is,
uh, the power of the point.
Uh, I like that.
Uh, some analogy of like, youknow, Arrows have points for a
reason.
And so should your, your day andeach kind of hour, each half
hour.
Yeah.
I like that.
Um, and objectives are always innegotiation.
They're always changing and whatthe point is, is always

(21:01):
changing.
And so this is just a startingpoint of a conversation for a
new manager.
Don't wait until you're givingan, given an objective, just
write down what you think theobjective is, take it to your
boss and say, Hey, if this iswhere I focused my team.
Is this the right thing?
Well, and maybe sometimes, youknow, take it to your team.
And then you take it to yourteam.
Right.
And be like, is this, you know,this is the right objective?

(21:23):
From my perspective, it kind ofseems, especially if you're new
in the position and they've beenthere.
Yeah.
You're like, is this what we'repointing toward here?
Yeah.
And it's a great point to takeit to the team and have that
conversation about, you know,sometimes the team knows better
than you as the manager, whatthey can do and where they need
to be and what they canaccomplish.
Um, especially if you're anoutside hire.
So if you were hired externally,um, It's folly to come in with

(21:46):
your own objective, insteadgoing to the team first and
observing for a while andsaying, all right, what do you
guys do here?
What do you want to accomplish?
I kind of learned this as aconsultant.
When I was trying that out for acouple of years is the solutions
are often already in thecompany.
Someone's already saying it.
They're just not in a positionthat anyone is listening to
them.

(22:07):
And so as a consultant, you goin and you're Yeah, the friction
spots get noticed by somebody.
Yeah.
It's just And it's usually Itdoesn't make its way up the
chain.
And it's usually those peoplewho don't have that job title of
manager on them.
Yeah, yeah.
They're the engineer.
So as a consultant, you talk tothe frontline people as much as
you can, the engineers, theoperators, and you say What
problem do you want me to to sayneeds to be solved?

(22:29):
How would you like me to solveit?
And I'll go tell the CEO andthey'll listen to me because
they're paying me for it.
Interesting, interesting.
Yeah, that was part of the theconsulting that I, It's one of
the reasons I moved away fromit.
Yeah, yeah, fair enough.
I'd rather work with the CEO tohelp them listen better, Mmm.
Uh, than to go Teach him to fishinstead of like fixing every
problem he's got.
Yeah.

(22:50):
Yeah.
So objectives is number one.
Establishing objectives.
The second is to organize.
Okay.
Organize efforts.
So thinking about, this is the,the coordination piece of being
a manager, uh, understandingwhat each individual person is
working on and bringing ittogether.
Yeah.
So whether you're going to usesome sort of project management
framework, um, agilemethodology, product

(23:10):
development, like there's somany different ways to organize
and managers fall into the trapof trying to organize a certain
way and, uh, it doesn't reallymatter the method.
It's just that you do it.
Yeah, I think, uh, notConfucius, but somebody else
from way back then saidsomething like, uh, a a a poor
plan, uh, meticulouslyimplemented beats a good, uh,

(23:32):
brilliant plan left on theshelf.
Yeah, yeah, and I I heard it.
Yeah, and I can't remember ifthis was like, Steve Jobs gets
so many things attributed tohim, but it was like, um, it's
not the, the plan that isvaluable.
It's the creation of the plan.
Some paraphrasing.
Um, and I find that it's, it'snot so much whether you

(23:52):
establish a good objective,write a great objective
statement or not.
It's the conversations thathappen along the way.
Yeah.
So I don't want anyone I'mworking with to jump into chat
GPT and say, Hey, I'm a engineerof product development in an
aerospace company.
What's my objective?
Yeah.
And then it gives them nicewords.
It's one that organizes almostkind of an establishment of what
the current situation is aswell.

(24:13):
Yeah.
In some ways.
Where are we?
Uh, so it's setting theobjective.
Where do we want to be?
And then you're looking atreality.
Where are we?
How do we need to organize?
Yeah.
What are our constraints?
Right.
And this is something engineersWhat resources do we have?
Yeah.
What constraints also?
This is, and then constraintsare what engineers are used to
working with.
Yeah.
I mean, engineering is, um, atleast mechanical engineering is

(24:35):
physics constrained with timeand money.
Right.
Right.
I've, I've been a motorcycle guyfor, you know, my dad was a
motorcycle mechanic going backto when he was 14.
And so I just, plus they're sovisible, like a car is just
hidden under a wrapper, right?
Like the mechanical elements toit, but getting all those
different engineers to worktogether.

(24:57):
And this person's working onthat.
And, you know, in modernmanufacturing, there's a lot of.
Pop and switch and whateveryou've been using the same
engine platform for 25 years andyou just strap some other wheels
on it, whatever.
But putting all those piecestogether, especially for a all
new vehicle.
Man, it's so many differentbrains working on that.
Yeah, it's so many differentbrains, so many different

(25:18):
emotions at play.
Right.
And relationships involved.
When I think about, like, takingthat complexity of a problem
from, you know, a 1972 Hondamotorcycle, and then taking it
up to, uh, uh, SpaceX.
Mm hmm.
And catching that thing.
Yeah.
You know.
Yeah.
And, and when you, that's goingfrom engineering school to

(25:40):
working as an engineer is thelevel of complexity just
ratchets up rapidly.
Mm hmm.
Uh, you're used to working on aproblem with a few variables.
Now you're building a, aspaceship that not only needs to
take off, it now needs to landand be caught.
Right, right.
Well, and there's, and there's.
400 other engineers working onother parts of it than the
specific part that you'reworking on.

(26:01):
Yeah But you can't worry aboutthem.
Really?
You just gotta Well, and that'ssomebody has to organize that.
Yeah, and that's the manager andthis is something that comes up
over and over and over again Isthat the manager regardless of
the level in the in theorganization?
If you're in a position ofmanagement or leadership You are
a connector, right?
You are connecting individualsto the organization.

(26:24):
You're connecting theorganization to the individuals.
You're connecting departments toeach other.
There's been tons of studies oncommunication and the impact of
communication in productivity.
And if you open up paths ofcommunication beyond the org
chart.
That's when productivity andcollaboration and creativity
just flourish.

(26:45):
And so having those managers whoare those professional
networkers, right?
When their team is faced with aproblem, they don't keep it
within their silo.
They say, Oh, you should go talkto Jeff over in electrical.
Right.
And so making those connectionsis a really important part of
being a manager.
Although I'd say it's not a,it's not a core responsibility.

(27:05):
No.
But communication and theability to connect, I'd say are
the fireable offense.
If you fail at communicating andfail at connecting, you won't be
in a position of leadership forlong.
Yeah.
No, I think that's actually,sometimes I, I, I consider
myself kind of more of a leaderthan a manager sometimes, and

(27:26):
sometimes my communication isshort.
You know, I assume peoplealready get what I got going on,
you know, I've been payingattention for a while.
Come on, catch up, mustard.
Um, so we got objectives andorganize as your first two
minutes, we'll finish out thefive pillars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The other ones are to, tomeasure performance.

(27:48):
So once you've established whereyou're going and you're putting
the pieces together, how do youknow if it's working or not?
And this is a tough one because,uh, The tendency is to grab the
easy metrics.
It is a rocket blow up or not?
Yeah.
Those big ones, but also thoseKPIs though, that, that everyone
latches onto that if it'smeasurable, they grab onto it.

(28:12):
So utilization, right?
I was thinking scorecard.
Yeah.
You know, instead of, but samething, right?
Yeah.
And what I've learned throughpsychology and just the practice
of working in businesses isgetting comfortable with the,
the qualitative.
You know, it's not just whetherthey deliver the product, it's
how they do the work.
So behavioral feedback.
Is almost more important thanany sort of, um, measurable

(28:35):
metric of utilization.
Hey, did you have 40 billablehours this week or 38?
Right, right.
Well, and what does that have todo with it?
Yeah, it got us, got us to be sointeresting.
I don't really, I've known someengineering firms, owners and
things, but I haven't gotteninto the work as much as like
architects.
I've got to know architects alittle bit better.

(28:55):
And so with architecture.
Like you can see the lines andstuff like that a little bit
more and to some extent it's atleast a little easier to measure
the outputs than engineers.
Yeah, it's maybe it gets reallyhard to measure outputs.
And so the things they focus onare billable, right?
Yeah.
And most engineers don't haveany control over that.

(29:16):
Right?
The manager does.
Right.
And so as a customer that'spaying has no idea what Value
this person's billable rate isthat they're paying for.
Yeah.
That's billable rate.
Utilization rate is, is my leastfavorite metric, but it's
prevalent.
That's, that's the industrystandard.
Right.
Right.
Um, but I say that that's moreof a reflection of the manager

(29:37):
and that's data the managerneeds, but the individual.
engineer can't do anything aboutit.
Well, and to a certain extent,the manager has to be at least a
little bit sensing, like, Idon't know, the metaphor that
comes to mind for me is like aflat rate auto mechanic and
there's some auto mechanics thathave been doing it for 15 years
and they can literally do.

(29:59):
All their work in half or maybeeven 40 percent of the time that
the flat rate allows them tobill for it.
So they make 180, 000 a yearworking their asses off, but
good for them.
Um, and I would imagine that tosome extent engineering firms
are a little bit like the samething.
Like if, if you know that thisguy's productivity, like he

(30:20):
might have worked 40 hours onit, but shit, that's like 90
hours worth of work.
And so we're going to justcharge a higher rate.
for him on this, and he's goingto work his way up at least as
far as we bill him.
And it rewards the wrongbehaviors.
Right.
It rewards spending more time onclient's work.
Well, it's like becoming agovernment contractor.
You get cost plus.
If you're Halliburton, you justget 12 percent of whatever the

(30:41):
fuck you spend.
Well, let's spend more.
Yeah, exactly.
And, and that there's been tonsof research on that.
Um, rewards, the impact ofrewards on human behavior.
And so I, I love bringing thatinto the equation here for, for
the engineering firms is, allright, these are, this is what
you're measuring.
And if you're measuring this,this is what people are going to

(31:01):
pay attention to, but what arethe behaviors that result from
you measuring that?
And a great example of thisgoing wrong is safety metrics,
uh, reportable incidents.
All right, so a reportable,recordable, two different safety
incidents in the oil industryand construction.
And you say, all right, ourtarget is zero recordable safety

(31:23):
incidents.
What they found is if youestablish a metric like that,
That we don't want there to beany recordable incidents.
What you find is Well, thenwe're not going to record any of
them.
We're not hide them all.
Yes.
It doesn't actually change thesafety performance, it changes
the reporting of safetyperformance.
Right.
And they've seen this inhospitals.
They've done a lot of studies ofthis too, about Uh, what they're

(31:44):
measuring for nurses.
Because they need to pay off allthese widows and stuff with the
non recordable instances.
Yeah.
Uh, sorry.
That's probably rude, but it's,I've been watching Landman
recently.
So.
I haven't seen that yet.
Oh yeah, you should probably.
It's uh, it's interesting.
Yeah.
Um, and so the, there's a famousarticle, it was, I think it's
titled, Rewarding for A butExpecting B.

(32:06):
And so we are rewarding for notreporting safety incidences.
But we are expecting there tonot be safety incidents.
And so what, what I've seen alot of companies do well, and a
lot of the, the large, uh, oiland gas corporations I worked
for, they did this really wellis the safety culture and the,

(32:26):
the encouragement through.
Uh, find problems before theybecame issues, reporting near
misses, incentivizing people togo out to the site, walk it,
find things that need to befixed, and fix it before it's an
issue.
Because not only is a safetyincident bad for the individual
and everyone involved, It'sextremely costly.

(32:47):
You shut down an entire facilityfor days to investigate or weeks
or longer.
And when you have thousands ofpeople on a construction site,
and one safety incident shuts itdown, um, there's the incentive
to go find things before theyhappen.
And so I was working in SouthKorea in a shipyard, and We were

(33:08):
building three offshoreplatforms that were going to be
shipped over to Qatar and theywere gas processing and every
day, uh, engineers would go outand walk the construction yard
looking for little things like,Oh, this, this electrical cord
wasn't wrapped up.
I mean, if someone trips onthat, uh, there's an incident,
we shut down production.
We shut down operation.

(33:29):
So every day we're going outthere and we were required to
fill out three things, threeobservations.
And what they did well was therewas no punishment tied to safety
concerns.
Right, the person that didn'troll up the cord properly.
Exactly.
Yeah, you just fix it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay, so that was number three.

(33:50):
Measuring, measuringperformance.
So we've got objectives,organize, and measure.
And what's, uh, what's numberfour?
Yeah.
Motivate action.
Motivate action.
Motivate action.
And it used to be, I used to bethinking about this of, oh, you
need to motivate people.
But I heard a really goodanalogy of how motivation works.
And the story was that, uh,imagine motivation is a river

(34:13):
flowing out of the mountains.
All right, so you're up in thePoudre Valley and it's the
Poudre River just flowing down.
It has its source, all right?
It has its source, motivation iscoming in from all over, it's
got all the power it needs, butthings fall in over time.
Things start to damn it up.
The course gets redirected,trees are falling in, boulders

(34:33):
are falling down, and somotivation gets constrained.
Just over time.
And I see this, I, this was myown experience working in
corporations.
Uh, this is, I know a lot ofpeople's experience working in
corporations.
They're super excited.
I haven't known anyone who gotinto engineering who is not
excited to solve problems andwork on big projects.
They got into the work becausethey loved it and they were

(34:55):
motivated to do it.
They were motivated to studysomething very difficult, put in
the years to do it.
Get a hard job and put in thehours and the years to do that
too.
But over time, your motivationgets damned up.
You have a bad boss.
You have a bad client.
Um, life changes.
Yeah, projects you worked on forhundreds of hours got cancelled.

(35:17):
Yeah, one of my early projects,I was working from 7 in the
morning to 11 at night.
Um, I should have watched theconsultants who were working on
the project and they clocked outat five o'clock because they
knew something I didn't and thatthat was that the project was
going to get shelved and it did.
Um, but I was, you know,spending so much time away from
home, so motivated to do goodwork.

(35:39):
And then my motivation just fellapart.
Shriveled up.
Yeah, for sure.
And so for a manager, thismotivate action is to look for
what is getting in the way.
Of someone's motivation.
I go in assuming that you as amanager and your team want to do
good work.
I haven't met anyone whodeliberately got into management

(35:59):
because they wanted to be a badboss.
Right.
They kind of fall into it.
They lose their motivation.
And so if you're wanting tomotivate action of your people,
um, I take away all the carrots,I take away all those rewards,
like gift cards and some bonusstructure that they have no
control over.
Like that is not how youmotivate action.
If you want to motivate people,understand what, what excites

(36:23):
them and remove barriers forthem.
And so as a manager, you'reasking them, Hey, what are you
working on?
What are you excited aboutworking on?
And they say, here's what I'mworking on.
Here's what I want toaccomplish.
And then you start asking, okay,what's getting in your way.
Yeah.
And they're going to tell you,they're going to say, well,
you're asking me to fill outtime sheets that take three
hours every Friday.
That's getting in my way.
All right.
So now as a manager, you have ajob to do, and that's to make

(36:45):
that process simpler.
Right.
Remove the friction.
And so this is where the managergets to put back on their
engineering hat and figure out,all right, where is the friction
in this process that I can nowenable people to do the work
that they, that we hired them todo?
You know, I've had a managertell me in the past, my job is
mostly to, to just stay incontact with my people and

(37:06):
remove obstacles.
Yeah.
But that's a lot the same asmotivate action, although it's,
uh.
more positive language.
Yeah.
Um, I'm, I'm a big fan ofpositive psychology, which is
you identify a positive futurestate you want to get to.
And you work towards that versuslooking at the past and all the
mistakes you've made.
And so if we're giving feedbackto people, I like to flip the

(37:27):
script and say, give themperformance feed forward.
Like what would you want them todo next time versus the mistake
they made in the past?
Yeah.
Um, and number five, developpeople.
Uh, you have, People who arestill growing, still learning,
who are, uh, motivated by asense of mastery, uh, that are

(37:47):
motivated to pro pro progress intheir career.
So, understand what,individually, the people that
report to you want to grow in,and give them opportunities to
do that.
Uh, in a large corporation,you're gonna have the resources
available to you.
That's what I was gonna say,yeah.
And you're gonna have some ofthis mapped out.
Um, when I started my career atExxon, uh, we had a three year
early career milestone.

(38:08):
Like this was an 11 by 17 sheetof here's all the trainings you
need to go to.
You're going to need to havethese practical experiences.
You need to be on these types ofassignments.
And so the manager, thesupervisor's job was to make
sure I was progressing on thosemilestones and the greatest
motivator is showing progress.
And so that's one thing thatlarge companies do well is they

(38:28):
say, here's what you need towork on in your early career
development.
And here's the resources,resources to do it.
Exxon spent more on mydevelopment in the first three
years of my career than theypaid me directly.
Wow.
Right.
Yeah.
And, and the supervisor'sperformance was measured on how
well they were progressing allof the new engineers that
reported to them.
What a fascinating, sorry, I'vejust, I spent so much time in

(38:50):
small business where they'remostly making it up as they go,
you know, and, and like part ofmy development plan for Alma is,
you know, if you find somethingyou want to learn about this
year and it costs.
It's a few hundred up to acouple thousand dollars.
We could probably buy it foryou.
Well, you know, that's not veryspecific, but we don't, you
know, we're just figuring outwhat we do in some ways, you

(39:11):
know, method is far moreeffective than having a
prescribed development plan.
Right.
It's saying, all right, if yousee something that you want to
learn that'll help you be betterhere, happy to spend the money
on it.
Right.
And so that's what smallcompanies do.
But that works for a small, butif you're, if you're excellent,
you got a thousand and Shouldhave 1, 000 first year people,
probably.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
You know.

(39:31):
I left right before I moved to,right before they moved to the
campus, and the new campus inHouston houses 30, 000 people.
Right.
Yeah, so there's always 1,people.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
In a small company, what thislooks like, uh, to develop your
people, because you, you may nothave the, the org, the roles on
the org chart to progress peopleto.
You don't have supervisor one,two, three.

(39:53):
Um.
You, you promote people topositions of leadership and then
they kind of stay there for afew years because there's no
other roles in the organization.
So development can look verydifferent.
But in a small company, the nicething is you get to adapt it to
the individual.
And that's what's missing inlarge corporations.
Is you're just treating everyonelike a statistic.
Um, because you have to.

(40:14):
Because there's a thousand ofthem.
Versus one person.
And you say, alright, um, you'respending a lot more time
customer focused.
You're spending a lot more timein front of our customers than
you have in the past.
In the past, you've been behindthe computer working on CAD
designs, but now you're going tojob sites, you're going to
clients offices.
What would, what would help youwith that?

(40:35):
And that's when they can startto say, you know what, I really
get stressed out.
When I have to present in frontof these, these clients.
Mm.
Okay.
And, and so the manager canagain, be a connector Yeah.
Of resources maybe to, to toastmasters or getting a coach.
Yep.
Yep.
Sending them to a training.
The, the research shows thatwith adult development, the most

(40:56):
effective method isself-directed.
Hmm.
If you want to learn it, say,choose and want to.
Yeah.
Yep.
If you choose and want to, itwill stick Right.
You'll get something out of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The second most effective iscoaching.
Sure.
And then far down the list iscomputer based training, lecture
series, things like that.
Sure.
Mandated trainings, uh, doesn'tstick.

(41:19):
It doesn't change behavior.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so understanding, uh, in, inthese conversations with your
direct reports as a manager,what it is they want to get
better at, whether it's pursuingmastery in their technical
field, whether they want to try,have an opportunity to lead
people, or whether they want toget better at public speaking.
And then you just make theresources available.

(41:39):
And this is another pet peeve ofmine is how little is dedicated
to development.
Like you pointed out, engineerssalaries are 100 grand plus.
Right.
You're already spending a ton onthese people.
And if they quit, you can expectto spend twice as much as their
salary in lost opportunity, lostperformance, all while you wait
two times an individual's salaryto rehire that position.

(42:03):
So it's really expensive to losean engineer.
It also, uh, they have thelongest cycle time for finding a
hire.
It can take 50 days before youreplace an engineer.
Right.
And so think about all theperformance.
All the projects that arebehind, everybody's waiting on
your thing.
Not to mention, uh, all thepeople who are now carrying an
extra load.
Getting stressed out.

(42:24):
Getting annoyed, getting closerto quitting.
Seeing that their buddy, uh,left and got a raise of 20
percent and now they're lookingfor an exit.
Right.
So I see this all the time.
When, when one high performerleaves.
Multiple follow, right?
It's kind of, it provides a, um,Permission.
It's like, Oh, it turns outthere's something else out

(42:45):
there.
Yeah, for sure.
And so you have to set asidebudget for this.
And if you're not spending fiveto 10 percent of a person's
annual salary on development,they're going to be looking for
other positions.
Because they don't feel likethey're being invested in.
Yeah, yeah.
I was just reflecting, thinkingabout, we've been using money.
com here at Loco for Three yearsor something.

(43:06):
I'm sure you're at least alittle bit familiar and, uh, all
just got selected as anambassador, a Monday ambassador,
which is, I think they got.
One of 50 out of 500 plusapplications and it's kind of
like their user group, almostkind of a little bit of a form
where they can give ideas andtest new betas and stuff like

(43:27):
that.
And I don't think she, I don'tthink she gets paid, but I don't
think she has to pay anything.
She sure will get developed fromit.
Absolutely.
And, and you get surprised withwhat people want to learn about
if you just start talking tothem about what they want to
learn.
It's not always tied to theirjob.
And, and so as a manager you maysay, well that's not relevant to
the work that we need you to do.
So, we're not going to, you canpursue that on your own.

(43:49):
Others it might be.
A very loose connection, but canbe very valuable.
I mean, honestly, if I had a,um, if I had a budget for a
bigger company and, uh, if I hada, uh, employee that wanted to
take violin lessons, it'd belike, yeah, you can spend your,
I mean, to some extent, youknow, not your whole thing
probably, but like, cause Ithink just learning is.

(44:10):
healthy.
Yeah.
For people, even if you're notlearning something, you know,
engineers may be a littledifferent equation and probably
because you can actually chargemore revenue for them and stuff
when they can measure that.
But just being a learningpersonality type for a longer
period of time is healthy foreverybody.
It is.
And this has come up in workingwith a client, a small company.

(44:33):
They didn't have the budget forit, but here's an engineer who'd
worked there for seven years orso.
Um, was really interested ingetting deeper into
cybersecurity, had nothing to dowith his job.
And so he just floated the ideato his manager.
Hey, is this something thecompany would support?
And the manager's initialreaction was, heck no, right?

(44:56):
This, I'm not paying 200 forthis.
Do your job.
Uh huh.
Yeah.
And, but then in reflectionthrough coaching, we just
started questioning that.
You know, questioning theassumptions he had, the
questioning the concern that ifhe's pursuing training in
something different than hisjob, that means he wants a
different job.
He's gonna get the training fromus and then quit.

(45:16):
Right.
Right.
Take it somewhere else.
Yeah.
That's what a lot of leaders arehesitant to invest in.
Sure.
Leadership development.
Cause they see it walk out thedoor.
Yeah.
And it always will.
It, it will.
Under whose terms?
There must be a, uh, you mustknow that quote or at least have
read that book along the waythat the CFO says, uh, what if
we invest all this money intraining for our employees and

(45:37):
they leave?
And then the.
CEO says, well, but what if wedon't?
And they stay.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
That's been an argument thatI've, I've made many times.
But I guess, honestly, like Iwas, uh, I was came through a
banker, a banker trainingprogram, a credit and management
training program that communityfirst national bank hired six,

(45:59):
uh, smart young people everyyear for, and then sent them out
into the locations and stuff.
And Three years in, I gotpoached by Bank of Colorado
because they were just a lotbetter.
They had a lot more marketshare.
They were actually just astronger organization to work
for.
They had more consistency,better customers.

(46:21):
And so, in my particular case,Community First did invest, you
know, probably, even back then,like 50 grand in me.
Yeah.
And then I parlayed that into a8, 000 a year raise.
And that was my experience in myfirst job too, right?
They spent so much training me,and I left.
Well, and so maybe theyshouldn't train so early as part

(46:42):
of what you're saying, or nottrain so much so early.
But keep it going instead.
Yeah, I don't know what theright answer is.
You know, focusing on developingpeople because that's the
manager's responsibility.
You're not trying to geteveryone who's working for you
to stay there for 30 years.
Right, right.
And so sometimes just beinghonest with, you know, if, if we

(47:03):
spend this much and they're herefor five years.
It'll still be good for thebusiness.
And that's, uh, you know, when Iwas just reflecting on Alma,
like it wouldn't shock me to seeher go to work for monday.
com in the future.
Yeah.
Right.
And if she can do that and get agood job out of it, you know.
Right.
I would celebrate, you know,it's like a loser, but it would
also be pretty neat for her tohave found this niche that she's
really interested in thatkeenly.

(47:25):
What's really cool is the, theknock on effects of taking good
care of your people whilethey're there, of developing
people, even if they don't stay.
is if they leave on good terms,they're going to tell their
friends and their family that,yeah, you want to get new
employees that are awesome.
This was a great place for meto, to kick off my career.
It wasn't where I needed to befor 20 years, but man, the two

(47:46):
years I was there were great.
And having the manager have theperspective of, all right, if
they're here for two years andwe're paying them this, they're
producing this.
It's that's a, that's a fairbusiness proposition.
Like the objective is notretention.
It's for a time.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Um, so what do you want tochange from here?

(48:07):
Are you like, do you like feellike you kind of navigated a bit
and found a sweet spot?
Or Yeah, it's taken me a whileand this is part of the uh,
evolution of RevZero is it'staken me a while to find my
niche.
Yeah.
It's taken me a while to figureout exactly, um, where I'm best,
where I add the most value.
I've said yes to a lot of thewrong work as so many

(48:28):
entrepreneurs do.
Yeah.
Uh, you need revenue early on soyou say yes to every
opportunity.
I've learned to say no and thathas really opened up, um, the
right opportunities.
And so coaching, you know, it'snot a necessarily scalable
business, but RevZero is myfoundation.
It's where I find that I do thebest work and it's enabling good

(48:50):
people to do good work in theirbusiness.
And it's been really cool thisJanuary to see people I've
coached over the past threeyears all get these promotions.
And they're all celebratingthese promotions on LinkedIn.
And I'm just like, yeah, that'sawesome.
Cause we're getting good people.
In, in, in the right positionsat good companies.
Yeah.
Right.
And so I just love getting tosee that.
And I, I never got that level ofsatisfaction outta my work as an

(49:14):
engineer.
Yeah.
Um, even as a trainer, you'rekind of disconnected from what
you're educating people and whatthey do with it.
As a coach, I get to, to see thesolu, see them come up with
solutions, see them, try it, seethem fail, see them try again.
One of my coaches adopted themantra of, I'm gonna try again,
slightly different.
And I love that because he justkept trying something new,

(49:35):
something different, same thing,a little bit differently.
And now he's VP of delivery forthis company.
And so where I go from here withRevZero is just making it, um,
making it easier for me to domore of that.
I don't need to increase my, myreach to, to hundreds of people,

(49:55):
um, having 10 executives I'mworking with, but I always want
to keep some open for newmanagers.
Sure.
I really enjoy working withfirst time managers as they're
making that transition fromengineer to manager.
So I'm having a lot of fun withthis work right now.
It's very rewarding.
Um, and what's cool is I'mgetting to work across a lot of
different industries.

(50:16):
Yeah.
Um, I think.
you know, where I go from here,we're doing some product like,
um, program development.
Okay.
That's because I was wondering,just make it easier for you to
not have to go in a full customwith each client.
Yup.
Less customization.
There's still custom solutions,but taking a lot of the
education out of it and insteadhaving a program or having this

(50:38):
accessible somewhere else,because what did I say?
The most effective way ofdevelopment was it's self
directed.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And so if.
If my clients want to divedeeper into motivation, instead
of them having to surf blogsfull of ads, here's the RevZero
platform.
A client of mine, you're onRevZero online.
You have access to my library ofresources on motivation, not

(50:59):
just the pop culture business.
Right, right.
Here's, here's, here's fivelinks that I've found to be
useful and on brand and on whatI've seen, you know, whatever.
Yeah.
And, and as we, we grow, youknow, one of the mantras for
myself early on was knowledge isfree.
You can learn whatever you wanton your own just by Googling it.
Sure.
Um, you have to wade through alot of crap to get, to get to

(51:21):
the good stuff.
And so in RevZero, we're tryingto do the same thing.
Knowledge is free.
Like, I'm trying to take whatI'm learning in psychology, take
what I'm learning inengineering, and project
management, and take what I'mlearning from other companies,
and making it accessible to myother clients.
Like, this, my client tried thisover here.
Um, it might work for you, get ashot.

(51:41):
So making that knowledge freeand then allowing me to really
focus on coaching.
Cool.
Yeah.
You love that relationshipelement of it.
Yeah, I do.
Which, if you had told me thatis what I would do, I'd say no
way.
Right.
But the one on one coaching.
Love it.
Huh.
That's really neat.
How do you measure your success,like outside of the big
promotions and stuff like that?
Like how do you, like on a monthto month or week to week basis,

(52:04):
like Did you check in onyourself like after coaching
sessions and stuff or is yourclients progress, your, your
progress or?
Yeah.
So I start most of my, not all,but most of my coaching
engagements with a developmentplan.
Like what is it they're workingtowards that is important to
them for three months?
And that's what we're going tomake progress on.
So I use the OKR frameworkthere.
What's their objective?

(52:24):
What are their key results?
And so I can see and alsoreflect for them that they're
making progress.
Yep.
I mean, these, these people areworking so hard and, and it's a
lot easier to keep working hardwhen you see you're making some
progress.
Absolutely.
So we start with where they wantto be, what is their ideal
future self, and we work towardsthat.
So we get to see that, but I dorate myself every coaching
session.
Um, after every coachingsession, I give myself a number.

(52:47):
Was that an eight?
Was that a six?
Was that a 10?
And it's totally subjective.
Yeah.
Those numbers are purely mine,right?
I'm not putting this into adatabase, but I'm just asking
myself, all right, that sessionwas a 10.
Why?
Okay.
What would I do different?
Yeah, it was an eight.
All right, maybe we went alittle bit over.
Maybe I gave advice when Ishould have asked a question.

(53:08):
So I am constantly checkingmyself with each of these
sessions.
Um, maybe we covered too much,right?
And, and this is what I do incoaching over and over again is
just narrow the focus.
All right, let's bring you,narrow your focus to this one
problem.
And that's, um, then the largermeasures of success would be
those promotions.
Are people actually getting intothe positions of leadership that

(53:29):
they aspire to?
Um, but that's longterm.
That's kind of harder to see.
And now that I've been coachingfor four years, I'm starting to
see that happen.
Um, the other one are, are themore subjective ones.
This one, uh, Is he happier thanhe was when he came?
Yeah.
I mean, right?
Like, cause everybody,Absolutely.
Nobody likes to not succeed attheir job.

(53:49):
And if part of your job issuddenly managing people and
you're not feeling confidentabout it.
Confidence is one.
And so, it's often what they'llshare with me that is the
measure of success.
And it's not always what we setout to work on.
And this one lady I was workingwith, after a few weeks working
together, the focus was neverconfidence.
But she said one day that, I'mso much more confident stepping

(54:12):
into these conversations and wedidn't, like I said, we didn't
talk about confidence once itwas just purely narrowing her
focus of what did she need totalk about either on the stage
or in that conversation.
And so once she knew what sheneeded to say and how she wanted
to say it, she just did itright.
So seeing that confidence growstress is a big one.
Um, I like to confidence andstress are inverse.

(54:35):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And, you know, I studiedpsychology so that other
engineers don't have to, I wantthese people to stay in their
jobs because they got into itfor a reason.
They love the work.
So I want to see them continuingto do that good work.
Um, some of them will go throughmy program and learn what it
means to be a manager for thefirst time.
And this was early on when Ifirst started doing this.

(54:59):
Um, he decided he didn't want tobe a manager.
And to me that was a, that was asuccess because he learned that
in three months.
Rather than having been in aposition of management for three
years and piss everyone else offalong the way, right?
Yeah, and so for sure you feellike once you get promoted in
management that you can't stepaway from yeah Yeah, and if you

(55:20):
can have that conversationwithin three months with your
supervisor of saying, you know,thanks for the opportunity I
would really love to step backinto engineering.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're doing everyone afavor.
I Volunteered for the SmallBusiness Development Center for
a long time and at one point Afew years in, um, there was this
person that I, I basically, Idon't know if I broke their

(55:42):
heart or not, but they were,they were trying to buy a gas
station and they were trying tobuy a gas station, um, from a
larger operator that was tryingto sell one of their losers and
I was like, you know, dude, the50 grand that you saved from
your job, if I read the numbersright and read your, yeah.

(56:02):
Frankly, ability to manage a gasstation, right?
Yeah.
You can't live on it and it'sgonna, like, you're just gonna
lose your 50 grand and thegovernment SBA loan is gonna
lose 200, 000 more and, like, Ican't recommend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I felt kind of bad aboutthat.
I was talking to the, thedirector of the SBA at the time,
or SBDC at the time, and theywere like, you know, if you save

(56:26):
somebody.
50, 000 and three more years ofthinking that they need to buy a
gas station and maybe theyshould shift to somewhere else
or whatever, you know, you'restill helping them so much.
Yeah, you're helping them get tothat, that realization or that
conclusion faster with lesspain.
Uh, so many of my otherparticipants, they go through it
and they say they're hesitant toget into management, but then

(56:47):
they do and they learn the joband they say, Oh, now that I
know what it is, I'm kind ofexcited for this.
I'm excited for thisopportunity.
One of those people.
She was in a corporateenvironment as a doer, uh,
paralegal type contract reviewmanagement kind of stuff.
And now she manages people thatdo that function for this larger
corporation.
And like It's so much morefulfilling to her because she's

(57:10):
a people wired person.
She still knows her stuff.
She can still review a goodcontract if she needs to.
But, but managing has been forher a lot more fulfilling, you
know, and And I imagine a lot ofit has to do with her, her, uh,
increased realm of influence.
Right.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The things that she thinks areimportant, the strategic ideas
that she has totally.
She can now put them into place.
Same thing's relevant inengineering too, right?

(57:31):
Absolutely.
I mean, all of these guys and,and, and girls have, uh, ideas
of technology that just aren'tgetting adopted simply because
of the position they're in.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
I dig it.
Yeah.
Well, let's, uh, is there.
Other things that you'd reallylike to share about RevZero and
that, or do you want to talkabout Isolation Coffee?
I could talk about RevZero allday.
I'm sure you could.
I'm sure you could.

(57:52):
I'm not sure people could listenall day, though.
Nope, probably not.
As a coach, I don't do muchtalking, so this is a cool
opportunity.
Where did, uh, where didIsolation Coffee come into the
picture?
Was that Before, after, Oh, andI wanted to, I was wondering
when RevZero sprouted after thepsychology post grad.
It all overlapped.
Um, I started RevZero in 2016and for four years is when I was

(58:17):
really focused on helping buildone engineering company.
So a full time consultant andthen pandemic hit 2020.
And so I was already in gradschool, but I was still working
with this company, um, andtravel.
Do you talk about who thiscompany was?
Is that public?
It's a small engineering firmdown in West Texas, right?
E and XL.

(58:38):
Yeah.
And, uh, so I, I was helpingthem get started and it was
really a consulting period insome respects, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
But, uh, not a very goodconsultant because I kept one
client and never pursued thenext.
So it ended like it was plannedto, but it ended suddenly with
the pandemic.
Uh, and so 2020 is, I was stillin wrapping up grad school.

(59:01):
Um, had my RevZero consultingbase, trying to figure out, all
right, where's the nextopportunity?
And then, uh, I was homeroasting coffee on my own.
And this is actually my secondcoffee company.
My first one That's what Ithought.
There was something before then.
Yeah, there was something calledAgrarian Coffee, me and a buddy
down in Texas.
I wanted to learn how to start abusiness, and he wanted to learn

(59:22):
how to roast coffee.
So instead of going to get myMBA, I started a company.
Perfect.
Yeah, and so I did all thefinances and the legal side of
things.
Um, but we sold that and as partof the sale, I kept.
One of the, one of the smallroasters.
Oh.
And so I would roast my owncoffee in my garage for years.
Um, and then in 2020, um, Ijust, I had more time to roast.

(59:44):
Right, right.
Everybody had more time.
That's why I started thispodcast.
Everyone so many good thingscame out of 2020.
True.
Yeah.
The QR code recovery.
Resurgence.
Uh, I asked some friends if Iroasted extra if they'd want
some coffee.
They said yes, so I'd startdelivering coffee just so I
could hang out on the frontporch.

(01:00:04):
Talk with my friends.
Um, and then one partnership ledto the next.
And I was introduced to mybuddy, uh, Braden Lanz two years
ago.
And he had a coffee company.
Oh, Braden from Matthew's house?
Yeah, yeah, he did that for abit, yeah.
Yeah, he was Were you there atthe same time?
I know Brayden.
Okay.
Well, I was the president of theboard of the Matthews House for
a while, and I've been avolunteer and supporter for a

(01:00:26):
long time.
I think he had some involvementthere.
Yeah, yeah.
Just before I knew him.
I dig that guy.
Uh, just tell him, you know,unless you hate him, then I hate
him too.
No, no, he's awesome.
Uh, he is a perfect Is he yourpartner now?
He's my partner now, co owner.
Okay, what's up Brayden?
Yeah.
You'll probably listen to this.
If he can get through, uh, metalking about RevZero, I'm
coaching for an hour and a half.
He's already heard you talkabout that for hours and hours
in the past.

(01:00:46):
No, we just talk, talk.
We just talk if I, cause we'regonna give away this, uh, a
fancy isolation coffee mug and abag or maybe two bags of coffee,
but.
Uh, I've got a RevZero mug.
Oh, it's a RevZero mug, okay.
Yep, RevZero mug.
We've got two bags of isolationcoffee.
But what I was wondering aboutthat is, could we just give a
mug and one bag away to ourlisteners and I can just take

(01:01:06):
one bag home?
I will leave all of it here andwhere it goes from you, it's
totally up to you.
Alright, we won't talk about itanymore.
We're gonna do our grab bagquestions here in about, uh, 30
minutes if you're listening andso be listening for Dane's
answers on that.
Um.
And, in the short run, I need totake another potty break.

(01:02:16):
Uh, and we are back.
And, and look, oh, there's onlyone bag of isolation coffee on
the table.
Oh, and you kept the best one,too.
Did I?
The Mexico.
Oh yeah.
Oh, the Mexico is so good rightnow.
So we, we only roast in smallbatches and whatever is with the
season, so we only buy uh, It'skind of a surprise to you how it
turns out each time.
Yeah.
And, and Brayden is the headroaster and he's so good at, um,

(01:02:38):
just getting the best out ofeverything.
So we only have one blend andthat's the table blend.
We brought that as well.
Okay.
And so that's a mix of a Africanand a Central American.
Okay.
And so right now it's the Mexicowith Ethiopian.
And that's really good.
Oh, but you change that upanyway.
It's always a table blend, butit's a mix of Africa and South
America?
Yep.
Or Central America?
Central America, South America,it moves around.

(01:02:59):
Okay.
But there's a lot of overlap,similarity.
Yeah, yeah.
We try to get some level ofconsistency and flavor with
that.
Everything else is singleorigin, so we have four single
origins at a time, and we havesubscription service.
Yeah, I was gonna say, talk tome about the business model of
isolation.
I don't see you in coffee shopsaround, or We're in one coffee
shop, and that's ArboretumCoffee.
Oh, yeah.

(01:03:19):
You can buy us on the shelvesthere.
But it's all subscription based.
It's all online.
And this is how I started it in,in pandemic times.
Okay.
Was people would place an order.
It might have been text atfirst.
It was like, Hey, do you want abag?
And then I'd show up on theirdoorstep, uh, Friday afternoon.
We'd hang out and chat for alittle bit and I'd leave the
coffee.
Uh.
Leave the coffee on the frontstep and in a bag.
Of course we had to be like.

(01:03:40):
Yeah.
Far away.
Bring it in the next day.
Yeah.
We had to talk through screens.
Um.
Cause screens, of course.
Screen doors, just as effectiveas masks, but it prevented
COVID.
Uh, but I had little kids and somy boys would come with me on
the deliveries.
And so I got to drive aroundFort Collins, got time in the
car with my, he was six yearsold at the time and a two year

(01:04:03):
old.
Well, you're doing new singleorigins on a regular basis,
right?
So it's almost like a wine clubwhere the wine changes as it's.
Fresh.
It's all roaster's choice, sowe'll get a few samples and
Brayden will spend a few weekstesting and roasting before we
buy a large order.
Yeah.
And then that's what we have onhand for a couple hundred pounds
or a thousand pounds or Yeah.
Something like that.

(01:04:23):
Yeah.
We only buy maybe 100, 200pounds, uh, for one at a time
and we're going through it a lotfaster.
So we finally moved out of thegarage.
We're in a roasting space.
We have a larger roaster.
Um, yeah, it's, it's fun.
So it's not really just a hobbybusiness.
It actually pays you a littlebit at this point.
And what's the cost to be acustomer?
Let's see our subscriptions.

(01:04:43):
Uh, we've got two, we've got thetable subscription and right now
it's 12 bucks and you're goingto get a Monthly?
Uh, no, per delivery.
So it could be monthly, it couldbe weekly, it could be bi
weekly, it depends on howaddicted you are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Um, our coffee is for the, thehome connoisseur.
So you're, you're working fromhome.
You've got your coffee bar setup, you grind it fresh, um, and,

(01:05:06):
and then you get to discoversomething new.
Hmm.
Um.
And then, so that's 12 bucks.
And then we've got our, ourisolation subscription.
So that's like our top shelfstuff.
That's going to be the anaerobicprocess, the Ethiopian beans,
the ones that have a reallyunique flavor profile.
The, the table subscription isgoing to be the safe one that
your in laws are probably stillgoing to like.

(01:05:27):
Yeah, yeah.
The, the The weird stuff.
The isolation is going to bethe, the weird stuff.
Like the, you know, the It'salmost like fine wines.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
They've got really, uh, powerfulVery pungent aromas.
Yeah, but so good.
So good.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's 18 or 20 bucks a bagor something like that.
Can I get a mix?
Can I get a subscription thatautomatically sends me a weird

(01:05:48):
one once in a while, but mostlyI get the table?
Not yet, but we could, we couldfigure that out.
Um, being a small business, wewait for feedback like that, and
then we figure out how to do it.
So someone asked, could we havea tin instead of a bag?
Yeah, we can figure that out.
Is it not really a subscription,it's more of an order when
you're ready kind of a thing?
But it's delivery?
No, it's on a recurringsubscription.
And you can choose yourfrequency.
Oh, you choose your frequency.

(01:06:08):
Yeah.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
And then free delivery in FortCollins.
And do you do that?
No, we have a delivery drivernow.
Okay.
Awesome.
Although every now and then Ido, which is kind of nice.
Right, right.
I mean, we've had subscribers.
It's been a business now forfour years, and I think the
average, People are with us foryears.
They've been subscribing to thecoffee for two, three years and
we stick with it.
I imagine building the, theautomations into the system, you

(01:06:30):
know, once you're getting textsfrom all these people at first,
but now you gotta not think somuch about that.
Uh huh.
Right?
And just have like And get allthe orders at one time on
Thursday morning.
The route goes out this day andhere's the logistically planned
route where we're going to dropall these things off.
Yeah.
It's been a fun business and itjust, we just keep reinvesting
everything back into it and keepgrowing it.
Um, the cool thing aboutroasting local and not having a

(01:06:53):
shop space is we get to We don'thave to charge as much for a bag
of coffee.
Right.
We're not paying for primeTotally.
retail space.
I was noticing I actually boughta bag of whole bean, uh, Café
Richesse Okay.
at, uh, what was Beaver's, nowis the Fresh Food Market.
Yeah.
But it's only 9.
99 for a pretty good coffeewhole bean, and it's probably
the same thing.
Yeah.

(01:07:13):
You know, they don't have to tryto sell retail and pay the rent
at a retail place.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we're trying to figureout.
Well, I mean the whole reason Istarted the company was because
the coffee I enjoyed drinkingcost too much for me to maintain
that budget, so I was like, Oh,it's probably cheaper to start a
company than it is to keepbuying specialty coffee.
I've been enjoying, uh, uh, Mattwith M& E painting.

(01:07:35):
Yeah.
Has, have you seen his littleSpanish coffee makers that he
gives away sometimes?
No.
Um, cause he, he and his wife dosomething with a foundation
where they Sponsor exchanges toSpain's been going on hikes to
Spain.
Yeah, exactly.
And brings men's group overthere and stuff like that.
He's kind of a coach of sorts aswell.
I don't know more, sorry, Matt,if I screwed this up.
But anyway, I, I either boughtor won, I think I won as a prize

(01:07:58):
at some event.
One of his little Spanishcoffee.
You've seen them before, wherethe bottom.
is water, and then there's likea little, um, cup full of
grounds, and then it boils itthrough the grounds into the
top, so it's Like a mocha pot.
Yeah, it's bigger than acappuccino, you know, bigger
than an espresso, but it'ssmaller than a coffee, so it's
like maybe a seven ounce out oftwo big healthy scoops of

(01:08:20):
coffee, so it's strong, but notespresso strong.
It's like stovetop espresso.
Stovetop espresso, basically,and it's frankly my favorite.
I like it better than espresso,especially when there's really
good Weird coffee in there.
And there's something about, um,making it yourself, like making
coffee is, is part of theexperience.
Totally.
I remember my grandma had this,uh.
I like it taking longer.

(01:08:40):
Yeah, yeah.
I love it more when it's done.
I like doing the Chimex or theAeroPress.
I mean, I get lazy mostmornings.
I just have the, the drip coffeepot.
I grind it fresh every morning,of course.
Okay.
But, uh, my grandma had this,um, like wood carving on the
wall and it said, a man whochops his own wood is twice
warmed.
I'm like a man who grinds hisown coffee is twice energized.

(01:09:05):
So any, um, like visions forisolation could Braden like take
it bigger the future.
It seems like you're kind offound your sweet spot in terms
of how you want to spend a lotof your time.
I love, I love both and this iswhat's hard and I know a lot of
entrepreneurs are kind of in thesame boat.
They have two or three projectsthat they really have fun with
and so it's always hard to letgo of one.

(01:09:27):
I've always used business tolearn the first coffee business
I founded.
I wanted to learn how to dobusiness finance.
So instead of taking a class, Istarted a company.
Um, this one, I wanted to getbetter at coffee roasting.
Turns out Braden's way better atit than me.
So once he came on board, I quitroasting altogether.
And so I do all the back end.
I do the website.
I do the finance.

(01:09:48):
He does a little bagging andeverything else.
Yep.
Roasting and packaging.
I've always had this fascinationwith, um, local, uh, employee
owned self, uh, you know, youdon't need to grow for the sake
of growth to be a good business,um, to, to be small and to be,
uh, serving a need in your localcommunity.

(01:10:09):
And so that's why I seeisolation coffee becoming, we
want to bring more people onboard.
Um, and give them a piece of it,you know, this isn't, this isn't
my retirement plan.
This is something that I wouldbe really proud of to see grow
into, uh, a group of 12 peoplethat all have ownership in it
that are, that all chip in thelabor if they want to.
Yeah.
And they're serving a need in,in a local community.

(01:10:31):
I mean, coffee isn't that greatof a need.
It's a luxury, but it's, it's afun thing to do and it's great
to connect with people over.
And are you sourcing in a waythat.
So if we're, if we're good, andwe're doing good, why aren't we
doing good?
nobody's gonna buy our stuff.
And that's a problem.
So we have a lot of, we have alot of, we have a lot of people
who are the ones that make themoney.
And, and, so we've gotta take,we've gotta get them off our

(01:10:52):
list as well.
Because we've gotta be we'vegotta be able to supply them to
other people.
At least some of the visit thefarms, right?
Where we can do our ownsourcing, but that's far down
the road.
We really liked the discovery ofusing an importer instead of
locking in.
Well, now that you've gotprofits, you could, uh, kind of
basically hide those profitswith a trip for you and Jaden
and your spouses to go andinvestigate coffee farms in

(01:11:12):
Costa Rica.
I think the next use of theprofits is to bring more people
on.
All right.
Fair enough.
Well, uh, you run it like youwant to.
Yep.
Uh, but also, yeah, less time.
and less direct work for youguys.
And with Jayden does he?
Braeden, I'm sorry.
Ava's boyfriend is Jayden and Igot him tongue tied.

(01:11:34):
Braeden, sorry Braeden.
Um, what's, does he have a, aDay job too, or is he a full
time roaster with the coffeebusiness?
Like me, he probably has morethings going on than he should.
Okay.
He's got two young boys at homeas well, but he works for a
cabinet maker.
So he's almost full time at acabinet shop, which is right
next to where we have ourroasting space.
So that's really convenient.
Very cool.

(01:11:54):
But he's really talented at thatas well.
And then he also runs anonprofit, Half Step Ministries,
where he does music.
Uh, education for highschoolers.
And so, I know that, that bringsa lot of joy to them as well.
Yeah, that's really cool.
It's, it's nice that, to have apartner where we're both kind of
approaching it the same way.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like we really love, um,this business, isolation.

(01:12:16):
We really love the product.
We really like working with eachother.
Mm hmm.
Um, and where it goes from here,we're, we're holding loosely,
which is kind of counter to myapproach to, uh, RevZero and
management consulting, which iswhat's your objective and how
are you going to get there?
And within isolation, it's like,well, we'll see what it's going
to be.
Yeah, God's plan is probablygoing to sort it out if we don't

(01:12:36):
push it too hard one way or theother.
And it, I, I find that both.
Doing both things, um, gives meperspective in both arenas that
I wouldn't get otherwise.
And it's really easy as a coachor a consultant to come in and,
and, and think you see whatneeds to be done.
But as an owner myself of areally small business that is

(01:12:58):
cashflow positive and can'tafford to pay me, can't afford
to pay my partner, like we'rejust reinvesting in it, that we
don't have the resources to, Togo do what we know we should do
and that's the state that somany of my clients are in too.
They know what they should do.
They don't have the resources todo it.
And so, uh, it, it forces me toapproach coaching with a lot

(01:13:22):
more grace and patience of Iknow there's not A right next
step necessarily, like thething, you know, you should do,
but there's the thing that,well, what could you do, what
are you willing to do and whatdo you want to do?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it, again, I went to gradschool and I got patience and in

(01:13:42):
starting a, uh, coffee company,it's given me perspective.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
Um, I feel like we can, uh, rollinto the time machine real
briefly.
Okay.
Um.
How far back are we going?
We go back to usually like firstgrade.
Okay.
Uh, do you want to share, like,what your family and life
circumstances were as a six yearold?

(01:14:03):
Sure.
Which is, um, yeah.
Okay.
So Oh, wait, wait.
Sound effects?
Yeah, we're back there in 1982.
No, so I don't know.
I was born in 86.
Oh, you were born in 86?
born in 86.
I'm a 90s kid.
You are a grown up looking guy.
I mean, you don't look old.

(01:14:23):
You just seem mature.
Well, it's taken me a 30s still.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I, I, I, so, yeah.
Was mature when I was 13.
That's what I figured.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I got my first job when I was,uh, I think I was probably 14
and I didn't tell my parents Ijust Went and applied for a job
and then came home after I gotthe job And it was like, Hey,

(01:14:46):
I'm going to need a ride to workevery now and then.
Most I can take my bike, butwhen the weather is bad.
So, yeah.
So talk to me about, uh, the,the, the setting.
Yeah.
So I grew up in West Texasprimarily.
I moved, I moved a ton as a kid.
Like what, like Lubbock or?
Further West.
Further West.
So a small town called DenverCity is where I spent.
the majority of my time, but Ialso lived in Midland and Hobbs,

(01:15:09):
New Mexico.
Okay.
I moved around those threeplaces a fair bit.
Um, families from Oklahoma, butthey followed the oil.
And so, um, that's how I got inthe industry.
My dad's a petroleum engineer.
Okay.
So I grew up with this idea of,uh, engineer is someone who
wears jeans and a button upshirt to work.
Yep.
Gets dirty doing their job.
So I grew up with this idea ofengineering being very hands on

(01:15:31):
and, um, uh, hardworkingposition.
Uh, but I was homeschooled allthe way through high school.
Never went to, to public schoolor, or private school.
Homeschooled all the way.
Other siblings?
Uh, older brother, youngersister.
Okay.
Uh, about three years on eitherside of me.
Okay, so a solid middle childposition.
Yep, yep.
Uh, just always learning.

(01:15:52):
checking it out, you know, the,the learning, learning from my
brother's mistakes and, uh,yeah, well, just observing.
That's what I've seen a lot ofis that that middle child
oftentimes observes like the,the first kid is like the
trailblazer, the trailblazer.
Exactly.
They're exploring on their ownkind of, in some ways there's an
observer.
And then the last one isvirtually, right?

(01:16:14):
Like as far as their perspectiveis concerned.
Well, and, and in my family'scase, our, our sister, younger
sister, she is the star, right?
She's, she's done some amazing.
Well, sometimes it happens thatway, right?
Like there's some influence evenin the ranking.
She knew what she wanted to doearly on.
She became a vet.
She's a all star horse vet downin New Mexico, travels around
working with some of the besthorses down there.

(01:16:36):
Um, me and my brother, it tookus a bit longer.
to find where we needed to bewhere the traction is.
I thought I knew where I neededto be and that was engineering.
But 10 years later here onpsychology, um, but yeah, uh,
grew up homeschooled, grew up inscouts, you know, Nate Bargatze,
he talks about, um, so BoyScouts was kind of your
interaction manner, right?

(01:16:56):
Like a lot of people that thinkabout homeschooling think, well,
whatever my kid's going to learnhow to socialize.
Yeah.
And it was, it was scouts for meand church really involved
there.
Like Nate Bargatze's experiencegrowing up in the Christian
nineties home.
Like it was stereotypical, youknow.
And what kind of community arewe talking?
Is this a town of 20, 000, waslike 5, 000.

(01:17:18):
Okay.
Yeah.
And most of the whole economyrevolved around oil, so it was
good times or bad times, andhardly ever anything in between.
Yeah, and I, I, I suppose Ididn't notice it all that much
as a kid, but that's probablywhy we moved as much as we did.
You know, by the time I was, uh,in college.
Well, in my life, I've moved 20,my son and I were counting this
up, 26 times.

(01:17:38):
Wow.
And I've been in Fort Collins 10years, and it's the longest I've
been anywhere.
Interesting.
And, uh, so You go off tocollege then?
Is that kind of the next, I meanother than getting a job and
whatever else?
Home, homeschooling for me inhigh school kind of turned into
unschooling.
Uh, there's a lot of freedom.
You were already plenty smart,kind of at 13, 14?

(01:18:00):
Um, no, I, I, I don't know if Iwas smart enough.
Definitely not.
Independent.
Like, you were free rangeenough?
I was free range.
I mean, you grow up in a smalltown in West Texas.
I was, especially beinghomeschooled, all my friends are
in school.
I'm out riding my bike on the,the, the lease roads and going
to Caliche pits and all thisstuff and, uh, and getting into
mischief.
Do you have other homeschoolfriends?

(01:18:21):
There was one other family intown.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so we hung out.
We had a little band.
We would play guitar together.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then, um, I don't know.
I, I had a lot of jobs, uh,always a lot of work.
And then I actually graduatedhigh school a semester early,
uh, went to a junior college fora few classes.
And then.
Got a job offshore.

(01:18:42):
So I worked on a drilling rig inthe Gulf of Mexico.
Wow.
Uh, Was that like connectionsfrom your dad kind of thing or
whatever?
He basically said, Hey, here'sthe company that does the, the,
the catering.
And so I went on their website,I submitted an application and
they accepted my application.
Right.
So I flew myself to New Orleans.

(01:19:02):
Went to a training there, and itwas me this this skinny 17 year
old kid from West, Texas and abunch of ex convicts We were the
we were the new employees rightand I remember I didn't have
steel toed boots And so afterthat class I didn't have a
vehicle I was in industrialsection of New Orleans and I'm
just walking around to try toget to a boot store so I can get

(01:19:24):
my steel toed boots andSurprised I made it out of there
alive.
And then, uh, flew down.
And did they have a bootstorage?
Yeah, found one.
I found my boots.
I was pretty resourceful.
I took care of myself, found myboots, um, and then I would fly
down to New Orleans, catch ahour, two hour long taxi ride

(01:19:45):
down to a heliport, get on ahelicopter, and fly another
forty minutes out into themiddle of the Gulf of Mexico.
For the day, or for a week at atime?
Three weeks.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
So I was a janitor on a drillship.
So I worked the night shift andwhat that meant was, um, I made
everyone's beds.
And I gathered everyone's dirtylaundry, took it to the, I mean,

(01:20:07):
this was a massive ship drillship.
Yeah.
It's bigger than the Titanic.
And, um, I was cleaning the, theheliport, uh, or the helipad.
There's like rooms for 30 peopleor something, whatever.
A hundred, hundreds of people.
Oh, dang.
Interesting.
And then I'd also work in thekitchen where I was responsible
for cooking like 400 strips ofbacon for every meal.
I got in trouble because, um, wehad a, a dignitary visiting and

(01:20:32):
so we were all cleaning.
Right.
Getting everything spick andspan.
And I polished the, thehandrails of the stairwell.
And so they were reallyslippery.
So I got in trouble for thatone.
I had to go back and unpolishthe handrail and the stairwell.
So no one would have found out.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:20:52):
Yeah.
And then from there, um, a fewdifferent.
Uh, colleges, um, I was payingfor it as I went through, and so
I looked for the cheap stuff.
Just kind of dabbled in I knew Iwanted to do, well, to do
engineering.
One, because it would pay my waythrough school.
There are very few degrees thathave paid internships.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:21:12):
Um, and so I did the basics at asmall university in New Mexico.
And then transferred to TexasTech because there is a girl in
Lubbock that I wanted to bearound.
Okay.
Is she your wife?
No.
She is.
Yeah.
That's good.
We actually got married, uh, endof sophomore year.
How did you find her?
We were next door neighbors inhigh school.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I moved in next door when wewere about 15.

(01:21:33):
All right, and then uh, we weredating in high school and we
didn't break up even though wemoved to different Towns for
school and then both found ourway to Lubbock and got married
when I was 20.
She was 19 I've been throughLubbock actually before.
There's really no other reasonto be is you're going through
there, right?
Right?
Yeah, pretty much Big biggesttown.

(01:21:53):
I don't know 50, 000 people orsomething.
No, it's it's I don't know whatit is now.
It's a lot like Fort Collins.
So it's a college town.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Texas tech university.
And, uh, I mean, it is likeChristian university, a hundred
miles in every direction ispretty much empty.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Uh, it's going to take you twohours to get anywhere else.

(01:22:13):
Uh, yeah, it's probably 150,200, 000 now.
Okay.
Well, which makes it kind of anoasis of culture in some ways,
even.
Yeah.
I would imagine for West Texas,right?
There's probably not Oh, yeah.
Is there another cultural centerin West Texas?
Well, so this was my Like, SanAntonio is way south, but Yeah,
we never went down there.
We would go to Midlandsometimes.
Yeah.
And love it.

(01:22:34):
And Midland's kind of a bigtown, but it's, it's like all
refineries.
It's like a hundred thousand andyeah.
There's Midland, Odessa.
So it's kind of a Metroplex.
But it's all Roughnecks there,whereas Lubbock has a couple of
colleges, a Christian school anda proper church.
University.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and there's a lot moreagriculture in Lubbock.
So a lot more farming, horsefarms and stuff like that.
Yeah.

(01:22:54):
Okay.
So, sorry, I'm just centeringmyself on where you come from a
little bit.
So you kind of secured this galwhile you're in your like fourth
college, uh, tour of some sort,you know, bouncing around.
Yeah.
But knowing you wanted to be anengineer and that sounds like
the kind of school that wouldhave a good engineering program.
Yeah.

(01:23:14):
Tech was really good.
Um, I wasn't sure if I was goingto go to A& M or, uh, UT or
tech, but tech was really good.
Uh, and I got to work in themachine shop there.
I was in the mechanicalengineering department.
Uh, there the, the professorsalso teach classes, which is
nice.
It's not just grads, gradstudents teaching classes.
So I had some really goodprofessors who were there to

(01:23:34):
teach.
They wanted to be there.
They loved it.
Smaller classes.
I got to, I was part of ASMEstudent organization.
I got to design my own, um,competitions.
We did a trebuchet buildingcompetitions and so yeah, it was
a good time.
I enjoyed the time at tech and,um, they did a great job of job
placement.

(01:23:55):
And so I had four differentinternships or co ops just in
totally different industries.
I worked for BNSF railways.
I worked for a chemical companyin Iowa.
I had an internship for Exxonand then an internship with FMC.
They build the subsea technologyfor oil production.
What a fascinating like set ofopportunities for a young

(01:24:18):
person.
Absolutely.
We, Katie and I, we got marriedand then we immediately moved to
Houston, just the two of us.
And I worked this internshipwhere I was deconstructing
subsea trees.
I, I'd have to show up to workat four in the morning.
We worked from four until one, Ithink, because That was the nice
time of day to be workingoutside in Houston.

(01:24:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Well, it feels like we've kindof come full circle, almost back
to where your career started andevolved.
And so, um, if you'recomfortable, don't need a potty
break, we can jump right intothe Faith Family Politics
segment.

(01:25:35):
Yeah, let's do it.
Uh, let's talk about familyfirst.
Um, Talk to me about your dad inparticular, it seems like, uh,
driving force probably like inyour family life tree, obviously
the revenue generator and stufflike that.
What was he like?
Uh, well, I mean, he's, he's,he's an engineer, right?

(01:25:58):
And he loves his job.
Was he a manager?
Yeah, he got into management,uh, and now he owns his own
business.
So he retired from BP.
Uh, he had moved around to acouple of different oil
companies through acquisitionsand different jobs.
Um, but yeah, he got into seniormanagement and, um, then started
his own company and he's doingDoing, like, consulting in this

(01:26:18):
space or something?
Engineering, well, it's an EPC,so Engineering, Procurement, and
Construction.
Hmm.
So they design and build theproduction facilities down in
West Texas.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So they do a ton of work.
It's crazy how it's stillrocking down there.
Oh, yeah.
I guess Frack has basicallyrecycled the It's turned it into
What was getting to be a guest.
field.
It's turned it into amanufacturing process.
Yeah.

(01:26:39):
Yeah.
It's less.
Yeah.
There's less wildcattinganymore.
You just got to go down thereand get it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's an interesting thing.
It is.
Um, how about your mama?
Uh, so she was the, theeducator, right?
She, she didn't have a job.
Uh, once they started havingkids, I don't think she had
another job until we were allgone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, so she was always home.

(01:26:59):
Was she good at that?
Like she was just naturalcurious and things about, yeah,
you know, they raised us to beindependent and it worked.
And, uh, but also to be, uh, youknow, free thinking, come to our
own conclusions, read forourselves.
Yeah.
Uh, so there's a lot of freedomand autonomy growing up, which
was really cool.
Um, and yeah, they work togethernow in, in this business.

(01:27:24):
It seems to me that, uh, you're.
Wife, then, uh, crush, uh, whenyou were 15, has been a
significant, uh, branch in yourroad.
Do you want to talk about whyshe was so impactful to you?
Sure.
Even, you know, cause you were,you spent a long time apart
between 15 and 19 when youreally got together.

(01:27:45):
Yeah.
But now we've been together inour lives longer than we've been
apart.
Sure.
Right.
Um, so yeah, she's, she's, um,Why did she want that?
First question.
Why did she want what?
Why did she want thattogetherness?
Oh, I don't know.
Like, cause she was thischarismatic, uh, person that was

(01:28:06):
very intuitive and drawing, andyou were kind of this nerdy
engineer that's trying to figureout how people work.
I don't know how we ended uptogether, other than proximity,
but I'm really glad that we did.
Glad for the proximity.
Absolutely.
Like, it was, it was a gift, thefact that we ended up right next
to each other.
Um, and the fact that we've beentogether for, we've been married

(01:28:27):
now 18 years and it, it justfeels like we've grown together
through all of that.
Yeah.
Um, cause we're very differentpeople than we were when we were
15, right?
Like everybody is.
That's something that's reallyinteresting.
My wife and I celebrated 20years last year, 21 coming soon
and like recognizing that.
I'm married to a completelydifferent person now than I was

(01:28:48):
20 years ago.
And you still want to be.
Not completely different.
No.
There's still a lot ofcommonality, but there's
chapters.
Yeah.
You know, and yeah, regardless.
And we love each other for whowe are now, not necessarily for
who we were in the past.
Yeah.
And for who you were in thepast.
Like there's, there's gracearound that as well.
I think, um, there was probablya bit of.
I don't know.

(01:29:08):
We, we both found what we neededin each other.
I think she wanted a bit ofadventure and I would kind of do
whatever I wanted.
You were kind of too, I don'twant to say too smart because
that's like a judgment almostkind of thing, but you were
eager to do something bigger andmore and different than just,
you know, working in some of theoil fields as a roughneck and

(01:29:32):
then buying a house and havingsome kids and doing the thing.
There's always been more thatI've wanted.
And she's complete opposite.
She is present, she is grounded,she is content, and she always
has been.
Eager for security, and what Ithink I'm probably more eager
for security than she is.
Um, but, no, I think we balanceeach other out really well, and

(01:29:53):
we're both growing in that.
Even now, right?
Where I'm trying to learn how tobe more present, be more
grounded.
I mean, I've got an 11 year oldand a nine year old.
I want to be, be around as adad.
So how did you, um, how did thetwo of you find your way to
Northern Colorado?
Yeah, so we moved, you know, Itook the first job with Exxon

(01:30:13):
because I wanted, we both wantedto move internationally.
Um, and so I took the globalprojects position so that maybe
we could.
Yeah, check that out.
What I learned was they weretaking, they were repatriating
everyone back to their homecountries and kind of taking
advantage of new engineers tojust send them on business
trips.
Yeah.
Which I'm, I'm really gratefulfor the experience.

(01:30:35):
I mean, I've traveled the worldwith Exxon and worked on four
different continents and got,Yeah, no complaints.
No complaints.
And not what I wanted to do forthe rest of my life.
Exactly.
Um, but we wanted to liveinternational and I was just
being sent on long assignments.
I was in South Korea for fourmonths.
Right.
Um, what was really cool wasthey, they flew her out and she
got to be in South Korea withme.

(01:30:56):
Right.
Instead of them flying me home,they flew her back.
Um, but then once, uh, she waspregnant with our first and we
started growing the family, itwas like, I wanted to be home at
night.
Uh, I would be gone for weeks ata time and I didn't want to do
that.
And so I looked for, that wasit.
I just looked for another job.
Um, And the best oil field towork in that I wanted to live in

(01:31:18):
was Colorado.
Okay.
Yeah.
The other choices were, uh,South Dakota and West Texas and
like, I've done that.
Don't do that again.
Um, and we've, it's always feltever since we've moved here,
it's felt like home and wereally enjoyed being here.
And I worked for an oil companyup here for four years or so
before striking out on my own.

(01:31:39):
And even when I You're like,well, I'm not moving back to
Texas to do the stuff I've beendoing, and so I guess I gotta
figure out Unfortunately, travelkicked back in.
How to stay here.
Yeah, but what, uh, so then Iwas traveling more than I wanted
to.
Again, I wasn't home as much asI wanted to be.
And so, entrepreneurship waskind of First season, yeah.
Yeah.

(01:31:59):
I wouldn't change it.
I wouldn't be here otherwise.
Right, right.
Yeah, I've said that before.
Uh, like, no remorse.
Right.
At the path I've traveled, butalso, like, I don't want to go
back there.
Yeah, yeah.
And in hindsight, and thisabsolutely influences my
coaching, I recognize that Iquit both of them.
I really Comfortable and goodcorporate jobs when I had a nine

(01:32:20):
month old baby at home.
So I wasn't sleeping well, I wasre evaluating life.
May not have been in a propermental state to make those
decisions.
No, definitely not.
Definitely not.
And so that certainly comes intoplay when I'm working with
folks.
It's like.
Do you have kids at home?
Yeah, what's going on right now?
How's your, yeah, sorry.
That's funny.
Um, uh, I feel like, oh, wealways do one word descriptions.

(01:32:44):
They're not always, but often ofyour children.
Oh, would you care to take thatventure on and talk a little bit
more about them?
Yeah.
Um, I know one word is prettyhard, but then you can, you can,
you can hyphen if you need to,but also you can carry on.
It's a good challenge.
I mean, I certainly have,they're, they're two very
different kids.
Um, Hmm.

(01:33:06):
I think for my, my oldestBonham, uh, like the drummer,
John Bonham.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I was thinking, I wasthinking that, but I was also
thinking, what's that guy?
Oh, wait, it's Bonhoeffer.
Oh, not him.
Different.
Different.
Also very, uh, impressive personas well.

(01:33:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, as he's getting older, uh,you start to see more of their
personality.
Uh, so for him, I'd say.
Capable.
And how old is he?
Eleven.
Okay.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's a, that's a big word foran 11 year old to carry around.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
It's one I need to remind myselfof, that he's capable and I can

(01:33:47):
let go of some things for him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can just own this.
Instead of me telling you to dostuff, you can just own this
category kind of thing.
Yeah.
And then Soren.
Soren is our youngest.
He's nine.
Um, what's one word for Soren?
Um, and maybe it's, so the, hisname means bright.

(01:34:08):
Okay.
And that's a good word for him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like he's, he's a ball ofenergy.
Both intelligence, but alsoenergy and just draw,
illumination kind of.
Yeah, yeah.
Some people are bright lights.
He lights up a place.
Yeah, yeah.
And uh, yeah.
For sure.
Intelligent, um, and veryactive.
Yeah.
I dig it.
Yeah.
Um, well I think we coveredfamily pretty well there.

(01:34:29):
Unless there's anything else youfeel like you want to make sure
you pull in.
No, not necessarily.
Um.
Faith or politics?
Which, where do you want tostart?
I'm the host, I know, butAlright, let's talk faith.
Uh, I'm guessing, I don't know,I'm guessing West Texas is still
like Baptist land mostly, kindof the Bible Belt South, but

(01:34:50):
maybe it's a little bit morediverse because it's starting to
come over into like New Mexico,Arizona, where it's a little bit
There's a lot of Catholicism andinfluenced by a lot of different
factors.
Right.
Definitely Christian.
Uh, you know, that's my, myfaith center, um, has been, is
always, has been, hasn't reallybeen doubted.
Um, I mean, doubt.

(01:35:10):
Absolutely.
That's part of the Christianjourney.
Healthy questioning.
All right.
And part of the, uh, the, the,my own experience, you know,
moving around and living insmall towns, I didn't grow up in
one church.
So, Hmm.
Early childhood Lutheran Church,Lutheran Church in Hobbs, New
Mexico.
I didn't really realize therewas Lutherans down there.

(01:35:31):
There were 30 of us.
It was a small church.
I'm from North Dakota where theLutherans are thick.
But I didn't realize there wasany in Texas to speak of.
And my dad's side of the family,they're from like Minnesota
area.
And so that kind of carrieddown.
Anyway, that, that sarcasm andthe inability to carry a tone,
uh, yeah, that was, that waschurch for me.

(01:35:53):
Yes.
Love you, all of Jill's familythat I go to church with
occasionally in Minnesota withyou.
Yeah.
And then, um, moved to a smalltown, Denver city, and there's
no Lutheran church there.
And so it was where are myfriends at?
And so I went to a Baptistchurch to be part of the youth
group.
And then when I started datingKatie, her family grew up Church
of Christ and I startedattending with her.

(01:36:14):
Okay.
And, um, so I don't really knowthe significance like Church of
Christ is, where do they slidein?
What, what are they a spinoffof?
The ones that I'm familiar with,you know, I don't know the
church history.
I'm not as, as a, uh, historicalbuff as most Church of Cri
Christ.
People seem to be They all knowthese questions better than me.

(01:36:35):
Alright.
I haven't been in it my wholelife.
You came in late?
Yeah, I came in late.
Um, and I don't know you, thefunny thing about church is
it's, it's you, you, you kind ofpick up.
Um, preferences, personalpreferences.
What do you like out of worshipstyle?
And for me, having moved aroundto so many churches, I feel like

(01:36:56):
I I've gotten a betterunderstanding of the core.
Yeah.
And well, even when you were inKorea and yeah, yeah.
And, and attending a smallchurch in Korea made up of a
bunch of Aggies, right.
Who invite everyone into thissmall church that they set up.
Um, and then when we were inHouston, we went to a, uh, non
denominational, a church calledEcclesia, that was really cool,

(01:37:19):
that, that was really impactful,uh, for us, because we're now in
this new town, new community,new church, um Sorry, you were
making, coming around to apoint, and I think I cut you off
a little.
Well, and, and, the, the nondenominations, and getting to
see all these different had asampling of all these different
things.
I've had a sampling, and, and sothat's given me, I'd say, a, a,

(01:37:39):
a root more on, on the gospel,rather than personal preference.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How a church organizes.
So long as you're up front aboutthe things that are valuable to
you as a congregation or thethings you believe even if
They're not central to me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I can set it aside.
So the objectives is kind of bemore like Jesus and punch your
ticket to heaven in somefashion.

(01:38:01):
You can't really punch your ownticket.
That's a race thing.
Yeah.
Organize.
That's where we're talking aboutthe differences and all these
and measure.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yeah.
It's, it's interesting.
Like I mentioned earlier that Ihad these couple of Scots on
last night and then Scotland,it's like the church of
Scotland, which is like.
Church of England, but not thosefuckers.
Yeah.

(01:38:21):
Um, and then, or it's Catholic.
Right.
Because the Catholics pushedtheir way into most everything
around that time, but there wasalways this like, the 40
percenters that were like, well,screw you guys.
Yeah.
Well, and you're picking up onsome thing, themes.
Um, I'm very independent.
I don't like being told what todo.
Yeah.
Um, What to think.
What to think.
I'm going to come up with, um, Iwant to read the, read about

(01:38:44):
something and come up with myown opinion of it.
Yeah.
And, uh, so anytime, A church istoo restrictive around
methodology or legalism.
I'm like, okay, that's not mything.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
And so, like, coming around thefull circle to today, where do
you guys attend a Yeah, we're ata church called The Town.

(01:39:04):
The Town.
Yeah.
The Town Church.
The Town Church.
By Safeway?
No.
Uh, it's on Timberline andHarmony in the old Harmony
School.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, yep.
Um, we've been there about twoand a half years.
And, uh, you know, when we firstattended I met the pastor from
that church.
What's his name?
Vince Black.
Okay, yes.
Yeah.

(01:39:24):
He might not have been the headpastor.
I think he was a junior.
But has he been around?
Or is it his church?
Yeah, he planted it.
Okay, okay.
Then I met him, I guess.
Uh, I didn't recognize his name,but I've Or maybe I've met one
of his And then Eric, um,Reeves.
Yes, I've met that young man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So they're, they're the twopreaching pastors.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:39:45):
Okay, cool.
But, um, independent.
Um, you know, but what I like,and this is probably my
organizational, uh, consultantcoming out.
What I like is they're, they'reclear about what's important to
them and how they're going toorganize.
and what it means to be amember.
I'm like, cool, I don'tnecessarily agree with
everything you say, but I canget on board and I won't be

(01:40:06):
divisive.
I can understand why you wouldmake those choices.
Yeah, exactly.
And, um, we were at anotherchurch here in town and loved
that church, Meadowlark Churchof Christ.
You know, that was a verysimilar to, uh, where Katie grew
up and there's a connectionbetween Denver City and, and
here.
And some of our, our friendsfrom college are there as well.
Um, they found their way up toFort Collins and that was a

(01:40:28):
great place for us for, for thateight and a half years that we
were there.
Okay.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Um, politics.
Okay.
Um, so we'll start with, um,should Canada just be one state
or should it be like 10 or 11states?
Like, is it every province in aterritory?

(01:40:48):
I think Alaska should be part ofCanada and we should just Let
them have it themselves.
Just leave them to their ownproblems.
I'm pretty indifferent.
Yeah, so, and that kind of sumsup my political opinions for the
most part.
I'm almost indifferent.
You just want to navigate thecircumstances that are there
without trying to necessarilyinfluence it too much.

(01:41:11):
Yeah, or, or understand it,necessarily.
Fair, okay.
Yeah, that's an interesting, Imean, is that, maybe even almost
like a Church of Christ kind ofperspective of letting things be
like they will be?
No.
No.
No.
I wouldn't tie this to any ofthe It's not a faith
perspective, because there's,like when you think about a
faith perspective, there's likethe Calvinists that think things

(01:41:34):
are just going to happen the waythey're going to happen, and you
might as well just Yeah.
Just allow for it to happen andthen there's kind of a little
bit, I don't know what you wouldcall the anti Calvinists or
whatever, they're like, well no,if shit's going downhill you
should try to like change it.
You should try to do something.
I am a you should try to dosomething person.
Yeah.
Yeah.
God doesn't have a firm setplan.

(01:41:54):
He knows what's going to happen,perhaps, but you still got to
take action.
Yeah.
Otherwise, what the hell are wecoaching for and building local
think tanks and whatever else?
Things are set in motion, butyou still have a role to play in
it.
You get to choose.
Okay.
Uh, you get to choose the roleyou're going to play and, and
how you show up every day feedsinto that.
And that's more, but for youespecially, that's more on the,

(01:42:14):
the faith and personalinteraction side than it is on
reading the headlines on Twitterand everything else.
Cause we're in the politicssection now.
Right.
Politics.
Yeah, um, I, uh, my perspectiveof, uh, I love studying
politics.
Um, I don't necessarily alwaysenjoy current affairs.
Yeah, fair.
Right?
Um, I really like reading thingswhere I have no idea, after

(01:42:37):
reading the thing, how thatperson voted.
Hmm.
Right.
I just had a guest on my podcastrecently, uh, Cole Stralow,
who's created a newslettercalled The Flyover.
Oh yeah, I heard about that.
Oh really?
Yeah, I haven't seen it yet.
Okay.
Is it good?
Yeah, it was a really goodpodcast and what he's doing is
really interesting because it'slike they're very intentional to
not Emotionalize the facts.

(01:43:01):
Yeah.
Yeah, you know hard to do.
Yeah Exactly and in this day andage, it's like you you get more
traction for putting emotioninto it, right?
Right, right Yeah, and thenthat's partly why they've gotten
and they're you know Cole andmost of the team and most of the
structure is What I would callmoderate, conservative,

(01:43:22):
libertarian, you know, notRepublicans because they're all
too free thinking for that.
Yeah, yeah.
So let's talk about, can we talkabout that?
Yeah, sure.
Like, I feel like the, thechange.
In the Republican party.
Like I was a big time Trumpskeptic.
I voted for Trump finally on thethird time around I voted for
Gary Johnson the first time Ivoted for Kanye the second time

(01:43:45):
Kanye West.
Yes.
And the third time around, I waslike, you know, I'm starting to
believe that this guy actuallyreally cares a lot about this
country.
And he sees the part of me, partof America that the libertarian
in me has noticed since.
2005.
Two.
One, like, like before, likeright after the Trump Tower,

(01:44:06):
the, the towers came down, I waslike, shit, the freaking
authoritarian state they'regoing to apply to this and the
spying they're going to do onAmericans and the wars they're
going to create over this isgoing to be terrible.
Which they did.
Cause I'm a prophet.
I don't know if you've noticedthat before.
Nostradamus.
The local Nostradamus.
Well, no, no more like the onesthey talk about in the Bible.
Like that definition of somebodythat sees things more clearly

(01:44:27):
than other people do and part ofwhy.
God sets them up with theability to occasionally see the
future is so that the peoplebelieve him about the truth now
I don't know if you have thesame impression of what a
prophet does But I think there'smodern day prophets and I think
I am one Okay, not like one often like one of I don't know a
half a billion Like people thatcan kind of see things happening

(01:44:50):
and see things more clearlyAnyway, I digress but I could
already like I'd literally had aphone call the next day or later
that day of 9 11 like Thatforecasted the Patriot Act, that
forecasted Iraq invasion, likeall these things.
It is a gift I do not have.
I would not say that I'm aprophet.
And so that's why I pay moreattention to politics than
others.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:45:11):
And so, especially as Trump wastried to be killed probably by
the existing government,especially as people like What's
her name the the Hawaii girl andRFK jr came to the Republican
platform and they were kind ofDemocratic outcast because they
believe too much in free speechand Constitutions and stuff.

(01:45:35):
I came more and more on theTrump side, although I didn't
Well, going from Kanye West toTrump is not that huge of a
leap.
So you didn't have to make thatbig, you didn't have to make too
big of a leap.
But for me, that was part of thetransition.
It was, I was like, I'm actuallystarting to believe that this
guy actually cares more aboutthe country and the principles
of our founding than himself andgetting rich off of this

(01:45:57):
position.
And so anyway, I can, you canshare with me how you resonate
with that.
But, uh, I'm curious as to, um,I guess non political
perspectives in that becauseI've always been political just
more cynical like if you're notcynical You're not paying enough
attention.
It's kind of my philosophy.
Yeah, and you know kind of whatwe've talked about earlier I'm

(01:46:20):
probably more pragmatic.
It's like, all right, what's thecurrent situation?
What what can we do with this?
Yeah, we're in now, of course, Iof course I vote every
opportunity I get Right.
And I try to make an informeddecision.
Um, I look at, I, I'm asindependent politically as I am
in my faith and my, my careerand everything else.
Like there's a common thread forme.

(01:46:41):
Um, I don't like associatingwith a group.
I never really have political orotherwise.
Um, I appreciate the, the Isthat why I've never caught any
traction with the Loco ThinkTank conversation with you?
What do you mean?
Well, you're, you're aninteresting freethinker.
You've been navigating thisbusiness.
We do have groups for Yeah, ohyeah, yeah.
solo people and very smallteams.

(01:47:01):
I did attend, uh, uh, one of thefreethinks.
Oh, you did?
I loved it.
Yeah, it was great.
But yeah, I, I don't in college,I never signed up for the
fraternities or the honorsocieties like, Hey, join the
society, pay us 50 bucks.
I'm like, nah, I'll just, I'lljust not do that study.
Right.
Um, join this entrepreneurgroup.
I recognize the value of groups.
Um, but yeah.

(01:47:22):
I don't, I have a community thatI get involved with, but yeah,
same with politically, I'm notgoing to say that I remember
growing the first time I votedand this was in West Texas and
there was the option forstraight ticket.
It was like, you just circle onebox and it does all the deciding
for you.
And I don't like that.
No, no.

(01:47:42):
And so I have a very differentperspective politically at the
federal level, the state level,the local level.
Okay.
The things that I think federalpoliticians should be focused
on, I don't necessarily thinklocal should be focused on.
Do you think the federalgovernment should be focused on
less things?
Less things than they currentlyare, or?
Like, is Doge a good idea torecut some fat from the federal

(01:48:07):
element?
Oh, I mean, I'm a proponent oflean manufacturing.
I'm always looking for waste,right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Um, and when you put in placepolicies and procedures on top
of policies and procedures inorder to control people's
behavior, Yeah.
Things are going to get outdatedreally quickly.
Right, right.
I mean, management practices.
Especially as culture changesand stuff like that.
So, have things been put inplace that should no longer be

(01:48:29):
there?
Absolutely.
That's the story of anyorganization, any culture, any
government.
There are things that were putin place that don't need to be
there anymore.
Yeah.
Right?
So, I'm a, I don't know.
I'm an, I'm argumentative.
I can argue either side of anypoint.
I love that.
Yeah, I can do that too.
And I actually want mypoliticians to be argumentative

(01:48:51):
too.
Yeah.
If we have a Republicanpresident, I would rather
Congress be Democratic.
If we have a Democrat president,I would rather that the Congress
So stalemate is your preferredform of government?
To some extent, because But ifwe can agree on something, then
it must be important.
Exactly.
If we can agree on it, it mustbe important.
It doesn't mean it's right.
And, and this is the system'sthinking, uh, for me is it's

(01:49:14):
really hard to predict theimpact of our actions,
especially when we're talking atthe federal level, the U S
government is massive.
And so if we put in place some,some program, um, it might be
good for a time.
Yeah.
And once you put in place aprogram, it's really hard to
remove down the road atunintended consequences or
catastrophic.
Yeah.
And so then the, the pragmatistin me is like, all right, this

(01:49:36):
is the current situation we'rein.
Um, what do we do with it?
What do you think about, uh,this isn't quite politics, but
it's kinda, uh, what do youthink about DeepSeek?
Have you seen, noticed that onthe current events here?
The stock market lost like, 8, 6percent of its value?
And Nvidia is no longer I'mwaiting to see Skeptical?
Yeah, I'm skeptical.

(01:49:57):
It's not changing my investmentstrategy at all?
Not yet?
No, not at all.
And maybe it's because I gotburned because one time I When I
first started doing stocktrading, like when I was
probably 22, um, I bought acompany that all the numbers
looked good.
It was some Chinese importbusiness and all of the finances
looked good.
I'd read, um, intelligentinvesting.

(01:50:19):
I was like, all right, I'mchecking all the boxes.
That's your company.
But like 600 bucks in it.
And then a week later, newsflash fraudulent company.
So 600 gone to learn a veryvaluable lesson, which Wait and
see.
Let's see the sauce a littlebit.
Fair enough.
Um, here's the prizeopportunity.
Oh, okay.
So, three questions.

(01:50:41):
Grab three ping pong balls outthere and we're gonna choose
together which one of them willbe the prize.
Okay.
All right.
So, yeah, we should have abetter system with like a ball
holder.
Ava, put ball holder on the listof things to buy.
We've got 13, 30, and 29.

(01:51:04):
That's interesting.
So, how does this work?
Do I pick one of the three?
No, we're going to ask you allthree and we're going to decide
together which is the winninganswer.
But I have to answer all three?
Yes.
Okay, uh, number six.
If you could only eat one colorof food for the rest of your
life, what would it be?
Red.

(01:51:25):
Okay?
Like meat and apples, basically,or what are we talking about
here?
Radishes.
Some meat, uh, some kimchi.
I love kimchi.
That is one thing I've held onto.
I've made my first batch ofkimchi, actually.
It's in my fridge right now.
Did you actually bury it in theground for six months?
No, but I put it on top of mycupboard for two weeks and
watched the bubbles go bloopI've found my one question.
Kim Chi brand, and it's only atLucky's, and I will go to

(01:51:47):
Lucky's just for that.
I, I can't do it.
It's too expensive.
Like, so I make my own kombuchaand I make my own kimchi now.
It's pricey, but it's worth it.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right.
So red.
Red.
Red is the answer.
That could well be, that couldwell be.
Strawberries are nice.
Yeah.
Cherries, if they're not tooripe, I still qualify as red.

(01:52:08):
Red wine.
Yeah.
Oh, nice.
Yes.
Okay.
So, um, 13 is what's a book,movie or podcast that's had a
significant impact on your life.
Oh, man.
Um, just one is just one foryou.
Probably it is.
There's so many books and it'salways the books for me.
I like to read and think, um,I'll pick a kind of, uh, out

(01:52:33):
there.
Interesting one that, uh, letwas left an impression and that
was in cold blood by TrumanCapote.
And I don't know when I read it,uh, but it was the first time
that it really got me thinkingabout ways, it got me thinking
about psychology in ways I'venever thought about psychology
before.
Right, because here were twoguys who committed awful

(01:52:54):
murders, totally unremorseful,and it's just like, yeah, we
just did that.
Yeah.
Because.
It's like, oh, whoa, the humanbrain can work in some really
strange ways that I don'tunderstand.
And, and so that, the way hewrote that and, uh, the movie
paired with it was reallyinteresting.
Well, and.
Like, you know, to dip it backto the faith conversation, like,

(01:53:16):
if there isn't God You know,then we're just walking meat
bags, and if we're just walkingmeat bags, then why shouldn't I
kill you for your bag ofpopcorn?
How do you measure morality?
What, what does that evenmatter?
Why do I care?
Right.
Yeah, but we could probablyspend another hour on that, but
we're pushing our two hoursalready.
But it's always been those booksthat, that make me see, uh,

(01:53:36):
another side of, of humanbehavior and psychology that was
not normal to me.
Another one was Hyperspace.
So now I threw you, threw outtwo.
Two.
Hyperspace by It's it's aJapanese author and I can't
remember.
I don't know how to pronounceit.
Okay, I want to give thesynopsis what is about quantum
physics and It just explored alot of different ideas about

(01:54:00):
religion and quantum physics andPhilosophy and theology it was
really well and how quantumphysics can actually tie toward
like Can we actually influencethe will of the universal
creator being thing?
And could he just do that?
And, and the, the thing thatstuck with me and this probably
isn't, he probably doesn't writeabout it at all, but it was from
a faith perspective.

(01:54:20):
It's like, I can barelyunderstand what he's talking
about with it when this, withinthis realm of science.
And I believe in a God that isso much more beyond that.
Can I be okay believing in Godthat I can't fully understand.
Yeah.
And so it really put.
The perspective, uh, of how muchI could know.

(01:54:41):
Yeah, yeah.
Of, of any topic.
Yeah.
Not just religion, but how muchcan one person actually know
about even how my brain works?
Like, now we're getting reallymeta, but.
No, but that's one thing I've,so over the last few years I've
been listening occasionally tothe, the Saint Spiridon, uh,
podcast, which is now, uh,Ancient Faith Podcast, I think,

(01:55:02):
or something like that, but it'san Eastern Orthodox, uh, church
podcast out of Loveland.
Okay.
Um, and just coincidentally,coincidentally, like my good
friend from years ago, his, herson is dating the daughter of
this pastor of this EasternOrthodox Church.
Okay.
And one of the things I'velearned through literally dozens
and dozens of episodes of thispodcast is that the, from the

(01:55:25):
Eastern Orthodox perspective,Like, we say, like the
Protestant church at least wouldsay, you know, God is infinite.
And, but the Eastern Orthodoxeswould say God is not finite.
Like, they don't even put Godinto the box of He's infinite.
They're like, He's not finite,you know, it plays by different
rules that we can't even come upwith.

(01:55:47):
Totally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And just a different perspectiveon different things like that.
And I love learning from otherworld religions as well, not
just Christian theology.
Yeah, agreed.
Same.
Yeah, no, that was part of myown journey.
It was like, what's thisBuddhism thing about?
What do they think?
Um, third question, what's beenthe most surprising thing about

(01:56:08):
running your own business?
Hmm.
Um, The psychology of buying,when people buy and why, uh, and
that's probably been the mostuncomfortable thing for me is
getting comfortable with thelack of control in the sales
process.
Yeah.
And it has to be the right time.
Um, and, and that's, that's beenthe most surprising.

(01:56:30):
You definitely can't makesomebody say yes, you can get
more opportunities, but youdefinitely can't, you can't
predict it as much as you think,even sometimes.
Also with running a, a Coachingbusiness working with large
corporations and a coffeebusiness selling to my
neighbors, right?
It is just as difficult to sella 30 bag of coffee as it is a

(01:56:52):
30, 000 consulting engagement Itcan be easier to sell the 30,
000 engagement.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah I mean for sure at localthink tank we've struggled to
sell the 250 a month membershipfor the little guys compared to
the 1, 200 a month membershipfor the big guys.
Yeah, it doesn't make, itdoesn't make any sense.
Someone, someone knows how to dothis really well.

(01:57:13):
Salespeople, I, I have a muchhigher appreciation for them
than I ever have.
Okay, we're going to make thatquestion the question to win the
coffee gift.
So the answer is, uh, thepsychology of buying behavior is
the most surprising thing to youabout running a business.
Absolutely.
And finally, the locoexperience.

(01:57:35):
This is the craziest experienceof your lifetime that you're
willing to share with ourlisteners.
And, uh, if you can make yourwife blush during this answer,
that would be just kidding.
It's not that crazy.
Not that crazy.
Not that kind of crazy anyway.
No.
Um, man, I don't know.
You probably can tell from this,uh, this conversation that I'm

(01:57:58):
not the most exciting person.
I don't take the biggest risks.
You're adventurous, but withoutWith reason.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm prepared for the adventure.
Have you had any near deathexperiences in your lifetime?
Yes, but uh, plenty.
Okay.
But I wouldn't actually, likethey were calculated near death
experiences, right.
So, so this, this is probablymore, all right.

(01:58:20):
High school, uh, collegetimeframe where I climbed things
that I shouldn't climb.
Structures.
Okay.
And, uh, buildings and out inWest Texas, you find things to
do.
So you, oil derricks, whatever.
You go out and climb things.
Um, I played with a lot ofexplosives and, and fire as, as
a high schooler.
And, um Cause you had access todynamite and stuff from the No,

(01:58:42):
you don't need dynamite, just,just hairspray and some oxygen.
Okay, alright.
Potato cannons, potato cannonswere, were a fun hobby.
I like it.
And lucky those didn't explodeon me.
Yeah.
Doesn't sound that crazy though.
No, no.
Probably your craziestexperience was Quitting your job
like in the circumstance thatthe first one the first time it
might have or the road or maybegoing offshore I don't know.

(01:59:04):
I did some really big roadtrips.
So my wife and I after college Itold Exxon I wasn't gonna start
my job until September insteadof starting in May Okay.
And we drove to Alaska.
We spent three, three months,uh, driving and living in a tent
and out of our Honda element forOh wow.
We spent all the money we hadanticipating that we had a job
when we got back and, yeah.
And just to Alaska, you took aroad trip from Texas to Alaska?

(01:59:26):
Yeah, I was started in WestTexas and we drove as far as
cold foot Alaska.
Okay.
Which is north of the ArcticCircle.
Wow.
Yeah, we wanted to go all theway to the Arctic Ocean, but
once we got there, we realizedthe access is all controlled by
oil companies.
Right.
And you have to have like a buspass to get up there, like a
tourist thing, and we didn'thave any money.
Right.
So we drove as far as we wantedand then turned around again.

(01:59:48):
Honda Element is like a, like aForester or something, like a
little small SUV kind of thing.
That was quite an adventure.
It was.
It was really fun.
Yeah.
That was probably, there wereplenty of crazy experiences.
And how long have you guys beenmarried at the time?
Uh, two or three years.
Okay, so you were pretty wellacquainted.
Yeah.
But, like, I've run the WildWest Relay a couple times and

(02:00:09):
been in a van with six or sevenpeople for thirty hours.
And that changes how you feelabout each of those people.
Yeah.
So I imagine jumping in a carand being there for three months
was probably expanding for yourrelationship.
It was.
I read an article about a couplewho, uh, did a tandem bike ride
across the country.
Mm, yeah.
Got divorced after that.

(02:00:29):
No, the quote I remember fromthat was, Wherever your marriage
is going, it'll get therequicker on a tandem bike.
Maybe that's why my wife hasbeen resistant about a tandem
bike.
Because she knows how this isgoing to end.
I don't know.
I don't think want to ridebehind you that long.
Mostly I think it's that shedoesn't want to give up that
much control.
Um, Dane, if there's, uh,engineers that are also managers

(02:00:52):
out there or other people thatjust think what you got going on
is pretty interesting, you wantto tell them how to find you
easiest?
Oh yeah.
So isolation coffee, it's justisolation.
coffee.
Um, if you want specialty coffeedelivered to you in Fort
Collins, we'll take care of it.
That's easy.
And then RevZero, RevZero.
org.
Um, you can find us on LinkedIn.
We're posting content all thetime, trying to share as much as

(02:01:13):
we can.
And when the time is right, asthe company grows, as you're
moving from working on technicalproblems to people problems,
that's when I can help you.
I like it.
And, and when you're, uh, a lotof people call me when they're
anticipating a move out ortrying to, um, thinking that
they no longer belong there.
Okay.
And what often happens though,is that we figure out how to

(02:01:36):
craft the type of company thatthey want to be a part of.
And so then they, especially ifthey're on track to be that next
leader, potentially.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Cause the promotion intoleadership is not easy.
It's not comfortable.
Um, you get excited about it andthen you quickly realize what it
takes further up.
You get in the org chart, themore help you need.
I'm a huge proponent.

(02:01:56):
I use coaches.
I'm a huge proponent ofcoaching, therapy, mentors, like
building yourself a board ofsupport.
Yeah.
Whether that's therapists,mentors, and coaches, having all
Think Tank chapters, all that.
Loco Think Tank, absolutely.
I, just having this mastermindthat you, you get to see another
perspective.
Yeah, yeah.
When I first left banking, thefirst blog I wrote was, There's
no one to tell me what to do.

(02:02:17):
Yeah.
Exclamation point.
Yeah.
Uh, I was just telling my wifethat this week.
I was like, you know, I kind of,the thing I miss about having a
job is you get there and youknow, someone's going to tell
you what to do.
Yeah.
But when you run your ownbusiness, you show up and you're
like, there's about 30 things Icould do.
What do I do?
We might not have shocked moreabout Loco Think Tank because
we've got some pretty coolchapters for the smalls and like

(02:02:39):
showing up next month.
Okay.
Not having done the thing thatyou said you were going to do
last month.
Accountability.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you're the decider rightnow.
Right.
Your wife isn't going to callyou out on it because you're
making enough to make her notannoyed anymore.
Well, actually she works with mein RevZero now.
Oh, so she knows what you're upto.
Absolutely.
Oh, that's cool.
We're collaborating on, on alllevels.
Oh, yeah.
I forgot to ask much more aboutthat.

(02:03:00):
So, uh, what's her name again?
Katie.
Katie.
Um, I think you're probablypretty awesome based on, uh,
Dane's, uh, description.
And the fact that she's put upwith this for 20 years now.
Yeah, you know.
Hey, appreciate you being here,Dane.
Thanks for having me.
Have a great evening.
And, uh, talk to you next time.

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