← Confessions of an Implementer
Confessions of an Implementer
S2E33 | Freedom, Family, And Focus: A Better Leader At Home And In Business with Ann Sheu
00:58:55
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- [00:00]
A
My free days actually helps me show up better for my team. When I take a free day, I come back rested, rejuvenated, clear. And so I take my free days, and I'm coming back a better version of myself, a better leader for my team, a better facilitator and coach for our clients. So the free days really has a different implication now that I really understand how powerful it is. And you take them proactively and not as much a reward.
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B
Welcome to Confessions of an Implementer.
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C
I'm your host, Ryan Hogan.
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B
We share unique stories of EOS implementers and the companies they've transformed to give you a rare glimpse into the successes and challenges of the system in action. Let's jump in.
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C
You know what's really funny is so before this show, one of the things that I do before shows is so I record all of our pre calls and I go back into fathom and I pull it up and then I take the notes. And when I went back to ours, I was in a different home. No mustache. Can you guess the date when you and I first connected?
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A
I don't even remember. I don't know.
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C
It was December 16th of last year. I was like, holy crap. This is like a year in the making.
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D
Yeah, that's crazy. No, I would not have guessed that.
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C
Yeah, I think we connected again. It was one of us discovered that we never actually booked the podcast. So you and I connected again, I think, over the summer, and called up real quick. But I think you're always on the move. I feel like every time I talk to you, you're like, I'm going to the airport. Sometimes it's like in the hour, and then sometimes it's like, tomorrow.
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D
Yeah, I. I've been really lucky this year. There's been a lot of opportunities for me to just travel and visit other places and.
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A
And bring some of our content to.
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D
The different organizations and companies.
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A
So I've been really lucky this year.
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C
That's awesome. That's awesome. Is it? Are you. I feel like at some point I forget which conversation it was, but like, you. You guys as a family, like, there's a lot of intentionality behind the travel. Did I get that correct?
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A
Yeah, we. We have a family decade dream, and our family decade dream is to take 2000 free days together. So that's our big goal for our family. And this year, we are on track to take 200 free days together. Our decade dream, the 2000 free day. So free days is from Strategic coach, and it's 24 hours of not working and our goal ends at the end of 2029. And that will have been 10 years for that goal. And in 2029, we'll take 300 free days together as a family so that we will have hit 2000 total over the past decade.
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C
Oh my gosh. Do you, do you have all this like, plan? Like, can you, are you in? It sounds like it was 2019. Was this a 10 year goal?
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A
Yeah, it was a 10 year goal. Yeah.
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C
Okay, so you set this goal in 2019. So by 2029, did you at that point, like strategically line up, like each year this many dates, this is the month, everything else, or did you just kind of wing it out of the gate and then now you're like, oh, we're gonna have to catch up in 2029.
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A
We know we, we mapped out by year, but we didn't map out by month. So we just knew like even at the beginning of 20, mid 2024 is when we started mapping out 2025. And we knew we were going to have to take two, 200 days. And you know, next year, 2026, we're taking 220 days. And we've been trying to map it.
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D
Out and it's been hard to get those dates. We're like, we're already doing this one long extended trip here and another long extended trip here. We're like, how many more of these could we squeeze in? But it's been good to help keep.
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A
Us on track because the impetus for the reason we created this goal for our family is because we did not have time freedom. My husband grew up in a family business that was retail. And so growing up, they worked every single day out of the year except Thanksgiving and Christmas. And they worked really long hours, 8am till 10pm most days. And so time freedom was really important to him. It's really important to me. And so that's kind of how we measure success is what is true freedom look like for our family. And that is really what our family decade dream is about. This 2000 free days, this idea that not only are we taking this time off together, but it implies that we've got financial freedom to do it, that we've built self managing companies. It implies that we still have a healthy, strong, happy marriage, that we want to spend that kind of time together. It implies that our kids have great relationships with us because we've spent the time investing in them and those relationships. And so it just implies a lot of things, but that's how we're measuring the success for our family.
- [04:55]
C
I love that. And for some reason today, today there's this common theme of freedom. And is that how you define freedom is like freedom. Freedom to you is like the autonomy to be able to have these free days. Is that what it is, or how do you think about freedom?
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A
Well, I love the four freedoms from Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. He talks about time freedom, purpose freedom, relationship freedom, and financial freedom. And for us, when we think about our family decade dream, the 2000 free days, it really implies freedom in all of those four freedoms. Because, you know, not just the time freedom. Obviously, if we're taking 2,000 free days off, that's a ton of time freedom. But we're not going to take it at the detriment of our businesses. And so it requires some intentionality around what business are we building? How are we building these businesses? Who are we putting in different positions so that it really helps us create that freedom to. To be able to step out? It implies that there's a lot of relationship freedom, meaning we get to hang out with the people that we want to hang out with, and we're not, you know, stuck working with people that we don't enjoy, spending time with people that we don't enjoy. It implies that we're really able to lean into our purpose. This work that we're doing together at Empower Journey, really helping couples get clear about their family values and vision and purpose. It. It implies that, you know, all of these things that we're building are serving the greater purpose of making sure that we are moving in the right direction for our family, and we're not just building something for the sake of building.
- [06:36]
C
When. When you think about. And. And I'd be. I'll be candid here. Like, I'm. I'm one of these people. Like, I always have to be moving. I have to be going. I have to be working on something. And so, like, if there's. If there's. Nothing to do, I will find something to do or I will create something to do for. For, like, the busy entrepreneurs that. That think to themselves, if I take a free day or two, I can't imagine 2000. Let's just say, like, you know, a month off or a couple weeks off, there's this, like, guilt. There's a shame. There's this. Like, this. My company could have moved faster if I didn't do that. And one, like, how have you counted that? How do you think about that? And two, do you think your business has grown slower because of the intentionality for the free days?
- [07:24]
A
So I will say that my mindset was very similar before joining Strategic Coach. And I used to think that I needed to earn my free days. And what I have learned from my mentors at Strategic Coach, Chad Johnson and Dan Sullivan is that my free days actually helps me show up better for my team. When I take a free day, I come back rested, rejuvenated, clear. And so I take my free days and I'm coming back a better version of myself, a better leader for my team, a better facilitator and coach for our clients. So the free days really has a different implication now that I really understand how powerful it is. And you take them proactively and not as a reward, which is how most people think about time off. Right. Like you gotta earn, you gotta get that promotion or close that deal before you can take your time off. And so, you know, I've really had a shift in how I think about my free days. The other thing I want to say is for our clients at Empower Journey, every family has a different decade dream. It's not always about free days. Right. Sometimes we have clients that have decade dreams that are about number of new experiences they're going to have together as a family or amount of service hours that they want to work together at their local food pantry or soup kitchen. Um, so every family has a different decade dream. Ours just happens to be around free days.
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C
Got it. And when you think about the, the decade dream, it kind of takes me into this, like, talk about the 10 year target. So some, some like commonalities here. When, when a company or an organization is creating a 10 year target, I've always been told, like the rule of thumb is don't, don't tie it to money because like, money is not the motivator of 99.9% of the people that are inside of the organization. Yes, as a founder, as owners, as shareholders, like growth is very important, but that's, that's a very small percentage compared to the people that need something more inspiring. When, when you think about how you're positioning this for families, what, what kind of approach do you take as they're kind of defining that, that 10 year goal?
- [09:49]
A
Yeah, I, I think it's similar. Right. When my EOS clients start with a 10 year target that is revenue based. Oftentimes that's the first version, the first iteration of their 10 year target. And we'll, we'll dive a little bit deeper. We'll, we'll ask for what, what does this actually mean? Because for a lot of time For a lot of my client, my EOS clients, a revenue written 10 year target, that number is often so big that it doesn't resonate with a lot of the frontline employees. Right outside of the leadership team. What is 50 million in annual revenue? A hundred million in annual revenue? What does that even mean? Like people can't even wrap their heads around that number. And so, you know, even in our family business, we were selling home furnishings, we had four big box retail locations. Our 10 year target started as a revenue number and then we were thinking about percent of market share and, and still those things were hard for our team to wrap their head around. And so then we said, okay, let's extrapolate that out. What is this? If we hit this revenue number, what does it actually mean in practice? And so we said, okay, well it could mean that we have donated a million dollars back to our community. And we thought, okay, the team will be excited about that, a million dollars back into the community. But even that number was really hard for employees to rally behind and get excited by. And so what we ultimately ended up doing was rewriting our 10 year target to number of mattresses given back to families in need. And that was something that our teams could count. They could participate in the delivery of the mattresses, they could get excited about that when they would drop off a mattress for a family in need. That was always the same revenue goal as how we had originally written it, but it was just written a different way. Thinking through the lens of what really inspires and motivates and encourages, excites the team. But it's still the same goal at the end of the day. And we do a similar exercise for the families. When you're doing a family decade dream, sure, you could start with how much money you want to have in, you know, assets or investment savings, you know, whatever, or maybe even a passive income goal. You could start there. And for most of our clients, that's where they begin. And then when they have an opportunity to dive a little bit deeper, you know, asking, what is that money in service of? What is it that you're trying to achieve? So if it's, you know, a million dollars a year in passive income for what, what will you do with that money? Is it about the money that you'll give back to your non profit, your favorite nonprofit? Is it about trips that you're going to take together? Is it about hiring coaches and mentors for your family? Like what, what is, what are you going to do with that money? And how can we write A decade dream. That really implies that, you know, the money is still there, but it implies a greater vision, a bigger purpose.
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C
Have you, have you ever heard, so I'll give you my 10 year, my 10 year dream is like, and this sounds not cliche, this sounds maybe materialistic, but I promise you it's not. So my. If I were, and this is just me on the fly right now, just like I want a G650 and not because it's a G650, I don't want anybody to know that I have it. I'm not going to take selfies in and around it. But what that airplane represents of freedom, freedom to be able to call Van Nuys, be like, hey, fire it up, we're going to Abu Dhabi right now. That's something to me, that's how I define freedom. Have you ran this process with a family and you're like, hey, maybe not the G650. Maybe we're flying first class on a marriage or something like that? Like, just kind of walk me through that process.
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A
Yeah. And one thing I will say is no shame, no judgment on whatever your decade You're. Whether it's an individual decade dream or a family decade dream. No shame, no judgment on what it is. Right. We have a lot of clients that have a dollar amount that is their decade dream. And that's totally cool. That's their version of their decade dream. No shame, no judgment. But if, for you, if you're saying like, this is your decade dream and you're asking for help on how to, to write it a different way, maybe I would ask you, what are you going to do with that, that plane? Like, what, what is it about, right? Is it about trips that you've taken with your family? Is it about cities that you visited? Is it about number of impromptu trips that you were able to take that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to take? Like, what's the thing that you might be able to measure that the plane is in service of?
- [14:49]
C
That's really good because that, that like just immediately got me thinking in a different, in a different way. Because, like, what it is, is it's like, it's the, like the freedom to be able to, with family, go to any city on the drop, like at the drop of a hat. And like, that even backs it up into, into like the time. So, like, not only, not only is it like, oh, get to visit and explore. Not only can we do it whenever, but that the time has to be there in order for those things, for everything to be true. Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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C
What's kind of your free time? I love it. We just like, launched right into this. Usually we get in the backgrounds and everything else. This is what, just. Just out of curiosity. So you're. You're a lawyer, right? We're a lawyer. Recovering lawyer.
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A
I. I am a lawyer. I'm a recovering lawyer, but I'm still.
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D
Licensed because I am. I don't know why I'm still licensed. I don't actually have a good reason. I just, I am.
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A
It's.
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D
It's so easy to. To keep it updated. So I, you know, I do a handful of CLE. Continuing legal education hours every year, and I maintain my license. I'm still licensed.
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C
That's so funny that you. Because, like, you were. You were very confident with whatever was. Was about to come out of your mouth, and then you just stopped. You were like, I'm still licensed.
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D
No, there's no good reason why I keep it.
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C
So lawyer. And then there was a family business as well.
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D
Yeah. So my husband grew up in a furniture retail business, and we ended up.
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A
Taking that over from his parents.
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C
Did it sounds like, was it running on EOS when you. When you first entered the equation?
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A
No, we. We brought EOS into the business.
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C
Yeah. Got it. And that was. Was that like, had the business hit a ceiling and before EOS came through, like, this was kind of the breakthrough for it.
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A
Yeah, absolutely. It. There was a culture ceiling. There was. Yeah. So, you know, not something that we typically talk about with regard to ceilings and EOs, but I would say there was a culture ceiling, meaning the culture had been one way for a really long time. And, and when we realized that we wanted to kind of change things, shake things up that we needed, we needed a framework to do that because, you know, employees had been there 10, 15, 20, 25 years, and we, we knew we wouldn't be able to just change things just flippantly.
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C
Were there. Were there core values already in place?
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A
There was. That's what I mean by a culture. Like, there was. The culture before was show up to work, earn your paycheck, go home. There was no purpose. There was no, like, there was no bigger vision. It was just work, make money and, and serve the clients. So that was a big shift that EOS was able to bring into the business.
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C
Got it. And were you at that point, were you guys self imp. Like, I'm trying to get a timeframe for. Were you certified and you went in the business and made magic, or was this where you first, like, started to learn Explore. Understand eos.
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D
Yeah. This is when we first got introduced to eos.
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A
So we hired an implementer, and he let me just kind of shadow him, work side by side with him for a little bit, and kind of showed me the ropes. And eventually I ended up doing the implementation for the family business. But in the beginning, I was just showing up as a client and, you know, coming to soak in all the information.
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C
Are you. Are you the integrator?
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A
No. So.
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D
No, no.
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A
No.
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D
I am not the integrator. I should never. I'm not right person, right seat for an integrator seat. Although what's really interesting is, you know.
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A
You just said that you had Mark Winters on the show, and I. I talked to Mark on my podcast earlier this week, and I got to read his.
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D
His book that came out this week.
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A
And his book really helped me embrace the visionary role. Because for a long time, even though I know now that I am not right person, right seat for integrator, what I realized from reading his book was how much head trash that I had around not effectively being an integrator. Meaning I was raised to believe that if I want to be successful and if I want to be a badass, that I need to be able to execute like a strong, highly efficient, highly effective integrator. And so I have been kind of trying to. To pull it, hold it all together like an integrator would with my visionary gifts, if you will.
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D
And so. So Mark's book really allowed me to.
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A
Let go and release.
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D
And.
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A
Yeah, so not.
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D
Not an integrator, although I thought I was.
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C
I. I love that also. I love that you got a pre read. I just went in. I went in colti. I was like, mark, I ordered the book. It won't be here till Saturday, so we're just going to wing this. So you probably had much better talking points than.
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A
So good. It's so good.
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C
I'm so excited. We. We talked all about it. I just didn't speak from a place of like, oh, I've read this. And so I just kind of let him lead. Um, but, like, know thyself, like, and actually speaking of which, like, know thyself, there's a. There's There's a correlation between what you're talking about, knowing thyself, like, know thyself as where we want to go. And that's a big, big part of this. Yeah.
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A
So we actually have a workshop called know Thyself where we help individuals get clear about their individual values and vision and purpose. When you think about really Living an intentional life and being able to design your life on purpose, you really have to be able to answer two questions. And those two questions are, who are you? And what do you want? And they seem so simple, but most people cannot answer with clear, articulate confidence those two questions because most people haven't taken the time to think about those two questions and. And really work through the answers to those questions. And so our Know Thyself workshop is really designed to help people answer those two questions. Getting clear about who you are and where you want to go, and what does that look like? And so, you know, starting with your values and then really thinking about your energy and. And then what's that big vision for your life, your. Your individual decade dream? And that work really pairs nicely with the work that. The Know Thyself work that Mark Winters talks about in his book Visionary, because it really is at the heart of being a strong leader, a more effective leader is doing that inner work and understanding who you are, what you want so that you can show up better for your team, for your family.
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C
How does that like in practice? And you don't have to give all the secret sauce of. Of the workshop, because then, then they'll just listen to the podcast. Never, never go to the workshop. That's okay.
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A
That's okay.
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C
What does that look like in practice? Because I've asked myself a series of questions, and I try to give it a lot of thought of who am I? Where do I want to be? What drives, what motivates me? What are some best practices? Is this a. Answer these 10 questions and it'll magically arrive. Is it. Here's the two questions. Sit in silence for 10 days and wait for it to come. What does it look like?
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A
Yeah. So when we are leading the workshops, we start with values. And let me tell you, most people come into our workshop thinking that they've done values work, but we have a radically different approach to values work. And. And it really helps people gain confidence on what their real values are. Because let me tell you how most people do values work. They treat values like a list of goals.
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C
Right?
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A
Who do you want to be? And you pick out some words from a list of who you think you should be or who you want to be, and then those become your values. Right? I want to be healthy, so health is one of my values. I want to be this person who prays every day, so faith is going to be one of my values. Or I want to be a person who always prioritizes my family over my work. So Family's gonna be one of my values. And so they make a list of values that's aspirational. And, you know, we. At Empower Journey, we say the aspirational work, it doesn't belong in your values. It belongs in your goal setting. The aspirational is literally goals, right? Not your values. So when you mix the two and you put aspirational stuff into your values, you have a completely useless list. So we help our clients really get to the heart of true. No matter what values. We call them no matter what, because they show up. No matter what's going on in your life, no matter how much money you have, no matter how much time you have, no matter what season of life you're in, no matter what's going on at work with a client, no matter what the values that show up. And we have a really unique process that has helped people get to their. We call em your 3 to 5 no matter what values. And we help our clients get there in a matter of, like, about 10 minutes, honestly.
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D
And, yeah, I know it's pretty. It's pretty neat.
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A
And, you know, we've done it for many years now. And in the beginning, I was like, oh, this is a fluke that everybody in the workshop was able to do it. But the more we do it and with the more people. And we've done it with huge audiences, and they're still able to get to those three to five values. And about, you know, ten minutes. And it's. And we say the. The goal here from this exercise is 0% aspirational. Right? You're my. My goal for you as you're doing this exercise with me is I want you to walk out the door with the list of values that is 0% aspirational. And so, yeah, we're able to help our clients get to those values. And then the cool thing is that values work is foundational to everything else that they do in. In that Know Thyself workshop, because everything connects back to your values. When we think about your energy and who you are at your best and at your worst, it's directly tied to your values. When we think about your time and what your mindset is around time and whether you're living on autopilot or whether you are punting the important things, it's tied to your values. And so we do all of this work with our clients to really help them understand what really matters to them, what it looks like when they show up at their best, at their worst, when they're being intentional with their time. And their energy, what that looks like. And then we help them craft a decade dream, that singular goal 10 years from now. That really summarizes what success looks like right for you as an individual. What does life look like when you are living in alignment with your values, when you're living your best self every day, when you really are being intentional about your time and you're not punting, you're not living on autopilot? What does Life look like 10 years from now? And that's your decade dream. And then from there we just work backwards. What does it look like for the next, you know, 90 days? Well, if you're gonna make some baby step progress towards that, what's the action you're gonna take?
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C
What, what would be an example, what would be an example of a, of a good value? So it sounds like bad values would be like healthy, healthy. Because it's like, well that could go on your goal of whatever that that means. So what, what would be like an example of a, of a good solid value?
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A
Okay, so let me clarify by saying there are no good or bad values. It's just what are the ones that are true to you, that are not aspirational? Now, the reason I used health is because for me, unfortunately, and I'm going to say this on this live, when life gets busy, my health gets put on the back burner, right? I start eating like crap. I don't work out regularly. Now I hope to change that. I would love to change that. I hope one day I'm one of those people that wakes up at 5 o' clock every day and goes for.
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D
A run and has like a green smoothie for breakfast.
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A
But right now I'm not that person. But if I said health or wellness or fitness was on my list of values and I said that, that is my value, every day I would go to bed looking at that list, feeling, oh, another day where I failed, right? And that's what happens when people create a list of values that's aspirational. And that's why the aspirational values work is not sticky and also not effective. You cannot, like if I said health was one of my values, I can't really use that to set goals, to make more effective, efficient decisions because that's not really tied to who I am, right? So it's not that health is a bad value, it's just not the right value for me because it's aspirational.
- [28:28]
C
Also, often we hear about this idea that the core values of a company take on the values of the Founder, the values of the leader. And I get it. Like, you know, there's an exercise and we close our eyes and we think about the top three teammates and then we list our attributes and we keep coming like the exercise. I totally understand. Organizations generally tend to take on the same shape and like, I could make an argument that in the early days, the founder is not hiring people. It like, you know who you're hiring and like, you know, they already have a shared set of values. Do you see where when you help people figure out what their values are and then you look at their like, company values, you're like, oh, like, what, What's. These are pretty similar. Yeah.
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A
So I'm going to answer this question a couple of ways. First, I'll, I'll talk about in the workplace with our EOS clients, when the leader, when I am working with a client and, and the founder, the entrepreneur, the owner is really clear about their individual values and not the aspirational values. Like, truly, you've got your list of values. It really makes the company values work more effective. Now added bonus, when everyone on the leadership team is clear about their individual values, man, that values exercise that we do during vision building day one with our EOS clients, piece of cake. Because when everybody on the team knows their values, they're leading from those values, they are instinctively acting through the lens of those values. It is solid for company values when the leaders have done their individual work, and that's why that individual work is so important. So now going back into the family space, this is similar, right? Like when couples come together and they want to talk about family values and family legacy and family goal setting and they jump right into that. It's not effective. It is a Pinterest worthy list that sounds good on social media, but is not actually true to their family's identity. Which is why that Know Thyself workshop and that Know Thyself work is a prereq for any of our clients that want to do the family work. We will not allow you to even start thinking about family values until you've done your individual values work. Because otherwise you're not coming from a place of wisdom and clarity. You're coming from a place of, oh, what sounds good? What, what is, what are the Joneses doing over there? You know, like, and so that individual work is really fundamental to really being able to do team values. Whether the team is your family team or whether the team is your work team, you've got to know who you are and what's important to you.
- [31:21]
C
All Right, quick break, friends.
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B
Do you find it impossible to hire.
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C
And retain top sales talent?
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B
Or worse, are you paying insane recruiter fees who are all using outdated hiring processes? Yeah, I was too at Hunt a Killer. We were spending hundreds of thousands on recruiter agency fees.
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C
And after I sold that company in 2025, I started Talent Harbor.
- [31:44]
B
And the whole vision here was to make sales recruiting accessible to small and medium sized businesses. Because the organizations that can hire and retain world class people are the ones that ultimately win. Most organizations rely on things like ZipRecruiter or LinkedIn and they get hundreds if not thousands of residents resumes. But we find that the best salespeople are already perfectly placed somewhere else. And that's why our approach is to go after them. And we do that through a business model called recruiting As a service. We do not charge commissions, we do not have success fees, we don't have contracts, we don't have long term engagements. And we become an extension of your team as expert sales recruiters. If you're tired of the same old recruiters and want to actually grow your sales team, check us out@talent harbor.com that's Talent Harbor. T A L E N T H A R B O R dot com. Let's get your next sales superstar hired.
- [32:44]
C
What? Like let's say, let's say someone goes through the individual value process and it's a couple and then they come to see you and, and they're like, hey, we're, we are ready to put together our family values. And then you look at both their sheets of papers and like there's no overlap between their values. What typically happens in that case?
- [33:05]
A
So what I will say is more often than not, the actual value words that they've picked might not be identical, but there's a lot of overlap in themes and ideas, right? So one person might pick faith and the other person might pick spirituality. So then they can have a conversation. Okay, why did you pick that word over this word? So. Right. And so, you know, one person might have connection and the other person might have relationships. And so there's often themes and commonalities that people can find, but they can't even have that conversation if they haven't done their individual work. Now the other thing that I want to add is, you know, you asked me about the influence of the founder's values on the company values. For me personally, my individual values are, have heavily influenced our family values. So there's, there's some carryover, there's some crossover and a lot of our Family values have crossed over into our company values. So there is a ton of crossover, because let me tell you why. When I think about what triggers me, this is something that we teach our empowered journey clients. Your triggers are directly connected to your values. We call this your commitment behind the complaint. And it's something that I learned from my mentor, Ran Sagan. And this idea that you only complain about things that you're committed to. And for me, I'm really committed to my values. Like, they're hardwired in me. This is what I believe. This is how I operate. And so when there's something that is challenging one of my values, it's triggering. And I'll give you an example. One of my values is better every day. This idea of continuous improvement, progress over perfection. Right? It means that I am obsessed with learning and growth and development. The amount of time and money that I spend on coaches and courses and books and all of the things, it's a little ridiculous. It's a. It's a little absurd, right? It's also really triggering for me when I'm speaking to somebody who refuses to do any of their own work, doesn't believe in receiving feedback, doesn't like reading, and probably hasn't read a book since middle school or high school. It's really hard for me to carry a conversation with people like that that don't share this value with me. And so that's why better every day is one of my personal values. And it's also a family value. It's also a company value because for me, it's triggering for me to have to interact with people. So can you imagine me having somebody on my team at work that. I mean, we're literally in the learning and development space. We lead workshops to help people do their work. Can you imagine having somebody on our team that didn't believe in doing their own work? It would just be like a complete disconnect, like our company's purpose and what they believe would be completely disconnected. And so that's why there's so much. So much carryover between what, you know, what the founder values to what the family values to what the company values. And, you know, for anybody that's listening, if you're struggling to. To think about, like, your company's values and are they actually true to. To your company and what really matters to your company, I would ask you and your leadership team, are there things that are incredibly triggering to your team that isn't called out in a value? There. There might be a value that's Missing.
- [36:46]
C
What happens if you lay your head down on the pillow and you, you feel like you didn't do better that day, like you didn't read your book or you didn't do this, you didn't do that. Like it is that. It's just more of like you're hardwired for this so in some aspect like you got better, it doesn't matter. Or are there like different things where you're like, gotta do this because of this.
- [37:11]
A
The way that we help our clients get to their no matter what values. What I say is if there is any aspirational to your value. It's not a no matter what value. Meaning if you pick up a value. So we, we use cards and we have a value on each card and I say if you pick up that values card and you hold it and you're like, man, I wish I was more this way. It's not a no matter what value because let me tell you my no matter what values, everyone around me wishes I was probably a little less of this value. It is, it is extreme, irrational, annoyingly so. Right? My better everyday value I don't have to think about. There is not a single day where I don't do something that is in alignment with that value. It could be asking somebody for feedback. It could be me just sitting for a few minutes after we in this live and thinking about what I could have said better. It could be me reading something. It could be me getting on a, a call with my coach. It could be. You know, there's a million different ways where I live this value out every day. But it is not something that I have to prioritize. There is not a day that goes by where I didn't do something that lived out this value because it is, it is insane how it is just hardwired in me. I don't have to think about it, I don't have to prioritize it.
- [38:37]
C
Do you, do you see like common themes of, of values when people are doing them? So for instance, like, I don't know if these are good values or not, but I'm just gonna off the top of my head, I'll tell you two that I believe would be me something around Go Giver. So I, I EOS has helped. First there's a book called Go Givers. But like Go Giver like deeply resonates with me. I, I don't, I don't think about reciprocation. I don't think about what's in it for me. I believe in the Universe and when you put good energy in the universe, good things happen. And then very selfishly, it makes me feel good helping other people. So there would be something around that and there would probably be something around growth mindset, which I think there's a lot of overlap between what you're talking about and the whole idea of growth mindset. Do you see those sorts of themes like my growth mindset versus not, it's not averse and you're getting better every day. It's like, are you seeing the same themes in most people's values?
- [39:36]
A
Well, I think that is a tough question to answer because I think that people that come to our workshops, there's a bias towards the growth minded person. Right.
- [39:47]
D
Like somebody who's not growth minded, they are, they are heavily resistant to coming.
- [39:53]
A
To, to do this work. So I, I know that for a.
- [39:58]
D
Lot of clients, yes, there's some sort.
- [40:00]
A
Of curiosity learner growth mindset, but that's probably a, you know, a psychographic of our target market is they're, they're learners, they want to make their lives better. They're not just passively sitting in, in the backseat, in the passenger seat just waiting for things to happen. They're, they're coming in and they're taking charge and they're want to improve.
- [40:23]
C
What about like when you talked about the, like the spirituality when, when you get it, like instead of maybe common themes of everybody has the same thing. Like when you think about three to five, is there generally like buckets for this? Like some, there's going to be something about like the universe. No, it's all over the place.
- [40:43]
A
It's all over the place. Yeah.
- [40:44]
C
Huh. That's, that's super interesting. Um, how did you get like this is so what's, I've been to couples therapy before and like some of the exercise what you're doing is like some of that stuff on like steroids, like this is, this is brilliant stuff. They, for, for me they were like, oh, go home and write down 20 things you like and then bring it in next time. Your stuff is like, hey, let's, let's really like think about this, let's organize it, let's document it. Let's do it individually first and then bring it together. How did you get into that? Like we just went from, you're a lawyer who refuses to stop taking her cles, went to the furniture store and did amazing things, EOS implementer. And now it sounds like you are making significant impacts in the personal lives of a lot of people. How did you get here.
- [41:42]
A
So we developed these tools for our own family's survival about a decade ago. We were just using them for our own family. Sunny and I were just trying to make sure that we didn't end up hating each other, working ourselves to death and divorced. And so we just started doing what we knew, which is, how do you build a great team? How do you lead a great business? And we started doing those, Applying those ideas and concepts to our family.
- [42:09]
D
And.
- [42:10]
A
And one of the things that we discovered very early on is the change that we wanted to affect in our family does not start at the family unit. Right. Earlier, when I was talking about the couples that come together and they are excited and jazzed up about working on their family's legacy. And then I'm like, slow your roll. Can't do that yet until you've done your individual work. That. That's what we realized really early on is, for us, if we didn't do the individual work, what ended up happening was somebody was bringing a diluted version of themself to the table. And for our clients, it's usually the person who is the quieter of the two. Like, when you think about you and your wife, who's the quieter one? I'm assuming it's your wife. Is it your wife?
- [42:58]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So talk a lot.
- [43:02]
C
Sorry.
- [43:04]
D
So.
- [43:06]
A
She. If, you know, if. For a couple like that, if she doesn't do her individual work, she's probably going to bring a deluded version of herself to the table. Because the louder person, the one who is more extroverted, the one who's more willing to speak up, is going to fill the space and. And say, okay, this is what our. Our family values should be. Right? And so doing that individual work really forced both people to get clear about what they really wanted out of life so that they could come to the table and really advocate for them for themselves. Because without doing the individual work, the language that we would hear clients use is, sure, whatever. Whatever you want. And the example that I use is, it's like me and Sunny trying to decide where we're going to go to dinner. If he's like, hey, Ann, where do you want to go to dinner? And I'm like, I don't really care. Whatever you want, right? And then he's like, okay, how about we go eat Italian? And I'm like, oh, I don't really want that. And then he's like, okay, how about we go get barbecue? I'm like, oh, I don't really want that. And so my Answer from the beginning of I don't really care. Whatever you want. It's not that I didn't care. It's that I didn't take the two seconds to really think through what I really wanted. And that is exactly what is happening with couples when they come to the table and they want to design their family's life. And one person, both, you know, maybe both of them haven't done their individual work. What do you want? What do you want for your family? What do you think the family value should be? I don't care. What do you, what do you want? Whatever you think. Right. It's not that you don't care, but you haven't done your work. And so that's why the individual work is important, because then you can come and you can say, well, I'm not sure about the family values, but here's what's important to me at the individual level. These are the things, these are the ideas, these are the concepts, the are important to me. This is how I live my life.
- [45:01]
C
I love this so much. Like, I, I'm, like, I'm already sold at this point and I, I'm a really hard person to sell and I just want to, I want to sign up right now. What, what is the process? So it starts with individual, then you get to team or, or team, you get to the family. What, what's the full process look like? Like, how long does the, the individual work take? What does that look like? And then it kind of walk us through that process.
- [45:28]
A
Yeah. So for us, the onboarding, if you will, is completing two workshops that help you fill out your individual roadmap and your family roadmap. So your individual roadmap is that know thyself work, really getting clear about your values and your vision for your life. Who are you? What do you want so that you can then come together with your spouse and do the family roadmap work that's really getting clear about your family's values and your family's vision. And, and then from there you are onboarded and you are able to attend our workshops in person in Dallas or virtually. We will, you know, we live stream them. There's also an on demand option, but we have, you know, an entire tool, toolbox of, of tools that we use to help our, our clients really make sure that they are living life in alignment with the life that they want to build. Because for so many high achievers, they're running and gunning fast that they're not even sure what they're building personally and are they even building the same thing? And is what they're building what they want to be building? Right. Or are they building something because they thought that's what society told them they should be building? And so it's just creating the space to really do some of that work. And then once they have that clarity, making sure they're. They're equipped with the tools to really go out and. And execute on that vision. So making sure that they are having a weekly sync meeting. We call this your fam. Your Family Alignment Meeting.
- [47:01]
C
I love that so much. I'm an acronym person. The Navy. But that's awesome.
- [47:06]
A
Oh, my. My.
- [47:07]
D
My team hates all the acronyms. They're like another acronym.
- [47:10]
A
But I mean, it's like, come on, it's your fam.
- [47:14]
D
You know, your Family Alignment Meeting.
- [47:15]
A
And so making sure that you've got the right system, the right structure, the right tools to make sure that you're communicating effectively and efficiently, that you really understand your. Each other as partners, understanding each other's best selves. Wor. Selves, your triggers, that you've got the right framework to handle difficult conversations. And so just giving couples the tools to really live their best life as. As a family, as family leaders. Because earlier you were like, oh, yeah, you start at the individual level, and then you do the teamwork. And then you kind of. You corrected yourself. But it is true. Your team, your family team is the most important team you're ever going to build. Right? But we often forget that we think that the business team is the most important team. Our family team is the most important team. And the other thing that's really interesting is, you know, we're in this space and we're having to. You know, a lot of this is. Is new to the marketplace, if you will. There's not a lot of tools, systems out there that really support couples in their journey to. To build intentional family lives. And so we've been using this word, family leader. Right? You're. You're the leadership team of the family. You and your wife are your family's leadership team. Whether you like it or not. You guys are it. Like there's nobody else. You guys are the leadership team. And when I say family leaders, people often look at me with confusion. It's like their brain is processing those two words together, like business leader. People got that. They understand what that means. Community leader. Sure. PTA leader. Got it. Family leader. People are like, oh, yeah, I guess I am the leader of my family, you know, and so, like, kind of re. Re. Wiring our brains a little bit to understand that we're the leadership team, and we've got to step up. Like, we are a leadership team. Like, what are you doing as a leadership team for your company? Are you doing those same things for your family? If not, why?
- [49:09]
C
What is there, like, when you talk about the team and the dynamics? Like, is. Is there also a component of this where. Where there are roles, let's call them seats, because we could get lost in this idea of. Of roles. But, like, is there, like, core responsibilities? You start putting people. People in. In seats.
- [49:31]
A
Yeah. So not like a accountability chart in eos, but we have an exercise called Collaboration Cards where we are essentially looking at all of the roles and responsibilities, all of the tasks that are required to keep a household moving forward. Right. There are a million different things that are required to make sure things don't slip through the cracks. And so it's really being intentional about divvying up those responsibilities. And what often happens is, when you started dating your wife, you guys started divvying up responsibilities. And it probably landed one of two ways. One, maybe it just landed based on, like, gender norms. And then, two, it might have landed just based on whoever touched it first. Right. Like, whoever was the first one to do it. When you guys moved in together, they probably got stuck with doing it. And so there wasn't a lot of intentionality behind who's doing what. And so we have an exercise where we help couples really look through the lens of their strengths, their weaknesses, what energizes them, what can they bring to the table, and then with that information, who should own this task? Right. And so, as an example, trip planning, I historically planned all of the trips for our family because I don't. I don't. I don't know why. Like, I just. It was.
- [50:56]
C
You touched it first.
- [50:57]
A
I touched it first. Right. I did it first. I. I took the initiative. When Sunny and I started dating, he worked all the time in the family business, so he didn't travel a lot. So I literally. You're right. I touched it first. I planned our first trip together, and then it just became my thing. Well, through this exercise, we actually realized that there's a lot of components to trip planning that Sunny is actually better at than me. Right. For example, I'm great at narrowing the big scope. So in the very beginning, deciding, are we going to go to Europe, are we going to go to Asia, Are we going to go to somewhere in the Caribbean? I'm great at narrowing the scope. Sunny's great at Doing the really deep dive into, okay, now that we know where we're going, what hotel should we stay at, what excursions should we do? He can do that, right? And so really leaning on each other's strengths and weaknesses. Because what would happen is I would narrow the scope and then I would get stuck in like, well, trying to make a final decision about what lodging. I just wouldn't do it. And so then the trip would stall. Whereas if Sonny had to narrow the scope, he would have analysis paralysis trying to decide between an Asia trip or a Europe trip or going to scuba dive. He's like, ah, too much, right? But for me, I'm like, okay, this, this time it's because of this season just like thinking through like big picture stuff. I can, I can get us, I can narrow us down and then he can, he can finish out the project. And so there's a ton of examples like that where we have really leaned into our strengths to help make sure that things are being intentionally decided on who's doing what instead of just, oh, accidental, you, you picked it up, so you're stuck with it forever. And the other thing that collaboration cards does is it gives us an opportunity to have some intentional conversations around. Hey, Sunny, right now, this season of my business, I'm slammed. I need you to step up and take some of these cards off my plate. And so we've got a whole deck of cards. And the cards could be anything from laundry to, you know, buying, switching out the kids clothes every season to making sure the cars are washed. There's tons of different roles and responsibilities that are required to keep the household running. Some of them I do, some of them he does, some of them I own and I delegate out. But it's really about being intentional and having these conversations so that we can really lean in, into each other's strengths. But also take into consideration capacity. Right? As we know, capacity changes and shifts week to week, month to month based on what's going on with our businesses.
- [53:38]
C
Do you, with the collaboration cards? Like, like, are they actual holder of cards? Like, do you hold cards and, and your partner holds cards? And then like, there's a heavy season coming up and you're just like, hey, here's all my cards. Like, how do you, how does that, how does that work?
- [53:55]
A
Yeah, so we, our couples do it all different ways, but they actually do the exercise with a physical deck of cards and then we translate that information into a tool so that they, they can easily just switch back and forth. Like right now, in this season, I'm owning, I don't know, I'm not owning.
- [54:14]
D
A lot right now in the season.
- [54:15]
A
But like let's say Christmas magic, right? I. That, that is something that I own. Christmas magic, holiday magic. And so, you know, if things, if I were to have a really busy November, December next year, maybe I would say, hey Sunny, do you want to own holiday magic or should we hire somebody to help us with holiday magic this season? Right. Can we bring in somebody who's going to come in five hours a week and help with all of the Christmas shopping or help wrap presents or whatever, you know, help come cook, make cookies with the kids? What, whatever the holiday magic is. And so yes, there is a re deal option based on what's going on with your life. And sometimes it's re dealing the entire deck and starting from scratch. And sometimes it's just like, can you just take these couple of responsibilities, these cards if you will, for the next week or the next month?
- [55:11]
C
Are you, is this a, what's the frequency of. I mean, I heard the fam, which I love that acronym. Is there like a quarterly sync, a semiannual sync? How often are things being reevaluated kind of globally?
- [55:29]
A
Yeah. Are you talking about just in general or specific to collaboration cards?
- [55:34]
C
Mostly in general. What prompted the question was because you were talking about the collaboration cards and you're like, well, sometimes you'll just come together and realize that they're all wrong. You can kind of reshuffle the deck. And that got me thinking of like, there's probably a bigger picture sync that that may happen. Is that a part of the process?
- [55:53]
A
Yep. So there is quarterly goal setting and checking in and then there is annual goal setting and checking in. So just, you know, you've got to know what the big picture is before you can set that 90 day goal. So yeah, there's annual goals, there's quarterly goals, and then checking in every week on those goals.
- [56:13]
C
I love it. I can't believe I have so many more questions about this because it's fascinating and I think that more people need it. The two things that changed my life, number one, vistage, number two, eos. But that changed my professional life. Meaning those were the tools that I needed to grow professionally and for far too long. The other side of my life is just all over the place. It's just complete chaos. Maybe we do a round two of this.
- [56:44]
D
Yeah, I love that.
- [56:46]
C
Hopefully it doesn't take a year.
- [56:47]
D
Well, please.
- [56:50]
C
Mark actually just jumped. He said it feels like, feels like we almost virtually bumped into each Other. He was talking to you. Hi, Mark. Well, let's do this. Let's start to work on a take two for this, because I think there's so much more we can explore floor. And. And this isn't generally a topic that. That I go deep into on the. The podcast, but I think there's a lot of value for. For the conversation. So if you're open to that. Oh, here. The. The plugs. Okay. How can people get a hold of you? How do they get started? Like, what. What is. What is that stuff?
- [57:24]
A
Sure. I'm on LinkedIn and I'll. Can we drop the link to that somewhere? Also, Our website is empowered journey.com M P O-W-E-R E D Journey. Yeah. Also on Facebook, Instagram, all the. All the normal places.
- [57:42]
D
And then.
- [57:43]
A
Yeah.
- [57:44]
C
Awesome. And then@empower journey.com they will be able to figure out how to get started and kicked off.
- [57:50]
A
Yeah. And there's some. There's information there. But I would just say if you want to reach out to us, my email is an empoweredjourney.com and happy to chat with anyone who's curious, wants to learn more. Um, whether you want to do the workshops with us or if you just want some pointers, then I can point you in the right direction of how to get started on your own. Happy to chat with anybody that's interested.
- [58:12]
C
Awesome. I see. I have another question. I. I'm gonna have to stop, but I. I want. I. I gotta know this. Is there also some sort of, like, platform software, something that, like, helps you like a 90 for mpower?
- [58:26]
D
We're working on it. We are working really hard on it.
- [58:28]
C
I love it. I love it. Yeah. Okay. And thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate the time. And also, sorry about holding you, holding you hostage for an extra minute.
- [58:38]
D
No, you're good.
- [58:39]
A
I. I had so much fun chatting.
- [58:40]
D
With you, and I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
- [58:42]
C
Yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna get this one on the books. Okay. That sounds good. I love it. Awesome. Thank you so much. All right.
- [58:48]
D
Thanks, Ryan.