Balancing Business Success and Humanitarian Impact: JoBen's Inspiring Story

Episode Transcript
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Tony (00:02):
Welcome to another episode of Carolina Commercial Real
Estate Connection.
Today we have Joe Ben Barkey onwith us.
Joe Ben, thank you so much forjoining us today.

JoBen (00:11):
My pleasure Great to be here.

Tony (00:14):
Joe Ben is a creator and owner of Soccer Shots, which
we'll get into, and he startedthat and has grown it into a
franchise using EOSEntrepreneurial Operating System
, and we're kind of going to gothrough that with him.
He also gives back and doescharity work which we would like

(00:36):
to get into.
His wife is into EOS andhelping people out with the EOS
operating system, and so muchmore about his background I'd
love to dive into later.
So, jobin, thanks so much fortaking the time.

JoBen (00:50):
My pleasure.

Tony (00:51):
It's going to be fun.
Yes, sir.
So could you start by brieflyexplaining everyone the EOS, the
entrepreneurial operatingsystem, and how you decided to
implement it across yourfranchises?

JoBen (01:04):
Sure.
So just a tiny correction Iwasn't the founder of the
franchise system.
I got in very early, and so Iwas fortunate enough to be able
to be a part of creating it.
The birth of it wasn't mygenius idea, but I got in really
early in 2009.
And I was fortunate enough toget in early, find a system that
I really believed in.

(01:24):
And I was fortunate enough toget in early, find a system that
I really believed in, investquite a bit early on, and so we
own six franchises in twodifferent states, but I got to
2000.
Oh gosh, I probably muscled myway to 2012, 2013, from 2009.
But I was starting to realizethere's something I don't know
about running a business.
Really well, I have a, you know, I grew up in the Amazon

(01:46):
rainforest.
I moved to North America bymyself.
I have a BA in psychology.
I was.
I was felt like I had no, nobusiness running or owning a
business other than the passionand the drive and the innate
wiring to do it, other thanthose small things.
But I was just like I was.
I was coming to the realizationthat if I boiled it all down,

(02:07):
we were still growing.
The numbers still look good,but I was multiplying based on
reputation.
I was not duplicating my earlysuccess anymore because I simply
couldn't touch every part ofthe company anymore.
It was bigger than my reach.
And so I called up a friend whois now an US implementer he
wasn't at the time and I waslike Tim, there's something I

(02:29):
don't know.
And so he was like yeah, unload, you got 30 minutes Talk to me.
So I explained it all to himand then at the end he's like I
think I can summarize this inlike a sentence or two if you'd
like.
And I was like yeah, go for it.
And he said he said it feelslike you understand that you
need to delegateresponsibilities, but you do not

(02:51):
want to abdicate yourresponsibility to see the
company succeed and to see jobsbe protected.
Is that accurate?
And I was like yeah.
I was like first off, pleasefollow me around the rest of my
life and summarize 30 minutes intwo sentences.
So like accurately for the restof my life.
Follow me around the rest of mylife and summarize 30 minutes
in two sentences.
So like accurately for the restof my life, all my friends and
family will appreciate it.
But second, that is bang on.
Like how did you like how didyou do that?

(03:12):
He's like well, I read a bookrecently that you need to read.
He goes I'm going to, I'm goingto overnight it to you, promise
me you'll read it.
And the best way to get someoneto follow through is get them
to say out loud that they'll doit.
So I was like, yeah, I'll do it.
So he sent me the book.
I opened it.

(03:32):
It was traction, um, the how toguide that, the meaty how to
guide um, for how to do what isEOS and how to do it.
And um, so I read it through.
I read it through twice in 11days and I was like this is it?
This is everything I've beentrying to build on spreadsheets
cobbled together with Worddocuments, and it's already been
built and tested.
And you know, way smarter mindsthan me have already worked out
the kinks of this.
Why would I ever try to do myown version?

(03:54):
So I immediately pulled out ofoperations.
I announced to my team I wasgoing to take 300, I was going
to track 300 hours of studyingthis system and at the very back
of the book it has a sequencefor self-implementing or for
implementing the implementationsequence for what order you
should go, cause it's a littlebit different than what you
naturally think you would do,and there's reasons for it and

(04:16):
it works great.
But the changes that startedhappening in our business were
unbelievable.
And so, from that point until2021, we self-implemented, and
then a little thing called COVIDhad happened in 2020, which
destroyed our business, ourbusiness.

(04:37):
The two quarters following whenCOVID first came, we generated
2% of the revenue that we hadgenerated the previous year in
the same two quarters, and so itwas really challenging.
A sudden 98% reduction in grossrevenue with many of the same
fixed costs was like how are wegoing to survive this?
And my business is soccer shotsworking with two to

(04:59):
eight-year-olds on site atpreschools and elementary
schools.
So, if you remember, theschools all shut down and then,
even when they reopened, parentscouldn't go on campus.
You had these elaboratedrop-off lines and pickup lines.
So if they're not lettingparents on, they're not going to
let some joker coach come onand run a soccer class for 35

(05:19):
minutes.
Then, even when they reopened,they started saying like, okay,
you can come back, but you canonly coach one classroom at a
time, right?
So before that, if there's 50kids, maybe I'm pulling nine
kids out of five differentclasses and making a great class
of nine kids.
Well, now I've got to run fiveunique classes.
You know a few two-kid classesand a three-kid class in there,

(05:43):
and you just can't do it.
I can't pay a coach five timeswhat I was paying them before,
with no with, with, you know,money trickling in and and
scheduling wise, I can't send acoach there for, you know, four
or five hours to coach nine kids.
And so even when the statestarted to reopen, it was still
really slow for us, and so westarted thinking like, well,

(06:04):
what do we do next?
And we started thinking aboutEOS.
So my wife decided to go becomean EOS implementer, because it
was about the same cost to startand launch it as a business as
it was to hire someone to comein and be an implementer for you
, an outside implementer.
And so I just knew that Icouldn't self-generate an
outside perspective, and in myblind spots it's.

(06:31):
It's always going to be hard tohold myself accountable in
front of the team.
In my blind spots, in the areasI'm self-aware like I can do
that I.
I I have hired enough peoplethat are smarter than me in
enough areas of the businessthat I can.
You know I've, I've been, I'vebeen open and honest enough with
myself and my limitations whereit hasn't been an issue to own
my weaknesses and own mystrengths, and by owning my

(06:52):
strengths I mean just allowingmy team to hold me accountable
to delivering them consistentlyand well, consistently well and
on time.
But it just, yeah, I juststarted feeling like there's
some things in the businesswhere I'm probably letting
myself slide a bit withoutknowing it, but I guarantee that
my team knows it.
So I felt like I just couldn'tself-generate an outside

(07:15):
perspective.
That was one thing I couldn'taccomplish, no matter how hard I
tried to implement myself.
And so in 2015, when we firstimplemented and then, through
kind of 2018, 19, our, ourbusiness, radically transformed
many, many changes for the good.
What I didn't realize is thatthere there are two ways of
talking about EOS.

(07:35):
There's using EOS and thenthere's running on EOS, and I
think that everyself-implementer, the max we can
do is use EOS.
Running on EOS is a wholenother.
It's a whole nother ballgame.
And so what I wasn't preparedfor which was a very pleasant
surprise is that when Amanda, mywife, became our EOS
implementer, she was not workingin the business.

(07:56):
She was a hundred percent inthe owner's box.
She hadn't been involved in inoperations for a few years at
that point, so she was coming inwith a totally fresh
perspective and she was holdingme to the rules.
A lot of times, a visionary overtalks their opinion and then no
one else gives theirs, and sowhat I wasn't aware of and was a

(08:16):
pleasant surprise was that theleveling up we did when we
self-implemented and startedusing the EOS tools was
significant.
But the leveling up that we didonce we brought in a
professional EOS implementer tomake sure that we were
harmoniously integrating all ofthe tools and using it
holistically in our entirecompany, that level up was even
bigger, which was amazing.

(08:37):
So I feel like havingself-implemented allowed us to
navigate through COVID, throughthose challenges.
We closed down well, wereopened well, but then where we
are today is we expanded toOahu, so we have four franchises
in Southern California, two onOahu.
Our business is generating twoand a half times the revenue it

(09:00):
was prior to COVID and we have areally strong team.
I've been very proud of all ofour leadership teams, the
different versions of our teamsall along, but where we are
right now is.
I'm very, very comfortable andconfident in our team.
So that's what EOS has meant tous.
It definitely makes me soundlike a way smarter business
owner, just quoting a couple ofthese books.

(09:22):
So if you boil EOS down, it issimple but not easy.
So if you can grasp simpleconcepts, you can sound like
someone who really knows whatthey're talking about.
The execution is where you haveto go and do your checks on me
and make sure that we'reactually doing it.
That's what we weren't doing aswell during the
self-implementing stage.
But yeah, eos, I talked toeverybody about it.

(09:43):
I've given away over a hundredtraction books to friends.
I have one friend who told mywife in confidence about two
years ago.
He's like yeah, I did not, Ididn't read traction and I
didn't give EOS a serious lookbecause Jobin was like so
passionate about it he wouldn'tstop talking about it.
I just kind of like, oh, I justdidn't do it and I'm like so

(10:05):
then I talked to him.
Next time I saw him.
I'm like, steve, the reason Italked about EOS all the time is
that every time we spoke, youtalked about problems in your
business and I knew the solutionbecause I had read about it in
a book and then I'd solved it inmy own business.
So I was just tired of hearingyou complain about the same
things for five consecutiveyears, buddy, so I bleed orange.

(10:26):
I love EOS.
You know EOS.
People question whether or notit can work for any business,
but when you boil EOS down towhat it delivers, it delivers
the same thing to businessowners, no matter what your
industry is and what yourbusiness is.
It delivers these five thingsthat make up the EOS life Doing

(10:48):
what you love with people.
You love, making a massiveimpact and being compensated
appropriately for that impactwith time to pursue other
passions.
That's the EOS life and that'swhat I'm living because of EOS,
so I'm extremely grateful to it.
I give Gino all the credit foreverything that's working in my
business.
He takes no credit for anythingthat doesn't work in my
business, but I just love it.

(11:09):
I'm so passionate about it, andI tell people that I finally
discovered the key to passiveincome.
It's having your wife have areally good company that makes
money.
That's my passive income.
I just sit back and cheerlead.

Tony (11:21):
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
And Gino Wickman is who wrotethe book Traction.
He's wrote a whole series ofbooks.
He just came out with a newbook called Shine, which is
basically looking withinyourself as an entrepreneur and
getting most out of your life.
Just, I'm not completed with ityet, but it's a great book from
the start.
So I wanted to dive back just abit because you bounced around

(11:46):
some stuff.
So I wanted to hone in on acouple of things.
One, when you were discussing,after you were allowed back in
the classroom during COVID, thiswas a complete change in your
operations and how you guys wereto remain profitable and
staying through that when youhad that massive drop down to 2%

(12:06):
of revenue and lost at 98%.
And then you go in and you can,instead of having nine kids
pulled from multiple classesyou're doing.
You've stated that you had ateacher and you had two kids,
three kids.
So tell me that one obviouslycame up as a big issue for you
guys.
How did you resolve that?

JoBen (12:25):
That one was a that one.
We decided to play a waitinggame.
We just couldn't make thenumbers work and so that's just
contributed to a longer shutdownfor us.
Um, we were, we were shut down.
You know, I it's a franchisesystem, so I get to see what
this industry does in differentStates under different rules.
And you know, without goinginto anything about the, the,
the, any opinions about theshutdowns or anything like that,

(12:45):
the the challenging part wasseeing, like the next state over
, be wide open with you know,and I'm, I'm seeing the revenue
we have.
We have open reporting of allrevenue for all franchises and
there's, you know, 153 uniquesoccer shots owners across the U
?
S and Canada now, uh, you knowover 300 locations.
So I get to see how all thelocations are doing.

(13:06):
And then all of us, all ourlittle pack of like, uh, you
know 15 people in California,we're like what is going on?
We're living in a totallydifferent world from the rest of
of the States.
But and then the frustratingpart was like you, you can drive
a there's an open borderbetween States, so if they're
wide open, having you know 3 000kids soccer tournaments, and

(13:27):
then everybody drives back towhere I live like what's the
point?
Like what are we doing?
And so it.
And again, that's not astatement on whether what was
right or wrong.
It was like how can youpossibly have two populations
living side by side, um, with nobarrier between them, and we're
living under completelydifferent guidelines?
It doesn't make any sense.
So I'm watching, I'm watchingpeople bounce back and I'm

(13:47):
watching parents put wanting toput their kids into programming
Cause they've been stuck at homefor so long, and I'm seeing my
friends have like their bestseasons ever revenue wise,
enrollment wise and we're likewe're at nothing still.
And so what EOS did is?
It allowed me to create astructure that allowed me to

(14:09):
reduce all of our costs, becauseI knew the key components, the
core to running a business.
Well, I knew what we needed todo.
Mentally, I couldn't put myselfin the place where I was like
who do I lay off first?
I ended up having to lay off 39people.
Um, I didn't.
I had to do it in reverse, andI encouraged all the feelers out

(14:30):
there to think the way I wasthinking at that point was who,
who can I hold onto the longest?
And so I reverse engineered,you know, the layoff, uh order
that I had to go Cause.
Mentally I couldn't.
It was too hard to put a nameon who's got to go first, right.
And so COVID or, sorry, eosallowed me.
I had an accountability chart.

(14:51):
Because of that, I knew itwasn't based on on who my
friends were, who I was closestwith.
It was based on the key rolesto rebuilding.
So I knew exactly what I neededto do to rebuild and then, when
the time came to reopen, we hadall the structure in place.
But you know, I also knew thepeople on my team.
I knew what their skills were,because we did the
accountability chart versus theorg chart, and the

(15:12):
accountability chart putseverybody's skillset in their
bubble Right, and so you'reidentifying where their your
neat genius is.
And so I called in all thepeople that I felt were
persuasive, all the people thatwere good on the phone, and I
downloaded three months worth ofexpenses from our bank account
and I divided up the differentsheets, I printed off and we

(15:34):
went through and highlightedwhich things were fixed costs.
And then, in March and April of2020, we negotiated our way out
of every fixed cost for ourcompany, out of our office rent.
We had a five-year lease and Icalled.
I was like man, I knoweverybody's probably calling and
they were like, no, honestly,no one's called.
I was like, perfect.
So I offered them $10,000 toget out of my lease this is

(15:59):
right away, right, and they'relike but you have such a good
space.
I'm like I know, but I alsohave no income coming in.
And so we were able tonegotiate our way out of it,
paid them ten thousand dollarsand got got out of years worth
of my lease, and so I'm verygrateful for that.

(16:20):
But every fixed cost, wenegotiate our way out because I
knew which people could do it.
And then, when it came time toreopen, we were able to reopen
really well and we reopened withtwo franchises a six hour
flight away on Oahu, and we wereable to do that because of EOS.
So EOS was man.
It's going to be a theme.
I'm very, very appreciative toGino Wickman for what he created
, as well as all the other books.
Right, rocket Fuel was a superimpactful book for me personally

(16:42):
and professionally as well.
But yeah, um, that that's kindof how we definitely couldn't
navigate the two kids in a class, uh, cause I was paying out
more money for the coaching thatI was getting getting in.
Uh, just just coaching wascosting me more.
So, um, I think I think EOShelped me be to be much more
aware of um.
I can't really restart until Ican afford this nucleus, this

(17:06):
core, and so I was.
I wasn't waiting for a randomtime, I was waiting until I felt
like I had enough to bring backthese five people and then we
can launch and then we justbuild back from there.
So it was, man, it was a toughtime.

Tony (17:19):
Yeah, I mean for sure it sounds like, you know, we we
weren't impacted that entirelymuch in the construction
industry, so we didn't really.
You know we weren't impactedthat entirely much in the
construction industry, so wedidn't really.
You know, we would basicallyhave trades and limit who goes
in, so we just have one trade ata time.
And we weren't at a fullshutdown, it was, but it was
easy for us to kind of organizeit and remain operational.

(17:39):
It sounds like you that's, youknow, very difficult, that
you're having to basically gothrough an order of operations
of laying off 39 people.
When you're going through allof that, I imagine you know some
you're OK to lose other ones,You're just hoping you can get
back and you know somehow keepthem somehow around where you

(18:03):
can get them back when you'reback operational.
So of those, about how manywere you able to re-secure once
you started coming back online?

JoBen (18:12):
Yeah, first off, it must have been nice to be considered
essential by the government.
I was very non-essential butyes, I have a lot of part-time
staff.
My coaches are mostly part-time, so I got a small percentage of
them came back.
I got a good chunk of thefull-time staff.
I read the entire CARES Act.

(18:33):
It took me seven and a halfhours to read through the whole
CARES Act and every documentthey produced after that.
And so I understood all theproblems with the PPP when they
first rolled it out and I knewthey had to change it.
All the problems with the PPPwhen they first rolled it out
and I knew they were.
They had to change it.
You know early rules like, um,you have to spend it all within
eight weeks of getting it.
It's like well, we're totallyshut down, so what do you want
me to spend it on?

(18:53):
Um?
So I just sat on it and I waslike hey, I know that in eight
weeks this converts to a loan.
Um, worst case scenario, I justgive it back.
But there's no, like, there'sno reason to spend it right now.
So what I do with my staff is Ijust worked out something.
I said hey, I can, you know,I'm going to pay you.
Um, you know, the max I couldpay was a hundred thousand
dollars, a hundred thousanddollars equivalent salary.

(19:14):
So I just brought back, um,nine people, um, put them on a
hundred thousand dollars salarytill the PPP ran out, and then I
, so I was way overpaying themwhat their existing salaries
were.
And so I just had a, you know,a gentleman's and gentlewoman's
agreement with the team where Isaid, hey, if we, if we don't

(19:34):
ever reopen, this is your moneyforever.
Put it in a savings accountright now, don't touch it.
Most of them were living back athome.
They had, you know, sharingcosts with family.
So I'm like, sit on this asyour restart money and full
blessings to you If we don'trestart, start your own project,
do your own thing.
I'm happy that we were able tohelp you with this right.

(19:54):
And so we did the two rounds ofPPP, built up quite a bit of
savings for them to help them,and then when we reopened I
think part, maybe possiblybecause of that they were there
was a there's, you know, the lawof reciprocity If you do
something for someone, they dosomething.
So a lot they, they showed backup.
A couple of them said like hey,honestly, we've moved forward.

(20:15):
One of them started his owncompany and stuff.
But they said we will come backand we will work this off as a
declining balance.
And so that's how I was able toutilize the PPP is we just had
spreadsheets and they knew whenthey'd worked it off and full
blessings to go their wayafterwards.
So we got almost everybody backto help us restart and we

(20:36):
restarted on PPP money with adeclining balance from their
savings account.
So I was really really blessedby that.
One wild thing that happened inthe middle of it is I was
telling the bank that they weredoing some things wrong and so I
ended up talking and I won'tgive the name of the bank, but I
ended up talking to the vicepresident and he went back and

(20:57):
reviewed stuff and he asked meif I could put together a
one-page document for him topresent to his team for how they
should be managing the ERCcredits and the PPP.
And I was like buddy, I don'tfeel I'm trying to save a
children's soccer company rightnow.
I don't have time to be doingpresentation, your presentation

(21:18):
to the bank.
But it was wild.
There was help out there and soI definitely pursued every
penny I could get.
I know some people did that andthen misused it, and I know
there's a lot of stories outthere about that, but we were a
company that went after everydollar and then redistributed
every dollar to our staff, andso we were able to restart

(21:40):
because of that.

Tony (21:41):
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
You've got great stories.
So one thing I want to touch onis your culture and your core
values.
So how has EOS helped youdefine and cultivate a strong
company culture, core valuewithin your franchise, and how
do you give back with those corevalues?

JoBen (21:59):
Great question.
So I thought it was doing corevalues really well.
Like if you talk to anybodythat's just starting the road to
EOS, they haven't done anyself-assessment yet, they
haven't, like they're justgetting going, they're going to
tell you they're great, like wehave great core values, we have
great structure, accountability,all that stuff, until you start
getting into actualaccountability and measurables

(22:21):
and then you're like, oh, I wascompletely fooling myself.
So I had core values.
In hindsight, they were 100%core aspirations.
They were things that I hopedto be someday, right, if you
don't talk about them, ifthey're not a part of your
vocabulary, if they're not apart of your hiring, firing,

(22:42):
promoting, calling up, callingout, decision making, then
they're not core, they're justvalues, right?
And so we started calling ourprevious iteration core
aspirations, not core values.
And so EOS takes you through aprocess where you develop core
values and because of EOS, I forthe first time understood that

(23:05):
this wasn't something that I wascreating and then telling
people this is who we are.
We bring in our leadership teamand then we sit down and we say
who are we actually?
Who are we?
How are we determining who wehire when it comes down to two
very similar candidates.
When it comes to capacity, right, eos teaches you the GWC get it

(23:25):
, want it capacity.
So, when you have two people infront of you and they both get
it, want it, have capacity whatis deciding the difference for
us?
Because there are so many greatvalues out there, right?
So every company's got a listof values, and every one of them
you're like, yeah, that's apretty good one, but which ones
are ours?
Right?
How are we making our decisions?
And so we just whittled andchipped and whittled, and what

(23:50):
we did keep guilt combined, andthen we whittled and chipped,
whittled and chipped and we gotdown to three.
And then we felt like we werejust missing something, and so
we added the core value.
You know there should be anaction thing.
So we added the core value weare fun.
And then you get to put littledescriptions for what's fun, and
so I put in there we are a nodrama company.

(24:11):
And so when we started to lookcarefully at who was surviving
long-term with us, who wasmaking it onto the leadership
team and then finding acomfortable home, and it was
people that like to have fun andit was people that didn't enjoy
drama.
Yeah, hard things happen.
There's always going to berelationship disruptions, you

(24:33):
have to navigate and stuff.
But if you have a value, goback to it.
It says like hey, we don'tperpetuate and extend drama.
When we have drama happening,we address it and we move
forward.
High trust, right.
Patrick Lencioni's fivedysfunctions of a team helped us
understand how to establishhigh trust.
And then we started talkingabout our core values.

(24:57):
During our hiring process,during all of our coaches
meetings, when we were bringingpeople back in and we do our you
know, I do my once a quarteraddress to the company we would
talk about core values.
We started calling out corevalues when we see them right,
like so, one of our core valuesis help first and then we can
get into how that.
You know how that hasinfluenced and impacted the

(25:19):
direction of our nonprofit andthe work that we do there.
But help first.
So we talked to our leadershipteam.
We say like, hey, we're aninverted triangle the further
you progress in our company, themore people you support and
serve and we are a help firstcompany.
So when you have a help firstcompany and you're feeling
overwhelmed, you just have this.
You just have this sense thatpeople are for you and that they

(25:41):
will help you without keepingscore Right.
So by that I mean like man, Ihave a lot on my plate.
This person seems to befinishing up their work pretty
quickly.
It's no issue to call them inand say like, hey, man, there's
no chance I'm going to get these, all these out to the schools.
Could you grab five of thesepackets and drive them to the
schools and I'll grab these five?
Everyone in our company will doit.
In our company will do it, noproblem.

(26:05):
Nobody says like, oh, that'sbelow my pay grade.
That would be counterculturefor anybody to say that and it
would stand out like a sorethumb.
So the core values just becamethe way.
We started filtering who webrought in after we determined
that they were a GWC fit.
Now we want to make sure thatthey love who we are, because if
they love who we are, thenthey're going to find a home
here and they're going to.

(26:26):
They're going to stay long,much longer, long-term.
It's really, really hard tostay at a place that you're not
aligned with, and we tell peoplewhen there's an alignment issue
.
We make it super clear we'relike this doesn't mean this
isn't good person, bad person,this is us or different place at
just as good but differentRight, and so that that that was
important for me to get toCause I, you know, I, I think, I

(26:48):
of course I'm going to think mycore values are the best core
values.
But getting to the place whereI actually could, could mentally
accept and then incorporateinto how I thought and talked to
it that like there's, there'seasily 20 core values out there
that are just as good as thefour we've got easily, probably
a hundred, maybe 200.

Tony (27:07):
And so wait before you go too far.
We've got.
We are fun.
Help first.
What are your other two?

JoBen (27:13):
Uh, pursue excellence, we are fun.
Oh man, you might have to editthis one.
Uh, pursue excellence, we care.

Tony (27:24):
Uh, we care uh we care, yeah, there we go there, there
we go awesome.

JoBen (27:28):
All right, you got if I don't say I'm in order, then
they then.

Tony (27:31):
Sometimes I get three out of four plus, if somebody asked
me mine I can't, I don't have,okay, I gotta read them.
I mean I can, you got, I gotmost of it.

JoBen (27:38):
Then you're gonna if you'd ask me, uh, when I was
still in charge of of theinterviews, uh, man, just I'd
roll them up because I talkedabout them all the time.
Now it's more we'll have.
I'll focus on one core valueduring a quarterly, and so I'm
just super focused for a quarteron one core value.
Luckily we have four, sothere's four quarters, so we can

(27:58):
.
It works perfectly.

Tony (28:00):
So when you're saying that you know you're getting and
you've got these GWCs and so Iunderstand that, so they've got,
you know, maybe, the experience, Both of them have the
experience to line up to youBoth.
They both are doing greatinterview and have some.
Everything seems to align.
So how, in this stage of notknowing them, how are you saying
, ok, this one has more of thecore values than this one, just

(28:21):
from a quick interview?
Where are you being able toanalyze that?
How?

JoBen (28:28):
we're asking for things like tell me a time when you
were, tell me, tell me about atime in your life when there was
a lot going on and some peopleweren't having a great time and
you managed to find a way tohave fun.
And then so they give you astory like oh man, we went
camping one time and we gotthree flat tires.
People were complaining thewhole time and I was like what

(28:49):
an adventure.
That's who I want to work with,right, that's a we are fun
person.
And then when you start talkingabout help, first tell me about
a time when you were, when youwere going through something
challenging in your own personal, profession or professional
life and you managed to helpsomebody else get through a
tough time, even though you werein a tough time.
And so when people you know,when does help first show up?

(29:10):
Well, when I'm, when I'm goingthrough a challenge and I still
manage to help, that shows thatit's in my DNA.
I'm just going to, I'm justgoing to help first, and then
I'm going to worry about, youknow, how I get helped, how I
get taken care of after that asa as a totally separate issue,
but I'm going to show up andhelp first, and then you know
ones like pursue excellence arefairly straightforward.
We say like, fairlystraightforward.

(29:34):
We say like, what's the time?
Tell me about a time when youdidn't have the training or the
background to be excellent, butyou showed up, you gave your
best anyway and, as a result ofrepetitions, as a result of, of,
of of effort, you were able toproduce a result that you're
proud of, even without anyknowledge or preparation.
And so sometimes that takes abit more thinking.
They have to think through atime when they were, when they
were felt unqualified but stilldelivered and and and.

(29:57):
So we do.
It's just stories, right, andthen care.
You're just listening and andyou know we talk a little bit
about our projects.
You know digging wells, openingschools, dealing with some of
the, the trauma that comes fromworking in a country that's in
the middle of a civil war.
If there's no emotionalresponse to that, like they're

(30:18):
checked out there, they start tolean back while we're talking
and they're just like notengaged.
If there's no response, thatthen it's like maybe, maybe,
maybe.
What we care about isn'tnecessarily what they care about
.
They can care about lots ofgreat things, but our specific
things are not things that arehigh on their list, and so
that's another thing we ask themis we say at the end of it you
know, you got this interviewbecause we believe you were a

(30:40):
fit for the role, but now it'stime for you to go home and to
decide if the organization is afit for you and how you want to
positively impact your community, because there are many great
ways to impact our communities.
This is just one way.
So if you go home and youdecide that yeah, everything
you've heard here sounds great,the core values sound like

(31:00):
they're aligned with you, withwho you are intrinsically, then
you're going to find a group ofgreat friends here who love you,
support you and want to see youwin.
This is going to be a greatplace to work.
But if you but if you're inconstant conflict with what's
most important to us, then thisis going to be a challenging
place to find success and tofeel at home and to feel fully

(31:22):
comfortable.
So that's kind of how we do it.
We incorporate it in.
One of the ways that we showhelp first is when I'm
interviewing, is when I'minterviewing the first.
We do it at 45 minutes.
The first 15 minutes I actuallyI model help first by sitting
down, and I say this will be ina group interview.
The first interview is a groupinterview and I'll say I know

(31:45):
that you guys all take classeson how to win interviews.
I know you take them in highschool, take them in college.
Those are all taught by schoolteachers.
I would love to take 15 minutesas interview and talk through
how to win your dream job, andour hope for you and for
everyone who comes and workshere is that you look back at

(32:05):
soccer shots as the steppingstone that prepared you for your
dream career, because for many,this is a part-time job and it
will always be a part-time job,and so you know.
The first thing I talked to himabout is you know, um, isn't it
amazing that, uh, we don't haveto work in the in the coal mine,
just because we have come fromfour consecutive generations of
coal miners?
Isn't that amazing?
Isn't it amazing that we canapply for jobs all over the

(32:26):
world in the space of 15 minutesfrom our couch?
Well, and then during COVID,like while sitting in our
underwear, like, like on ourcouch isn't that incredible?
And so we talk about that.
And then we talk about the oldway of interviewing, how people
come in, you know they'd makeyou sit for a while in the lobby
just so that.
Just so that could impress uponyou how much more important my
time was than yours.
And then you know, if I couldset it up, you'd walk down an

(32:49):
echoey hallway to get to theinterview so that you would feel
small, and then I would lift mychair a little bit so that I'm
a little bit higher than you.
There are all these things,right, I said.
Here's the truth of what'shappening in every interview and
it's happened forever is wejust desperately don't want to
hire bad people, bad employees,people that are just here to
take advantage of us.
We don't want to do that.

(33:10):
And so the moment that werealize that you are a great
candidate, all of the power inthe interview flips to you,
because now we desperately wantyou to represent our company,
represent our brand, to help usexecute on our projects and meet
our goals and objectives.
And so you now hold thedecisions, no longer us.
We know we want you, but many,many interviewers will keep up

(33:34):
the facade of like you'd belucky to work here.
So let's instead flip it andlet's understand that you
actually control the power.
You have the power in theinterview when you're a great
candidate, and so if you believeyou're a good candidate, how
are you going to go in there andexert that power?
I said, well, a great way to dothat is by speaking the language
of the company you're applyingto.

(33:54):
A great way to speak thelanguage is do a little research
ahead of time.
So we tell them research theironline statements, find their
core values, their stated corevalues, but then also find
things that are important tothem, a little about us thing
like read that Everybody puts itout there on their website, and
then come in and ask somequestions using the verbiage and
terminology of that company'sown values.

(34:16):
And so what you're doing isyou're doing two things.
First, you're showing them thatyou can speak their language
and that you already speak theirlanguage, but second, you're
actually asking them valuerelated questions so that you
can determine whether or notthey have core values or if they
have core aspirations.
That are great.
Little posters on the hallwayto the bathroom a picture of

(34:39):
like an airplane going straightup saying we pursue new heights,
right, like okay, cute.
But wouldn't it be great if youknew in the interview if the
organization actually lives bytheir core values.
And so find a company whosecore values you love and then go
to the interview if theorganization actually lives by
their core values.
And so find a company whosecore values you love and then go
to the interview with theintention of finding out whether
or not they actually live bythese core values or if they're

(35:01):
just core aspirations.
So we do that whole talk for 15minutes.
Then, when we circle back atthe very end of the conversation
to talk about now it's time togo home to think about it for
the good fit, we tell them weknow if it.
You know we eat, sleep andbreathe our core values, and one
of our core values is helpfirst.
And so what you heard first inthis interview was us modeling

(35:21):
one way we live out our corevalues.
We want to help people wintheir dream jobs, and so that's
kind of how we incorporate it,that's how we find out.
You know we tell some, we tellsome emotional stories when we
talk about some of the thingswe're involved in and, um,
sometimes we get a big laugh,sometimes we get some tears up,
but but at the end of theinterview when I'm like okay, so
talk to me about something thatstands out, about our nonprofit

(35:43):
.
If they're like man, soccerjust meant a lot to me.
I love the sport.
I want to give back.
We're like man.
You don't think they heardanything.
I said, um, so we're, we're,we're listening.
You know, we're listening tohear.
Are these active participants?
Um, um, oh sorry, the the.
We actually folded, um, I'mforgetting.
We folded, we care into helpfirst.
It was we own it was the.

(36:04):
It was the fourth core value.
Not, we care, um, so it was.
We pursue excellence.
We own it.
We have fun, um and and uh, andwe help first.
And the reason we say we own itis we're not a company that
wants to shift blame to otherpeople.
We also believe that we're thebest people to fix a problem
that somebody else creates forus, and so we're not going to

(36:24):
sit around and point fingers,we're just going to go out and
fix it.
And then the other part, too,is everyone on the leadership
team.
I tell them, when somebodycomes in and you're having one
of those call up conversationswhere someone hasn't been
delivering on expectations,there is a component in there
that is our contribution to theproblem, and so we don't have to

(36:45):
own 100% of the problem.
But sometimes our contributionwas just not addressing it soon
enough, and so a real example ofthat is I called the guy in.
He hadn't been doing what Iasked him to do, and so I said,
hey, before we start thisconversation, I want to own my
part of this.
I knew this was a problem fourmonths ago and I delayed in
addressing it, and so we couldbe four months into fixing this.

(37:08):
Instead, we're starting today,and that is 100% my fault and I
hope you'll accept my apologyfor that.
That was poor leadership on mypart.
And then after that, wetransitioned into the
expectations that weren't beingmet and we talked about ways to
solve it.
But we talked to all of ourstaff and leadership and we say
you don't have to mentally ownhalf of it.
If somebody is late all thetime and you're telling them all

(37:29):
the time don't be late, it'snot your fault.
They're late, but maybe youdidn't create consequences,
clear consequences.
So that's your 5%.
They own 95% for not doing whatthey're supposed to do, but you
let it slide, and so there'syour 5%.
So we just tell our team justtry to think of your 5%.
We just arbitrarily call itfive and that's our.

(37:53):
We own it.
We're going to own 5% no matterwhat.
Now, when a customer is upset,when someone's upset, I tell my
staff I'm like, okay, mentally,own 5%, but don't blame them for
the 95.
Just own the five.
We keep it on our side of thetable and we just move forward.
They just want to be heard,right, and so that's kind of how
we live out the core values inour company and transition from
aspirations to values.

Tony (38:14):
So, jobin, what I would tell you is listening to you,
you have a ton of passion, youknow, for your company, a ton of
passion for EOS.
Obviously, it's obvious to mewhy you're successful at what
you've done and building a greatculture within your company.
I wanted to go back a littlebit within.
When you were talking there,you quickly said you know, one

(38:37):
of the things when I'm talkingto people is digging wells,
opening schools and seeing ifthey have an emotional response
to that, because you areinvolved in digging wells
opening schools.
So tell people a little bitmore about that and how you guys
are giving back as a company,because I find it amazing.

JoBen (38:54):
Thank you, yeah, so I think you know.
I think there's four T's togiving People talk about time,
treasure and talent.
There's a fourth one talk thatI think is really important to
recognize because it doesn'tcost anything is really
important to recognize becauseit doesn't cost anything.
But some of us are wired asconnectors and we can.

(39:14):
We can, we can do a hugeservice to a project or to an
initiative just by connectingthe right people together, just
by helping to tell the story,just by spreading awareness, and
it costs absolutely nothing.
When, when our friends write abook, you know how much, how
much does it hurt us to postabout it on social media?
That's a form of talking right.
How much does it hurt us topost about it on social media?

(39:35):
That's a form of talking right.
And so when I first started, wehad no money and so I was like,
okay, I'm just going to tellpeople about opportunities.
I grew up in a third worldcountry.
I look like this, I look likeI'm.
You know, I'm actually Canadian, half American, half Canadian,
but was raised as a Canadian, mydad's Canadian, so we never cut
in line Canadians don't cut inline things like that as
Canadians.
So we never cut in line.
Canadians don't cut in lineThings like that.

(39:57):
I was raised 100% as a Canadianbut yeah, super annoying when
your mom saves a spot for you atfront of the line at the
cafeteria and your dad says youhave to go to the back because
you're a Canadian and I'm like,but mom's an American and she's
going to let me cut.

Tony (40:08):
She's an American for crying out loud.

JoBen (40:11):
Just my American half is cutting in line.
We're okay, but oh sorry, Okayso.

Tony (40:19):
I knew I wanted to build a library, yes, well, yeah, I
want to hear how you got intoDiggy Wells opening schools,
what you're involved in with it.

JoBen (40:28):
Yeah, so 2012, I was ready to start doing projects.
We'd had no money.
Um, I got a phone call, uh,from a friend I grew up in peru
and I grew up in the amazonrainforest.
I lived there till I was 18years old, um, so really close
friend of mine.
He said he was trying to dowhat we were doing but he had,
uh, four flat soccer balls andhe had 40 kids in his program
and nobody was paying him.

(40:49):
Um, and so I was like okay, Isaid.
I said I have no money.
You know, I had like 42 bucksin my bank account and my engine
on my car had cracked and I hadto borrow $1,900 from my
brother who was a school teacherjust to get my little Honda
Civic back on the road.
And so I had no money.
But I knew people and so I waslike, okay, let me see if I can

(41:11):
get help.
So I told everybody I knew if.
Well, first I went to ScoreSports and I asked them if they
would donate their profitmargins so I could afford more
equipment.
And so the next order of 2000soccer balls.
I asked if they could make it2200 and just give me at cost
the 200 soccer balls.
It's a company based in LongBeach and so they agreed to that

(41:32):
and so I went around toeverybody I knew.
I went to parks, talked tostrangers and I said, hey, if
you give me 20 bucks, I'll buytwo soccer balls.
If you give me 40 bucks, I'llbuy four soccer balls.
Give me your email address,I'll send you a picture of the
kids playing with the soccerballs and stuff.
So four months later we were inPeru with a fully funded project
and I realized the first dayI'm like man, I don't need to

(41:54):
teach these guys anything aboutsoccer.
I need to teach them the basicsof running a business.
And so we started pivoting andbeing like, ok, I can come with
all the equipment and theknow-how of setting up an
academy to funnel intocompetitive programming, but the
skill set I have is like Ibuilt a business with no help,
no help, no financing, nothing.

(42:14):
And so I know how to bootstrapand build a successful
organization.
You know it's a multimilliondollar organization.
We have 10,000 players a yearin the program.
We started with 63.
So when he's saying he's got 40kids and no money, I was exactly
in that spot and built it tothis.
So I'm grateful for that.

(42:35):
It helps me to be able to help,I think in a better way because
I'm empathizing versussympathizing.
And so I did sit exactly intheir seat and walked in their
shoes, and so we did thatproject.
But it was familiar.
It was back in Peru where Igrew up, so everything was easy.
So the next one was to Rwanda.
Are you familiar with thegenocide that happened in Rwanda

(42:56):
in the early nineties?

Tony (42:57):
Yes.

JoBen (42:58):
So I went to, I was working there and I went to the
genocide memorial as part of mytime in Kigali, rwanda.
I was working with a privateschool, but it was a training
facility for the teachers for 42public schools, and so I went.
They, they paid for me to go tothis genocide memorial and, um,
I was educated.
I learned a lot more abouteverything.
The last hallways, pictures ofchildren, um, from happier days,

(43:21):
but pictures of children whowere killed in the conflict.
And I got to this five-year-oldand a picture of a blown up
picture of a five-year-old, andmy oldest was five at the time
and I, I, um it.
It told, like, who his friendswere, what his um, what his
favorite games were, hisfavorite food, all this stuff.
And, uh, it said, you know, heloved to play hide and seek with
his dad.
And then it talked about howthey were killed and he was

(43:42):
killed.
Um, he looked at his mom andsaid where can I run to?
And mom had to decide does heknow he's getting killed or does
he run away, thinking that he'sfree?
And so she said just run, honey, you'll be safe.
And so he took off running andhe was shot and killed as he ran
, um, and, and the mom knew thathe was going to be killed, um,
no matter what, but she madethat self selfless decision to

(44:03):
have him, um, think he's free.
Um, um, right, as he was rightbefore he got killed was sobbing
, um, I went back to the, to theapartment I was staying in that
night and I stayed up most ofthe night just being like what
are we doing?
Like I could have sent a doctorhere to save lives, I could have
sent a construction team to, toto build something that lasted,

(44:24):
and so I was really questioningthe value of what we were doing
.
And doing these soccer camps,right, and teaching how to teach
the youngest of kids, cause wefocus on two to eight year olds.
So we're really, really goodwith gentle coaching, which is
not, which is not common overthere or where I grew up, and
very harsh a lot of likeflip-flops to the side of the

(44:46):
head when they mess up that typeof thing Right, and so we're
teaching like you can't usecorporal punishment on a
four-year-old and have them wantto come back to practice.
So just training them.
You have to train themdifferently than you would a
17-year-old.
But the next morning we werewriting curriculum.
I was teaching them how towrite their own curriculum.
They made a list of 20character words and then a bunch

(45:08):
of skills, and then we'dpartner those up and we'd write
a lesson plan.
One character word, likeresponsibility or respect or
determination, and we'd partnerwith with some skills and we'd
write a curriculum.
And they brought five kids overto give an impact statement and
this little seven-year-old wentup there and this quote was on
my wall for years, for fiveyears, so it's why I remember it
.
Um, but he stood up and he saidthank you so much for coming

(45:29):
here, seven years old.
So thank you so much for cominghere.
I don't have a father and noone's ever taught me football
before.
And they took a deep breath andhe said um, what matters the
most and what I'll never forget,uh, is that you came here and
you didn't care if I was a boyor a girl, you didn't care if I
was good at football or bad atfootball.
You just came here and you lovemake more children feel the way

(45:51):
I feel right now, and I waslike, oh my gosh, like I
couldn't get words out Right.
Um, there's a picture of mewith the kids I've got.
I mean, pick something superred, my eyes are that red, I'm
hugging the kids in the pictureand I'm just like, what perfect
timing to have a kid articulatefor me what I was actually doing
, which had nothing to do withsoccer, football or even

(46:14):
business.
It just was how do I live outmy desire to love and positively
impact as many people as I can?
And so that started ourprojects.
We then went to Cameroon, didsome projects there, helped
launch a nonprofit that runsfocused focus on youth and girls
programming.
They set up the firstcompetitive leagues in Cameroon

(46:36):
for women.
Uh, first tournaments andeverything, um and then.
So I did that in the Frenchspeaking side, and then I went
and did more camps on theEnglish speaking side as well.
Uh, this is 2017.
So I made friendships on bothsides and then a civil war broke
out between the two sides, andso I still have connections on
the French side and I still workwith them.
You know, the people I workwith have nothing to do with the
conflict.
They're just stuck in themiddle of it.

(46:58):
But on the on the Englishspeaking side of the country,
the terrorists started becomingmore and more ruthless and
barbaric, and the governmentreally didn't have access to
that area.
So there was a food shortages,food insecurities that came from
COVID access to that area.
So there was a you know, foodshortages, food insecurities
that came from COVID, hugemalaria outbreaks, a huge
cholera epidemic that waskilling people and no education.

(47:20):
All the schools were closed in2017.
So the first, you know, we, wefirst thing we did is we
supported a guy's soccer Academyover there, started working
with them and I'm talking aboutcamera, because cameras now are
a long, long-term project.
So we did that.
Then we did a bunch of otherprojects but eventually opened
an elementary school.
They named it it's the wordiestname ever.

(47:42):
It's named after my wife.
It's Amanda's School for Brightand Gifted Children.
I don't know how a first graderin Cameroon gets through all
those words, but it's so nice ofthem to name it after Amanda.
But we launched that school andthen they sent me pictures of a
big celebration and I saw abunch of kids playing in water
with cups beside the water, andbecause I grew up in a third

(48:02):
world country, I knew that thatmeant there was a crossover
between bathing water anddrinking water, and so I asked
right away like hey, do we havea good supply of water here, and
they said, no, we have a hugecholera problem, um, and no
access to clean, safe water,none Um.
So I was like, okay, what theywere doing was they were filling

(48:23):
water bottles um, um with water, um, and then placing it on the
roof um to heat up, and theywere letting it sit there for
days and trying to cook thewater on the roof of their, of
their huts, um, and, and thatwas that was the best they could
do, and so we went in, we Ifound out there was a natural
spring a couple of kilometers, acouple of miles away, um, and
we we ran an undergroundwaterline and built a pump.

(48:43):
I I had no idea how to do thisstuff.
Youtube is a great teacher, um,and so great guy in Cameroon,
kingsley, and he was like he'slike boss, we can do this.
He goes.
We just got to get on YouTubeand believe in ourselves.

Tony (48:55):
I'm like okay, let's go.

JoBen (48:57):
So we built a waterline, did a huge ceremony.
It was so cool.
I can't go there.
It's really unstable, I can'tblend in very well, and so I
wasn't able to attend.
But Kingsley sent me a messagetwo days later and he was like
we have a problem, he's likeboss.
I tell him not to call me boss,but he does it anyway.
He's like he's like boss, we'vegot a problem.

(49:18):
So this one water supply is nowservicing 1500 people and the
tap is right by our school, andso they're lining up every
morning before dawn to get water.
He said everybody's wellbehaved, everybody's polite, but
it's too distracting to havehundreds and hundreds of people
lined up outside of the school.
And so I was like okay, let's,let's, let's, let's build some

(49:40):
more water lines, dig some wells.
So we found a new location, webought it, we dug, we knew the
water table was at about 20 feet.
We got to 19 feet six inchesand then the water line was the
well was poisoned feet.
We got to 19 feet six inchesand then the water line was the
well was poisoned, um, and whichnaturally was naturally
poisoned.
The water was wasn't drinkable,and so, um, but we bought the
land.

(50:00):
So now we have this land, we hadno idea what to do with it.
So then we talked to thevillagers and we're like, hey,
we needed to donate land.
This time, you know, we droppedlike 26 000 to buy that land,
to give them a free well, andand then we hit, and then the
water didn't work.
So then I went back and I waslike man, I can't drop 26 K
every time we want to try to diga well.
And so they gave me the land.
They provided um people to dothe labor, and then we just paid

(50:23):
for um, paid for the parts andpaid for print together and we
hired the.
We hired um professionals tocome and help us to test it, to
make sure the water was good.
So then we ran a line, we duganother well, and then nine
villages showed up and they werelike where's our well?
So then it became a much biggerproject.
Again.
He and I are both soccerplayers and then academy

(50:45):
directors by trade, and so westarted a water company to start
producing water.
Everything we do, we try to doit sustainably.
Um and so, uh, we started theschool, but but I'm paying the
teacher's salaries every monthand that's not sustainable.
Uh, so then we started a taxicompany and we hired all the
coaches for the soccer Academywe've been working with as taxi

(51:08):
drivers, and then the profitsfrom the taxi company paid the
salaries for the teachers everymonth, so it wasn't costing us
anything to run the school.
We're running it completely forfree.
So then we solved the watercrisis, and I can go, and that's
a whole podcast.
If you want to go deep on whatit's like to run projects in the
middle of a civil war, thatwould be that they can make a

(51:29):
movie about the stuff that'sgone on so far.
But then fast forward to wherewe are today.
We decided to use that land tostart an agriculture school to
address the food shortages, andso in October, on like four,
three, four weeks notice, I leftmy wife and five kids for five
weeks and went to Africa andtook a farming organic

(51:50):
agriculture course in Kenya Samesame basic geography as
Cameroon in the area we wereworking.
So went there with my directorfrom Cameroon, took this course
and then we went back and threemonths later we opened an
agriculture school teaching sixnutrition crops and two
medicinal crops, includingartemisia.
Artemisia is a plant that, whenprocessed correctly, that they

(52:15):
use that plant to make everymalaria medicine.
It comes from Artemisia, and sowe teach them how to grow the
plant, how to cultivate it andthen how to how to dry the
leaves and then grind them topowder and then to drink it as a
tea.
It's a little bit bitter, butit it.
Uh, it puts off an odor.
I believe it's the odor, thebody odor that it puts off um,

(52:36):
that repels the insects thatcarry malaria.
Malaria is only carried by bythe mosquitoes at night.
Um, it's only by the femalemosquito that's only bites you
at night.
So during the day people arefine, but at night they're
getting hammered by.
Um.
Malaria and the it's just.
Malaria is a parasite that themosquito carries.
So if there's one infectedperson in the house sleeping, it

(52:58):
will bite that person, and thenif that same mosquito bites
another person, they'll becomeinfected with the malaria
parasite.
So we taught them how to growand create a tea from this
Artemisia plant and so thatreduces the symptoms from often
hospitalization because ofsevere dehydration, um, down to
one, one and a half days ofsymptoms.
Um, if they already havemalaria and they're having an

(53:20):
attack, because malaria neverleaves your body Once you have
it um, if you don't have it andyou chug this tea like crazy, it
keeps you from getting malaria.
So we taught them that.
And then we we taught them awhole bunch of nutrition crops.
Um, we just graduated our firstclass of 46 students, and so we
gift them with tool sets andall the seeds to start their own
farm and, additionally, weteach them how to sustainably

(53:43):
farm, so they collect their ownseeds, they dry their own seeds
and then they replant them.
It's all part of what we teachthem.
So we have a facility now thatwe bought by accident because we
were trying to dig a well, sowe have this land that we get to
teach them on.
We're very blessed to have it.
It's right on a river, totallyby accident, unplanned.
We're not thinking at all aboutthe river when we bought the
land and now we have a river, sowe have never-ending water

(54:06):
supply for our farm.
And then we teach them to goback and do exactly what they
did at the farm in their ownbackyards, and so with a 20 foot
by five foot garden bed, theycan feed.
They can feed, you know, theirneighbors 50% of the nutritional
needs for a year.
They can continually feed them,and they can do it in soil that

(54:29):
has no nutrients.
That's the trick that welearned in Kenya is you dig down
12 inches, you remove that soiland then you dig down another
12 inches to loosen up the soiland then you fill it with
compost.
On top of that loose soil, youfill it with decomposing
everything you've beencollecting and then you put the
12 inches back on top.
So you have a big mound of dirtnow, and then you never walk on

(54:51):
it.
So it's.
It doesn't compact down Right.
And then you only have to dothat once every five years, and
so it can turn soil that has noability to grow crop into high
nutrient soil.
And then we teach them how toplant partner crops so that they
don't have the same insect thateats two, two crops side by

(55:11):
side, that they don't have thesame insect that eats two, two
crops side by side.
Um, cause the insects won'tjump over a crop that they don't
eat.
Um, and then we, we plantmarigolds all around it.
It's a natural insect repellent, and so we learned all these
tricks.
I'm a soccer dude that's gotnothing to do with farming and
never wanted to have anything todo with farming.
And now, um, now I own anagriculture school in Cameroon.
So you know, that's the bigpicture that everybody hears.

Tony (55:38):
You know we can do five podcasts on this is the beauty
of you know, operating under theEOS, which has allowed you the
time to be able to give back tothe world in such an impactful
way.
I'm so glad you've been able toshare that.
I mean, all of this boils downto you know you have honed in on
processes with your company towhere you have allowed yourself

(56:02):
the time and the capacity to beable to actually go make a
difference in this world, whileyour company can still operate
self-sufficiently and you canleave and have and dedicate the
time to doing something that'screated so much passion for you,
and your company is not beingpenalized for you doing that.
That's the whole gist of EOSand you doing all of this, which

(56:23):
has allowed you to truly giveback, and so that is the value
of EOS is actually being able tofind passion in life and give
back with the success thatyou've built up, and what a
testament it is to all thepeople that then work for you.
That's man.
I work for this guy.
Look what he's creating, lookwhat we're doing.
This is what we're doing.
I support this, and that initself is then it drives your

(56:46):
employees that they are workingfor a great place and they want
to be part of that.

JoBen (56:50):
A hundred percent.
Can you imagine?
So you're, you're 18, 19, 20years old and you work at a
company that teaches little kidssoccer.
That's not super rewardinglong-term.
And we tell them that we'relike hey, you're, you're not
going to wake up excited to goto work every day If the only
thing we offer is the chance toteach a three-year-old to kick a
soccer ball straight.

(57:11):
That's, it's just not long-termrewarding, said, but what if
you, you worked at a placeinstead?
You know what if they work at aplace instead where you know
they have seven kids in theirclass and they're so great and
they're there that kids telltheir friends.
And now they have nine kids inthe class, right, well, those
two kids are straight profit forus and we can only donate from

(57:31):
the profit.
We can't donate from the soccershots expense account, right.
And so we talked to them aboutlike hey, you know, we're not
buying a boat, right, that's our, that's our, our joke, we
always make the language we'renot buying a boat with the extra
money.
Like, we're digging anotherwell.
Every well costs us betweenfive and $7,000.
We're digging another well.
We're opening another school.

(57:52):
We're adding more taxis to thetaxi companies so that we can
pay the teachers more, and theyall know that.
So I'm in an industry with aturnover.
For our part-time employees,which is the majority of our
staffing, our turnover rate isevery six to nine months.
That's two to three seasons.
That's about how long apart-time coach typically works
in this industry.

(58:13):
We just had four coaches reach10 years with us.
Four part-time coach typicallyworks in this industry.
We just had four coaches reach10 years with us.
Four part-time coaches reach 10years with us and it's because
they know that when they wake upin the morning and they go to
work, they're doing so much morethan teaching soccer to little
kids.
So now what they're doing isthey're supporting communities

(58:34):
that can't help themselves inunderserved communities within
developing countries.
Right, so you wake up in themorning, you don't feel like
teaching you to kick, but maybeyou do still feel like helping
someone have access to safe,clean drinking water.
It's a totally different reasonfor getting out of bed in the
morning and it's how we live onour values, right?
So we talk about help first andthen we report how our company
is helping, and then we alsotalk to them again about the

(58:56):
four T's.
So we say like our company, 15years in, is at the point where
we are using treasure now, rightTime, treasure, talent and talk
.
We're able to use significanttreasure to do these projects.
A lot of that is because I'mleveraging my understanding of a
third world country and how farthe US dollar goes when you're
in some of those countries to doprojects.

(59:18):
So we've built soccer complexes,we've done all kinds of
projects and our staff here getsto get excited about you know
there was.
We pass everything on to them.
But there was recently a littlebaby in a family.
A village of 600 people justgot a well for the first time,
and a family, a village of 600people, just got a well for the

(59:39):
first time.
And, and three weeks later Igot sent a picture of a little
baby African boy named Jobin,who was just born.
And so I turned around.
I'm like, I'm like guys, thisis like, yes, the kid has my
name.
That's unbelievable, but thisis a testament to the
organization.
Like I, my name to them is theorganization, and so they named
their baby after theorganization that you guys all

(59:59):
make happen.
That's it.
That's wild Right.
And so, yes, we tie them intoour why, our what is just how we
live out of the why, right, andso great that you I love that,
you that you pointed out andtouched on that you know the,
the, the, the.
The summary that you gave wasthe five points in a summary.

(01:00:21):
Right, I get to do what I love,which is impacting people,
changing lives.
I get to lead an organization,which I love doing.
I love being the CEO, thevisionary, the big ideas guy.
I love sitting at a coffee shopwith an empty notebook writing
mostly terrible ideas in it.
I love that.
I love it.
Right, my job, my stated job,is to come up with 20 big ideas,

(01:00:46):
and 19 of them can be awful,but one of them is going to
disrupt the industry.
My integrator's job isfiltering for everybody else
poor woman, but doing what welove with people we love.
Well, if you filter through corevalues, if you talk a lot about

(01:01:06):
why you're in business, if youtalk a lot about who you work
with and who you bless and whoyou want to bless, you start to
attract people that you justlove.
You love these people, right,and they're all different walks
of life.
My wife and I are people offaith, but we have people of all
different faiths that actuallywork in our organization, and we
work well together because wewant to serve the greater good
All of us do in the organization.
And we have people of no faiththat just think that people

(01:01:29):
should be nice to people andthey get attracted to work here
too, and so we get a lot ofpeople that have the same goal
coming from different places,right, and so the goal of making
other people's lives better,and so we do what we love with
people we love.
We are making a massive impact,right?
I think every business ownerwants to believe and hope that
their idea, their job, willpositively impact as many people

(01:01:51):
as possible, and then beingcompensated appropriately for
the impact means that if youridea sucks, if it's not working,
you're.
That's why you're not gettingpaid very much.
It's compensated appropriatelynot compensated a ton and so
compensated appropriately.
Our idea has worked and so weare compensated well enough to
be able to self-finance our ownnonprofit, and so we get very

(01:02:15):
little outside help.
We finance all these projects.
But that's the fifth deliverableof EOS, the EOS life right.
The fifth deliverable is timetime to pursue other passions,
and I've always been a hugeadvocate for the value of time
as one of our most valuableresources.
It can never be replaced right,and I've lost everything, our
most valuable resources, it cannever be replaced Right.

(01:02:36):
I and I've lost everything.
Um, I've, I've people, my kids,my kids don't really understand
how wild this is.
When my wife met me, um, I, shewas 22 years old, I was 20, 21.
I was 26 and I was living in mycar, um, and I was perfectly
fine with that.
Um, when we drive, when we,when last time we were in Canada
, we drove by this one rest stoparea and I was like, guys,
there's where dad used to livebecause it was safe, so I'd park

(01:02:58):
in the rest area, I would dothe little sink bathing.
And Amanda, she tells people,she tells me she's like well, I
had never met anyone like you.
I grew up in a smaller town onthe outskirts of Vancouver,
canada farming area, and thenthis guy comes in and it's just

(01:03:23):
got these wild big ideas butactually he believes he's
actually going to execute themand he's doing the things that
lead to it being executed andbeing done well and on time and
impacting as many people aspossible.
So for me, time was a big thingand I was willing to give up
resources and income to have mytime, and so that's to.
I was willing to give upresources and income to have my
time, and so you know thatthat's the fifth deliverable is
time to pursue other passions.
It is our most valuableresource.
Nobody gets to the end of theirlife and wishes they'd made a

(01:03:44):
hundred thousand dollars more.
No one.
Everybody would trade for onemore day, one more chance to
talk to that person.
Set things right.
And so you know, we just I.
Our stated goal for our companywas I said I will work like a
dog for five years.
It ended up being about eightyears.
But I said I will work like amaniac for this amount of time.

(01:04:04):
But then, after that, I'm goingto be at every single school
event.
I'm going to do drop offs andpickups for my kids, I'm going
to go to every sports event.
I'm not missing anything.
And you know, last week I wasat a two and a half hour uh play
on the history of the U?
S for my fifth grader.
That started at eight o'clockin the morning and eight, 30,
eight, 30 to like 10, 10, 45, 11o'clock.

(01:04:26):
It just kept going.
I was like, oh my gosh, I getto do that, right, I get to go
and be there, um, because of EOS.
And so it's not because ofsoccer shots, it's not because
of me, it's because of EOS.
And I love Gino.
Gino walked on stage a few yearsago and he says it's his
partner that came up with theterminology.
But he said you know, we'vebeen fooling you all, we, we,

(01:04:49):
you know, we present thisbusiness system for creating
structure and harmonizing humanenergy, creating accountability
through measured, trackedmeasurables, and he's like so.
So that's the forward facing.
But what we actually did is wecreated something that gives the
business owner founder thesefive things.

(01:05:10):
And if you don't think you wantthese five things, your spouse
or significant other does, oryour kids want you to have these
five things uh, doing what youlove with people you love, uh,
making a massive impact, beingcompensated for it.
But then the fifth one time,right, um, my kids are fit, are
16, 15, 13,.
Um, um, 11 and 10.
We have a bunch of birthdays inthese two months, so I've got

(01:05:33):
to try to keep up with who's hadtheir birthday already.
But in that age range you startto think about summers.
Okay, so in two summers, myoldest is out of high school In
three summers, the next one'sout In four summers, the next
one's out.
We live in California, so thesecret reason for being here is
because it's too expensive tomove out.

(01:05:54):
They're going to have to livewith us forever.
It's going to be great, and soI really enjoy my children.
They're great fun to hang outwith.
Excuse me, we have four kids infive years and then we adopted
our oldest five years ago and sowe have five kids in a
seven-year span.
They do everything together andsometimes they invite me to
hang out with them too, and Ilove it.

(01:06:14):
So it's great, but yeah, thatdeliverable the last one time to
pursue other passions.
That is what has allowed me todo all this nonprofit work and
to really focus on that.
But also that's why Amanda wasable to step into the owner's
box of soccer shots and thenbecome an EOS implementer
Because, you know, living theEOS life, making a massive

(01:06:35):
impact.
She was like this is how Ipersonally can do that.
So my wife stay at home mom,homeschool, mom to EOS
implementer, working withexecutives and you know, owners,
business owners, executives andtheir teams with no network and
she's built this successfulbusiness that's thriving and is

(01:06:55):
doubling year over year and it'sbeen incredible and it's
because she's just so passionateabout helping people and she
loves sitting in theuncomfortable when people are
lying to themselves.
I do not.
I feel all the discomfort.
She feels none of theirdiscomfort, she just finds it
humorous.
So I just love that EOS hasgifted me with the opportunity

(01:07:19):
to live my EOS life as someonewho's, you know, a business
owner.
I'm the, I am the, the CEO bytitle and, uh, and I attend one
meeting a week, um, at ourcompany, one 90 minute meeting
meeting.
I don't make any of thedecisions and operations anymore
, but then, equally, my wifedoesn't attend any meetings.
She's in all of our quarterlies, in our annual, because she's

(01:07:42):
running them as an implementer,not as a business owner, and so
we're both pursuing passionsoutside of this business we
built that has, you know, 70employees across two different
states and it all runs itselfand it's.
It's amazing, absolutelyamazing.
I could have, I could not havedone that in the timeframe that
we did it, if it wasn't for thegift of the book traction and

(01:08:04):
EOS, and then rocket fuel.
You know, I touched on thatvery briefly.
Rocket fuel was the gift thatreleased us, to release me, to
step into who I always was.
I just felt, like you know, therole of a visionary, big ideas
person.
It's so abstract and andthere's not, there's not measure
measurables and there aren'tkey deliverables, and so how is

(01:08:24):
this a real job?
But then you get into the roomwith people that don't have that
skillset that you have ofcasting a vision and seeing
where we could go and who wecould become, and you start to
realize that it actually is askill.
Combine that with readingRocket Fuel and they're like
buddy.
This skill set of a visionaryis wonderful, but it's an

(01:08:46):
absolute disaster if you don'tcomplement it with the skill set
of an integrator, and so I'msuper blessed.
I've had the same integratorsince 2015.
We learned EOS.
We were Eator since 2015.
We learned EOS.
We were EOS babies together.
We learned it together, weimplement it together, and right
now she is training my nextintegrator.
So I'm super, super excitedabout the direction the

(01:09:09):
company's going and about herhelp.
During COVID, we actuallyhelped her launch her own my
long-term integrator.
We actually helped her launchher own fractional integrator
company.
During COVID to help her havean opportunity to make income.
If our company didn't survive,I was like, oh man, this person
did so much for us and so howcan I help first and lean into

(01:09:31):
that core value?
So we helped launch her companyand she's still doing her
company.
And so she's the one that cameto us and said hey, I think you
guys, I think it's time to havea full-time integrator again and
I'm ready to train yourintegrator.
So beautiful.
It's beautiful when you show upfor people authentically and
help first.

(01:09:51):
Sometimes they don't help youat all because you have to do it
without.
You have to do it without,without expecting you know the
reciprocity to happen, but whenit does, it's a beautiful thing.
And when you have a greatrelationship there, I know that
she wants us to succeed.
I know, I know that when she'snot working, she's at our

(01:10:13):
company.
When she's not, when you know,when she's working with her
other companies, she's stillthinking about our company and
wants us to succeed and to um,to Excel.
So it's, it's wonderful andshe's a, she's a um, she's a
type, a straight shooter, umsays it how it is Doesn't get
overly emotionally excited aboutstuff, um.

(01:10:41):
And so I knew that winning herover was going to be.
It was going to be somethingthat I had to do very
intentionally, because she iswired to be a little bit
apprehensive is the wrong wordand distrustful is the wrong
word, but she's not wired tojust get overly excited, like me
.
Right, I have to actuallyconvince her that I'm genuine,
that the core values meansomething to me, that I'm not
just like a raw, raw cult leadertrying to get everybody to do
something for me.
I actually am trying to buildsomething and I'm putting in the

(01:11:02):
work as well, and so that's oneof my biggest prides in life as
a business owner and boss is tohave earned the respect of an
integrator who I respect.
Right, it's a totally differentskillset and we just have so
much respect of an integratorwho I respect right, it's a
totally different skill set andwe just have so much respect for
each other that we can beopposite and opposing on issues
and decisions, and she 100%respects me and respects my

(01:11:26):
intentions and I respect her.
And I let her tell me no, whichis not easy for a visionary
entrepreneur, but I let her andI've experienced over and over
again that it's the rightdecision, so I will keep letting
her tell me no.

Tony (01:11:39):
Joe Ben, I really appreciate that and I love to
hear that.
And you know, what I want to dois take a moment.
I want to pause.
I want to thank you foreverything that you've discussed
here today.
I think it's going to beinstrumental to anyone working
through their business to growit kind of scale it to the next
level and to free up time.
So if people wanted to reachout to you to find out more, if

(01:12:00):
they could get involvedpotentially in helping Wells or
help you expand in youreducational pursuits over in
Cameron, what's the best way toget in touch with you on that?

JoBen (01:12:12):
I'll give three ways.
The first one is my emailaddress Joe ben.
I have a unique name.
My dad made it up.
The joe from joseph and the benfrom benjamin became one name
joe ben at soccer shots.
S-o-c-c-e-r-s-h-o-t-s on theendcom joe ben at soccer
shotscom.
That's a great way to get aholdof me.
Um, I have a va that goesthrough all of my emails and

(01:12:34):
sorts them for me, and so putsomething in the in the subject
line about what you want to talkabout, and she will do a great
job of sorting that for me.
The other way is is simplyfiring off a text 949-338-2681.
Fire off a text and then alsoI'm on Instagram.
My Instagram handle is onekidney adventures.
I donated a kidney about a yeara little over a year ago and so

(01:12:58):
I just wanted to show peoplethat you can still have a heck
of a good time with one kidney.
It doesn't have to slow youdown and so I just that one.
I just documented ventures onthere, but I also am really
responsive to comments on there,and so those are the best ways
to get ahold of me, and not justnot just if you want to help us
with our project, but if youwant to brainstorm and talk
through your own project.
Man, I get, I get amped uptalking about a way, different

(01:13:21):
ways to impact communitiesoutside of my own expertise.
I just love being a part of athink tank and a conversation.
An hour conversation can sparkideas for myself, right Like I
had no idea when I started thatI would be digging wells,
opening schools, starting anagriculture school, an organic
agriculture school, like come on, and so if I was to sit down

(01:13:44):
with you and talk about your bigidea, that might be my next big
idea too.
So I find that thoseconversations are as rewarding
for me as they are for the otherperson and and also they, they,
they spur growth and creativityin myself.
Just talking with anothercreative person, talking with
another person that had the Ihad, you know, had the idea and

(01:14:08):
is willing to like chase it andit's excited about, those are
the best ways to get ahold of meJust to chat.
If you want to talk about EOS,amanda Barkey EOS that's her
Instagram handle.
Amanda goes on there and givesEOS tips all the time that
follow her on Instagram, that'syou'll get a nonstop stream of
EOS tips and advice and she alsoanswers messages on there.

(01:14:30):
So if it's specifically EOS,you can feel free to reach out
to me.
My wife is the actualprofessional.
I call myself EOS implementeradjacent, and so I was a.
I say I was the.
I was one of the best selfimplementers out there.
But self-implementing caps youat using EOS and if you want to
run on EOS, you got to take thenext step and put on your big

(01:14:51):
boy pants and hire animplementer.
It doesn't have to be my wife.
You have to love EOS and youhave to love your implementer.
Those are the twonon-negotiables, and then it'll
change your whole life, changeyour business, change your life.

Tony (01:15:03):
Awesome, Jevin.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate you jumpingon today and joining us and
going through your journey.
Thank you so much, man.
I appreciate you coming on.

JoBen (01:15:19):
My pleasure and, yeah, thanks for doing this.
This is great.
I love my goal this year.
I'll tell you how you'refulfilling something for me.
So I've done a really poor jobof telling the story of what we
do with soccer shots, cause I'vejust been, I've just been doing
right, and sometimes you get sofocused in doing that when you,
when you stop for a second,you're like why is nobody else
excited about this?
Why is nobody else helping?
And you're like else excitedabout this?
Why is nobody else helping?
And you're like, oh, I didn'ttell anybody.
And so I came into 2024 and Iwas like, okay, I'm going to get
over the fact that I feel likethis is bragging.

(01:15:41):
I'm going to get over the factthat I feel like I'm talking
about the good things we'redoing too much.
I'm going to get over all ofthat and I'm just going to
believe that there are a fewpeople out there that are wired
like me.
They want to help people, theywant to make a difference, but
maybe they're earlier and maybethere is.
No, maybe there's not enoughtreasure right now to be doing
financial help, but but postingour story, that's a huge help,

(01:16:04):
right, and so maybe I can invitepeople into committing some
time to help some kid,committing some talent to help,
committing some talk to help,and then and then, someday, when
they have their treasure inplace, they can launch their own
projects.
But they will have startedtoday, because the right time to
start is today, and so you'rehelping me to fulfill a

(01:16:25):
statement and a goal for 2024.
To tell the story as often andas well as I can, so I really
appreciate it.
The more reps I get and themore time I'm talking about it,
the better I will get at it andthe more concise I'll get to
Absolutely Well, yeah, and thankyou, and do not hesitate.

Tony (01:16:38):
Please do reach out to Joe Ben and obviously, if you want
to talk to his wife, amanda,about doing EOS implementation,
that's also someone please reachout to and I'll put all of this
in the show notes so you can doit.
And again, joe Ben.

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