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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Confessions of an Implementer, a podcast by Talent Harbor. We share unique stories of implementers and the companies they've transformed to give you a rare glimpse into the successes and the challenges of the system in action. I'm your host, Ryan Hogan. Let's jump in. Welcome to another episode of Confessions of an Implementer brought to you by Talon Harbor. Today we are excited to welcome Paul Meadows, a certified EOS implementer and the president of Integrated Technology Group. As a first generation business owner, Paul has blazed his own trail, building a significant IT and network services business from the ground up. With over 25 years experience, he has not only led his company through expansive growth, but has also excelled in implementing the entrepreneurial operating system to help other businesses streamline operations and boost productivity. Some of the other things that we covered today is our military backgrounds. Paul has an incredible story of joining the US Navy with the ambition of eventually becoming a pilot. And he'll talk all about his journey and the twists and the turns and the perseverance that he used at each stage. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. Paul, thank you so much for taking the time today to jump on a call and just have a normal conversation as if we were having beers right across from each other and just shooting the crap. One of the things that stood out to me when we talked a few months ago was that we're both vets and there was like this an immediate connection and I believe there's some connection with the Navy as well. And you had talked about you went from vmi. And so for listeners that are thinking about how this normally works, when you enlist, you don't need a college degree. So I enlisted at 17 years old. I became a Naval air crewman and then eventually I got picked up for a Seaman to Admiral program and I went through school. Most people that go to school then go become officers. And the note that I had, and you're going to have to confirm this and would love to dive into the story is you were a VMI guy, so you're going through school and then instead of going officer, you went enlisted. Let's talk about that a little bit.
- [02:10]
B
Yeah. Well, for starters, Ryan, I would say that you did it the right way. I decided to take the path less traveled. And sometimes that path less traveled doesn't end up where we think it's going to end up. But long story short, at 17, I matriculated to VMI and really was just too young and too immature to be in college at that point in my life. But that's what everybody did back then, we grew up in an era where parents said, hey, if you don't go to college, you're not going to get a job. And I was the first one in my family to go to college. And so it was a real privilege. But at the same time I was just too immature and didn't do great in school. We had this saying at VMI, 20 and go. So I stretched those limits a little bit, like 1.999995. But no, you know, I did actually graduate, took a year off in the middle of my tenure there and just worked two jobs which helped me to grow up a lot. And then when I went back to school, it was really serious. But long story short, when I went to VMI As a 17 year old, the idea was to become a pilot. As a kid I had two big dreams, NFL running back or a naval aviator. NFL running back got eliminated at about 9th or 10th grade when I weighed 100 pounds and I was only about 5 2, 5 3, so that was off the list. And so I went to VMI and I thought, I'm going to be a naval aviator. And no one really explained to me, or if they did, I ignored them, that they don't just let anybody fly a $17 million jet, especially when you're going to land it on a ship. So my grades weren't great. And at the time when I graduated in 94, the military was making quite a few cutbacks. And so flight slots were really, really competitive. And so I was told, hey, your grades just aren't good enough for you to get a flight slot. So I thought, okay, how about if I enlist in the nuclear power program, which is academically their most stringent program, and if I show them that I'm smart enough, then they'll let me be a pilot. That whole plan worked wonderfully from the time I went to boot camp, which I thought was kind of silly, honestly, after what I went through at vmi. But no problems there. Did excelled in boot camp, excelled in a school, excelled in C school, met with a career counselor, put in a package for ocs. She was very positive and encouraging. And I said, when can I take the AFO qt? And she said, what's that? I said, the Aviation Flight Officer's Qualifying Test. I want to be a pilot. She was like, you don't understand, do you? I'm like, understand what? She says, the Navy has invested a lot of money into your school, your education. And so if you get to go to ocs, you're going to be a nuke officer. And I said, what do you mean? I don't even like this community. These are not my people.
- [04:53]
A
And for context there. So everybody understands, like, the nuclear pipeline is the hardest academic pipeline there is in the military. And so when you talk about this idea of you're ready to go to aviation and you're ready to go fly planes, the amount of money that they've invested into you to learn nuclear propulsion, nuclear power plant systems, all of these different things. Well, actually, one question for that. So you talk about this 2o and go, and in the same breath, you literally talk about going through the hardest academic pipeline in the Navy. How does that translate?
- [05:26]
B
So here's one of the things I've Learned in my 53 years. Your ability to learn has a lot to do with your maturity level. And so when I was at VMI and not getting very good grades, it wasn't at all because I wasn't capable. It was because for the first time in my life, I was out from under the very strict thumb of my father. And even at a military school, I had this sense of independence that just was too much. I was too immature to handle it. So I probably spent too much time at the Palms, which is a little restaurant right off post, and talking to the students at Mary Baldwin College and Southern Seminary. And so my grades were just terrible, but I wasn't incapable. And so in order to qualify for the nuclear power program, I had to take the asvab. And I scored really, really well in the asvab. And they said, we'll put you in any program you want. I said, great, I want to be a nuke. Because I wanted to make sure that they knew that I was smart enough to be a pilot, but I was didn't have enough common sense to realize that that plan was not going to work.
- [06:28]
A
So what happens now? So now you're a new because what was your rate at the time?
- [06:33]
B
Well, I didn't get all the way through C school. I was halfway through my C school, and I'd already made E4. And that's when I met with the command career counselor. So as soon as it became obvious to me that I was only going to get a commission if I was going to be a nuke officer, I was like, hold on, wait a minute, Ryan, you have to understand something here. I so appreciate really intelligent people. And if you've ever had any interactions with anyone in the nuclear power community in the United States Navy, you know they are the smartest of the smart but they have the ability to make really simple things very complicated. And that's just not me. And so I was really struggling to fit in in that community. And so I didn't want to be part of that community. And so this is Confessions of an EOS Implementer. So I'm going to confess something else. I intentionally failed out of my C school because I'd already made E4. And so the consequence of academically failing this C school was they would just send me to the fleet as a conventional machinist mate, which I worked on propulsion systems on ships. And so I thought that doesn't sound bad because my father was a blue collar worker and I had much better familiarity with that type of people than I did with the really, really intellectually bright capable people. So not that machinist mates aren't intellectually capable, but it's just a whole different ball game. So the command master chief, I think it was pretty apparent what I had done because my instructors were like, hey, you come to class every day. Like I knew enough to do the all the things that I was supposed to do. It's coming to class, putting in my study hours, paying attention, interacting. But when the test came out, I, I was just Christmas tree in those suckers. And so the instructor became, they're smart people. They were like, he's failing on purpose. And they weren't wrong and I didn't deny that. But you know, it's a loophole that wasn't really anything they could do about it. So he sent me to the fleet. The command master chief really looked out for me. He helped me get orders to the six week flagship, home ported in Gaia, Italy. So I spent the next three years working on a ship. Took the 6 fleet admiral to all of his diplomatic visits around the Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea, which was incredible. Three years, I got to see places that most Americans only dream about seeing.
- [08:55]
A
What ship was that, by the way?
- [08:56]
B
That was the USS La Salle. And funny story about that ship, I have to be one in like a fraction of a percentage in this that can say this. My father was also an aviation mechanic, so he was a brown shoe like you. And when he enlisted in, he did a temporary assignment duty on a ship that was just commissioned out of New York for six weeks. And it was the USS LaSalle, LPD3. So when I got my orders and told him where I was going, he said, what's the name of the ship? And I said USS LaSalle. And he said, is that an LPD? And I said, no, it says AGF3, which at this point, on my orders, I didn't know what agf, I didn't know what that designator was. And he said, well, what is that? And I'm like, dad, I don't know. He said, I bet you it was the same ship. I said, no way, dad, what year was that when you were on that ship? And so he thinks for a minute, he says, 1964. I said, dad, this is 1996. There's no way that's the same ship. Decommissioned the ship you were on and just reuse the name on a newer ship. I get the guy in Italy and I'm walking down the pier and I'm looking at this thing and I'm going, oh my God, it's the same ship. I mean you could just tell like it was in really good shape, very clean because it was an admiral ship, but you could tell it just had age on it was like the skin was wrinkled like a person. You just tell it was an older ship. So I don't know how many people who have ever served in the United States Navy could say that their father, his first ship was the same as their first ship.
- [10:26]
A
That's incredible. And what they must have done is, I'm probably speaking out of turn here and maybe I should know because today I'm a surface warfare officer. So when I enlisted I was an air crewman, so I was on the aviation side, had a whole bunch of fun. And then when I got a commissioning, there's a longer story here that we can do over beers, but I was picked up state 21 for a student naval aviator, lost it like three months before my commissioning and then needs in the Navy SWO and so went and drove ships. But yeah, I think now it's like the Blue Ridge or something like that. But so interesting.
- [10:57]
B
Yeah, I believe you're right. If it's not the Blue Ridge, it certainly was, or a period of time, I don't know if it still is or not. But what's interesting about that is not only did I get to go to a ship where I had great duty, this is where that road last taken doesn't always end up where you think it's going to be. But Ryan, there's such value in the lessons that I've taken from this life is that it doesn't matter what road you find yourself on, you owe it to yourself to make the absolute most of it. And so when I got to the six week flagship to La Salle, here I was, I was A VMI grad. But I was enlisted. And you know what they did? They sent me to the mess decks just like they do every other enlisted guy. I was an E4, so I had a little bit of enlisted rank and they still sent me to. And not only did they send me to the mess decks to serve for four or five weeks, they sent me to the officer's mess. And so here I am, I've been in the Navy for over a year now, and I am serving lunch to my fellow sailors who are right out of college. And it was just a really interesting time. And I think a lot of people could look at that and go, man, that would suck. And I didn't allow it to suck. What I did was before I went to serve my temporary duty on the mess decks because I didn't know how to do a job yet, I did make it a point to go down and did a couple of under instruction watches in the plant. And I was really, really intrigued by the propulsion plant because I was mechanically inclined and grew up the son of a millwright mechanic and a guy who worked on race cars all the time. So I knew how to turn wrenches. I was kind of excited about it. But one of the first things I noticed was the machinist made of the watch, supervisor of the watch was sitting on this nice comfortable stool beneath this big AC duct, blowing nice cold air on him, watching this big gauge board barking out directions over the one mc. And he had it made like, this guy is just. He's running the show and everybody else is running around sweating in 120 degree heat, getting these machines running and whatnot. And I asked him, I'll never forget it. I said, petty Officer Adams, how long will it take me to get in your chair, to sit in that chair? And he kind of laughed. He was taken aback. He. He laughed and he said, I don't know. He said, you're right out of. You've never been on a ship before, have you? And I said, nope, this is my first week. He said, yeah, you work really hard and you might get to sit in this chair before you leave here in what, three years? I said, yeah, three years. Said you might get here in three years. Seventeen months later, I was sitting in that chair and it was because I just thought I got to make the most of this. I didn't know where the road was going to take me. But I know that if you don't spend time going down that road as hard as you can go, then you're just not going to get anywhere. You stay right on that road. So I just worked extra hard, came down and did a lot of under instruction watches. I made it my goal to qualify all the different watches much faster than everyone else. And 17 months later, I was still an E4 and I was sitting in that chair and I had enlisted guys who had been in for 15, 16 years taking direction from me just because I was willing to be motivated and put the time in and do the work.
- [14:10]
A
And actually this gets a little bit back to your maturity. You said something earlier, the ability to learn is correlated with the maturity. And I took that as a note and I experienced something similar. I didn't come right out of college and start serving people. I did serve people. So when we were stationed on a ship, actually there's multiple times, but they would take people from the aviation side and we would go and we would help serve and do all of those things. The thing that is interesting is like when every time that I moved into a different rank in the Navy or in life, I was always later in life. And so like when I became an Ensign or an O1, I was already 30 some years old. And so I'm eight, nine years ahead. And there's a certain maturity. Like I understood how to get my qualifications and like what the Navy valued and how to navigate those things. And so like I feel you on that where it's like you understood like one, you're motivated, you're inspired and like you know what you want. And the other is like you have the maturity to understand how to navigate, to achieve the things you want to achieve. Because anybody can pick up a PQS and start getting signatures, stand extra watches, get mentorship, have people sign off and teach you, but not many people do. And I think that speaks a lot to kind of where you were at in life, what you had learned and how driven and ambitious you were to achieve the goals that you set forth.
- [15:26]
B
Yeah, I think that I had several years there that really grounded me. So the first couple of years of vmi, I really goofed off a lot. Didn't do well in my classes at all. Took that year off. My father, who was a strict man, and I love him to death, most honest, hard working guy you've ever met. But he was a hard man. He told me when I left vmi, he's like, you can come home, you can sleep in my house, you can eat my food, but that's it, Nothing else. And so I had to thumb a ride to work. And I'm not kidding, I'M not talking about calling a friend. I'm talking about literally hitchhiking to work, hitchhiking home. But, you know, I worked two jobs and then went back to community college in that year when I was off and really just grew up a lot and realized God has given us some gifts in life, that we should honor him and take advantage of the gifts that he's given us and make the most of them. And it's a real disservice to ourselves and to the people around us when we waste those things. And so when I went back to college, had a different level of seriousness, was able to pull my grades up and did really well. I changed majors, and I never took less than 19 and a half credits for the last five semesters. I was in college and my grades were much, much better. Then I had my naval experience. You know, after vmi, I struggled to try to find a civilian job. No one wanted to hire a business econ major or a business econ graduate with no experience, average grades. I didn't know anybody, so just couldn't get an opportunity. So finally I relented and decided, okay, I'm going to go get my management experience in the Navy. And that's when this hatched, this grand scheme. But even when I got sent to the LaSalle, I didn't allow it to send me to a tailspin. I just thought seriously about how can I make the most of this? So not only did I go above and beyond to get my qualifications done and sit in that seat, within 17 months, my very first underway, we were going to the Black Sea, going through the Turkish Straits, and I was operating one of the two propulsion plants, and we had a major lubricating oil leak, which in the Navy, in the engineering world, that's like the worst case scenario because they've got 600 psi boilers down there. That stuff catches on fire, everybody's in trouble. So we had to stop and lock our main engines, which was a drill that we did a lot of, I'll never forget. The MPA comes running down from damage control and he's like asking me questions and barking at me. My chief, who is a hulking guy, reaches over and grabs this lieutenant by the back of his shirt, yanks him back and says, shut up and let him do his effing job. And I was just like. So after I snapped, you know, I snapped out of the shock of him doing that, went back to work. And the next day the captain came down and awarded me a Nam on the deck plates. So about the Same time I was working on my surface warfare qualifications, got that done. Not because somebody said, hey, you gotta do this, but because I just wanted to make the most of it. Did that and Advanced finally to E5 before I got off that ship. And the Navy was only promoting, I think, less than 3% in my rank, Navy wide. And that's not to tell you, hey, look at me. That's, you know, you know, my story is all about sometimes we make bad decisions, sometimes we just end up in bad circumstances. But there's a lot to be said for just grit, determination, and a willingness to work hard. And it doesn't really matter what path you're on. If you can really harness those things, then you can get wherever you want to go.
- [18:58]
A
And are there things like a lot of this stuff felt like. And maybe I'm just projecting here because I went through a lot of similar experiences that you're talking about. Like, I even think back to, I started off as an electrician apprentice at a union out of Baltimore, lost my job, blew my car up on nitrous. We were the fast and furious before Fast and furious ever came out. My mom basically said the same thing, except a little different. She said, you can live here, you can do this, but it's not permanent, and you better go figure out life. And so I joined the Navy. And I also like your experience at vmi. Reminds me of my first couple years in the Navy. I have a less than perfect record in the Navy in the early days. And so there was a lot of things that I had to overcome later down the line once I grew and matured to kind of overcome some of those dumb things that I did in the past. Are there. Are there things that you look at in the Navy, whether on that ship or maybe a subsequent command, that have translated into what you do today or translated into the leadership that you have for the teams that you have today?
- [19:59]
B
Yeah. And just before I expound on that, let me just say what you just said is exactly why I said you did it the right way. Ryan, for a young person, if they're questioning their own maturity or if some mentor or parent in their life is questioning their level of maturity, go do four years in the military first. Do two years, three years, and grow up there. Because the challenge of an educational environment is there are these things called transcripts. And so that growing up follows you wherever you go. And so if I could go back and do it again, the only thing that I would change is, is I would do what you did. I'd Actually go serve for two or three, four years and really kind of get my feet under me, get mature enough to recognize how the world works. And then I would have gone to college and decided what my path looked like from there. But reality is, it doesn't always work out that way. I think to your question, as far as leadership goes, I think I mentioned before, I think God blesses all of us with certain talents or characteristics, and it's our job to kind of figure out what those are. I recognize a long time ago that God didn't make me the smartest guy in the room. Doesn't matter what room I'm in. I'm probably not the smartest guy in the room. But he blessed me with a really good work ethic, a father who taught me how to work hard, and a father who taught me determination and circumstances that taught me determination. And I think the one thing, the one gift that God's given me that has been blessed me in terms of my ability to lead others has been my grit. Don't tell me I can't do something, because I'll do it just to show you I can. So I think many of us have experiences in life where, if we're willing to listen to the voices in our ear, man, we just won't accomplish anywhere near as much as we potentially could if we would just ignore some of the negative noise and move forward with things that we think we can do.
- [21:50]
A
Our stories are not only aligned, our mindset and how we think about life is also aligned. And sometimes it's those challenges or it's. I remember going through the qualification process. This is when I was an air crewman, and there was someone that was kind of of equal rank and everything else, and they were like, I'm going to get my call before you. And I was like, no, no, you're not. And it creates that competitive spirit. So how much longer did you spend in the Navy? So once you transitioned off the La Salle?
- [22:14]
B
Yeah. So when I left there, I went to the USS Kearsarge, which was a helo carrier out of Norfolk, a much newer ship. And what was interesting to me is that I'd learned to do everything on this really old bucket over in Italy, and everything was manual. And so when I got to a much newer ship where things were automated, I just knew more than most of the men and women who were serving in the same capacity because I hadn't been pacified by a lot of automation, like, had to really cut my teeth learning how these systems work together and what they did, and their little nuances. And so that was a big, big help as well. But spent 17 months there. Just before checking onto the ship, I met my wife to be, who's now been my wife for almost 25 years. Met her, interesting. My younger sister was married to her younger brother. That's how we met. So our siblings were married, we met. They constantly tried to put us together every time I came home on leave and they eventually succeeded. We started dating, things got serious, we decided to get married, they decided to get divorced. And so that's been an interesting family dynamic, but it's all good. But I did one six month cruise after I met her and actually had the opportunity to break the cruise up because I had spent so much time in Europe, I knew that we would pull into some country that I was familiar with and we were in our late 20s at the time. So I told her, I said, get your passport. As soon as I find out where we're going to pull into, maybe I can give you a call and get you a plane ticket and you can come over and take a couple of days leave and break this trip up. And honestly, neither of us really knew if that was going to work or be a possibility at all. But turns out we were pulling into Haifa, Israel, and I'd been to Haifa numerous times and so felt pretty comfortable there. I said, hey, get a plane ticket, fly into Tel Aviv, I'll take a couple days leave, I'll hop on the train from Haifa down to Tel Aviv, I'll meet you at the airport. So we did. We got three days together for the 4th of July in Israel. I got to do a tour to Jerusalem. Bethlehem was great. Totally fell in love with this girl. And I knew when, the minute that I saw her walk down the lane, if you will, to get on the airplane, I was like, my military career is just about over. I don't want to do this anymore. So when I got back, I decided that I needed to figure out what I was going to do for a civilian job. Information technology happened to be a really good industry. Had a good friend from VMI who was working as a business analyst for Perot Systems. And I just kind of put it out there, hey guys, what industries are good? What should I be looking at? And this guy responded back. He's like, Paul, I don't know what these IT guys do, but we can't seem to hire enough of them. Maybe that's something you need to look at. And ironically, I get asked all the time, well, how do you make that transition from propulsion engineer to IT systems engineering, there's really a ton of parallels. It's just different components working in a system. So once you understand how the components work together in a complete system, it was really an easy transition. It was just went from working with systems that operate on steam and oil and water and all of these things to low voltage. But every component's connected together with another component, has its job. So it was not a huge transition for me.
- [25:36]
A
And not only did you get into it, but today you carry the title president. Like, how do you go from it and then start to translate that into the highest levels of leadership?
- [25:48]
B
Right. And the longer we talk, the more I'm reminded of how many bad decisions I've made. In 2008, my kids, who are now 23 and 20, they were both of age to go to school. My daughter was probably in second, third grade. My son was old enough to go to kindergarten. My wife had been a first grade teacher. She had been staying home with our kids since we started having children. We were at a place where she was able to go back to work if we needed her to. I'd always had this entrepreneurial spirit. And now by this time, I'd spent six or seven years working as an IT professional and had been blessed with some great management opportunities. And so I'd learned a ton from a leadership perspective in the industry, and I just felt like it's time. So in that magical economic year of 2008, I left a really good job to start a company.
- [26:38]
A
Perfect timing, like you and timing, it's impeccable.
- [26:40]
B
If you take the hard road, then why bother? But, you know, it all worked out like I tell people all the time. And this is part of my EOS story. For the first five years, I succeeded in spite of myself. I was a business ecom major. But they don't teach you how to run a business at any, certainly not at Virginia Military Institute. And I doubt it's true in any undergraduate program in America. Like, they don't teach you how to be a business owner because there's a lot of practical knowledge required and we get a whole lot of theory in higher ed. But I thought, hey, I can figure it out. And I jumped in and we began to grow and grow and grow, and fortunately, I didn't leverage any debt to grow the company. But I got to the point about 10 years in where I realized I'd hit a ceiling for probably the past year and couldn't grow the company beyond where it was at. And it was really Frustrating. It was a really challenging time in my life. I realized that I'd essentially become a slave to my own creation. I was working 60, 70 hours a week. That grit and that determination coming out and trying to make it work. And I was missing time with my kids, missing time time with my wife. My health was probably not the best. And I just realized I've got to do something different. And it was about that time that I discovered the book called Traction. And when I cracked that book, I read less than two chapters before I bought two more copies. One for my partner, one for my finance person. I said, look, we've got to read this, because so far it looks like this guy has answered all the questions that I have and put them in a book where all we have to do is follow the recipe. So that was the sort of the beginning of our EOS journey as a company. First 10 years, made a lot of mistakes. Last five years, we've made some mistakes. But, boy, the last five years running on EOS has been just a world of difference compared to the first 10.
- [28:28]
A
And are you the visionary or are you the integrator?
- [28:31]
B
I'll let you guess.
- [28:32]
A
I mean, I would say the visionary just by how similar we are, but you carry the president and title, and usually that's reserved for the integrator. So maybe you're a little bit of both.
- [28:40]
B
I am the visionary and visionaries. We're the guys that jump out of the plane and worry about asking where the cord is for the chute when we're on our way down. And I've done that. I think about my life, and I've done that, from that crazy plan to go to New Power School and try to leverage that into a flight slot to taking the leap from being a propulsion engineer. And I turned down really good opportunities in Norfolk. You know, the shipyards wanted to hire me, and number one, I hated Tidewater. That offensive people in that area. But I've always said that's the armpit of Virginia. The good part of Virginia is on the other side. But just throughout my life, I've just made decisions. Not carelessly or haphazardly, but once I've made up my mind that, okay, this is what I want to do and I'm confident I can do it, and I just go do it and I'll figure it out how I'm going to do it when I start. And I think that's a pretty prevalent characteristic of a visionary. The integrator is the guy who looks at the visionary and goes, okay, Those hundred ideas, these ten are good and these two we can actually execute.
- [29:44]
A
Yes. Is your partner the integrator? How do you guys manage that?
- [29:49]
B
He was originally, and then we began to just grow to a level that he felt like he really needed to stay on the operations side of the business. An integrator. When you think about businesses, every business, no matter how complex it is, has a minimum of three core functions. You've got a finance function, you've got a sales and marketing function, and you've got an operations function. So finance is all about paying the bills and taking the money in and doing all the transactions, if you will. That sales and marketing is all about generating an interest in the product or service that we provide and then creating that transaction. Operations, all about delivering whatever product or service you have. So in its simplest form, that's what every business looks like. That integrator sits above those three core functions, which can often split into six or seven. And their job is to really make sure each one of those core functions is working well together, like a well oiled machine. Like, just create a lot of harmony between those things. And anybody who's worked in corporate America understands that there's always this tension, sometimes not even healthy tension, but there's always tension between these basic core functions. Like sales and marketing guys are always complaining about, you know, the finance guys who are tightening our budgets and the operations guys are complaining about sales and marketing guys who are promising things we can't deliver. So there's always that. Now integrator is sort of a glue that holds a good organization together.
- [31:16]
A
Got it. And how do you guys structure today? So do you have an integrator? And if you do, how did you go out and find someone that you trust enough to bring into that role?
- [31:26]
B
Well, your question is a great opportunity for me to plug one of the few vendors I've worked with over the last 25 years that I would look for the opportunities to talk about. We actually worked with VisionSpark to hire a COO. That situation didn't work out, but it certainly wasn't the fault of VisionSpark. In fact, the reason that it's important that I tell you that is because this is something that really differentiates them from most recruiting companies. They had a promise, they had a guarantee. Look, if this person doesn't work out within the first year, if you need to let them go or they leave, then we'll restart your search. Absolutely no cost. And so that's exactly what transpired. We hired an integrator. Many organizations know them as A coo. And it just didn't work out. It was not a good culture fit. And that's one of the things that we're adamant about as an EOS run company. Person was really, really good at their job, incredibly smart, capable, so he's definitely right seat, but just didn't exactly align with our core values in our culture. That's not to say at all that he's a bad person. It's important for organizations to understand who they are, because an organization is a lot like a human being. And you think about this for a minute, you wouldn't date or marry someone that you just were totally misaligned with. Not for very long anyways, before one of the both of you become really miserable. And it's not to say that one person or the other is bad. And it's the same way with organizations. Whether you know what your values are or not, they're there. And so when that misalignment exists, it just doesn't work. So it didn't work. And I called on them and said, hey, this didn't work. No problem, we restart your search. So that's where we're at now. We've been working with VisionSpark to identify another COO. I would say for a critical position in an organization, it's really important to us, especially because they understand what an EOS run organization looks like. They run on EOS themselves. So it's a little different than a company that doesn't run under a specific operating system or a different operating system.
- [33:26]
A
Yep. And there was one thing that I saw in your background, because we talked a lot about, like, business and learning on the fly and EOs, and I saw that you've got a master's in executive leadership. Is that correct?
- [33:38]
B
Yeah. So again, that goes back to that whole correlation between maturity and ability to be educated. So at about the same time, Ryan, we're implementing eos. I'm really trying to take as much responsibility as I can as the founder to figure out what this organization needs. There's a great little book. If you've never read it, I definitely recommend you pick up a copycard. Question behind the question. Probably have a copy behind me here. Question behind the question. It's all about personal accountability. Have you ever listened to Jocko Willock's podcast? I don't know if you're a fan of Jocko, but it's very much aligned with that extreme ownership mentality, like, let's not be victims, let's not push the blame on someone else. Let's really ask really good questions of ourselves. Hey, what can I do to make the situation better? And so as we were going through this challenge where we're kind of hitting the ceiling and I'm searching for everything that I can possibly do to help us get beyond that as opposed to just blaming someone else. So that master's degree program was part of that. We live right here in Lynchburg, which I joke with people all the time. Lynchburg, Virginia, not to be confused with Lynchburg, Tennessee. We're Jerry Falwell, they're Jack Daniels, big difference. But Liberty University is right here in our backyard. And so that got me thinking about maybe going back to school to get my mba. And this is what I was saying earlier, those transcripts follow you. So I basically signed up, enrolled for this MBA program and bless his heart, I get this little 20 something year old college student calling me. He's working part time for Liberty and he's like, Mr. Meadows, it's been a while since you've been in college. And I said, yes, it has. And I'm looking at your transcripts here. And I said, well, I can imagine what you're thinking right now. He said, well, what we'd like to do is put you at a bridge program. And I said, a bridge program? What's that? He said, well, we start you out with these couple of leadership classes and if you do well in those, then we'll bridge you over to the MBA program just to make sure this is really what you want. And he, he was doing his job, doing the best he could do. And I said, no problem. I said the classes are still going to give me credit towards the MBA program if once I move over to that program. He said, yeah, well, I took three of those classes and realized that's what I really needed. I needed some advancement in my ability to lead more so than my financial knowledge or abilities. It's not difficult to hire a CFO or a fractional cfo, but it's really tough to find good leaders. And so I felt like, hey, if this company needs anything from me, then the highest and best use of my time is to learn to be a better leader. And really that program was good. I Learned a lot. 10 classes, got A's in nine of them. I was really ticked that I got a B in one because it was the one. I did everything I could possibly do to get an A in that class. And that was the difference between, I don't know, 45 year old me and 18 year old me. So like these were graduate level classes and I was working a full time job running the company and making straight A's, but it was just about desire and maturity more than anything. So it did really well in that. And what that did for me though was really just sparked this person that I had inside of me that I didn't even realize existed at the time. So that lifelong learner, somebody who's just. It's funny, Ryan, you get to a certain place in your education and what you learn is how much you don't know already. It's like we think we're going into our educational processes to learn the things that we know we don't know. And what you really find out is you get educated on those things. But the bigger eye opener is realizing how much more is still out there that you don't know.
- [37:21]
A
Yeah. And are there specific things that you took from that that you like immediately implemented at your own company, or did you feel that going through that program was more like creating a more well rounded poll, ready to show up with a different or an increased kind of skill set or additional tools to be able to use for situations?
- [37:41]
B
I think there were definitely some specifics in some of those classes that were helpful to me immediately. But I think the biggest value I got out of that was because I was required to read so much and it was generally on leadership topics. It just really whet my appetite to want to learn more again. Kind of opened my eyes to you come out of vmi, come out of the military, you think you're a pretty good leader and then you have some eye opening experiences and you're like, oh, wow, I'm not very good in that area. There's a whole lot that I don't know about that. And so that kind of sent me on a path of just consuming everything that I could. If you could see behind me, you'd see a whole stack of books back here, probably a couple, three dozen, and probably two dozen of them are all on leadership topics. And then an entire bookshelf at home. Like I'm constantly reading, trying to just learn and improve and that's just about wanting to be the best at whatever it is I'm doing. And right now, at this stage of my life, what I'm doing more than anything is leading. So I want to be really good at it.
- [38:44]
A
That makes sense. How do you do all this? Like you're a EOS implementer, you are the visionary at a company. Like, where do you find the time for all of this?
- [38:53]
B
Well, I would tell you that a va is essential to the equation. Having a virtual assistant helps me a lot. She not just any virtual assistant. I think if you're going to take on a really busy lifestyle, then you really need a virtual assistant who's going to manage you as opposed to you managing them. I just told her I'd had a different virtual assistant and she was helpful in some ways, but there were times where I felt like I had to manage her. And so I was fortunate to find another person who was a little more seasoned, understand how the world works a little better. And I just said, look, I need you to manage me. I have too many things going on. I can't manage one more thing. So I could actually use your help. And you know what? Here's another confession. She texted me about 45 minutes ago and said, hey, don't forget you got this podcast with Ryan today. And I'm sitting in a meeting and I'm texting her back, oh my gosh, thank you so much for reminding me. Because I might have been just totally consumed with what I was doing and could have completely forgotten and I would have felt horrible about that. But I think discipline is a big thing. And I have this conversation with my 20 year old son. He's a sophomore in college all the time. It's not about never having fun. It's about making sure that you keep your priorities right. We literally had this conversation over the weekend. He was panic on Sunday night because he had worked on an assignment for about six hours Sunday night that was due Monday at noon and, and lost his work. You know, Adobe crashes and there goes the video project. I'm like, okay, well there's a couple of important lessons here. Lesson number one is when you're doing something like this, it's going to take hours and hours. You know, set an alarm on your phone to remind you to save it every 30 minutes or so just to make sure. If you do have to take a step back, you know, you'll lose everything. But the bigger lesson is, let's prioritize our lives. Let's make sure we're keeping the important things at the top level of priorities. So that Saturday morning, Friday night, and then again Saturday night, hanging out with your buds playing video games. Probably should have gotten a start on this big assignment maybe on Friday and had a better handle on it. You put it off until the last minute and these are the consequences. The sad thing is, Ron, I'm telling him this from experience, like I was the same way his age. So I can't. I'm not Even upset or mad at him. You know, just trying to help him understand that, you know, this is how life works.
- [41:13]
A
That's the biggest thing with my kids as well. Like, when I offer advice, guidance, coaching, mentorship, most of it is coming from a place of, like, I've already been there. I've done that. And so it's not like, don't do that. And it's crazy that you would ever think like that. It's more so, like, no, I've done that. And it's very painful path. And so maybe we think about it this way, and you can skip all of these mistakes that I made growing up.
- [41:34]
B
Yeah. And you know what? Leadership in corporate America and even in the military is not that different than leadership in the home. And one of the things that I've learned over the last five or ten years is that transparency is currency. Think about that for a minute. Transparency is currency. And the best leaders that you could possibly think of, if you were to jot down their characteristics, I would bet you 99% of them would include humility. Like, the best leaders I've ever had in the world were just really humble people. And I think that goes a long ways with our kids. I've tried parenting in a way that, you know, is not humble, is, hey, do it this way, because I said so. And it just doesn't land well with our kids. It doesn't land well with the people we supervise. We can humble ourselves and say, listen, there was a time when I did this, this, and this, and this was the outcome. And it was not good. It was not my finest moment. It was really a catastrophe. I'm trying to help you avoid some of those similar circumstances. And even today, My son is 20. My daughter's 23. When I'm having those conversations with them, they're shocked. They're like, you really did that? And I'm like, yeah, I was pretty dumb. I did that. And I don't want you to make the same mistakes. And so that tends to get their attention and win more favor with them than that, perhaps. You know, what you and I were taught in the military, just, yeah, this is the way it's done. Don't ask questions, Just do it.
- [43:04]
A
No. And the military's been changing their position, coaching, training on that. Like, I. I think military generally a little bit of a laggard in. In a lot of different areas, but everybody's starting to catch on to this trend of, like, having a sense of purpose and communicating. The why is incredibly important for getting everybody on board. And I think back in the day, it used to be like, you might have said this, like, don't ask why, just do it. Like, you don't need to know why if that's not at your level. All you need to do is take orders. And it's been really interesting to watch the Navy over the last 22, 23 years kind of evolve on that from when I first joined to today. And then you've got the armchair quarterbacks, like, oh, it's too. It's a kinder, gentler, like, yeah, it's this, it's that. And it's like, no, I. Like, I think we're building better leaders today, which is a good thing.
- [43:54]
B
I agree. And when you stop and think about it, if we're using that old military leadership style of, hey, just do it because I said so. You don't need to know why, just do it. Number one, it's hard to get a sense of ownership from the people that you're expecting to do the things because they can't really connect to it. But more than anything, it's. We're basically shortchanging ourselves because we're not developing a person who can step into the role that we're in now so that we could step into some bigger role. People really need to be connected to the why behind what it is we're doing. And that's where the humility comes in, too. We shouldn't be offended because someone who's less experienced than us or perceivably less knowledgeable than us is asking why we should be willing to accept the question and really think it through. Because lo and behold, maybe they're right. Maybe they're question of why will uncover some truth that we didn't know about or we didn't see or we weren't willing to consider.
- [44:54]
A
It almost feels like an attack on ego. Like, when someone else. Why? It's like, why? Because I'm the smartest person in the room and I have all the answers to every question you have, and I know it needs to get done. And it, to your point, starting to listen more, it can really help organizations make better decisions in the long term.
- [45:11]
B
Yeah, I agree.
- [45:12]
A
All right, so, Paul, someone that's been listening to this session for the last hour, they're thinking in the back of their brains, I need some Paul in my life. I need Paul to come in and help us with our own implementation. Where are you focused? Do you have, like, specific companies that you like to work with? Do you have specific regions that you focus on what do you look for in a client?
- [45:34]
B
Not really limited geographically. In fact, I'm going to start implementing with a financial advisor company next week in Wichita, Kansas and I'm in Lynchburg, Virginia. And that was one of the reasons that I wanted to do this, is because I love to travel, I love to meet new people. So I didn't want to have geographic barriers to what I'm going to do over the next 10 years of my life. But there is a very specific type of leadership team that I'm looking for to work with. I think it's important that people have a sense of who I am because it's that same grit and determination. That's what they're going to get from me as their implementer. And sometimes that's really important because when you make a decision to implement eos, there's a heavy lift in the beginning. I mean, there's a lot of change that has to take place and a lot of doing things different and a lot of building and part of that requires some of the things that we've just been talking about. You're talking about the best leadership teams in such an implementation who outperform all other organizations are those leadership teams who are growth minded. They're willing to be humble and vulnerable with each other, transparent with each other. They're more afraid of the status quo than they are of change. And so when I'm working with, you know, when I do my initial session, it's a 90 minute session that I do for absolutely free. Part of that is because one of our core values of help first, I want to be able to provide some practical knowledge that's really helpful to that leadership team. And part of it is allowing them to see who I am as a person. Because EOS is sort of the constant. The way we implement, it's not that different. It's very similar, if not the same from one implementer to another. What's different is we all have different personalities. And again, it goes back to that alignment. What a leadership team should be looking for when they are walking through a 90 minute meeting with an implementer is does this person really align with who we, we are? Are we going to be able to be in the trenches working well with this person? And I'm doing the same thing. If I sense that the leadership team is sort of kind of wishy washy about being their best or growing the organization to be as much as it can be, that's probably not a leadership team I'm going to align very well with. And so I'D be more inclined to recommend that they talk, to even refer one of my colleagues, people who may be a better fit. So for me, it's more about I want to find that level of desire with a leadership team. Hey, we know this is, or at least we think this is what we need, but we're willing to go through hell and high water to find out. And it's typically not hell and high water, but you need to have that sort of motivation, that sort of determination.
- [48:16]
A
I agree. And the candidness, the ability for people to speak their mind, speak their truth, be able to accept it and have tough conversations and then still walk away like, that was a tough conversation. But we're still professionals and maybe even friends. So great. So someone just heard that and they're like, that's me. How would they get ahold of you? Paul?
- [48:35]
B
Really easy. One of the ways is to go out to Eos Worldwide and I have a microsite there. It's eosworldwide.com Paul Meadows and they can find me there. But I would go ahead and tell you I can publicize my cell phone number. Call me. I like talking to new people. And if you're a telemarketer, then I'm probably going to entertain you too. My cell phone number is 434-841-7668. You can also reach me by email at Paul Meadows worldwide.com awesome.
- [49:10]
A
Paul, thank you so much for coming on today. I appreciate it. I had a blast with this conversation. Just the military background, the back and forth on leadership, the never stop growing. So just wanted to thank you for coming on the show and dropped in some wisdom.
- [49:23]
B
Well, even if he's not on the show, I'm really interested to hear some of your story. Sounds like we've got some things in common, so I'd love to hear about it.
- [49:30]
A
Beers in the future. There we go. All right, thanks. Confessions of an Implementer is brought to you by Talent Harbor. To find out more about Talent harbor and our fractional services and talent search solutions for businesses, visit talent harbor.com and then make sure to search for a confession of an implementer in Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are found. Make sure to click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. And on behalf of the team here at Talent harbor, thanks for listening.