Maximize Your Potential: Why The Power of Collaboration in Business Is So Powerful | #120

Summary

Podcast Summary: On The Homefront with Jeff Dudan Episode: Maximize Your Potential: Why The Power of Collaboration in Business Is So Powerful | #120
Release Date: October 31, 2024
Host: Jeff Dudan
Guest: Chad Jenkins, CEO of SeedSpark Growth Services

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Introduction

In Episode #120 of On The Homefront with Jeff Dudan, host Jeff Dudan welcomes longtime friend and esteemed entrepreneur Chad Jenkins. Chad, the CEO of SeedSpark Growth Services—which encompasses the Growth Academy, Growth Symposium, and the global Growth Partners network—shares his extensive insights on maximizing potential through collaboration in business. The conversation delves deep into Chad’s entrepreneurial journey, the critical role of identifying and managing friction, and the transformative power of strategic collaborations.

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Chad Jenkins’ Background and Early Entrepreneurship

Chad Jenkins opens up about his rural upbringing on a farm, highlighting how his early experiences shaped his entrepreneurial spirit. Growing up in Pageland, often referred to as the "watermelon capital," Chad developed a keen sense of value creation from a young age.

At [02:48], Chad recounts,
"I began to see how value creation, from just looking at the opportunity that exists between two or more people, places, and things would pay pretty well. I've been doing the same thing through, I don't know, 50 different industries and businesses since that time."

His first foray into entrepreneurship involved horse sales, where he exchanged horses between buyers and sellers, laying the groundwork for his lifelong passion for connecting disparate elements to create value.

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Understanding and Managing Friction in Business

A central theme of the episode is the concept of "friction" in business. Chad introduces this idea as obstacles or inefficiencies that hinder growth and value creation. His forthcoming book, "Friction Fuel," elaborates on this concept, categorizing friction into three types:

1. Regular Friction: Immediate, reactive issues like dwindling pipelines or increased attrition.
2. Plus Friction: Medium-grade challenges that present opportunities for innovation and competitive advantage.
3. Premium Friction: Forecasted obstacles that, when addressed proactively, position a business as the sole provider of solutions in the market.

At [10:18], Jeff asks,
"Do these entrepreneurs know it? Do they know it? Can they see it? Or when you uncover it, is it like you just found the Holy Grail?"

Chad responds affirmatively, emphasizing that while businesses are often aware of internal frictions, they may overlook the frictions experienced by their customers—a critical insight for sustained growth.

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The Power of Collaboration: Concepts and Applications

Chad defines collaboration as the unique value created through the combination of two or more people, places, or things. He underscores that significant achievements in business and personal endeavors typically result from such collaborations.

At [31:30], Chad illustrates this with a practical example:
"If I collaborate with someone whose clients often transition to my business, we can create joint offerings that enhance value for both parties and our mutual clients."

He elaborates on a methodical approach to collaboration, encouraging entrepreneurs to:

• Identify commonalities among their customer base.
• Engage potential partners whose services complement their own.
• Create named collaborations to streamline marketing and reduce competition.

Chad introduces the term "tribal luminescence" to describe the transformation of friction into light—turning identified frictions into opportunities for innovative solutions.

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Growth Partners: A Global Entrepreneurial Collaboration

Chad's Growth Partners program is a cornerstone of SeedSpark Growth Services. This global network fosters entrepreneurial collaboration without the pressures of traditional selling. Members subscribe for $1,000 a month, committing to provide valuable consulting services within the community. In return, the program ensures mutual growth through shared expertise and collaborative projects.

At [43:30], Chad explains,
"Growth Partners is about creating a global entrepreneurial collaboration where members communicate with like-minded individuals, share concepts, and defy industry conventions together."

The program operates on a revenue-sharing model, where 99% of growth remains with the entrepreneur and 1% supports SeedSpark and the community. This structure promotes trust, authenticity, and long-term relationships among members.

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Personal Productivity and Optimization

The discussion shifts to personal productivity, where both Jeff and Chad share their routines and strategies. Chad emphasizes the importance of defining and leveraging one's unique ability—the specific strengths that drive value creation.

At [55:42], Jeff highlights Chad’s efficiency:
"We spend time in the morning where Chad is fully present and productive, capturing ideas quickly through his Apple Notes setup."

Chad details his morning regimen, waking up between 3:00 and 3:30 AM to maximize his productive hours. He utilizes simple tools like text replacement on his iPhone to streamline idea capture and implementation.

At [55:57], Chad shares a key philosophy,
"Simplify to multiply. By simplifying processes, I can multiply the value and outcomes of my efforts."

This approach allows him to remain focused, reduce distractions, and maintain a high level of productivity throughout his day.

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Future Endeavors and Impact

Looking ahead, Chad discusses his passion for entrepreneurial education and investing in future entrepreneurs. Through SeedSpark Infinitus, a nonprofit initiative, Chad aims to provide entrepreneurial curriculum to children and support the next generation of business leaders.

At [50:13], he reveals,
"SeedSpark Infinitus is about perpetuating entrepreneurial growth by collaborating with educational platforms to distribute entrepreneur-focused curriculum globally."

Chad also touches on his commitment to personal development and community building, ensuring that SeedSpark continues to evolve and support its members effectively.

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Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts

The episode culminates with Chad’s inspiring message:
"Better is infinite. Stay curious." [72:46]

Chad urges entrepreneurs to maintain a relentless curiosity and pursue continuous improvement. By identifying and resolving frictions, leveraging collaborations, and optimizing personal productivity, business leaders can significantly amplify their growth and impact.

Jeff concludes by acknowledging Chad’s invaluable contributions and solidifying the importance of collaborative growth in today’s dynamic business landscape.

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Notable Quotes

• Chad Jenkins [02:48]:
  "I began to see how value creation, from just looking at the opportunity that exists between two or more people, places, and things would pay pretty well. I've been doing the same thing through, I don't know, 50 different industries and businesses since that time."

• Jeff Duden [07:51]:
  "[...] do these entrepreneurs know the friction or is it something that [...]"

• Chad Jenkins [72:46]:
  "Better is infinite. Stay curious."

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Conclusion

Episode #120 of On The Homefront with Jeff Dudan offers a profound exploration of Chad Jenkins’ strategies for maximizing potential through collaboration and friction management. Listeners gain valuable insights into building sustainable, scalable businesses by fostering meaningful partnerships and maintaining unwavering curiosity. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, Chad’s philosophies present actionable frameworks to elevate your business and personal growth.

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For more insights and to join the Growth Partners community, visit podcast.homefrontbrands.com.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everybody, welcome to the Homefront. This is Jeff Duden and I am here with Chad Jenkins. Chad and I have been friends for, I'm gonna say 25 years since you were furnishing my company with Nextel phones out of the back of a very nice, I think BMW or Mercedes SUV even back in the day. Chad is the CEO of SeedSpark Growth Services, which includes the Growth Academy and an event services company called the Growth Symposium. Great events and the global organization called Growth Partners, where he connects and scales entrepreneurs across the globe. Chad, welcome to the Homefront.

[B]

It's awesome to be here. Thanks. Good to see you again as well.

[A]

Always a pleasure. You've been a huge influence in my life from productivity and connections and you're just the consummate networker and you're always looking to give to people. So I'm excited to have you on today.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Now, we're not going to spend a lot of time in it, but you got a really great origin story where you grew up on a farm and really at 21 years old, worked your way into an ownership of a retail location with partnership with Purina. Correct. Share a little bit about how you grew up and maybe a couple of the antidotes from there, if you don't mind.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, sure enough. So way out in the country where I joke that time moves backwards and if you know me very well, that doesn't really align with the way my brain works.

[A]

It does not.

[B]

I spend a lot of time by myself and with horses, putting up fence, driving tractors to bush hog pastures and training horses as a young kid. But what that actually did for me is somewhere around the age of eight, I figured out at least within a rough order of magnitude what my father made. And of course at elementary school, everyone's dad makes more than everyone's dad. So that made me quite curious. When I figured it out, I did some reverse math back down to the hour. And to me it was a number that was attainable. So I added a zero to it. And at that very moment, fear and greed both struck me at the same time. How the heck am I ever going to do this and how am I going to get out of here? So the catalyst there of figuring that out also drove me to begin to look at things just a little bit differently. It is how I can connect. You mentioned earlier, it's because I see the value that's created when I connect two or more people, places and things. And it started there on the farm. So one thing very early on and kind of the first entree into entrepreneurialism is going to horse sales. And I figured out real early that people that wanted to sell horses and the people that wanted to buy horses would be a great match if a kid was riding this horse, making everyone think everyone could ride the horse. Which is not exactly true.

[A]

That is correct. That is not true.

[B]

But I traded it for between 10 and $20 per horse through their sale barn at every sale. And I was going to probably two or three a week at that time.

[A]

Okay, so you would. You'd have a buyer and a seller looking at a transaction. And I've done a good bit of horse trading myself. You show up and there's a test ride.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's like when you go to a car dealership, there's a test drive, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So. And depending on the skill of the rider, like, you always have to say, well, this person's a trainer, they rode the horse, they look great, but they're a horse trainer.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

You know, is my kid or wife gonna be able to ride this thing? So basically, you showed up as a very young person, a skilled horse person, and you jumped on and you did the test drive.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

For 20 bucks.

[B]

For 20 bucks, yeah. If I would have been on top of my game back then, I would have had some participation in the upside.

[A]

Yeah, you should have took a percentage.

[B]

But that's where I began to see how value creation, from just looking at the opportunity that exists between two or more people, places and things would pay pretty well. I've been doing the same thing just through, I don't know, 50 different industries and businesses since that time.

[A]

Now, fun fact, were you a barrel racer or a roper?

[B]

Team Roper.

[A]

Team roper, yeah. Okay, so you were. You. You were competing at the age of 18 as a team roper?

[B]

No, it was the year that I moved to high school. I lessened the horses that I traveled to, and I picked up team roping. And it's interesting. My top strength finder is my second top strength finder is competition. But I never really look at it that particular way because I'm not in competition with you. I'm in competition all the time with myself. But I really like this team roping thing because it did take a lot of skill. You remember I mentioned the collaboration a little earlier. I had to understand my horse's capabilities, my capabilities, the environmental conditions, what's this cow going to do, or the steer specifically. And then you have another guy and a horse all at the same time. So to do that in under four seconds is a lot of collaboration.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. So you, you grew up very rurally, but you had eyes outside of that where you grew up in Pageland, watermelon capital of the, of the country or the south?

[B]

Yeah, they'd say the world, of course.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Everybody has driven through there before.

[A]

Well, sure. It's right on the way to Myrtle Beach.

[B]

That's correct, yeah.

[A]

When I met you, you had a company called seedspark. You were a technology company. One of the things that you did was provided Nextel phones. You also created app. I've worked with you over the years on several projects building technology solutions for people, whether that be time tracking for large companies that were doing construction or similar things like that. But it always had a very technology based approach to it. So there's always a technology solution and then some sort of consultative thing that would basically improve people's businesses. How did you get from that to the things that you're doing today?

[B]

So joining Strategic Coach was definitely a catalyst to look at what my unique ability is. And they've coined that over the last, I don't know, 20 or 30 years. I would strongly suggest that for any entrepreneur is a great place to start. And then once I began to embrace how it was that I created value in the world through my unique ability, I coined unique value contribution. So I used to get chastised for having so many different companies one at any given time and as a total for the amount of age that I was. And I often would think backwards and say I'm really, I feel like I'm doing the same thing that I started doing somewhere around the age of eight. So understanding what my unique ability is and then evolving to understanding how I applied that unique ability to create value in the world, it become very became very evident that I have the ability to see exactly what I mentioned earlier. The value that's created through the combination of people, places and things. And it runs constantly. So now instead of the old me would recognize a friction in an industry because I had no formal training in any of the companies I've ever started, any of the industries I've ever been in. But it was all about value creation. So driven by curiosity to identify friction and one of my concepts is remove the film which is friction identification, then leverage the market. So once you identify a friction, which is pretty easy if you just listen, you can hear a lot of complaints throughout your day to day. Yes, spotting the trending in those to identify value could be created if you would resolve it and Then asking a few qualifying questions. If I resolve this, does it help one person? Does it help that same person in that position in companies this size, in that industry, or how many industries or how many people or how many companies, and then how big the state, this city, this country, this world? The old me would use to go create a business. And the new me doesn't do that. I find somebody who's already in the business. They already have a logo, a website. They've already picked which days off they're going to take out of the calendar year, all the things I'm really not good at doing, and I help them, and then we split the outcome.

[A]

Great. When you go in and you first evaluate a business or an entrepreneur, maybe they come to you through the Growth Partners program, which is expanding rapidly across the globe. I mean, I think you have companies in Dubai and all over the world now. Do these entrepreneurs know the friction or is it something that, like the frog in the warm water, they've just been in it so long and they've just built systems to tolerate it or systems to abate it, and now they've created habits, and that's just the way they always do it. And you walk in with a fresh set of eyes and saying, well, you're doing all of these things to accomplish this. But if you removed all of those steps, kind of like when Elon Musk, I think I use this analogy every podcast. Sorry, home fronters apologize. But, you know, he goes into Twitter and he says, anybody who's not touching the product.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Is relieved of that. You haven't lost your job. You know where it is. But like when you show up, it went, well, nobody's doing it right. So he let go of 80% of the people.

[B]

Yes, sir.

[A]

And then just said, okay, now all of the friction of programs and maybe censorship or all of these things that were, you know, that people thought were important had nothing to do with the production or the maintenance and the, you know, going. Concern of the website to keep it going. So you go in and I guess the question is, do these entrepreneurs know it? Do they know it? Can they see it? Or when you uncover it, is it like you just found. You found the Holy Grail?

[B]

Yes, yes. A value creation. So your thought process is spot on. Your question is the answer to your question is yes to a degree. So friction's in their business. I've now. Well, one of the new books, the new book that's about to come out is called Friction Fuel. It's the understanding that there's What I have now coined is three different types of friction. So it's just like you were to pull up to a gas station. They are very aware, these entrepreneurs today in commonality of the frictions applicable to scaling their business under the conventional wisdom of how to scale a business. What they are not as in tuned with, and there's a ton of commonality, are very consistent that we find here. They are not quite as in tune into the frictions that their hero targets or those they want their business to be a hero to are feeling.

[A]

Okay, so internally they tolerate it, they know it, but they are blissfully unaware of the friction that their customers are tolerating.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Within which to deal with them.

[B]

Correct. Yeah. So it makes them somewhat easy to displace.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I have a lot of experience doing that. Right. As I mentioned, I have no experience in any industry that I've ever been in.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Until I recognize the friction in a way to create value and validated there's a depth of market there. So identifying these particular frictions, the good thing is there's a system that I release in the book that empowers them to begin to be very aware of these frictions. I'll start with the most common one that every business is running on as a type of friction today. Specific to of course, the analogy of friction fuel. And that's regular. Just like you pull up to a gas station and fill your tank up with regular. For those of us who still drive gas powered cars, I still have quite a few in different companies, but regular fuel, your hair's on fire. You are reacting to something. The pipelines are drying up, your attrition's up or your closings are down. And those are things that you likely could have seen coming, you could have responded to. You actually could have grabbed whatever change in the market or change in your organization from your value proposition started happening a long time ago. Sure.

[A]

So friction in it creates entropy.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So when, when you were trying to leave the atmosphere and we're a rocket ship and if we do not have more energy than friction, we will start to get entropy and eventually fall back to earth. So friction unresolved over time is only can lead one place.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

And that is to negative growth.

[B]

That is correct. Yes, absolutely. So the plus frictions are mid grade depending on where you are in the country. When you pull up to that gas station, those are bountiful and those can actually be harnessed for unlimited innovation. If you have a mechanism that's going to spot trends that if Once harnessed, of course, once embraced, you bring that to your leadership team and figure out how you can leverage it to create value. So those, any organization has plenty of them, they're oftentimes delivered as what we'd all call complaints and they're unlimited, right? Yeah. And then the next one, which is the most sexy one for me is premium. That's whenever you can forecast into the future frictions that go on, be applicable to those that you serve. And when I say those you serve, and I referenced hero targets earlier, I mean all hero targets of a business. So every business as a default has at least three your team, those you serving clients, and then your vendors or suppliers. So ensuring that you have a mechanism to properly capture that through every one of your endpoints. So your entire team, all your clients, and also all your vendors and suppliers, those that support your business, those are the ones that if you would provide them with a mechanism, will politely give you those complaints.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And provide you with the ability to turn that friction into light. You mentioned earlier. Friction and leaving the atmosphere. One very long word that I reference a lot is tribal luminescence, which is exactly when light, I'm sorry, friction changes into light. So that to me is when I mentioned premium friction is being able to see out on the horizon to any one of those hero target groups that are supporting your business and forecasting the frictions that they're going to be feeling and complaining to in the future, maybe three months, six months, or even a year out if you harness those as an entrepreneur leader and your leadership team and begin to build value creation services and products, whenever this friction that your hero targets begin to feel becomes something that they're complaining about, you're the only game in town. I've experienced that quite a few times.

[A]

Well, and if you think back to our own experiences, how many times have we been using a particular accounting software? And maybe you're multi location. So all of the basic out of the box, single location, easy softwares, now they have constraints.

[B]

Oh yes, of course.

[A]

Right. And. Or maybe you're trying to roll up a bunch of financials and it's not easily done between disparate organizations. So now here comes a friction reducer, which is a piece of middleware that says, yeah, you guys do this. This is the friction that you're having. Here's the solution for it. And it's like, oh, how much is it? Oh my gosh, everybody, you buy it the first day.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Because you've just eliminated 200 hours of pivot. Tables and all of that.

[B]

The land of Excel.

[A]

And now it's press a button. So. And you wonder like how you know. I think it's very insightful that you need to be thinking about future frictions that don't exist yet all the time.

[B]

Yes. It's like a train that's coming towards you. If you're looking out there on the horizon, you can see just that little bit of light. And I mentioned tribal luminescence earlier.

[A]

Yeah. And if I look that up.

[B]

Yes. It'll be very easy. It's going to be the longest word in the dictionary.

[A]

Is it a word?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. It's tribal luminescence. Yeah, I can almost spell it pretty well.

[A]

Okay. The tribal luminescence fact check on tribal luminescence, please.

[B]

Yes, absolutely.

[A]

I just want you to have credibility here.

[B]

Yeah, I appreciate that. Friction changing into light is like seeing that train coming down the track. You're standing on the track and you can see that light. You don't have to move yet.

[A]

Right.

[B]

No real reason to be concerned yet. But if you don't, the light gets a little closer. Remember I mentioned mid grade or plus frictions? Now I can see the light. I don't have time to build new tracks and divert this train. I could go ahead and get off these tracks. I could potentially do a couple other things to mitigate this potential risk. But if I don't react to those complaints in your business, harness them. Understand the trends of them, began to build value creation opportunities to mitigate those frictions. Then the lights directly in front of your face. You have one option. You will get off the track.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Everybody's business has been in the ditch. You're running too much on regular friction fuel.

[A]

Right, Right. Well, that's. Brent, when does friction fuel come out?

[B]

A couple weeks now. First of October, actually.

[A]

Okay, well, congratulations. Thank you for reading it. And of course, just out of zero, Was this your first book?

[B]

That was. Yes, that was the first book.

[A]

Okay, so just add a zero. Great read. You can see how much it's worn out and it's highlighted. I read it sitting on my beach there and I sent you a picture of it and told you how much I was enjoying it. So the J, A, A Z, just add a zero.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, explain to people exactly what you mean by that. I know that you said, hey, the concept is relatively simple. However, you're thinking about it at face value, just add another zero. So it's kind of similar to a 10x is easier than 2x concept. But I think thinking at scale for me, people ask me, okay, you started Homefront Brands. My wife asked me last night. I said, well, these are all the things that I'm going to have to, I'm going to be doing. So this is my travel. And it's like. And she said, well, why are you adding another brand right now? You started with five.

[B]

Yeah. You have plenty.

[A]

We have friction.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

We have lots of friction in different areas that we're managing too.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And now she's like, well, why don't you work on the ones that you have and not roll the other one out? And the reality of it is it's not really about the additional load of another brand because we really will hire leadership. There'll be a president, there'll be the marketing people. It's just another room in the inn. And that brand is going to have less friction than the other five did based on the fact that it's going to be working on the now current platform systems. The organization is now a couple years old. We have our cadence and all of these types of things, but not thinking at scale, it causes you to think too small and it causes you to miss opportunities. And two of the great questions that I challenge our owners to ask, One is if you had to do twice as much in half the time, gun to your head, you could do it.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So why, why are you not.

[B]

Why don't we start today?

[A]

Why don't we start today doing twice as much in half the time? That's correct. And you know, and then the other one is, if we weren't doing this, if we were gonna. If we weren't doing this today and we were gonna start, would we do it the same way again? And the answer, you know, when you do a regression analysis from outcomes to today, it's almost always never. We would always do it differently based on what we. What we know today.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So anything else in the book that you care to bring out? The film concept, the just out of zero concept?

[B]

Yeah, the remove the film concept, of course we talked a little bit about. It is so paramount to be just unlimited innovation. Create competitive advantages almost on a daily basis. If you embrace the strategy, the just out of zero after you identify those frictions and of course leverage the market on. If I do create this solution, how big of a splash can I make? Is it a whole other business? Is this just another business service or is it just a competitive advantage to what I existingly do? Making sure that you approach it the right way. I love what you're Saying about adding another brand. It's not about adding another brand and negating the friction that we have now. It's actually embracing the friction so that we can add another brand and the next one will go even more and more smooth.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Using the just out of zero. It's really a catalyst to make you think differently. It's a catalyst to make you actually begin to get closer, to reach the full potential that you have. All these examples that you gave in each one of those scenarios that you provided, the person that you're talking to had the capability. We're just not asking the right question. So when at 8 years old and I figured out this rough order of magnitude and I said, well that's not so bad, I'm going to add a zero to it.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then I rolled it out to the annual amount and that freaked me out. And that very second it made me start thinking differently. And that's the only reason that I sit here today is because I look at things a little bit differently.

[A]

Well, the proof is that many times, not all the time, but most often when private equity buys out a founder entrepreneur that's been running their business for 20 years and they've had incremental growth, it scales like crazy because they come in and they say, well if I wasn't like, what do I need to do? What do we need to stop doing? What do we need to add? Servpro. Great competitor, great. Maybe 50 years, family owned business. And I watched them as I was building Advantaclean, I watched them every year I'd pull their documents and I think there were maybe 400 million when I started looking at them. And then I think when they sold, I don't know the exact numbers but they were north of a billion dollars.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Maybe four years ago. Well, there's $6 billion today.

[B]

Six billion.

[A]

So it took them 50 years to go to a billion and four years to go to six.

[B]

There you exact that.

[A]

And it was basically somebody said, we can take this company and we can reduce these frictions, we can create these collaborations, which is where we're going next. And it's one plus one equals five.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Like you say in your book. So there are many people listening right now who have a business. They've got a painting business, they've got a plumbing business, they're an insurance agent, you know, and they, and they have their business and it's a great business. And maybe it's a lifestyle business, maybe it's scaled beyond that. But they're they're slogging up that hill of growth and they're in it. We're going to talk now about collaborations and I can only imagine that somebody that is single, business focused is going to hear what we're going to talk about here now in collaborations and their eyes are going to start rolling back in their head and potentially, you know, they're going to need to get water.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, but I think the way that you describe collaboration, I think gives people real opportunity to use collaboration in the way that you, that you recommend. And if you want to learn more about it, you come to growth symposium or you come to one of your events, or you go to your website and you get into the lab or do you provide this for people? Yes, but can we walk through your view on collaboration and share with us how you came to this, how this.

[B]

Evolved, this realization, really? Sure. I define collaboration as the unique value that is created through the combination two or more people, places or things. The realization that I spoke of is I've never, and I would dare say everyone listening, I've never done anything of any forward momentum in business or personal, even physical that didn't require a combination of me plus something else to create a bigger outcome. So even driving here today, me plus car plus road got me here. In business, it's the same thing. If they would turn around and look backwards, everyone who's listening, they likely started out with the awareness of a friction in an industry. They felt that they could do a better job. Maybe they did figure out a better mousetrap where they could create more value. And then they took a leap. They didn't have a lot of cash, most of them, they didn't take seed funding or different rounds. And so they began to look left and right to all their friends and family and figured out that if they could be in collaboration with them, they would actually be able to create the outcome that they sought to create. So all entrepreneurs, as I track backwards and talk to folks all over the world, and when I say folks, I mean specifically entrepreneurs, about the only group that I engage with, every one of those started leveraging the art of collaboration to create their business. The sad thing is they began to get blinders when they start making money.

[A]

Why is that?

[B]

It becomes more. Somebody tells them about best practices, they're getting a little size, they go to these industry related groups and it's all about what the best practices are. Well, we kind of know what best practices are. When you really peel back the onion, they're average.

[A]

It's the medium, it's the average. Yeah. This is what most people do. Yes, this is.

[B]

I'm a hard pass.

[A]

Yeah. And it's like the health stuff that we get. I know that we use some of the same concierge medicine people and they're like, well, yeah, you're in the range for average sick people. But if you want to be optimized, that's different.

[B]

We need to add a zero.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Makes them think differently. Even the doctors that we deal with and we deal with wonderful ones around the world. But even we can all become complacent because we are being fed so much information specifically to the industry. So if you're intentional and you're really passionate about what you do, you're going to read. I would encourage you to read horizontally, not just vertically. Vertically, of course, would be more applicable to in your industry. And do not be enamored with the sign on the building or the title in your email. So leveraging collaboration and awareness that you started out that particular way, but then entrepreneurial vision I would argue is very horizontal, like very wide. When you very first start, what do.

[A]

You mean by that?

[B]

You're looking for ways to create value any way that you can. How many times have you heard someone starting out and they said, when we first started out, we did anything for anybody and it wasn't really good, but we did make money and we got to the place where we began to figure out, and I'll use some of my own language, the way we create value under this name or this sic code, right. If you're a plumber and I'm a plumber, we don't do it. We do not do it the same way.

[A]

Right.

[B]

100% true. We do not do it the same way. But yet we need plumbing and the outcome is the water in the pipes run and they're in the wall and they don't leak. That is true. But the unique way that you apply your to your craft, your ability, that in itself is your unique value contribution. So they start out like this, but then they start making money.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And then that vision starts going like this. And then before too long, it's about scaling inside of the industry that we're in. We just got back from the show and everybody's using ABC platform of software that I just about name, but I will not do that. But you see a lot of commonality of all the flaw going in one particular direction because it's best practices and they already integrate with this and do this. That's great. That's wonderful. How the heck does it provide more value to those that you serve? Because if I get this right, more of those people being in love with your business creates more value for you, and you can invest that to do exactly that. Again, they don't do that. And a lot of times they'll reference because of budget. Like, we can't grow because of budget. Like, okay, but we're the entrepreneurs. Yes. We're also supposed to be the visionaries. Yes. Great. So for the business that you're in, can you close your eyes if you have to and look into the future and imagine how much better you could be as an organization and as value creation for those that you serve? And the answer is yes, most of the time you may have to ask a couple other qualifying questions, but they can get out there. So if you can envision that and then you can go to that particular place and understand that that outcome that you now have vision for has winners, not just you, not just your hero target. Maybe you print stuff. Maybe you have digital marketing to create leads. Maybe you go into different cities and you have events. When you have events, maybe you go to restaurants. You can now begin to see. If I were to just add a zero to anyone, this listing's business pretty quickly. We're going to be able to. Even if they don't have big vision, they'll be able to understand who's going to have a positive outcome and who's going to win. Whenever you get there, why don't you engage with them today, not wait until you get there and start bringing that reality of this big vision that you have much closer through leveraging the art of collaboration.

[A]

And I think that's a key point, is that most people think in a series.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

First today, and then when we get here, then we're going to do this and when we're going to do that. When I have a problem with an executive like, you know what, it's always right, well, the people that got you here, the tools that got you here, are not going to be the ones to get you there. So, you know, if I was building one brand and, you know, many of these things would be okay because they're getting kind of done in a series.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

When you're. When you have a matrix of multiple brands, they have different customer avatars, so there's different thinking that needs. Even though they look similar, you can't paint them with a broad brush.

[B]

Not at all.

[A]

You have to go deeper. The marketing is slightly different for each one. There's Seasonality to this one. This one's a recurring model. This is a big ticket, one time deal. You get underneath it and you see that they're more dissimilar than they are similar. And you can't, and if that's the case, you can't just say, well, we're going to do this here and then we're going to try the same play there and see if it works. Because everything that you need to really be doing today is not getting done because you're just waiting to see the outcome here. It really takes expansive thinking and it's rare. It's really rare. I mean, you say, why are some of the great business builders so great? I mean, do they really deserve to have the hundreds of billions of dollars or the 10? The answer is yeah, they probably. Because they're that rare.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

And they're able to think and some people got walked into it. I mean there's some market timing and opportunity and the group you got together and maybe you had expertise in this particular technology and it's exactly what's needed. I know that there's, you know, some startups going on right now that are involved, the founders of things like Uber and some of these other companies. And it's, you know, you can see that they're running the same play in a different industry.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And it's like, well, it's, it's going to be, it's, it's going to be, you know, it's like, well, I can see how if we Uber fied this business that it would be greatly improved and I'm very confident that they're gonna win inside of that space. But you know, getting back to this concept of collaboration and trying to like make it real simple. So if I'm again one of these painters, one of these plumbers and I want to start a collaboration or like, can you give me some real world examples of collaborations and how you look at what happens? You know, you've said to me, you take a transaction and you look at what happens before and what look happens after. Yeah, the bidirectional and you look bi directional. Talk us through that concept.

[B]

This one and I, it's very reachable, at least for me and my understanding of it is very reachable. So anyone that you're serving today in the business that you're in, fill in the blank with your industry. If you would consider that you own a mailbox, here's your house. Mailbox is here. Okay, there's a road in front of you. Call it customer lane and the customers that you love to serve, they walk down this road every day. Sometimes they stop at your mailbox. There's a commonality in those clients or customers in where they came from. And if you really focus on them, not specifically on your widget that you're trying to push, but where did they come from? It becomes all about them. Because it always really is if you really want to win. But finding the commonality of where your clients come from, what businesses or business are they engaged with before? That's an immediate collaboration opportunity under the age old rule which luckily for me, even though some people say I'm very complex, it feels like I'm extremely simple. And I like simple rules. Make it easy for your client to do business with you. So if I collaborate with who I find commonality that my clients are coming from as a business, it's a service and I engage with them and say, you know, I got this crazy idea, let's consider collaboration. And they're going to look at us with two to four eyes in our head. But if they'll continue listening and you state, hey, I recognize a lot of folks that end up at my mailbox or at my business, they come from a business just like yours. Sometimes they come from your business. Let's. What would it be a crazy, would it be a crazy idea if we would give a name to the combination of your service and my service? You could put it on your website. I could put it on my website. And if it's true that clients that we're looking for, remember I said hero targets earlier, they also come from businesses like his and they come to businesses like mine, then if we give them something to ask for, that is a combination of both of our products and services. I have now just doubled my sales team. He did too. I've now extended my marketing dollar twice as far. He did too. Or maybe I could shove it down, share it down, shave it down, I should say our cost of goods, of delivering that if you consider all your acquisition cost, these clients just became more profitable. I don't have to trade money with this guy whatsoever with whoever owns this business. Collaboration is you. Be you. I'm going to be me. We're going to combine you plus me. Create something new. Remember the definition unique value created through the combination of two or more people, places and things. Who wins?

[A]

Everybody.

[B]

Yeah, everybody wins.

[A]

Everybody wins.

[B]

So when I mentioned this customer client lane, they're coming from the right, they're going to the left. Whenever I deliver my product or service or Whatever organization I own, and they have a wonderful experience. They go to this guy. So not only could I create a collaboration to my right just to get started, I could create a collaboration to my left. I could then create a collaboration with who's on my right and my left. And why would I stop there? Oh, because it's not the convention. Right. So I suppose to spend a little bit more on marketing, have a better playbook, we're going to make some more guarantees and we're going to do it really well. Why? Because they told me this at the industry show, at the annual show with the association. It's like, get out of here with that noise. It's all about the hero target. If you look at how can we leverage to make their life easier, to make it easier for them to do business with us, we're going to win, but not only we're going to win, everybody's going to win in the transaction.

[A]

Well, and it's about winning a little bit more than everybody else. If you want to. If you want to have compound growth, you've got to win a little bit more than everybody else. That incremental win that you have over the 5 or 7% increase that everybody else is getting, if you grow 12 or 15 or 20, that's compound interest on your future. And if you have best, if everybody's looking at best practices and that's mediocre, then you're going to get mediocre results.

[B]

True.

[A]

You know, regular results, not premium results.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You mentioned 5 to 7 growth year over year.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

When I add a zero.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When you add that zero, it forces you. As I mentioned, it's a catalyst to think differently.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

You must engage in collaborations.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Unless you're just Daddy Warbanks with a lot of cash and you're just gonna throw money at it and hope it works out.

[A]

Well, then you need to get out of the game.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, like at that point, save your money.

[B]

Yes. Save your money.

[A]

Have somebody else invested.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And, you know, if you're not going to. If you're not going to be involved, then, you know, don't get involved.

[B]

Don't get involved. Leveraging collaboration for exponential growth, though, is a proven strategy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We started from zero and you got to the first hundred thousand or the first million or depending on what you sell, it could be more. Of course, you. I promise, if you look backwards, you did leverage collaboration in the very beginning, 100%. But you begin to stop. So you might consider focusing on those frictions for the hero targets, when you figure out the friction that you can now leverage just out of zero to make yourself think better, bigger, and leverage collaboration to make it become a reality much, much faster than anybody out there in your competitor.

[A]

The example that comes to mind is maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I noticed the first fast food QSR restaurant embedded into a gas station. Okay. So now let's think about the frictions. I'm on a road trip. Tesla doesn't exist. So I'm stopping at one of these gas stations. I've got a family or just myself, But a couple of things need to happen. I got to put liquids in my car. I got to take liquids out of myself. Okay. And then I need to eat something. Got to eat something. I got to fuel myself. I got to fuel the car. I have to use the bathroom.

[B]

And because of these dogs, we're running late. So hurry. That's what I hear from the car.

[A]

Yeah. And so here's what you do. All right, let's try to find a gas station that's got our favorite QSR next door.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I'm going to leave you to put the gas in the car. I'm going to walk across the parking lot. I'm going to buy the food while you're getting the gas, and it's going to be faster. Right. So what do they do? They're like, well, this is friction. People are going to that gas station on the other side of the interstate because they have better fast food options over there. People pick when you get off an interstate. I don't pick by the gas station. I'm agnostic. I could care less where I get my gas, but I care a lot about where I get my food.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So the food decision is driving the fuel decision. All right, so now. Okay, well, then let's smash those together. So it's all in one stop and it's going to bring people in. And then now, as electric cars come out, they are collaborating with the electric, with the charging stations to put the charging stations. Usually you will find a charging station. It's connected to a significant gas station.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And then. Which also has, you know, all the rolled meats that you want.

[B]

Yes, that's right.

[A]

All the rolled meats and Oreos. And it has some of those red eggs.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, everything your family needs.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just healthy, happy, happy trip.

[B]

Some chemical compounds.

[A]

Some chemical compounds. Nitrates. It's not even on food. It's just packaged nitrates you can get.

[B]

Now, this is true.

[A]

Which is great. So, like, that's a clear collaboration.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

But I mean, I think, you know, we have something called a 90 day sprint and it's when you introduce yourself to a marketplace, who are the 100 to 200 people that you need to go through that are clearly collaboration partners for you? We should actually call it the collaboration manual so you can sue me, but it's our 90 day sprint and it's a referral business development generation plan. Who are the nine communities of people that you need to collaborate with? What's in it for them? What's the message? What's the approach? And if there's an offer, what's the offer? And it's not about referral fees, it's always about collaboration. Because when you monetize a relationship, it tends to have a shorter duration because the next person that comes and pays them more versus a mutual referral relationship which is based on us helping each other win in our prospective businesses. They tend to be very durable in our experience. So then you go out to these nine communities and we did it. Model it after P90X, we give them, we give a, you know, it's like 12 weeks. You get a recovery week at the end of the month. You know, Friday, you have Friday off so that it can be follow up Friday, that's where you golf or have lunch or whatever it is. So it's, it's a very detailed plan.

[B]

That'S awesome that you go through.

[A]

But it's really all about creating collaborations with the people that you know, it makes sense to collaborate.

[B]

Absolutely. You go so much faster.

[A]

Yeah. 100%.

[B]

One consideration in your collaborations. I would politely suggest you at least consider in collaborations. When I deal with many entrepreneurs around the world, they will. Oh, we just created one. Great. What's its name?

[A]

Name the baby.

[B]

You have to name the baby. If either one of us had a baby and we didn't name it, I'm not sure which one it would be. We would never do that at home. But people do it in their business all the time. So I'd strongly suggest just consider naming as an art form to enable those. It just makes it easier for them to do business with you, specifically to your hero target. But in the collaboration, when I mentioned client lane and who is to my right, I enter a collaboration with. If I don't name it, I'm really, really hoping that he or she can go back to their sales team and rattle off 10 or 12 different bullet points and they kind of get it. The second that I name it, I just wiped out the competition. The second That I name it. I empowered him to go back him or her to go back to their team and say, we have a new product or service. We created a collaboration called the. We're going to be launching it on our website. Remember, one landing page serves for him, for me and for her. It's one landing page. Now you've enabled and empowered your client hero target to ask for it by name. When they do that, you're kind of spec'd into the deal. Everybody who does municipal bids understands that it's really awesome. Whenever you're spec'd into that rfp, this is a clear way you can do it in private business. By leveraging first collaboration and the art of naming, you just wipe out the competition.

[A]

From the word go, you've evolved from a single business to multiple businesses to a now to a, you know, I'm not going to start the business, I'm going to collaborate and I'm going to create partnerships and we're going to all win together. So you've evolved really through the stages to now a different kind of business builder and a business leader and a value creator and a growth enabler, which has led to the growth symposium events, which is really connected to your growth partners concept.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Can you talk about your growth partners concept? Because it's fascinating and I'm not sure how deep you want to go into it, but whatever you want to do is fine. But I think what people really need to know is that if they have a business of any size, 10, 20, $50 million, $100 million, that you have a program that you will create value and you will reduce friction and create value inside of their businesses. Really for nothing other than the impact. And it's a great program and I'd love for you to speak about it.

[B]

Sure, sure. So where did it all begin is the awareness of what I got chastised for is constantly evolving and creating net new value in all these different industries and starting companies. So I realized that I could just help others and I could go much, much faster. And then I wanted to combine some other awarenesses into this model. And it was one clear awareness that high performing entrepreneurs are typically on an island. Right?

[A]

That's right.

[B]

You don't want to take me to the local neighborhood party or social event. This is hard for me to speak with just normal folks who are working in the corporate life and I assume most entrepreneurs are the same. So with that consideration though, I also did some research in what I call third mind innovation and that led me down a path to understanding that Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie and Thomas Edison would get together. And they projected that outside of themselves, when they would all get to talking in one particular direction around one particular theme, they felt like they were beginning to and had the ability to tap into the universe's wisdom and creativity. They didn't really feel like it was coming from them, but yet coming through them. Okay, well, that's very interesting because I know I can get there when I communicate with certain entrepreneurs around the world. This is before I began Growth Partners. So I wrapped all that up into a model. And I'm a huge proponent out of defining the current margins in whatever industry there is, because I've never really had to conform to that, not with this type of thinking. So continue just packing it in. So I developed SeedSpark Growth Partners. And what that is, is it is becoming a global entrepreneurial collaboration where you are able to communicate with folks that think just like you do. Of course, I'm sharing concepts that I come up with almost on a daily basis. Once I chisel them and go through a couple iterations, we talked about a couple of them today, and they serve as a catalyst to help and empower them to think differently and to defy the conventions of their industry. But they're not alone. So the model that I created, there's a subscription of $1,000 a month so that we can have a growth guarantee for whatever reason, because inside of the community, there's no selling at all. You are required to give your best consulting away for free. Now, if you've ever done that, and I would say most entrepreneurs are doing it on a daily basis. They just have not yet figured out a way to monetize it whenever you give your.

[A]

That is true. I give away every day millions of millions and millions of dollars of free consulting every year. Because people just ask me.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I love to hear myself talk.

[B]

Yes, very true. So understanding. Again, just another fact, another friction, you might say. I wanted to wrap that in. So if they're already doing this and inside of my model, they're required to do it. But the logic is 99.997% can't go implement. So inside of Growth Partners, as you give that consulting away for free, and if they were able to go and implement giddyup, that's awesome. If they're unable to, and you've been super transparent because you were not there to sell them something, they come back and ask you if you'll help them with that. Sure, all bets are off. You're welcome to do business with them. And that's totally fine.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But when you think of the model that I've created, it's not that they're giving away their best consulting for free, because one, as we mentioned, it likely results in business, but it's on that level of authenticity and trust that you're building a foundation with those that you're serving that will equal a very wonderful outcome. But in the model, we split the outcome of the impact of those collaborations for growth at 99,1. So 99% stays a bit of growth. It is all based upon growth, stays with the entrepreneur. 1% is then paid back to seed spark and then 70% of that I distribute back to the community. So let's say that trust attorney from in Florida gives the best consulting a way of how to set up all these different trusts. And it turns out that whoever they use in their local market can't do that and he ends up helping them. He still did not give that original consulting way for free because portion of that growth that actually impacted that organization goes to Seed Spark and then gets distributed, comes back. Here's the requirement. Your focus must be on growth or will politely give you your money back. This is not conventional. You're here to help and collaborate and to use what I would argue is your unique value contribution.

[A]

Right.

[B]

To help everyone in the community.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I think that's one reason that's growing quite rapidly.

[A]

Yeah. And will there be for growth partners, annual events by country? How is that working? Because I know that you've been in Dubai and you've got growth partners popping up all over the place. So obviously we have the tools for people to collaborate over zoom or teams or whatever it is. But what is the vision for global type events?

[B]

Yeah, so we're starting to have country presidents in all of some of the markets that you mentioned. South Africa, Dubai, the uk, South America and quite a few others. Canada, of course. We will begin to have growth symposiums to bring them together in not a virtual environment in those locations driven by the country president starting in 2025.

[A]

And you have country presidents and you have growth coaches.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

So it's not just an app. You actually have people that are facilitating and working with the entrepreneurs to make sure that they get connected to the right people and the meetings happen, the insights are shared.

[B]

Yeah. So our coaches are actually known as growth architects and they are actually required to be a growth partner as well. So they've been there, they've done that, they're continuing to do that, but they're go givers if anyone's ever read the Go Giver book, that's kind of a prereq, as well as most entrepreneurs tend to be. And so I wanted to, most importantly, I wanted to make sure that whenever you think at this level, you get the right level of support. So the growth Architect engages with the growth partners that they're assigned to every other week. More. Most likely more, but as a default, every other week. So you're getting that support.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, what a great program.

[B]

Awesome. Thank you.

[A]

What are the, you know, take us into the future for you for seedspark for growth partners. What products and services are you comfortable sharing that you're going to be bringing, or what projects are you really, really excited about that's going to help, you know, be a catalyst to success and growth for all of these partners?

[B]

Yes. I mentioned 70% of every dollar that comes to Seed Spark.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

I distribute back to the community. One portion of that is 10% goes into seed Spark Infinitus.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So I would say most of us are paying a lot of money for the education of our children. I became aware of a friction in today's conventional education that it seems even my daughters are being massaged into corporate life.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so entrepreneur education is a big deal for me. And then also investing in tomorrow's entrepreneurs is a big deal for me. So we've created seedspark infinitus. As I mentioned, 10% goes into that particular nonprofit fund owned by all of the seedspark growth partners. And we're beginning to set up a perpetuation to entrepreneurial growth. Both, not just the organizations that we serve, but yet sponsorship organizations and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

[A]

Okay. And it's at its infancy right now, so, you know, as the fund continues to grow, you'll be able to do more things. But what types of things do you see?

[B]

Yeah. So I have two collaboration partners, one in the US and one in India, and they both have platforms where currently, at a minimum, in the US has 400,000 children and India's many. It's at a zero to that. They have technology platforms that are delivering course curriculum already to students. So we're collaborating with them to bring entrepreneur level curriculum that will be distributed by them on many different continents.

[A]

Wow. What a great. What a great program. You know, we're very passionate about children here. We build reading rooms in schools with the Carson Scholars foundation for people that just don't have the resources to get books and to create safe spaces inside of these schools, because that's all it. I mean, if we are not investing in tomorrow and entrepreneurship. You gave a very subtle nod to our current education system. That is, it's not focused on entrepreneurship at all. It's focused on a lot of different things today, none of which have to do with individual responsibility, going out and taking chances, learning, you know, understanding how to create businesses, helping other people by creating value. But, you know, so, like, these types of things, which, you know, I mean, a lot of us learned in athletics or like you did growing up, growing up on a farm and creating businesses and business opportunities inside of that. And so it's funny, but, you know, but on the other hand, I think, to be fair, I don't think side hustles have ever been more in fashion.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And franchising is growing at an accelerating rate. I mean, there are people at all phases of their journey with all different levels of resources, whether it could just be an influencer online or it could be somebody. I mean, my son created a business that was creating CAD designs for aftermarket parts for RC cars before those companies could do it. And he 3D printed them.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And he sold them on Etsy.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Which, I mean, that's a whole business. That's a whole business, you know, and I mean, it scaled. It scaled until my wife could no longer carry the amount of things to the. To the post office.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So there was. His limitations, was the size of the bin. My wife could get in the back of her car. But that being said, you know, he's. He was on to the next thing. So we have a great, great culture of young people right now that are up to something and going somewhere, that they're thirsty to learn and they want to make money. They do want to make money. We are more focused on money. I was listening to somebody, I forget who, some famous talking head. And it was Jerry Seinfeld, I think he said. And he said, you know, when did we get so focused on money? Well, it's coming from him. Yeah, nice. He's a billionaire. But, you know, he said, you know, we didn't used to worry about what everybody's dad made. We didn't used to worry about, like, how bigger people's houses were or what they drove as much when we were kids. I mean, it didn't, you know, somehow we've become very financially motivated. But then again, that is the engine that has built a great country.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

And capitalism is it. And we need to be. And that drives innovation and that drives growth. And so we gotta have it. So I love what you're Doing there.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Before we get out of here, I really want to talk to you about personal productivity.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

We go to lunch once in a while. Every month, Every other month. And we'll talk about something and then I'll be walking back to my car. And by the time I'm in my car from one of your three assistants, from your iPad, I'm getting all of the follow up items that we discussed five minutes previously. That's incredible. You know, So I want to talk a little bit about personal productivity for an executive or a business owner and some of the tips that you would care to share or some of the lessons that people need to really think about. Like if you're just doing it the old way, you know, I'm gonna work through my email, I'm gonna do that, you know, and you're just, you basically, you're letting other people dictate your life.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I'm, you know, if you're doing your email all day long, you're just letting other people. You're working for your email.

[B]

That's right. That's very expensive.

[A]

It's very, very expensive time. And I'll be with you for two days at an event and you'll be like, I mean, I'll say, how many emails did you look at? We were here and you'd be like three. And I'd be like, but I know you get thousands, so I want to talk a little bit about that. And then also maybe a little over to, you know, the health and fitness side. Anything you'd care to share there?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Just to optimize, because I consider you to be a very optimized entrepreneur, very efficient. You touch it. Once you've got a variety of different assistants that all have different focuses and goals, and it really allows you to be present in the moment and productive all the time.

[B]

Indeed, yes. Simplify to multiply. Okay, so this concept, the simplify multiply concept is from Dan Sullivan, strategic coach. And I absolutely struggled with it. I thought it was a big simplifier and I absolutely am, but it's only for the benefit of multiplication. So I simplify really, really fast because I can interpret the value created through being able to do that and result in multiplication. So I'll give just a couple of examples. One that everyone could have been doing for the last 20 years on their iPhone. An example is text replacement. How many still type their email address on their phone or iPad or computer? I'm sure there's a lot of hands that would have gone up since the beginning of the BlackBerry I stumbled across a long, long time ago that you could type in a couple series of letters and it would read out whatever you wanted it to. So there's forms that I use for thinking, many of them that I create, I make them text based so that if I'm, if I have an idea, which I'm no short of ideas, and I'm waiting to get on this plane and they've already called for group one, I can put a couple little key combinations in my Apple notes. It'll read out a form and by the time I sit down, I've created an idea. Everyone, the lion chair, I assume have an iPhone inside of your Apple Notes because I mentioned I use that you can create shared folders. Those shared folders are with some of those assistants and support partners that I engage with and my innovation manager. So by the time I've sat down on the plane, remember I was just waiting on them to scan my passport. I've executed an idea, I've aligned it all out with who's it going to be impacted by. I sat down on the plane that gave an alert back to my innovation manager which is pick on him. And now he has an alert fully dialed in on this new growth concept that I just discovered as I was trying to get on the plane. So that happens all day long, typically starting around 3 in the morning. That's just one little example to enable yourself to do this. Text replacement is for one, that you will anchor something in your brain to remember. Do it as your email address, so j@ which is not a key combination. You're going to type anytime other than most likely when you have to enter your email. Okay, so text replacement is under general and there's settings on iPhone under general and then keyboard. It's that simple. So you can go start with your email and then all the way out to forms that you use on a consistent basis and just get them to the people that need them quickly.

[A]

So it would be an Apple form. What kind of form?

[B]

Well, mine are all thinking tools as we talked about.

[A]

Yeah, but what is that created then?

[B]

Oh, it's created in Apple OS software under settings.

[A]

So then you have a unique, a combination of letters that you wouldn't appear in a word anywhere.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Unless you're Ukrainian and that's your last name.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

Or something. Exactly. And then you type in those three letters, up comes the form. It's a form fill. So it could be an impact filter from strategic code.

[B]

Absolutely. It's a great example or it could.

[A]

Be anything like that. And then you just type it right in there and then you just hit send. And now if you want to. Now somebody's. So you've saved, oh gosh, you've saved 15 minutes in creating it, opening, getting your iPad or your laptop up. And your innovation manager now has it and it probably gets saved in a place and series and you know, I would imagine it creates a time based ticket and you know, so it never gets lost.

[B]

Never gets lost? No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I leverage Apple Notes extensively with shared folders with entrepreneurs and even some folks at Strategic Coach all over the world.

[A]

Right.

[B]

When I have an idea, execute it quickly, put it there, they get an alert that there's something there. I can have asynchronous communication back with that end user or that particular collaboration partner. There's a much better way. And you just, you're moving very quickly. All I've done is simplified the process of opening my laptop, which I don't even have anymore, going and finding a form, file, save as put it. Where am I going to put it? Oh, where should I put it? I would never do that. And the average entrepreneur doesn't have that kind of time. And I know that that's a friction. So again, all of this stems back from. I recognize the friction. How can I solve it? How big of a solve is it when I do it? Should I turn that into a business today? The answer is no. I partner with people in collaboration, but even on a personal level, doing it that particular way just greatly. It definitely added a zero to the amount of time that I can utilize in implementing these crazy ideas and getting traction in them. Yeah, so that's how you produce a big outcome.

[A]

What's your relationship with books and how do you process them?

[B]

Yes, all of the above. So I get referred books on a daily basis and I greatly appreciate that. So if you know any good ones, please share them. I will grab it on Audible. I'm definitely going to get it on Kindle. And I like physical books because I understand that when you have a thousand books, you can say that you have a library. It's 1000. It's an interesting fun fact. So I definitely have a library. But the way that I consume books, I began to listen. Same thing with podcasts, but I use those Apple notes again. I do a book report and a podcast report because I'm most interested in what I get out of it. Not really what it's about. It's my responsibility to find the value of what I'm investing time In. And that's the way that I apply an approach to books as well. So I may listen to capture concepts really quickly. I'm going to read and do a book report at the same time. Those are as well shared in my Apple notes. And those folders of books, I think there's 156 of them now are shared with many people across the globe.

[A]

Okay. So if I'm thinking about the best way to do that now, you can't use an AI tool and say, give me a summary of this book. Because what would be missing was what you got out of it.

[B]

I gotta get inside the words.

[A]

But you could say, reference this book and create a summary of these points and talk about the. And you just. You list out the points that landed with you.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then you could use an AI tool to create the summary and the book report so that those are stilled out for you. And that's your book report. Or do you do that? Or do you actually write a book report?

[B]

I write a book report.

[A]

You write it with your fingers.

[B]

Yeah, actually.

[A]

Or voice.

[B]

With the time that I get up in the morning, which is kind of even Dan's concept of free focus buffer. I'm stubborn. You probably could pick up on that. I have to do it my way. True. So I wake up between 3 and 3:30. Naturally, from that time until the time I leave the gym about 7:45, that's my free time. And so sometimes in the morning when I'm sitting and very aware and present, I'll create a concept. Or I am consuming a book very early in the morning and I'm typing on my iPhone and I can type really quickly. It's so early in the morning. I don't want to have any noise. I don't have any lights in the bedroom. I only do candle light. And so I like it really, really quiet. So you.

[A]

Are you getting into flow state?

[B]

Absolutely, yeah.

[A]

I was. I was just with. I spent two days with Steven Kotler.

[B]

Oh yes, absolutely.

[A]

The author. You know, Mr. Flow State. Mr. Flow State, yeah.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

Gosh, man, I had such a good time. He is such a cool dude. He's. He is a very dude. So he gets up at 4 in the morning.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And he preloads what he's going to work on. No lights, no phone, no anything. The only thing he does is presses the button at the coffee pot, goes and takes a. Takes a leak.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then he sits down and for four hours only can see. He puts blinders around and what he's working on. That's when he writes.

[B]

Love it.

[A]

Yeah. So he's in flow.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And it's, you know, do the most important thing first. And now the rest of his day is, you know, various stages of in and out of flow, doing what he wants to do, all of that. But he wrote his thousand words.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And you know, and he's, his books are incredible and his insight is just amazing. He's really cool to boot.

[B]

That morning time, the investigation that I've had, I understand now that your melatonin is the highest between 3:30 and 4:30.

[A]

Oh really?

[B]

It's one reason that subconsciously I've definitely programmed myself to wake up between 3 and 3:30. But leveraging that time that your melatonin is that high, is that why you're so tan? It also. Yeah. There's a whole nother story about that. You're able to maintain and keep yourself in theta state, which means you're slightly hypnotic. I would argue with Stephen. I'm not sure how much of this is coming to us or coming through us. Remember the comment that I made at Third Mind Innovation?

[A]

Yeah. So what happens is, even if you look at your phone for a minute, it's going to take you right out of what, alpha and into beta.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

It's going to wake you completely up.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And it's the movement.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, so like when we see movement at the core of our being, there's only four things that we want to do. Right. We want to know, do we need to fight it, do we want to eat it, do we want to mate with it or do we want to run away from it?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Did I say that?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

No, no, no. Fight.

[A]

It was. Yeah. So that's the four things that we want to do. So you can, you think if you say, well, I'm going to, I'm going to unwind by watching television. You sit down, you watch television for two hours, constant movement. And if they, if you put your brain waves like your body is sitting there slumped on your couch. Right. But your brain is just going bananas because every time like it changes and it goes to commercial or something happens, like your, your brain's engaged with it. So if you really want to be. And I'm a morning person as well. I'm usually 4:30. Like, like this morning, it's actually 3:34. I was up.

[B]

Wonderful.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I just, I just pop up if I go to bed a little bit early. I'm going to be up in the three to four range. Usually, usually it's about 4:50. And you know, I do have an alarm set for about five.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So like. But that's my normal thing because I know that that is my. Well, I don't. I don't. I just get up and I am. I am at my very, very best.

[B]

Yes, sir.

[A]

Inside of that. And I can. And I can get into flow unless I get sloppy and I just, I start like, I just ruin it.

[B]

Yeah. Give the world your attention. Give the world that time in the morning. Other than the folks in Dubai, nobody really wants to talk to me, which is totally fine. And I can leverage that time to get to the level of awareness of these frictions and then ask myself a couple of questions that result in concepts like just out of zero or the friction operating system.

[A]

Yeah. I think, I think paying attention to that particular time of day, based on what we're talking about right now, I think it's going to be the biggest lift for me in going forward. And then 25, I just, I'm committed to it. I'd gotten, you know, and I know that you go to the gym.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

Yeah. And by the way, you said something to me that has created an ongoing conversation with my trainer.

[B]

No way.

[A]

Yeah. And it was this. You said, I lift, I move £40,000 a day.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So now, yeah, I'll be going through my workout and I'll see my trainer and he's on his phone and you know, at some point I'll be like, okay, that's £27,000 you just moved.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. But you know, he's not adding in my body weight.

[B]

No. Yes. You're getting cheated.

[A]

Yeah. Like I should have an extra £240 on every rep. On every rep. And I would get there faster.

[B]

That's hilarious.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. It's interesting. You know, putting anchors down means so much. And I know there's all this. I'm sure there's all this research and technical terms that I should use and I'm just not that educated. But I am aware and I focus on the way the human brain works and I try not to go against the grain. So you mentioned when I go to bed early, I get up early. That's awesome. Me too. So I would say pick your own time. So mine is 8:58. No matter where I'm in which time zone, sometimes I'll let it slide if I'm entertaining a lot of entrepreneurs. But My target is 858. Because. Why? Because I know if I'm 858. I get the amount of sleep that I need, the amount of rest, real rest, not so much. So much sleep. But then I'm going to naturally wake up between 3 and 3:30, make it yours.

[A]

You can't fight your biology. You have to go with it.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So whatever your circadian rhythm is. And some people are best from 9 to 12 in the morning and other people are best at night. And that was really his point is, like, you have to go with your natural circadian rhythm, and that's going to be your most productive time. And now it's just a matter of these 23 odd flow triggers that are going to put you curiosity. And all these things are going to put you into flow. And you can do more in four hours than you can in 40 hours of distracted work.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So, you know, it's about focus.

[B]

It's about focus, awareness, presence. And still, you know, and I mentioned growing up on that farm, I was like, how the heck am I gonna get out of here? I feel and I. Joke. Time moves backwards.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I spend four hours a day, including the time that once I'm at the gym, I spend about 30 minutes in a sauna and maybe five to 10 minutes in a steam before my skin feels like it's gonna fall off. That's another meditation time. It's presence and awareness. It's a lot like being back on that farm putting up barbed wire fence or riding through the woods on a horse with no other humans around. It's just me and it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was just very in my head all the time, so full circle. Pretty interesting.

[A]

Well, the ability to create some balance. Somebody said this last coach to me last week, they said, if you work with your mind, you relax with your hands. But if you work with your hands, relax with your mind.

[B]

That's interesting. Very much so. Yeah.

[A]

I thought that was good.

[B]

That was good. Very good. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So if you want to, you know, when I. When I really want to feel, other than sleep or meditation or anything, like, I did something this summer and it was crazy. It was. I hadn't done it in 15 years. We have a pasture at our. At our farm. It's about two and a half acres.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Needed to be mowed.

[B]

Yes, of course. Bush hogged.

[A]

Yeah. I went and rented one and I walked behind it.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. Okay.

[A]

And it was like six hours.

[B]

Yes, indeed it was.

[A]

Until I locked up. I literally locked up. But, like, I was. I was, you know, I was like, you know, because the guy up the street would come and do it for a couple hundred dollars.

[B]

Yeah, of course, you know, with the right equipment.

[A]

Right. But the wife's like, you know, we need to get this done, and, you know, we need to do this. We need to do that. I said, okay, I got it. We're going to have a farm day. And we'll. And she's like, okay, well, we got to mow the pasture. You know, we got to do it. And I was just. Now, I would rather pay the money, obviously. It's like we always do. Right. But what I decided was that this was going to be kind of a free day for me.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And I wasn't going to do any work, and I was going to get my. I was going to get exercise. I was going to get to spend time with her.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

We were going to do something. And I knew she was going to feel really, you know, like we don't live there anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So things kind of get away from you, and you can't really tell other people to do all these little things to get done.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we hadn't done anything in probably a year, so we just went and spent a day out there. And I'm telling you, it was. It was good. I mean, other than the, you know, dehydration, the cramping, the IVs that were required, the bug bites, the hernia. But it was. Other than that, it was absolutely great.

[B]

And when you got done, you could look back and say, wow, the funny.

[A]

Thing is, I got 97% done, and I just couldn't go anymore.

[B]

No way.

[A]

And she had to finish it.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

She had to finish the last 15 minutes, but we got it done. Chad, this has been amazing. I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate your leadership. I appreciate your mentorship, and I most appreciate your willingness to create, to be curious, and then to share that with people. Really just, you know, so willingly. I mean, you give first, you expect nothing in return. And it makes me want to continue to find ways to give back.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

I really appreciate it.

[B]

Oh, it's my pleasure.

[A]

Last question.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

[B]

One sentence. Better is infinite. Stay curious. That's it.

[A]

Better is infinitely.

[B]

Better is infinite. No matter where you are currently, better is infinite. Through curiosity, you'll find that. Just please stay curious. Yeah. Whatever existence you have currently is only because you have made a choice to do that. Better is infinite. Please stay curious.

[A]

Perfectly said. Chad Jenkins. Thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

[A]

You have been here with Jeff Duden and we have been on the home front indeed. Thanks for listening, everybody.