How to Work ON Your Business, Not IN It w/ Head Implementer of EOS Worldwide Mike Paton

You have the volume of work that 10 People need to do so, either you're gonna figure out how to clone yourself or create nine robots that are just as smart and experienced as you or you've got to let go of some things. Welcome to the action Academy podcast stand back while I celebrate freedom, the show where we help you achieve financial independence with the mindsets, methods and actionable steps from guests who've already earned their freedom flags of freedom fly. Choose to do what you want, what do you want with who you want with who you want, when you want when you want with another episode today. Now, here's your host, Brian Luebben. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a podcast episode for you. This is as always the main guy bringing the energy and asking the questions to very smart people and then shutting up your host, Brian Luebben. Welcome to the action Academy podcast. Welcome back. This is your first time here we've got a bunch of episodes for you to go binge through seven and nine figure entrepreneurs that have earned freedom in their life and business. Every single one of them giving us tips and strategies to earn freedom in our lives and business today. Go listen, and today is a great episode to start with. If this is your first one, Before I introduce today's guest of honor, I need to set the stage for a bit. If you are an entrepreneur or a business owner, tell me if this rings true to you. You created your business, you had a great idea, a great strategy, maybe even you had a great team in place, and you're a great leader, and you created this business and you were so excited to get started and to create an impact to create massive levels of profit. But somewhere along the lines and somewhere along the journey, you started to lose control of your time. All of a sudden you quit that w two job and now you are working twice the hours, double the hours for no pay no recognition to grow your own business and you're wondering where the heck your time where the heck your life is going. Does that ring true to you? Good. This is the episode for you. If you have not already go read the book traction by Gina Whitman traction. This is a game changing book. And it is a set of frameworks, systems and procedures to help you bake into your business so that you can get out of your business stop being your own damn employee. You want to be able to be a business owner not creating another job for yourself. This set of frameworks is called the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And there is one guy that is the head implementer that goes out to all these companies and teaches them this at the highest level in the entire country. And that is Mr. Mike Paton. Mike Paton has spent every working day the last 15 years helping 1000s of leaders around the globe run better businesses and live better wives exclamation point. They're an EOS implementer and sought after speaker Paton's succeeded Gino Wickman and spent five years as EOS worldwide visionary is the host of the top rated podcast the EOS leader and co author two books in the traction library Get a grip and process. He's grateful to be living his ideal life helping others master the timeless disciplines the practical tools of the Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS implementer since 2007 1500, sessions completed for 150 clients. Let's go and I have him on the action Academy podcast for you today. Today we talked systems today we talk procedures and we talk to every business at every stage whether you're a solopreneur five employees, 10 employees, 500 employees, we have something in this show for you smash that five star rating and review and without any further ado, Mike pain Okay, Mike Paton the artists currently known as Paton How are you my friend? Brian, thanks for right up again. Minneapolis, so riffing on prints is 100%. okay with me, that's how we start off every single episode. It's a prince, we're gonna go and it's, it's eventually it's just gonna be a symbol Brian, exactly. Just one word phenomenas that everyone's gonna say everyone's gonna hear action. They're gonna think of the action Academy podcast. It's all about branding, my friend. But I am very excited to have you on today we are going to be speaking on all things EOS traction. You have been with this organization for 15 years now. Correct? Yours? Yeah. 15 years now, and I will for people listening. We are going to go all in on these principles and what Paton has done with the organization and how this is going to be able to help your business and transform your entire life because I'll go ahead and vouch for it from a consumer perspective to begin before he begins. I can pry probably name 100 Plus entrepreneurs that I know personally, that have implemented these systems. And it not only has increased their business revenue dramatically, but it also has decreased, which is as important if not more important, their day to day involvement within the business. Because now you're a master delegator. You're a master visionary, you know how to move all the pieces to actually be a business owner. So EOS 130,000 plus companies and growing 452 implementers. And Peyton is the best in the mall. So I will leave you with that and let you take it off. Mr. Paden. I'll start by saying that last part is completely untrue. I buy before in the top 425 of the 452. So sorry. That's right. I've been at it a long time, though. Almost as long as Gino and his business partner Don tinny, let me just start by saying there's nothing magic in anything you and I are going to talk about today, just to set up very simple concepts and practical tools that over 100,000 companies around the world are using to get better results. So the business owners and the leadership team are living better lives. That's what EOS is. In a nutshell. It's it stands for Entrepreneurial Operating System. And we believe every business needs an operating system that its leaders agree to use to create clear and simple vision for the organization to set priorities regularly to drive accountability throughout the organization, and to execute consistently. So you feel like you're achieving the company's vision, day in and day out. And that's what it is at a high level. And so if any of your listeners are a little scared off by the, you know, bold claims you've made at the outset, it's pretty simple stuff. And it's and one of the things that drew me into this work is that as a person of average to below average business acumen, when I read the book, for the first time, I thought, you know, just about anybody could really benefit from this stuff. And that's the exciting part of the work. And there's such a, there's such a huge benefit to that in the marketplace. And the marketplace rewards that in its being able to take complex ideas, and simplify them and deliver the information and bite size and actionable pieces. That's where the rubber meets the road. And that's where you get absolutely pun intended traction. That's really what drove Gino Whitman to create the system in the first place. He was a busy entrepreneur trying to work with his father and their leadership team to run a great family business 20 years ago. And he found that all the business thought leadership in the world at that time seemed to be written for an audience that was more corporate than the kind of leader who has a full time job leading managing and thinking strategically. And of course, those of us who work in entrepreneurial companies between 10 and 250 people, we know that you don't have that luxury, we've got day jobs, and we still have to lead, manage and think strategically and make really important decisions in between the few little windows of time that those day jobs, leave for that important work to get done. And so in a nutshell, that's what EOS is and why it exists. And I love that because when you're looking at all of these glamorized overnight successes, they don't talk about the 10 years in the background of exactly what you just said, of people that are working their corporate jobs, they're working what they hate, and they're doing it over and over again. And then they're getting off work and squeezing in a couple of hours between their kids, their family, and this to build this new business to create a sense of freedom for them and their families. And then what happens in the business once they're able to devote full time as they still have day jobs, Brian, they're there. They're still picking up cigarette butts outside the front door and making sure all the merchandise looks great in their retail store. They're sweeping the shop floor and their manufacturing company or they're delivering the service in the professional services firm that they're building from scratch, that the entrepreneurial condition is not one where you have the luxury of time and so every minute counts, every second counts. And when you're relying on tools, and concepts that require a lot of time and energy and acumen to understand them and put them into use. It's just something you feel like you don't have the luxury to do and so that's what Gino created. He created something that all of us as busy as we are, can have time to put in practice and can start to see a very tangible results right out of the gate. I love it. And as we as We go into this, let's go ahead and kill a limiting belief that some may have that are listening to this. And they're like Peyton, you are speaking to me man. Like that is me to a nutshell. I've built this business with these grand ideas of freedom, flexibility. But what I find myself is I've just bought myself another job. Let's go ahead and kill this limiting belief for them about the entrepreneur who I feel we all go through this at some certain stage, some get over it quicker than others. But this is where you come in, right? Is the idea of nobody can do it better than me. Yeah, yeah. Nobody can do it better to me, what would you say to that person? First of all, I'd say, in a lot of cases, that's absolutely true. Except that when your business needs 10 people to deliver to its customers and and treat its vendors well and take care of its employees, you can't clone yourself nine times. Like I don't even I try really hard not to get into that argument about nobody can do it better than me, it's your material, because you can't clone yourself, and you have the volume of work that 10 People need to do so either. Either you're gonna figure out how to clone yourself or create nine robots that are just as smart and experienced as you or you've got to let go of some things. And, and entrepreneurship is about building something special. And as it grows and scales, it's about learning to let go of the things that other people can be taught to do as consistently well, or better than you can and holding on to the areas where you add tremendous value to the business and quite frankly, have fun. That's part of the reason there's a demand for something like EOS Brian, is that the tool, the stuff you have to spend your time on to build a company from scratch from zero employees to 10. That stuff is less and less relevant every day as you grow from 10 employees to 200. And so what you've got to figure out is when you have 200 employees, what should you be as the founder, spending your time doing, it isn't the same stuff that you should have spent your time doing when you were building it from zero to three employees. Because in that environment, you should do everything and you should bust your tail to do it as well as anybody on the planet could do it. But someday you're going to reach your own capacity. And you've got to let go. I love that you say that. And I was listening to gentlemen, I'm trying to remember who it was. Oh, yeah, it was. It was Hormoz. Easy. Alex for Mozi. He was talking. And he was talking about how a business is the culmination of all the smartest minds that are within it. He goes, You are the best person in your business. And everyone else is learning from you that by default, your business will never exceed what you alone are capable of. Yeah, well, once you start bringing in and we can we can talk about visionaries and integrators a little bit later in the show. But once you start bringing in other people and they have a zone of genius, then all of a sudden, it's not just one brain that you're relying on for the success and longevity of your business. It's now it's a team effort, right? I think it was Ken Blanchard quotation, none of us is as smart as all of us. In other words, take the time to put everybody's heads together. And you might have the right answer first. But if there are 10 people in the room, or six people in the room or two people in the room talking about it, and you go back and forth and pick the best answer among you, you're almost certain to walk out of there with a better plan than if you just did it. And you've got someone watching your blind spots. And like that's another important part that I really enjoy is having different people with different skill sets. If you're hiring everyone that's just like you. It's just an echo chamber. I have a 13 year old and he's busy watching my blind spots all the time, but wouldn't recommend hiring him 10 times in your company? Yeah. It's interesting that you say that you might have somebody watching your blind spot. I think one of the challenges we see entrepreneurs facing in the early stages of growth is are the people that are members of your leadership team or employees, are they willing to speak up? See, maybe you aren't, or they see, or they might disagree with you, or they see that you're doing something that's destructive or not helpful to the business. And I work with a lot of leadership teams in the early days of their implementing ELS where, yes, they're definitely seeing it, but there's a gap between what they see and what they're willing to say out loud for your listeners. If you own and run a business and you've got to win anywhere between one and 100 employees really learn to value the people who are courageous enough to step up and say hey, I think there might be a different way of doing that, or I don't know about if you know this, but when you do X, this bad thing happens over here and the rest of us after run around and clean up a bunch of messes. And those are things that as a busy entrepreneur who is been successful, and feels like he or she knows exactly the right way to do the important stuff in the business, it can be very difficult to hear those messages even when the person's intentions are simply to make us better. And that's not an easy transition for for entrepreneurs to make. Yep. And then that's the whole process of the feedback loop, right, giving and receiving constructive feedback, because that's a skill that all of us are going to need to be able to learn sooner than later if you want to have a successful business. But to hit on that point, let's jump into a little bit of Eos and the six different principles, pillars, or whatever you want to call them. And talk a little bit to someone maybe that is just now hearing this for the first time. And then we'll go into little bite sized chunks of implementation. Maybe we'll start with kind of that solopreneur to the 10 employees, and then we'll grow from there. Right? Yeah, what? So yeah, the way I like to introduce CEOs is I say, Gino, Whitman studied entrepreneurial leadership teams for many years and worked to help them resolve very common problems, challenges, obstacles and roadblocks facing entrepreneurial companies. And what he found was those issues fell into six categories that just about every problem and entrepreneurial leadership team would bring up, fell into one of the six key components as what we now call them the six key components of any business. And we illustrate them on something called an EOS model, which is like the player piece for a trivial pursuit game as the way I like, or a pizza with six casts license. Yeah. So the six things are the vision component, getting everybody in the organization 100% on the same page with where you're going and how you plan to get there, the people component the ability to attract and retain great people, as uniquely defined by your organization. The data component is about running your business on a handful of numbers that help you make better, stronger, faster decisions in the business. The fourth key component is the issues component, the ability to solve issues as they arise for the long term and greater good rather than letting them linger for weeks, months, sometimes even years. Process component, which is the art and science of getting the most important things in the business, done the right and best way every time, which is not particularly difficult, unless you're running an entrepreneurial company, in which case, it feels very corporate and stiff and stifling. And so we take a very entrepreneurial approach to strengthening the process component. And then the sixth key component is the traction component. That's instilling discipline and accountability throughout the organization. So everywhere you look in the business, people are executing on your vision, they want to help you achieve the vision, they know what kind of work they need to do to make that happen. And they just picked up a shovel and start digging to help you get where you want to go. And those are the six key components. I feel like I know the answer to this already. But I'll ask you, what do you see as the number one thing that's like glaringly the number one thing that you need to focus on first, when you're going into a business? I feel like I already know the answer to this. I might, I might actually surprise you. So really, two ways. So I think the answer you think I'm gonna give you as people. And the reason I think that is because when we asked our clients 10 years ago, or so to name the biggest frustrations they were dealing with in their business, 82% of them made people their number one choice, okay, because people are frustrated. That's why my next business is going to be staffed with robots and cell. So it's gonna be much easier. I was actually gonna say vision. So that's another common thing. But what we teach is that all six are important because they're interdependent. It's a holistic model. So it's very difficult to strengthen the people component without strengthening things like the vision data and process components. Because if your vision component isn't particularly strong, you don't know what kind of people are defined as great people, for example. And so we just follow a very proven processes of implementing these simple tools, so that we're working on all six at the same time. And the journey to implement TLS is about getting 80% strong, and each of those six key components, and then working to keep yourself there through a series of quarterly and weekly meetings that keep your team on top of things. I love that 80% metric, because we're not aiming for PERFECT AIMING, there's a bit of wiggle room there, like we're aiming for, as good as we can be. And none of us are perfect beings. And yeah, 100% strong and all six is impossible. I want to say, I've got some clients in the mid 90s. Well, that's a temporary thing, we again, we have people on our team, so in the people component alone, if you've ever had a great employee, where as the organization grows, they become less and less great that being 95% of the people component today might mean you're 85% a year from now. And so that's the constant journey. But 80% strong and all six is a really great business, you're setting and achieving aggressive objective. You're solving your issues as they arise, your customers are happy, your employees are happy, you feel decent about your life, and and you're moving the organization forward. That's a great business at 80%. Strong. Absolutely. So before we dive into the implementation strategies for different businesses have different size sizes and entrepreneurs in different seasons and stages of their life. Can you maybe rattle off a couple of case studies that you've handled personally, or that you can reference to be able to really drive the point home about how this goes from takes your business from point A to point B, that you could think of maybe some success stories that you've had for people. And since you want to organize our conversation in sizes and stages, I'll start with a great story about maybe my smallest client ever business that had a four person team, three members on the leadership team when we started and and when we first had a conversation about it, I was pretty sure they were too small to get a lot of value from ELS mentation. But the owner insisted on it. And about 18 months later, she had a health scare, a serious health scare that required her to step away from the business for six to nine months in order to get treatment, and was very generous in the way he communicated with the press after her health scare, and gave a lot of credit to her ability to step away from the business to EOS because she had a system and a quarterly meeting poles and a team of people who had clarity about what they were accountable for, and clarity about her job and a willingness to step in and do her job in the organization. While she was out. That all helped her step away focus 100% of her attention on her health and trust that the business was running well. And so for the smaller organizations out there, I just want people to know, this stuff can help you, even if it sounds maybe a little premature for you. And then in terms of larger organizations, I think my funnest and most annoying client at the same time. And I will divulge normally how it goes. But they'll be more proud of the fact that I referred to them as annoying. They started with me with 18 people, and are now a publicly traded company. And growing aggressively. They have great people, they have a great product and service. They're really maniacal about making sure their employees and their customers are very happy. They're unafraid to lead and manage and so they deserve all the credit. But what EOS did would was give their leadership team a framework for prioritizing all the work that needs to be done. When you're taking a company from 18 people to a publicly traded corporation. They're two different organizations. And it was so easy for something to fall off the shelf and break in your kitchen when you're growing that fast and it's been really fun to watch them grow and evolve and change. Those are probably the two spectrums I'd share with you. And what I'm most proud of quite frankly as most of the owners and leaders with whom I'm I work, including some people who realized in the process that maybe they weren't a great fit for the organization. They were a leadership team member of almost people will email me at some point and say, Man, this has really improved the quality of my life. That's what I care about the most the business results are fun to watch too. And I love businesses and I love great business. But I really am motivated by a desire to convince people that if you're an entrepreneur or a leader in an entrepreneurial company, it is not your lot in life to never feel like there's enough fuel in your tank for all the things that are important to you in your life. I hate when I engage with a new team. And everybody on the team feels like their kids aren't getting enough of their time and attention, their spouse isn't getting enough of their time and attention, their faith isn't getting enough of their time attention and that and they could work 90 hours a week in the business and still not get everything done. And then that is a miserable way to live your life. And that's what I'm hell bent on fixing these days. Because that's why we start businesses. I don't think anybody starts a business to just work the rest of their life unless they're maybe, I don't know, maybe if you're off the rocker, like an Elan, the man lives in like a tiny shack, basically adjacent to his factory, so he can keep working on his grand mission. But I think those guys are few and far between. I don't feel like as many Elon Musk's are listening to the show, when we talk about the US life, we talk about having time to pursue other passions. And for Elon, his other passions are all other businesses. He's just passionate about business. And I, if that's what creates fuel for your tank. I work with a lot of workaholics people who just love working and I'm fine with that. As long as you feel good about the amount of time and money you're investing in your business and what you're getting in return. I don't set that standard for you. set that standard. Where EOS can help is when you feel like there's a profound inbound, getting enough out of your business in exchange for everything you're giving it. That's where what you mentioned earlier, it feels like you've got a job rather than a business. I Life's too short for that. Exactly. And we're here to be able to enjoy the time. That's why we're doing this. We want to be able to do what we want when we want with it we want. That's right. That's right, exactly. So let's now speak to the person I love the two different examples that you gave, because it was two completely different outcomes, but also similar outcomes, what you're talking about with the business owner. Yeah, let's talk about for a good example, as I was talking to you about like my group go abundance. And then you've got a lot of the guys that you're surrounded with all these successful businessman, and you can apply any entrepreneurial Mastermind Group II. The name is escaping me right now. But there's a bunch of OYP Oh, why? Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. So take any of those, you've got a guy that's starting off a business, let's go ahead and say that they already have revenue. Maybe they have an assistant, maybe a couple of employees. And they're seeing all these people above them. They're like, ah, you've got to do you got to do EOS got to do EOS got to do ELS and they're like, I can't find the people on my team to delegate this out to your I'm giving you a migraine right now. I already know that. You have no idea how often I've heard this. So yeah, I imagined so I was very excited because I literally paid and I posted on our group. And like all like it's you have to be accredited to be in the group. And I posted and I said, Hey, what questions do you got for Peyton? And they're like that. So my favorite story, so I wouldn't have a business. My my early clients, about 70 to 80% of them were members of Entrepreneurs Organization or EO and these roundtable group organizations. There's somewhere between 10 and 15 business owners that were in a group and and usually when one person in the forum is what they're called in many of the groups around tables is running on Eos, then they start talking about it amongst them themselves. Life has changed. And I literally had somebody call me and say Peyton, I'm really not interested in EOS. But my buddy Matt won't shut up about it. And so I told him, I'd call you and schedule a 90 minute meeting. Just to shut him up. So trust friendship, pass it on trust, trust me, I get it and look at. I always try and be level headed about this stuff. First of all, EOS isn't for every business owner. If you started your business with passion and you've added a couple of people, and you have an operating system or a way of making decisions and prioritizing things and keeping score and driving accountability that's working for you or you're a big fan of some other operating system that you like. All we believe is you should have an operating system that you and everybody member of your team agrees to use, yeah, not that you should use EOS. And so I never try and talk anybody into believing that EOS is going to be helpful to them. But what I do say is if you don't have an operating system, and if you're kind of making it up as you go along, and you're not 100% clear on your priorities, or your team is arguing with one another about how to prioritize things, or what to prioritize, and, and how to keep score, it's probably worth looking into EOS as a way to eliminate that as something you and your team are butting heads about, and focus all your time and attention on execution. And that's it. And I don't care if you're two employees or 20 employees, it will be helpful to you and your team to have a crystal clear vision that everybody sees clearly believes in and wants to make happen. It will help to have a system for driving discipline and accountability throughout the organization. So you're gaining traction towards achieving that vision. And it will help you to be a more healthy, cohesive, fun loving open an honest, collaborative leadership team rather than the crazy busy individual leaders, you have a tendency to gravitate towards in an entrepreneurial company. And so find something that'll help you do that is what I say to the smaller folks. And there are ways to get value from EOS that don't involve a full scale implementation, I say to solopreneurs all the time. A vision traction organizer is a two page strategic planning document with eight questions and answers on it. That is a really helpful way of clarifying who you are at the core, what you love to do in our best app, where you're going long term, and how you're going to break that long term vision down into a set of manageable chunks, 90 days, one year and three years. So that it becomes you have a battle plan for lack of a better term of how you're going to achieve your own vision. Because otherwise you just have this amorphous thing you hope happens the BTO can give life and breadth to that vision and plan and be a very helpful thinking tool for a single entrepreneur. I love it. And the the main question that always pops up and it's something selfishly that I'm dealing with as well is you've got like your visionaries and your integrators. And then by this point, everyone's talked about it so much, they won't shut up about it. So everyone knows now you're like, Okay, I'm the visionary type, I'm the integrator type. And for those listening, like, visionary is gonna be like, the guy in the driver's seat, like he's got the vision, the grandiose, hey, here's where we're going. And then the integrator is the guy. That's okay. Now, here's how we actually get it done. Yeah, so everyone seems to be on a grand quest to find that person, their integrator. Yeah. There's a lot of fun in this conversation too. So visionaries and integrators are the two people at the top of an accountability chart for an entrepreneurial company running on EOS. And this concept of visionary integrator was written up in Gino and Mark winters book called rocket fuel. Anybody who's listening that wants to learn more should read rocket fuel. And it's also written up in traction and get a grip you'll get a sense of these different roles in any of those books. But a visionary the way I like to describe it to really galvanize it for people as a visionary is a creator, an inventor, and inspire a disrupter, a person who build something from scratch. And an integrator is a person who keeps the trains running on who executes well who drives accountability throughout a growing team who attracts and retains independently capable, accountable people. Because most of the time visionaries don't love doing those things. Hey, visionaries are are legendary for saying this sentence to me. Hey, Brian, I'm really good at managing people who don't need to be managed. Man, when somebody needs to be managed, it just annoys the living crap. Oh, God, give feedback. That's the classic visionary. And it's me too. I love managing people who don't need to be managed. It's fun to watch them work. Yeah. So this guy, this guy gets it. Yeah, that's this guy gets it until he doesn't or until she does it, and that and so visionaries are often a little more impatient than the typical integrator. The need to collaborate feels a little silly to a typical visionary. but they have 20 ideas and they want to tackle all of them. Right now, I have a great visionary who has been successful in multiple businesses, and he wants to add his leadership team don't do. Just because we nod our head, when you bring up a no new idea doesn't mean it's fully implemented, the next time we meet. We're still trying to figure out how to go do the last thing you told us to do, you can't come to five more ideas the next weeks. And so that's the difficulty. As an organization grows from three to 300 people, more and more resources need to be devoted to keeping the trains running on time. And fewer people are going to have the skills and the abilities to disrupt, innovate, improve, change, invent and inspire. And that's why that visionary role is so important. I get accused all the time of making fun of visionaries. I think the visionary role is an unbelievably valuable asset to any business. But when that poor person with all those gifts, is stuck having to give a performance review to somebody who's not doing their line level job very well. There's no time or energy leftover for any of those gifts. And so the business dies and the visionary dies with it. Exactly. Exactly. And then you're not you're working in the business, not on the business. And you're not able to also like your vision, that the irony is the visionaries vision is limited, because how can you see how and where to pivot? Good example of this be freaking blockbuster. But blockbuster is cruising. And then that's probably to your point before, that's probably I would not be surprised if their C suite was saying, Hey, this is something we need to look at. This is something we need to look at. And they're like, No, this is how we do things. Who's going to who's going to order DVDs through the mail that there's a mail last year, it's a great, it's a great idea. Let's talk about taxi cab companies and Uber and Lyft. Right? It's not long ago, 10 years ago, or so maybe a little longer, that we were all calling a cab company and waiting on the street corner forever for the cab to come in a city that didn't have hailing ability for calves. And yeah, if you're not applying your visionary skills to keep your business moving forward and an entrepreneurial, you are likely to become obsolete a lot faster, for sure. Yeah. And the irony is, my generation growing up was told not to talk to strangers on the internet, and not to get in random strangers cars. And now we're on the internet. On the internet, ordering strangers to bring their cars to us to get it. Yeah, my generation didn't have the internet riots. I ended up a huge difference between the two of us. But yeah, things are moving faster and faster every year. And it is a full time job to keep your company current on what's going on out there in the world. And somebody's got to do it. And what just pains me to know and is when I see somebody whose real gift is that? And they're busy pounding the nail, because there's no down or company to do it. It's just a waste. Yeah, exactly. And Tony Robbins says, if you're not growing, you're dying. And that's true in life, in personal development and in business. So let's talk about the growth stage. So let's talk. So you got that you said three to 300 a couple of times. So you talked about all the principles and all of what, what did you call the six key components? So we talked about the six key components being equally important in the life and longevity of a business and an organization? As you see people grow from three to 300. There's a lot of growing pains associated with that. Would you say the same would be applied with all the key components? Do you see the same Growing Pains equally throughout the components? Do you see patterns? One or two components being more of a friction point for places or do you see an individual? Yeah, that's a good question. I think one of the things I've noticed is, the smaller you are, the more pain is caused by one right person, seed issue in your organization. Just a numbers game, right? If you got 12 employees, and one of them doesn't fit your culture, isn't that his or her job? That's 112 of your company's human assets that aren't carrying their weight. Sure. If you got 120 people, it's 10% of the pain associated with that. So that is one sort of difference. I think The smaller accompany is, the easier it is to convince yourself that you don't need to be strong in some of these components. For example, the process component is one, a lot of dyed in the wool entrepreneurs roll their eyes out, which is why leaves us who's a professional us implementer from Denver, Colorado, and I decided to write the Process Book. Together. It's scheduled to come in September of 2022. But we wrote this book for the entrepreneurial leadership team who thinks they can continue growing and scaling without strengthening their process component. And we're speaking first to the entrepreneur, the founder, the the inventor, the Creator, who has built a successful business without doing what he or she felt, might be process. And what we've found is there are some really common myths that cause entrepreneurs to reject the process component. And the first is, I'm not naturally process or process oriented. And we believe that every successful entrepreneur has demonstrated that he or she is process oriented, because you've thrown out all the stuff in your daily regimen that don't produce results. And you've learned how to repeat over and over again, the steps in important jobs in your business that do create results. That's what process orientation is surprise. Yeah, where a lot of entrepreneurs get tripped up is they feel like strengthening the process component requires a 500 page SOP manual, and a lot of rigid bureaucratic sort of rubber stamp and yo compliance oriented cultures. And we believe you can have a thriving entrepreneurial spirit with freedom and Innovation at the core. And a really strong process component. In fact, what we believe is you have to have a strong process component to free the owner and the leadership team up to think about all that entrepreneurial stuff. And so that's one trend I noticed as a company grow is that it's harder and harder for them to ignore the process component. And what I'd say to the smaller organizations whose teams are listening right now is start strengthening your process component right now, because it's easier when you're smaller. And what I'd say to the larger companies listening is, you will never be free, unless the basic stuff that needs to be done well in your business every day gets done well without you having to pay any attention to it. Otherwise, as you grow, you're gonna get sucked into the trenches, you're constantly going to be cleaning up messes, training the basics to your line level staff, and dealing with employee turnover. Because when people fail at the rudimentary parts of their job, they don't stick around very long. Nobody wants to sign up to be a failure. So yeah, there's a little Aha, about the size and how it impacts you. I love what you just said there about employees not signing up to fail a lot of the times in organizations. You don't know what the hell when looks like. Yeah, so I think that's a great transition to talk about rocks, and talk about that concept, because I love it, and I implement it. And I know, a lot of my friends implement that as well. It's part of the actual traction process of Eos. And that's establishing like these key 90 Day rocks for each position. And each seat. He talked a little bit about that. Yeah, so So when we talk about the traction component, we say it's about instilling focus discipline on accountability throughout the organization. So people are executing on your vision. And there's two concepts or tools we teach to do that the first are rocks 90 day business priorities. The second is a great meeting pulse, which has two parts. The 90 day world creating creative buy rock setting and completion and the quarterly and annual sessions we run for our clients, and then a weekly level 10 meeting. With regard to rocks, what we do with the leadership team is we make sure before they start a quarter every member of their team agrees on three to seven business priorities. We we put everything up on the whiteboard, we might prioritize this quarter, we do a little exercise until we agree on the three to seven life or death essential priorities. We write them specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. We assign a single member of the team to own Wouldn't each Rock who accepts personal accountability for ensuring whoever's working on it works together to complete it well, and then we set individual rocks. So every member of the team has three to seven total rocks for the quarter. And they walk out of that session, crystal clear on the company's priorities and their own priorities. And they're driven to keep them on track during the quarter and be able to say they're done at the end of the quarter. And what we're striving for is an 80% completion rate on those business priorities individually, and as an organization, so that we feel like we're making progress towards achieving our vision. And most of our clients get there after a quarter or two, they have some tough quarters from time to time stuff crops up. But that standard is achievable. And most of our clients get there. And then talk a little bit about the weekly meetings. Yeah. I'll give you the origin story here. So and how not know how not to do them? Yeah. So one of the questions we asked before a team starts implementing ELS with somebody like me is, how would you rate the quality of your energy readings on a scale of one to 10? And the average answer is below four, on a scale of one to 10. And then sometimes I'll ask the follow up question, when it seems like there's a lot of pain around that answer, which is frequently, I'll say, How many hours a week do you spend in internal meetings? And the average answer there is north of four hours, can you imagine if you're in charge of your own company, you're volunteering to sign up for four hours or more of an activity that you wouldn't rate at a four or lower on a scale of one to 10. I just can't imagine that. And so it's a long story to explain that in most organizations, most internal meetings aren't very efficient, and productive. And occasionally, a leadership team member will say, Oh, Meetings Suck. And what I love to say back is no, meetings don't suck. Maybe your meetings, your I was about to say, your meetings. But there is a way we believe you can't run a great meeting. Without an effective meeting discipline, you got to get your heads together, roll up your sleeves and solve problems on a regular basis, where there's going to be a lot of inefficient, unproductive communication going on in the business, or unresolved problems. And so all we teach is a very simple discipline. It's a consistent agenda that focuses the time and energy of the leadership team on smoking out, prioritizing, and resolving the most pressing issues facing the business, which are usually keeping your scorecard numbers on track, completing your priorities, keeping your customers and employees happy, moving the business forward one week at a time with a series of action items and driving accountability for that. And then solving issues. And so that's what the level 10 Meeting policy is all about. And most of my clients fight it when I asked them to start running 90 minute weekly level 10 meetings in their first session, and then two or three months out from the start of their journey. They're loving the level 10 meetings, because it's bringing some structure and discipline to the random, non productive unsolved the communication they're used to and in their meeting goals. Absolutely, yeah. Because normally, it's just, you're just talking, you're just talking to a floating head. So that's the other you're the one that everyone's like, Yeah, boss, everything's good. You're that guy? Do a woman doing all the talking like it's one of the two. Exactly. And rarely do you ever solve anything? Rarely? Do you ever make a decision? Rarely do you move the business forward? It's just a lot of discussion, for sure. Yep, handle a little bit more about the processes spoken out problems, because I feel like this is a good place as we're running short on time here, I think that's a good place to hit on is I feel a lot of people are bad at both giving and receiving feedback. And then also like, creating an environment and atmosphere in their own organization that it can be provided. One of the things we do in the whole framework and the reason the six key components are interdependent is in the vision data, process components and people components, were defining what great looks like. And so when not great is going on, it's a lot easier to know and name. What the problem is, especially the rocks. Yeah, that's yeah, rocks, scorecard numbers. Somebody's not really good at the five roles they own on the accountability chart. And so what I would say A big part of ELS implementation is a brian is just clearly defining what a great week looks like what a great quarter looks like what a great employee in this particular role looks like. So that when that's not happening, everybody on your leadership team is going to instantly agree, we've got a problem. Here's the nature of it, and we need to do something about it. And that makes the ability to IDs or solve the problem. Much more routine, because all of a sudden, it's not me taking a risk to say, Hey, did you guys know Bill and accounting is stealing money from us? That's what it always feels like. Even if it's not that big a problem. The person who brings it up in a meeting if we haven't clearly defined all those other things, always feels like a tattletale. And we're just trying to make it crystal clear, when great ain't happening. We've got an issue, why don't we work together to solve it? And I'd say, to be candid with you, that's 80% of the of the problem is, let's agree what isn't an issue so that when we have an issue, none of us are arguing about whether or not it's an issue, and we can all start focusing on solving it. Spend spent 60 minutes in the 90 minute meeting arguing over it, hey, is this something we should talk about? Or is this be an email? I've seen it many times, I've seen times and I've been guilty of it myself. I'm no better than anybody else. So me too. And it's funny, because, by the way that I cut my teeth on all of this is hiring like a virtual executive assistant. And then so I was like, do I need to do this? Or should I wait till later? And I was like, no, like, I need to do it now. Because like it because it's uncomfortable. Like you're like, Okay, I guess you can do this, or you could do that. But there's no like, what do I cut out of my life? What am I doing that's busy work and what's actually $1 productive activity, like what drives the business forward and what doesn't. And so it's all just a game of clarity. So I feel to your point, if you just get super clear about what great looks like and every part of your business, and then just assign little chunks of greatness. To all these different people, we could do an hour long podcast on hiring an executive assistant alone, I totally get it. And now two books, you heard it here. We're the world's greatest rationalizers, we can convince ourselves we do or don't need just about anything. Term and and getting clear, making it simple. And then agreeing to make change when something isn't working for you rather than live with the hell you're used to, is a big part of building a business that grows and evolves and changes over time and continues to be successful no matter what the world throws at it. And we've all had plenty of that kind of work to do for the last couple of years. I'm hopeful that COVID If it's left us with anything, it's more confidence that we can react when it's necessary. I think change aversion should take a hit in the wake of COVID. Because we have all demonstrated that we can deal with just about anything, including hundreds of things we never thought were even possible. So that's exactly as we leave here, maybe give a couple pieces of advice that you have seen that have been the differences between these businesses that have gone from like the three to the 300 more successfully, as opposed to the ones that you had to drive dragged kicking and screaming, or ones that didn't even make it at all. What are some key differentiators that you saw maybe on the leadership team or in the culture that made the business really, like, stand out and last through time? Well, yeah, the first and most important piece of advice is if you're not getting everything you want and believe is possible from your business. Don't give up. Don't accept that as an inevitable part of your future. It's not okay, it's not necessary. There is help out there. Please look into EOS and dozens of other things that might help you because the world needs entrepreneurs. And if entrepreneurs are going around the world talking about how miserable in existence, it is to be an entrepreneur, we're going to lose some really high quality business people who decide they're gonna go work at a big corporation somewhere What a waste that would be. Okay, so first and foremost, get help if you're not getting everything you want from your business. Secondly, be willing to confront your issues head on, including yourself. Sometimes we're the problem Brian, sometimes we're the problem. If you're willing to look in the mirror and you're willing to expect the other members of your team to look in the mirror to and do some housecleaning and address the things that aren't working exact CLAY the way you want your business to get started, it's amazing how much better life is and how much more consistent. Excellent your results are when you're making progress towards the businesses possible that when you're accepting the status quo, those are the two biggies for me. Yeah. Don't accept good enough as the ultimate outcome. That's yeah, that's right. Well, I don't have time to make it better. So I'm just going to suffer quietly. Yeah. So spend the time it's worth it is worth the short term pain, for sure. Exactly. I love it. This has been absolutely sensational. My friend. Where can people find you and learn more about booking a call to learn more about EOS or implementation? Yeah, I'm happy with you sharing my contact information in your show notes. But the the place to start is E O S worldwide.com. You can find me on the implementer directory there or reach out to me directly but EOS worldwide.com has a Trever treasure trove of resources for people curious about this stuff. Go do your research. And if I can help you move forward in your journey reach out to me personally. Yeah, for people listening. I'm not just gonna give Peyton's information away that easily you have to earn it. So what we need from you is we need a rating and a review on the show if what he said today was great. Go leave us a five star rating and review and then we need a handwritten letter sent to his address saying thank you. Now we will have it in the show description and in small unmarked bills is welcome all unmarked bills, freshly minted, preferably we want them hot off the press. Me and Peyton Are we being paid or moving to the Virgin Islands? And we will, we will see how so. Rather, it's been an absolute blast, man. This has been fantastic. Definitely would love to hop on in the future a couple months down. Maybe have that chat about the executive assistant specifically because I think that'd be valuable as well. Yeah. Agreed. Happy to help my friend. Hey, I've got your assistants information. We'll get that Yes, sir. All right. Thank you, sir. It's there. Brian and Paton signing off. Hey, you. Yeah, you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the action Academy podcast. If you've gotten to this point where you're listening to my voice, that means that you have completed the entire episode, which I'm assuming and hoping that means that you got massive amounts of value from the show, and you really enjoyed this episode. So I need your help us specifically, we are on a mission to grow this show to a million downloads in 2022. And I can only do that with your help to share to like to leave a rating and a review. Even just a rating would take two seconds you go down and click the star button just click five stars and then that helps grow the show. So help me share the show on your socials. It would be greatly appreciated. Follow me on action Academy podcast on Instagram. And let's really help spread this message to as many people as possible to help them and change their lives. Thank you very much. Look forward to speaking to you next week.