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Unemployable with Jeff Dudan
The Secret to High Performance with Aaron Salko | Mindset, Habits & Standards #193
01:11:53
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Homefront. I'm Jeff Duden. If you developed a reputation as a global sales leader who could build high performing teams utilizing the integration of biology, psychology, and social interaction, and shared this learning with the world in books, the ninth stratum, and the wrong right track, your name can only be Aaron Salkow. Welcome, sir.
- [00:25]
B
How you doing, Jeff? Great to be on your show.
- [00:30]
A
I'm excited to have you on today. It's. It's a high energy day here on the home front. We've got a lot to talk about. Here's my opening question for you. Have you ever written a children's book?
- [00:41]
B
I did, actually. Me and my daughter wrote one. It was called Boogers have Feelings Too.
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A
So that's where we're starting today, sir. So is that true? And what is this? You. You. You talk about science and psychology, but there it is.
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B
There it is. My daughter Tatum and me, we. We got creative one day and we said, this needs to be out there. We need to teach children not to pick their nose because there's some amazing science behind.
- [01:11]
A
Is that what the. Is that the. Without going too deep into the subject, is it. Is that what the book was. Was about? And was it your daughter's brainchild? I mean, how did this. How does this come about? Because there's a. There's actually an important question behind the question is doing something like that with your children changes their. Their scope of how they view things. The fact that they can actually create, be creative and create something like that. And, and, you know, you as a parent, making that a reality is actually really cool.
- [01:41]
B
Yeah, it was. We were bored one day, okay? And it was me and my two daughters. And I said, all right, you know, cell phones down. Let's. Let's do something. Let's draw something. And they're like, well, what should we draw? I'm like, let's draw characters. Let's make up some characters. I said, what kind of character do you want to make up? And of course, I think Tatum was about 11 at the time. She goes, let's do boogers. And I'm like, all right, we can do that. And we started coming up with names for boogers, you know, like slimy and greeny and, you know, hairy or whatever. And, you know, we were just drawing these things. And I said, you know what? This could be? This could be a book. Like, let's. Why don't we make a book? And I had already written the ninth stratum, so I had an idea of, of how to publish something like this and how to get through it. I had an editor and I had a designer. And so we took our characters, we gave it to an illustrator, and the illustrator brought our characters to life, and we went through pages in a story. And it was just about teaching kids, like, not to pick their nose because boogers belong in tissues. Tissues are their heaven.
- [02:45]
A
Okay, well, you know, good work. On behalf of all of us parents out there, thank you. Thank you for the work that you've done there. It's important a book available Boogers have Feelings Too, on Amazon. It's got a total of 4, 5 star reviews and it should be on every coffee table in America. But that being said, that being said, Aaron, look, you've. You've had an incredible career. You're you. You work with Stephen Gould as a global organization. And then you also have Stratum 9, which is your passion play for helping organizations perform. You work with huge Fortune 100, 500 organizations and possibly even some professional sports teams. Tell us how the ninth stratum works for people. And what was the learning around performance that led you to connect these dots? There's like 45 different things in performance based skills. They're all grouped. And at the end of the day, like, like how. What did you recognize about your peers and the people that you were managing? And then how did you build that into the ninth stratum?
- [03:54]
B
Yeah, you know, it all started with my own performance. You know, growing up in a small town in a little town called Carbondale, Pennsylvania, just north of Scranton. There wasn't much to do up there. And, you know, I was a. I was a product of baby boomers. My mom was an educator, my dad was a psychologist. So there's a lot of Jedi mind tricks played in our. In our household. But, you know, work was what we did. There wasn't a lot of acknowledgment for work because that's what baby boomers did, right? And, you know, so what do we do? When we wanted the acknowledgement, we worked harder. And I wasn't a big kid, and I wanted to make a baseball team, and sports was my thing. And so I quickly had to look at my own performance and say, okay, how do I get better? How do I improve? Science was always my favorite class, and studying the body early on at the age of 13 or 14, began to understand how lifting weights and working out could improve performance and helped me make this baseball team. I wanted to get on, and I carried that in through college and into my career. Through college, I studied sports medicine Physical therapy, all the while dabbling in psychology and human biology. And when I took this job with Stephen Gould Corporation, this global entrepreneurial sales environment, great company, you know, I knew nothing about sitting across the desks from C Suite executives or doing deals, even sales. I grew up in the restaurant business, so it was kind of a natural thing to engage people. But, you know, I didn't know too much about sales. And so I had to dive in. And I, and I began to look at the high performers in my industry and in my organization and those outside of my organization. And then I used the knowledge I had of the body and the mind, the psychology and the, and the physiology and the human biology to get that competitive edge, you know, to like maintaining your focus throughout a day and having that high energy for sales. These are the things that I really focused in on. And so that's where it really came about. And I got really good at the career. I was promoted. And one day, in my early 30s, someone who I respect called me a high performer in front of some of my peers. And I was like, yeah, that's awesome. That's the acknowledgement I was looking for. And it felt great for about three seconds because then I was like, man, this person called me a high performer. But what criteria did they use? You know, who's the governing body of high performance? And did they just set me up for failure? Because now I think I've arrived and I've hit the pinnacle of my performance and I don't need to get any better. And that's when, you know, I began to hear this word over and over again. I have a high performing team. And it was like a gut punch. I have a high performing individual on my team or this person's a high performer. And every time I hear it, I cringe. And I was like, no, this isn't good enough. Because this label is important. This is, this is a, this is a milestone label for somebody to receive. And so we need to define it and then we need to build tools to be able to show somebody what, how to measure it. You know, let's build a pathway so that those who have desire and effort can achieve a higher level of performance in their life. And it's not just about career, it's about life in general. So that's where it's, that's where it started.
- [07:32]
A
Standards are the greatest thing that we can give other people. And you talk a lot about mindset, self reflection. You talk about the fundamentals of drive and effort in the book. And if you have Drive and you have effort, then that is the building blocks that you need to work with to make somebody a high performer. And in my life, what I've really learned, I learned a lot of this from David Goggins. And one of the things that he said was, will you perform standards and will you push your limits in the face of no consequences or no goal or no purpose? Meaning standards for the sake of standards. It's like, you know, people go out and train because I'm training for a half marathon or I'm training for a marathon. But will you push yourself and train just for the sake of training, just to see how far you can push your body? That really resonated with me. It's a subtle but significant distinction about standards because, you know, we have to have, you know, I know that part of high performance is being a goal setter. Part of high performance is being a lifelong learner. Part of high performance is being extrospective, meaning being able to look at yourself objectively and say, you suck or you're good here. You gave yourself an out here. You bought into your negative self talk here and being really objective with who you are. I find that to be extremely rare by the way, people that can actually be objective on their own performance in the moment. But at the end of the day, man, to me it all comes to what are your standards? What are your standards when nobody's looking, what are your standards? We get recognized in public for the work that we put in in private. I mean, you think about professional athletes that are the ultimate of high performers and they train, they train off season, on season, three times a day. The minutes of footwork, strength and conditioning, electric shock to their muscles, recovery. And they're training and they're training and they're training and then they go out, they're. And they have to make it all count. They have to make their legacy in an 8 second football play. You know, like it's, it's. The training is, is 5,000 to 1 in terms of time training versus performing inside of that. And then we have entrepreneurs in franchising that we put into business that go out and try to execute the business, but they don't put in the training.
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B
Man, you're, you know. Absolutely.
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A
How many employees show up every day and they didn't watch the video you sent them, they didn't read the book you gave them, they didn't do anything. They just show up and they think somehow in this moment they're going to be able to perform. It's crazy. I mean, it's also. It's actually insane, the lack of preparation that people approach important things in their life with.
- [10:26]
B
You know, Jeff, you key in on something that's really important because a lot of people make it through life on innate abilities, and I call innate abilities behaviors. And what the ninth stratum is all about, what high performance is all about, is understanding these behaviors and turning them into skills that are then used strategically in specific situations. And another thing with entrepreneurs, the best entrepreneurs, and that's what Steve and Gould Corporation is. It's a very entrepreneurial structure. The best ones are highly organized in their daily routine. You know, they wake up at the same time every day. They do certain things every morning that propel their performance throughout the day. Right. And they're on schedule, they're on task. If they need to read something, they're building in, you know, time to do that. Like you said, some people just show up and be like, I've always been good at this stuff. I'll just figure it out. Good luck, buddy, because you're going to hit a wall at some point. And you know what, Jeff? They do figure it out for a time being. And then they hit the ceiling. And then they wonder why people are now naysayers and not cheerleaders. And they have this mindset like that the money that they make is their credibility. And really, as leaders, all eyes are on us. And as we all move through life, our performance matters. But how many of us have actually taken the time to truly understand what our performance looks like? And hey, it's okay if we haven't, but if we don't, our impact on our organization, our impact on our coworkers, our family, our friends, and even ourselves, it's nothing more than accidental. And nobody likes accidents because accidents are unintentional. So, hey, entrepreneurs, is it okay that you're moving through life making an accidental impact with your performance? My answer is no, it's not okay. But there's a way to get. Get better at that.
- [12:35]
A
I have a friend who started talking about return on intention. Not return on investment, not return on, you know, ad spend, but like return on intention. And I thought that was such a brilliant connection to make. I love that, you know, so let's. You had said people get up at the same time. They show up, they go to the gym. There's this. I find it interesting when I observe people that meal prep. Okay, so why would some. Why would somebody meal prep. So why would somebody take a Sunday afternoon, cook a pot of chicken, cook a pot of rice, cook a boil, some carrots, meticulously put them into five containers so that every day of the week that they've got their lunch with them? Well, they may. They may be on a budget. Right? There's one. That's one reason. But that would say that they're disciplined and they're. They're intentional about, you know, the money they spend. More often, it's either time or health. They're like, I'm. I'm. I want to have the food when I need it. I want it to be healthy food. I don't want to have to not eat, you know, so.
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B
But.
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A
But whatever it is, man, observationally, when I see somebody meal prepping, they tend to be leaning more on somebody that I can depend upon. And I just. It's a. It's an odd, you know, connection to make. But what other things do you see that people might not, you know, think about, but you see as tendencies across people that you consider to be high performers?
- [14:00]
B
Well, let's stay right there, because. So, purposeful nutrition. So. So let me back up. What we've identified is five categories of human performance. Cognitive ability, mastery of emotion, social interaction, Purposeful nutrition, and mentality. Right. And so if you look at these five categories, underneath are all these skills that can be taught, learned, applied, and improved upon. One of those skills under personal health is purposeful nutrition. And you're talking about meal prep. In the world of high performance, meal prep does three things. One, it eliminates decision. The time it takes to make a decision on what it is. Right. So that's good.
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A
Black T shirt every day.
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B
There it is. Right? That's a. That's a Jobs. That's a Steve Jobs.
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A
Wow.
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B
Trick.
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A
Yeah, but let's. Let's not. Let's not get there, but, yeah. No.
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B
Okay.
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A
These are nine. These are $9.
- [14:57]
B
That's. And you got the logo on there.
- [15:00]
A
So I'm in uniform.
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B
I'll send you my address.
- [15:02]
A
Oh, you got it. Send it on, Send it on.
- [15:04]
B
All right. But yeah, like, you know, eliminates decisions. Number two, again, purposeful nutrition. One of the traits of high performers is they don't just eat food, they eat fuel. Right. They eat purposefully because they know what it does for their mind and their body. Third thing is, too, the fuel we put in our bodies has a direct correlation with our mental acuity. And what we're eating at specific times allows us to either do high focus, high brain work at specific times during the day or get into a creative zone, you know, at that second or Third phase of our day. And so, you know, knowing when to eat the high, starchy, high carbohydrate foods is imperative if you're starting your day out with a donut. Let me tell you what glucose does to the way you're going to be able to focus 100%, right? That spike. So, you know, that's one of them. And we can stick there, you know, like. So let's talk about the routines of. Of high performers. You know, we go through this thing called five daily wins. And, you know, the first win is, you know, waking up at the alarm clock. No snooze button, okay? Snooze button is our enemy. Because what that does is it we sort of roofie ourselves back into deep sleep.
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A
Not even one time.
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B
Not even one. Not even one. I'm telling you right now, you wake up that alarm, get yourself out of bed, and it'll take you about 15 minutes for your body to clear all of the, you know, the melatonin and. And the things that make us tired.
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A
I've just decided I'm only going to the eighth stratum.
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B
All right, I'll give you one. But, you know, it's just waking up in the alarm get, you know, getting out of bed at that. When the alarm goes off, that's the bell, right? It's not a dreaded siren pulling you from your sleep. It's the sound of the starting gun, you know, launching you out of bed.
- [16:52]
A
Into the reality is I wake up 15 minutes before my alarm goes off like clockwork. I. I just, like. I look and I'm like, It's gonna. It's 4. 4. My alarm's at 5 and 4:45. My eyes pop open, and, you know, my dog's eyes pop open at the same time. It's like we're on a. We're synchronized. Yeah.
- [17:10]
B
Yeah. My dog, I don't know what's going on with him, but he, like, now he's. Yeah, 445 is my. Is my number two. And. Yeah, and he gets out of bed, jumps out of the bed and, like, looks at me. He's like, come on, let's go. I'm like, when did you start waking up early? Like, this is just. Just happened in the last month. So anyway. But. Yeah, so you got that. And then it's like, okay, what do we do when we. When we get up that early? Well, what I learned and what I've practiced for a number of years is, you know, and not intentionally, but, you know, when we had our first child I was going to the gym after work and. And my wife's like, no, you gotta get home, like, I need help. And I was like, shit, yeah, you're right. I screwed that up. Roger that. I'll make a change. And then I realized, okay, I got this window of time before every while everybody's sleeping and no emails are coming in, there's nothing hitting me. I got time between 5am and 8am to get whatever I want done. And so 5:15 gym time, right? And you go right to 6, 6:15. After that, it's coming upstairs, you know, having my supplements or whatever, you know, purposeful nutrition. That's win number two. Or number three, reading, you know, before even touching social media or diving into the news or, you know, whatever it might be. Email distractions, staying focused and learning something that I want to learn that's going to help me get better or that's an interest of mine. Boom, that's number four, you know, and then number five is no distractions from the time you wake up to that time when the, when the work bell starts. No social media, no news, you know, no external forces that would create a emotional reaction because that's what these things do. It's either a high or a low. And if we can achieve that in two or three hours before the bell goes off, then, man, we are setting ourselves up for an unbelievable day.
- [19:09]
A
I was with Steven Kotler who wrote Stealing Fire for a couple of days at a small event, and he shared that we are closest to flow state and he's the flow state guy. Our brain waves are closest to flow state when we wake up. And the moment that we start flicking social media and looking at screens, it changes our brainwaves materially and you have to actually go through a process to get back there. So, so he writes, I don't know, four, three hours a day for a certain number of words a day. But he gets up 5am, cigarette, coffee, bathroom, dark room, screen, computer. And he just goes and he. Before he does anything else, he just starts writing and he's done by 8 o' clock or whatever he's done by, for the day in his writing because he's never going to be closer to being in the right state to be able to be as brilliant as he clearly is in all the books that he writes and his view on things. And just a brilliant, interesting. Just an interesting guy. So what I adopted was I had a guy named Alex Ikon. It's spelled I K O N N. And he has something called the Five Minute Journal. And it's 29 bucks on Amazon. It's a nice cover. It feels good. It's got a little, you know, one of those little things that you flick over there to hold your page. And it's a smallish type book. And he sold over 2 million of these things.
- [20:48]
B
Get out of here. Wow.
- [20:50]
A
And it's basically a small introduction of five pages, and then it's. It's a journal every day. It's got a. It's got a little quote at the top, and then it's. You know what would make today a great day? You know, what's, what are your daily affirmations? You know, what, what are you thankful? What are you grateful for? What would make today great? What are your two daily affirmations? And at the end, what were the highlights of your day and what did you learn? So it's five minutes when you wake up and five minutes when you go to bed. I struggle getting the, the recap done at the end of the day, I'm not as disciplined about that. But, man, I do the. It's the first thing I do in the morning. And, man, you just sit there with a cup of coffee and it's quiet, and you're thinking. You. You're literally thinking. And if I, When I do that, I. My, My mind state, my state, my attitude is so much better during the day. I feel like I can take anything on. You know, one thing, you know what, what's interesting that I've noticed is what impacts my courage? What are the things that. That impact my courage? So I'll tell you one thing that impacts my courage. Alcohol. So when I, you know, and I.
- [22:01]
B
I, In a good way or a bad way?
- [22:03]
A
In a, In a bad way. And, you know, and I, I, I rarely, rarely drink alcohol anymore. I'd be a liar if I said that, you know, I. My birthday is Saturday. You know, maybe I'll have a, you know, something there if there's a party, and if there's not, then I'll probably drink a lot because they forgot. But, you know, so one way or another, something's happening. But like I tell you, man, like, what I've learned is, is, is there's things that I do that negatively impact my physiology or my psychology and, And. And I don't have courage, like, so if I'm. If I feel like I'm out of shape or I eat bad, if I eat bad or I drink a little, like, these things that wear me down, they. They impact my courage, which impacts my performance. And by courage, I simply mean how good do I feel about the hard things that I have to do every day? You know, how good, like how, like what's my attitude? I go to a trainer at 6am okay, three days a week and then the other two days I, at the same time I'll just do something at home, like burrow or whatever. But like, what's my attitude walking in there? Like am I like this sucks or, or you know what, I might as well, you know, I'm going to be here I might for 50 minutes, I might as well make it worth my while type thing. So it's, it's the, the, the difference in high performance than mediocrity is I find to be very small. I mean it's like you can, I mean it's, it's, you know, you know, the, the last 2, 3, 5% of excellence, you know, takes 10 times more effort to get up. Like if you want to be, you know, I talk about it, let's just say that, let's talk about high school students, man. You know how easy it is to be a BC student, like show up.
- [23:47]
B
I was, I was one, right?
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't mean before Christ, but I mean like you can, I mean you can just show up and take attendance and usually roll B's and C's out. But if you want to get, be an ab student, you're probably cracking a book on the bus on the way to school. You're turning in your homework, you're paying a little bit of attention. But like if you want to be 97, 98, 99th percentile, if you want to, you know, try to be valedictorian, man, you're studying two or three hours a night, you're taking over all the group projects. Now my approach on group projects was find out who has the highest grades because they're not going to let us fail, right? Whoever's got the, whoever's, whoever's got the high grade is going to do all the work because they're not going to let us screw that up. So that was easy. But my kids like they, I, they talk to the teacher. So if they had a grade that was a tenth of a point away, they could say what, what can I do? Or what do I. Just asking. They'll usually nudge you up. So, you know, being engaged, but like that's like 10 or 20 times more effort than the BC student. So, you know, so it takes very little to get up into maybe the 85 to 95 percentile. But if you want to be really, you know, the top five percentile in anything, the, the amount of work, effort, energy, intention goes up immeasurably. And that's been my experience. So. So like I've, you know, when I've let things go or over delegated or hadn't gone all the way down and made sure of things, like that's when you get some sort of a, you know, B + result out of things. But when I've gotten a, when I've gotten a great result, it's really because it's like I labored over it and I went, I made sure over and over and over again and just let nothing to chance. And I think for a lot of people, especially people that maybe, maybe for self employed people, like the pain is obvious, man. You can't make payroll or you're going to lose money or you catch a loss, you've done something, you've overlooked it. But for people that are working inside of a broader organization, maybe the consequences don't come as quickly and they aren't quite as severe. So what do they need to do to be motivated to be top performers inside of an organization? And my answer to that is what I started with is because that's your, that's the standard that you've set for yourself. And I believe that you win the next opportunity by succeeding in the one that you're in. Regardless of. If you're on the back of a trash truck, man, you be the very best at that. You will get to be driver, you get to be driver, you get to be district manager, you get to be, you know, and I mean like it's funny how when people pursue high standards wherever they are, how naturally the next opportunity materializes for them.
- [26:30]
B
Yeah. And Jeff, Thousand great nuggets in there by the way. Goggins, man, he's an anomaly. Guy's just a machine, but he's, he's got a mindset that, you know, if you can adopt a 20% of his mindset.
- [26:45]
A
Yeah.
- [26:45]
B
You'll raise your performance overnight. Happy birthday. Happy, happy early birthday for you. How's 35?
- [26:53]
A
It feels good. I was gonna say, man, you're, you're clearly fit and I'm clearly old.
- [26:58]
B
I just turned 50 in May. May 11th. Wow.
- [27:01]
A
I wouldn't, I wouldn't have guessed it.
- [27:03]
B
I'm up there and I'm on the fifth floor now. Nice, nice to be on the fifth floor.
- [27:06]
A
It doesn't. For anyone coming behind us, it doesn't feel that different.
- [27:11]
B
No, no. But you know it is. It is something that when we look at entrepreneurship and, you know, the struggle is real again, it comes back to, what kind of analysis are you doing on your own performance? And that was always the struggle. Like, you know, in organizations, right? They say, okay, hey, we're going to do your annual performance review. And hey, we love having you here, but, you know, you're. Your composure, you know, you. You kind of, kind of fly off the handle a lot of times in these high pressure situations. You know, composure is really affecting your performance. And, you know, and we see this all over the place. The employee goes, oh, okay, roger that. I got to work on that, okay? And then they go, how the hell do I work on composure? Like, what's the practice? I got to figure this out, right? And then they go to their manager and be like, hey, I was told my composure is really affecting my performance, my staying power here. How do I fix it? And the organizations go, I don't know. Hey, Nancy's really composed. Go talk to Nancy. Or we got a great learning management system. Go watch a couple videos on that. And then, you know, the person's lost and they come back to the table and they go, you know, six months later, and what do they get? They get a pip, right? Performance improvement plan. And when the PIP is there, you know, that person's got one foot out the door because they're like, hey, this organization didn't take care of me. And you know, when it comes down to looking at our own performance, which is really the key to this message, is there is a process to all these skills that we may be good or bad at, but we've got to be able to focus in. And you're part about self reflection and the journaling in the morning, you know, part of that is, hey, what do I need to work on? What am I still doing over and over and over again? And it affects my performance. And then you can boil that down generally to a skill, and then you can look at that skill. Okay, We've got a ton of information on all these skills that we've defined, but the information's out there. And if it truly is a skill, then there's a process behind that skill. We've identified work ethic as a skill, and everybody goes, no, work ethic, that's innate. That's not a skill. And yeah, true. Have we picked this up from our parents or our grandparents? Absolutely. But my grandfather was a builder, right? And he was meticulous. He was a pain in the ass too. He drove us hard when we worked for him, but I learned work ethic from my grandfather because he had a process to his work showed up 15 minutes, you know, prior to the job being done. He got organized, ready for the job to start. When he was in the job, he was focused and he executed and everything. If something was off, he'd do it again. And if he had a deadline to hit, he didn't leave at the bell. He stayed the extra time. I learned that process, and that was my process for work ethic. And so if it's a process, we can teach those processes. And so the reality is, again, if we're looking at these skills that we're deficient in, or maybe we're ignoring and we're journaling and we're taking that time to self assess, we can fix ourselves, we can get better, we can improve our performance hand over fist. Every time we see a deficiency, we can improve. So it just takes that desire and effort. And those are two things that our parents can't give to us. Nobody can give to us. If we don't have those two things, we're not getting out of the starting gate.
- [30:49]
A
You talk about social interaction, and that's pretty broad. You think about people that perform highly. I mean, okay, well, you mentioned Steve Jobs. How skilled was he at social interaction? I'm not sure. Maybe I think people feel like they're mesmerized by somebody like him. But he also was very rough. People said it was the greatest 17 months I could survive there at Apple.
- [31:18]
B
Right.
- [31:19]
A
I mean, he would drive them all weekend, hundreds of hours, and just. Just do it. What type of coaching or advice do you have around social interaction for people that want to improve their performance? And where are some of the blind spots?
- [31:35]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, if you look at, you know, moguls, like job, like Jobs, right? And you look at his social interaction, was he high performing in social interaction? Probably not. You know, I'd give him a maybe a fifth stratum if he was even working on it at all. Right? But social action is that skill that high performers use to work well with others and excel in social settings. And some of the skills that are under social interaction are charisma, relatability, savvy, communication, listening. You had Reddington on here, Michael Reddington, the discipline listening method. Little shout out to him. Fitness or finesse? I'm sorry? Social awareness, like some of the EQ skills. Trustworthiness, empowering. These are all the skills that we use to be socially high performing. And when we're doing that, we get people to buy into us. And so, you know, there are a bunch of skills that we can teach, and communication is one of the biggest ones. Not just written or verbal communication, but how about our non verbal communication? How about how we're showing up every day in our body language, what our body language is saying to people. As I said before, leaders, all eyes are on us whether we like it or not. And so when we're showing up and our body language is reading something, we're casting that onto them. And so how, how we show up is going to directly affect the way they engage us. It's contagious. And so one of the things I can, I can share with you with, with the leadership, the leaders that are watching this podcast is, you know, be mindful, use transitions. Transitions were something that I was taught at a very young age. My father, again the psychologist. I was playing baseball. I was, you know, it was like a ball or whatever, and I was out in the field and I was screwing around watching butterflies and look, waving at people in the fan. Ball was hit to me and I missed it and I came across. And my father took me aside one day. He goes, hey. He goes, what's that? It's that white line that's on the, on the field. There's. I said, that's the foul line. That's the, you know. He goes, what happens when you cross it? I said, I'm in, in the game because it's right. You're in the game. He said, so whenever you cross over that white line, you're no longer a spectator. Doesn't matter who's in the audience. Doesn't matter what the, you know, the smell of pizza or the butterflies or the planes going overhead. You're in the game. That's your, that's your, that's your sign. I was like, all right, roger that. Every time I look at that white line, be like, okay, I'm a baseball player now. Walk in. I carried that through my whole career, you know, throughout my entire life to, to, from, from walking into meetings and, you know, if you're ever around me and I'm walking into a new meeting or something like that, I'll stop, I'll take three seconds. And the, the door frame, the threshold is my visual cue to stop and think, who's on the other side of that door? What do they need to me from me and how do I need to show up? What are they expecting of me? What's the emotions on the other side of that door? And then I walk through and no matter what happened, all the baggage that I just came from, maybe a poor meeting or a bad conversation, and I'm walking into this new meeting with new people. A lot of times leaders carry that in and everybody's like, what the hell's wrong with him? Like what's going on? Right. And if you just take that time with transitions and you get good at transitions, it works wonders. Not just in your career, by the way, transitions are great for the home. You know, hey, we're all entrepreneurs, right? We're all grinding. It's hard, it's stressful. Our family doesn't give a shit. Yeah, right. I'm sure they care. But you know who they want when they walk through that door? They want dad, they want mom or life insurance.
- [35:22]
A
But yeah.
- [35:26]
B
And you know, you look at that garage door and before you pull in the garage and you say, okay, now I'm dad. Right. And that's tough. I mean, I still to this day, you know, can you get really good at it? Yeah, but are you going to miss a couple days? Absolutely. But it's something that makes you highly aware and that's what high performance is all about. Raising your awareness to make you think and act differently in all these.
- [35:49]
A
I think that's a point worth double clicking on. I've got three examples for you. I read a book, I forget maybe it was Larry Janeski's book, but he was talking about, you know, this, this guy who was a plumber and he was just always so present and always so joyful and what he would do is, you know, when he would come home from work, you know, he had all the stresses of it. He was a self employed plumber, but he had what he called a trouble tree. So he would hang all of his troubles on the tree and then we'd go, he would go home and then he knew they would be there when he left in the morning. And I find that to be very powerful. Like, man, you know, there's a lot of stresses. And you know what I do? I've got 250 franchise owners out there, man, almost, you know, 80% of them under 18 months old. I mean, these are all new business owners. We're, we're adding eight to 10amonth. And it's just a lot, you know, there's a lot of stress. We got a lot of people. It's, it's a fast growing organization and man, if I took all that home with me, I, you know, it wouldn't be good for anybody. I had a great Coach named Dave Zierfos. And he would always ask us, what did you come into the room with? What did you come in that was this open opener, what did you come into the room with? And then at the end of the day, what are you walking out of the room with? And if you think about what did I come into the room with, what I would think is, oh, I just came in with some baggage that I need to set aside to be present for this meeting and to deliver and have the outcomes that we're all here for. And then the third thing is I coach a lot of youth sports. And you know, to your line, what sports? Oh, man, a lot of travel, baseball, a lot of youth football, and a lot of. Well, none of my kids were great basketball players, but, you know, they tried, so a lot of. A lot of rec basketball and stuff. And my daughter did soccer, but I could only coach her when she was like five. And I didn't.
- [37:45]
B
I didn't know soccer is different. That's different.
- [37:49]
A
So. But anyway, I would have. The football is probably what I did the most of. And I would say, you know, once you step over the line, you can't re. Contract like, it's. You can't choose. Like you've already made the decision. So once we. Once we put our helmets on and we're over here on the side, and then we step onto the field, like, there's no recontracting. You've already. You've decided you're a football player, so you have to run, you have to tackle, you have to jump on the loose ball, you have to block, you have to do whatever, whatever it takes. Because you'd see them re. You know, they'd be thinking about, do I want to do this? Do I not want to do this? And I'm like, you've already made the decision decision like the decision's been made. You know, now you can choose not to step on, but. But once you step on, then, you know, we're assuming that we all are going to do everything that it takes, and that's what we want to be here. It's a subtle mental cue to say, you know, be present, be focused, you know, and don't. Don't drag all kinds of baggage with you into new situations. So I like the dwarf. I will. You know, you've impressed upon me that door frame analogy. And we all have to remind ourselves, you know, because you just got off a bad call and you're dealing with this, and, you know, you've got four other things that you, that you need to deal with. But now you've got to walk into this other situation and be present for the people, for the people that need you.
- [39:06]
B
And it's amazing how well our, our brains, our subconscious pick up on the emotions of others and translate it into how, how they're going to react or how they're going to interact with that person. And you know, until you really dive into that science and understand it, you don't understand how, how big of an impact you have when you just, when you walk into a room with just a, this on your face versus this on your face. And you know, the smile is so powerful. So I like to teach that a lot. It's like, hey, how you, how you walking in? Is your head up? Are you in the phone? You know, are you distracted? Or are you looking around the room and like going up to the person, how you doing? What's new? How's things going? Right? And, and engaging people.
- [39:55]
A
Talk to, Talk to me about fear. I want to, I'd like to talk about fear. And it's. What's your observation of fear and how it impacts performance or is it a big deal in your work?
- [40:12]
B
You know, fear is one of those emotions that I believe is so important to recognize in yourself but not lean into, in, in the world of fear. You know, fear can drive bad decisions. Fear can drive us to have bad reactions. Fear can paralyze us in, in doing something. And so recognizing what fear feels like and when we are fearful is so important. And this is part of what we teach in that understanding and management of emotions, you know, criteria that we, that we've developed. And so when, when you look at fear, it's like, okay, I'm afraid to do this. Maybe it's butterflies, maybe it's absolute paralysis. Maybe it is just something that, man, I am uncomfortable as hell and I do not even want to take the first step on this thing. But translating that fear and those feelings of fear into, okay, I know I'm afraid of this, but that's not stopping me from performing it or that's not stopping me from doing it. You know, being able to take that step over the fear and use it to your advantages to sort of calm yourself to say, hey, you know what? I am afraid because I haven't done this before. And that's okay, you know, because when it's okay, when we convince ourselves that what we're about to do or something that's happening is a part of life, B, it's okay because we don't we haven't experienced it yet or, you know, or c, there's a wild animal coming to us, coming towards us. We need to get the hell out of there. You know, fear is one of these things that I think it's a valuable tool. And many high performers have a fear of failure, but their love of winning overpowers their fear of failure. They use failure as a trophy. They use failure as a learning experience. This is one of the main traits of high performance and their experience focused. So without the ability to fail and have that fear and actually fail and not be good at something, they don't grow. They know that. So that's where I go with the whole emotion of fear. I think it's wildly important.
- [42:32]
A
It is important and we deal with that a lot in the franchise award process. People realize if we've done our job educating, then people realize that much of the success is going to be on the franchisee executing a business model that's been put together for them. But at the end of the day, there's no, let's kick it upstairs. And I mean, they're business owners now. They're going to be accountable for their people, they're going to be accountable for payroll. What realizations do people need to make to have and what commitments do people need to make to themselves to affect real change or to try something new? You know, there's like, we are creatures of habit. We get comfortable. You know, our will is an exhaustible resource. Our brains are trying to protect us. You know, we're driven towards. Everything we do, by the way, in society is to be more comfortable. You know, I mean, get air conditioning, you know, comfortable cars, comfortable seats, entertaining things on our phone. Like, everything is just to serve this innate need for us to have pleasure. And, and, you know, that's the problem with the fitness business, right? I mean, like I was in the fitness business before and it's like I spent. You spend all your time convincing people to come in here and let me torture you for 50 minutes and then tell you shame and then tell you that you can't eat what you want. And you know, and it's like, you know, and that's, you know, that's why Ozempic is such a great thing. I mean, you know, like, that is. God, that is such a. Well, it is a great thing for some people who will. History will tell whether it's a great thing for, you know, humankind or not. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's, you know, people, if, if we want to Continue to evolve as humans and fulfill our true life's potential and, and have those experiences, then at some point there needs to be a realization that there's something that we need to change and a commitment to do it. Like, what have you seen when you implement your methods and you have a mediocre performer or you have somebody that you know or an underperforming company or an underperforming department? Like, what, what are the triggers that you are able to implement through your methods, through your coaching, through your consulting, that, that these people then realize that there's something more for them, they make a commitment to it and they have success.
- [45:01]
B
Yeah, no, that's, that's a fantastic question. And just.
- [45:04]
A
Well, sorry, it took eight minutes to phrase it.
- [45:06]
B
No, no, no, that's. There's a lot of, there's a lot in there, though. And it's important too. You know, I'm not a history buff, but I was reading this morning, one of my buddies sent me something on Teddy Roosevelt and he, I didn't know this about him, so I dove in a little bit deeper. But he, like, lived this life of high performance, you know, and whether it was innate or whether he just like had this desire to do it, but he talked about the strenuous life and how the, the most successful people did not, did not go the passive route. They went the hard route, and that's where their, their success comes from. And he did a speech on it and it was really interesting to read that. But, you know, when it comes down to these entrepreneurs and, and, you know, going into this very new environment and having the accountability that they have, there's, there's a couple things, right? So let's talk about, you know, if you're every, everybody, every entrepreneur, everybody who builds a company wants high performing teams, right? I want high performing teams. I want to get these guys to the next level and that next level. Yes. People need to realize that they can improve. Number, number one thing is if you have desire and effort, you can improve almost anything in your life. Right. Except your height, maybe. But you know what, what we, what we generally teach is for, let's talk about leaders of organizations is, you know, stop relying on the resumes. Right? Resumes are, you know, they're, they're not exact correlations to result. And what we want them to look at are the traits, you know, because we do have good people on our teams and we do have people that, you know, that have these specific traits and want to be pushed. So we'll talk about the mediocre next. But I want to, I want to focus on what, what, what is really important because, you know, we're not looking at fixing the mediocrity. We're looking at the difference makers. We want to, we want to take the people who are going to move organizations and make them better. Because many times they're sort of floating in this area where they just need that push, they need that, that next level of like, how do I do this? If, like, Jeff, if I had to ask you right now, how would, looking at where you are in life and everything you're doing, how, what would you do tomorrow to improve your performance? You know, many people look at that question, they go, I don't even know where to start, right? And so the, the, the, the starting point is the most important thing we built. Just to give you some back history. When we looked at high performance and needed to, we needed to build a, a structure to it, a way to measure it. That's where the ninth stratum came from. And the stratums are really the ways human beings learn. You know, the first stratum, you're just unaware of a skill. It might just be a behavior like composure. You fly off the handle, whatever you want. Second, the second stratum is when you understand what composure is and you don't care. I'm still going to fly off the handle. Right. Third stratum is that day when somebody says, hey, your composure is really affecting your performance. You need to fix it. And that's the aha moment. That's that third stratum. And the fourth stratum, somebody says, you go and go, okay, I got to fix this. I need tools. So you go, you look for books, right? You ask people questions on how you look for coaches, you find videos. Fifth stratum, you begin to watch the videos, you begin to read the books, you begin to work with the coach. Six stratum, that's the one we talked about. Sixth stratum is the most scary stratum. Fear based stratum, right? It's when we have to actually apply the knowledge that we've learned. I say that this society right now is perpetually stuck in, in the fifth stratum because what do we do? We scroll all day. We, we hear this thing that this person's talking about and they say, oh, if you do this, you know, this is the way this happens and this will improve. And you go, okay, I got that knowledge. And you think that now you, you've elevated yourself, but really you're not putting Boots in the ground. You're not even doing what they told you to do. You just know, you know, you're telling other people how to do it, right? And so that's that. Six strata. Putting boots on the ground, knowing it's going to be messy, being fearful about being uncomfortable and trying it out. And yeah, it's going to suck and you're not going to be good at it. But that leads you to the seventh stratum. That's the practice stratum. So we get good at things, we start to develop a cadence and consistency with it, a little more confidence. We're highly aware when we screw up. And then the eighth stratum is where we see these high potentials and high performers. That's where they sit. And the eighth stratum is all about. They're consistent in this skill. They have their own process. They are highly proficient at it. And so they're really good. They know that if they're getting this from a co worker, angry co worker, they're like, I know how to back this guy down. I know how to get my. Maintain my composure and actually get this person to be more composed in the conversation. The ninth stratum, which is the level of mastery, it's the operating level of high performers, is where you've taken your process and you can now teach it to others. So you're highly proficient, you're consistent in how you use it. You use it strategically, the skill or whatever it might be, but you can also break down your own process and say, hey, I'm going to teach you how to do this. And so that's where most of the organizations really lack that eighth, ninth strand. But we have these people on our teams and we know that they have a process and we can help them break down their process. Now we have a performance leader on our team. Now, when Mary is really struggling with composure, and we go now go to Nancy, because here's Nancy's process for it. Step one, do this. Step two, do this. And now you can practice. Now we've got Mary into the seventh stratum, where before she was sitting in the third stratum, we were going, your composure sucks. You have a limited time here if you can't fix it. So.
- [51:31]
A
And that's.
- [51:32]
B
I don't know if I answered your question.
- [51:33]
A
You have. I got a couple. I got a couple of things. Number one, realizing that teaching is the ninth stratum, I have always had the clear understanding that I. That when I taught and I put myself in a position to teach that's when I got better. That's how I've elevated my performance is because I always stepped up to teach and whether it be at a panel or at a conference or training our people. Because before you go to teach something, you have to really think through what you're saying. Like it, it's, it's a whole level of introspection, like, okay, this is how I do this. But am I really. If I'm going to teach it, what are, what are the. What is the true essence of what I'm teaching and how does it really get here and what's missing and that, you know, as you're teaching other people and as a way of re. Educating yourself about the gold standard or the best practice or whatever it is. So teaching is, is a part of it. And I actually have that. I have a, that's actually part of my talk. We're doing a, an all hands all day meeting next week and it's, that's actually part. I was going to talk about, you know, our people teaching franchisees on how to implement these tools will make us better at implementing the tools. It's like it's, it's, it's right on. It's right on course with what we're doing. And the other thing you said if, if you asked me today what I would need to do to be a better performer tomorrow, I've thought a lot about that. With the work I did with Goggins and with the journaling and with the, and what I've at least at this point in my life, and I'm. I'm 57 Saturday. But at this point. Thanks, man. At this point in my life, what I've realized, all I need to do to get what I want or more of what I want or to increase my performance is more about subtraction than addition.
- [53:26]
B
Yeah, that's. I like that many people. They keep adding to the pile.
- [53:30]
A
Right. I have everything I need, but I also have too many things that I need. I've got too many tools, I've got too many distractions. I've got too many things. So all I have to do is reallocate my attention. If I reallocate my attention from things that are not moving me where I want to go and take those things away, the, the rest of it fills the available time. So I had gotten into, you know, I had sold the business in 2019 and here I go three years later. 41K once. That's right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sure you want to be involved in this? Yeah. What's it going to take? Well, just help us a little. Sure. Or invest a little money or do whatever it is. And what I realized my focus was so split because I had, you know, and look, you know, people tell you they want two hours a month until it's not going well and then they're like, we need your help. And it's like, well, I don't have any more time to allocate, but it's either allocated or you lose your investment or, you know, something else. So now you've got all these demands coming on your time. And I made a realization three years ago. You know, I, I put some standards around it. I said, you know, if it's, if it can't be, you know, a, a certain size of business, then I don't need to be in it. If it's, if, if the business can never get to a certain Alex size, then it's just not something that I need to be involved in or, you know, and then I put, I put requirements around my return on time. Okay. If I can't see this business returning this dollar amount per hour of time invested up to and including sale of the business, then I can't do it. So what I did was I just, I put all these parameters around how I invested my time and I was able to look and say, well, here's 31 of the 41 things that I need to get out of. And I spent two years extracting myself from those things to allow me to focus on the, the vital few things that matter. So I encourage people to constantly. So when I do training, I have a very high end proprietary form, I call it that is basically a line down the middle of the page and on the left it says subtract and on the right it says add. And then how many of you people have owned a business before and it's usually maybe 30% of the room. And I'm like, okay. And they're all now business owners, 70% of them for the first time. I'm going to be like, for the next two hours you need to be, I'm going to be talking you through and you need to be writing down all of the things that you're going to stop doing or take away that are going to be distractions and then other things that you need to add at least thinking about and stuff. And they end up with a page full of stuff, you know, that they didn't. They. Then they walk, they're like, I didn't walk into the room thinking that I needed I really needed to inventory my brain in this way and my activities in this way. I thought I was just going to, you know, kind of be who I always was and just execute this program. But that's not really that you can't take that mindset into a business. You know, it's funny, we, we award a franchise to an engineer and a month in, how's the sales plan going? And they, they, but, oh, I'm going to send you something. And they send me back an eight page schematic on how to reorganize the truck. You know, it's like, or if they're a, or if they come from the IT background, it's like, you know, it's an eight page, you know, diatribe about, you know, how to reduce clicks in the CRM that we don't own. You know, it's like, so everybody, the every, everybody walks in with the curse of knowledge and then they try to, we all try to bend the opportunity into our comfort zone. And it's like, no, man, like, you've got to leave. I'm sorry. But like, there's actually one set of activities, behaviors and mindset that's going to make you successful in this business. And there may be a lot of things that you need to leave behind that you didn't, that you didn't think that you had to. So, and then the, the other thing you said about, Was it Roosevelt? Teddy Roosevelt.
- [57:21]
B
You said, yeah, Teddy Roosevelt.
- [57:23]
A
You know, I, I have something that I wrote and it's up on my wall and it says, choose the path of most resistance. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to be my, my do hard thing. That was going to be my tattoo, but it wasn't. I went with Peppa Pig. So.
- [57:42]
B
I like that. That's all right. I had enough of Peppa Pig in my life. I got two daughters and I think I've memorized every episode.
- [57:49]
A
There you go.
- [57:51]
B
But, you know, you keyed in on something. There's two things that I want to touch on that exercise that you have them do about subtracting things. You know, that's a great exercise too, for delegation and empowerment, two things that entrepreneurs need to learn and they need to learn it fast. Who's on my team? Who wants the ball? Who can I trust with this? Who needs the challenge? Right? And so great, great, great call out on that. Great exercise on that. The other thing you were referring to, I'm trying to go back to it. Oh, which was your, your, your. Yeah, your teaching. Right. So we have this, this system Part of the ninth stratum called a skill process breakdown. And basically, what we've. What we've looked at is when we had to extract. We have performance leaders. Michael Reddington is one of our performance leaders. Right. And we had to extract. Why are they so good at, like, let's say, a skill of listening? And it's. You know, every skill is scenario based. And so we broke down skill, the process of skills, into four. Four key points. And I'll touch on two of them, because the other ones are just action oriented. But, you know, it's okay, what's the scenario? Right? What's. What's the environment you're in? Who's in the environment? You know, what is it like? What's the emotions of the environment? That's the first thing. But here's the thing we. We always forget when we teach. There's a mental part of the teaching process that we don't always share. We share the tactical. Here's the ABCs on how to do it. That's easy, right? Here's the actions you need to take to improve this skill. But what happens before we take that action? There's a mental. There's a mental game going on inside our head, and we're thinking about things. We're mentally preparing to take the action, or we're assessing, or we're analyzing our own emotions in the time we're doing. All these things that get us in the mindset to take action, and that's a big part of the teaching process, because if we don't teach what the mindset needs to be before you take action, you're just giving people a set of rules to go and try to execute. And many times they don't know why. And so I wanted to just key in on that because that was important in that whole teaching process.
- [60:10]
A
You wrote another book, the Wrong Right Track. That's not a book that we purchased to prepare. I bought the ninth and read the ninth stratum. But you also wrote the Wrong Right Track. Track. What is that?
- [60:21]
B
Oh, that was. That's actually a friend of mine that. That wrote that book. I was. I might have just. I made. I. I probably helped promote that.
- [60:31]
A
Okay.
- [60:31]
B
He's. He did it for my book. And Great book, by the way. You know, he's. He's an avid reader, too, and, yeah, definitely pick that up on Amazon. It's a. It's a really good. Especially for entrepreneurs.
- [60:43]
A
You know, my grock. My grock has let me down. Had that peg team, and I was, you know, and I was on Amazon, and I. I only found the booger book and the ninth stratum, so, you know. But, dude, the booger.
- [60:56]
B
That's funny, that.
- [60:57]
A
Oh, that's great.
- [60:58]
B
This is the first podcast I've been on when somebody said, you're owe two bucks. Here it comes.
- [61:05]
A
Hey, man, that was my. I. Look, I know my opener when I see it. I mean, I. That's. Yeah, that was my opener. I'm like. I'm highly. The ninth stratum. Sure, fine. But the other thing, I'm in the. So.
- [61:20]
B
All right.
- [61:21]
A
Oh, I wanted to give a shout out to Michael Reddington. He is. He is the Discipline Listening Method is his book. He connected us. I really am thankful for that. One of the best. I've had him speak at multiple events. He's been our. Our key. Our highest rated speaker at our conference two years in a row. He nudged me by, like, know point. Something, but he's still. I have to give it to him and just. Just really. Really a. A. A thoughtful person. So I know that he's in. He's running in your circle and sounds like he's one of your thought leaders around y. Around your consulting business.
- [61:58]
B
Yep. Yep. He'll. He'll. We'll. We'll actually bring him in once in a while, you know, for, you know, a session where, you know, I'll speak in the morning and then he'll come in in the afternoon and. And. And, you know, deliver his message. And it's always complementary of what we. What we're teaching there too. But. Yeah, and his. His. His techniques, his practices, his methods. Spot on. Check them out. Check out the book. It's. It's really.
- [62:23]
A
It's viciously thoughtful and effective. And he was an inter. He was interrogation expert and for loss prevention and had about a 76% confession rate where. So they would bring him in where nobody knew who stole the VCRs or who stole the money out of the till or whatever, and he would just interview people, and he would compel people that, you know, and. And. And I always get it right. So I'll. You know, when I'm speaking with him or at an event, I'll. I'll share something about what I learned from him, and he'll be like, but that's not exactly right, Jeff. You know, so, like, it's like, I get it, but it's not like, you know, it's not exactly right. But, I mean, ultimately, people will confess best when they come to believe that any reasonable person faced with the same set of Circumstances might have done the same thing. You know, I, I've worked for this company for 20 years. I'm behind on my rent. They've always taken care of me. I'm just going to borrow this. I eventually I intend to put it back. And you know, and then you say.
- [63:18]
B
Well, you know, when they can save.
- [63:20]
A
Face and you got to give them the ability to save face, you know, hey, when was the first time it happened? And you know, then you just kind of crack it open and then they're, then they're whatever. And he's so, you know, hate negotiating with him, by the way, for speaker fee.
- [63:33]
B
Yeah, no, it's, it's painful actually. And he just, you know, he always comes up and he's like, I always talk to him or tell people about him. His phrase is always like ethical non combative interrogation methods. I'm like, so that means you don't bang their forehead off the desk, Mike? Is that what you're telling me?
- [63:50]
A
Like any.
- [63:51]
B
No waterboarding this time.
- [63:53]
A
Okay. I think he, he just won a jujitsu tournament, so he could actually, I think he could bang their head off the table. But no. And the good news is, is he's always so reasonable that, you know, I know that I couldn't win a negotiation against him, so he just comes in reasonable and we don't have to. But. Yeah, anyway.
- [64:10]
B
Hey, Jeff, how many of your, your entrepreneurs, like, how many, how many are taking on these teams? Because there's one more thing I wanted to touch on that I think could be valuable to your listeners.
- [64:20]
A
What do you mean by that?
- [64:22]
B
You know, you have these people who are stepping into these franchises and you know, they obviously have to onboard people and they have these individuals on their teams. And I always say, you know, one of my, one of my quotes that many people hate me for, which is we deserve the teams we have. They don't hate me for it. They're just like confused by it. We're like, what do you mean? Well, if we were constantly kicking the can down the road and we're not making improvements to our team, or we're not coaching them up, or we're not terminating the poor performers or the toxic players, we deserve that team. And we also deserve the teams we have. And we've, we've educated people to a point where they're high performing and, and they're, and they're going, they're going at a million miles an hour. But that's a good segue into, you know, we've identified nine traits of high Performers. And when leaders know this, when, when the franchise owners know this and they have these people on their teams, you know, what we teach is to, is to look for these traits. And there's nine of them. Cause I like number nine. But there's goal focused, knowledge driven, network driven, experience focused, personal growth driven, disciplined and self evaluation motivated by failure, altruism motivated and health focused. Right. And so what do leaders do with this? Well, when they can start looking at their teams and their team members and identifying these traits, they can now feed the machine. And what I mean by that is a lot of leaders have high potentials on their teams that aren't getting the necessary performance nutrition they need. Meaning a goal focused person. If you can identify that this person is goal focused, well, they're not going to want to do anything else besides you giving them targets to hit. They're going to perform at their peak when they've got new targets. Right. A growth driven person. You know, they're the ones who want to learn. So you put them into professional development things, they're going to not only take that information but then they're going to apply it in the job. Right. And if we're not giving them that information or that opportunity to learn and grow, they're going to get bored, they're going to leave, they're not going to perform up to their standards. And, and you know, last one, like network driven. Right. These are the people that want mentors. They're driven by expanding their network. These are the people you want to send out in a crowd and be like, go, go pull some more people back into this organization. Go get some information for us. That's where they're going to shine. And so what we, what we usually see is leaders not giving their high potentials the performance nutrients they need in order to get them to that high performance level.
- [67:09]
A
Right.
- [67:09]
B
And you know, when they recognize these traits, they can easily feed the machine.
- [67:14]
A
Yeah, makes, makes tons of sense. And yes, our franchise owners, what do they need to do? They need to be the face of the business in the community. They need to go out and have 100 conversations with referral partners and people that they, that they want to create collaborations with. They need to build a team, they need to sell, fulfill and collect. Like that's that, that's what they need to do. All on our platform, within our brand, within their territory. So yeah, very, very relevant. So maybe we can get you in front of them at some point down the road. We'd love to do it. All right. We're Heading towards the barn. And I've got a curveball and a fastball for you.
- [67:53]
B
Oh, man.
- [67:54]
A
Before, I. Before, yeah. You were baseball player.
- [67:58]
B
Yeah.
- [67:58]
A
There you go. You throw. You bat left or right?
- [68:02]
B
Righty. I would switch it, but I mostly bat you back.
- [68:05]
A
Right. Throw right, bat right, throw right, bat right. Short style. Oh, there you go. Big. Got a big hose. Big arm.
- [68:13]
B
Yeah, I tried. I don't know anymore. But, you know, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far.
- [68:18]
A
That's right. So. But before we do, is there any. Anything else that you want to. Want to throw out there to the audience?
- [68:26]
B
One thing that I always say is, you know, our systems are perfectly designed for the results we are getting. I'll say it again. They're perfectly designed for the results we're getting. Change your system, change your results. That's what high performance is all about. Analysis. What am I doing good? What am I doing that's not so good? And how do I make the shift so that I can elevate my performance? And if we. If we think in that mindset, generally it helps us. Helps us easily. Makes. Makes some heavy changes in our life.
- [68:58]
A
Got it. All right, here's the curveball. Gun to your head. Peppa Pig, who you love, held out a window on a high floor. Okay, in. If you had to start a business in 30 days and it's something that you are not currently active in business and. But it's an opportunity that you see in the marketplace right now, what business would you start?
- [69:25]
B
Oh, man, that is a heavy curveball. I would start a business, and I can't do anything that I'm already doing. Huh.
- [69:36]
A
Always. There's always an adjacency that people say.
- [69:40]
B
I know, I know. I'd have to lean into something with youth and the restructuring of the educational system to be more in line with what these kids need to survive in the world. So I see that we have some major gaps there. And if I could do anything right now and if I had the funds and the backers to do it, and I would absolutely lean into something like that.
- [70:12]
A
I love that. And I think that is right on point. That is awesome. Most people say I'm going to be the first AI billionaire, but no, you went for kids. So nice.
- [70:22]
B
They're our future.
- [70:23]
A
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for that. All right. How can. How can people get in touch with you, Aaron?
- [70:29]
B
Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn and social media. You know, I had a lean. That was my sixth stratum. I had to lean into social media. And put myself out there. That was pretty. Pretty freaking scary. All right, so just. But yeah, you can DM me there. And I'm always available to talk about high performance with anybody who wants. Wants to, like, listen to me drone on for a couple hours.
- [70:49]
A
All right, so that's double A, R, O N Salko, S a L, K O. And is that what they would put in on Instagram? Facebook?
- [70:56]
B
Yeah, you can find me that way. Or the night or ninth stratum is my handle on Instagram.
- [71:00]
A
Okay. And it's a number nine. Number9th stratum on Instagram. Well, there you go, folks. Okay, here's the fastball right down the middle. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?
- [71:16]
B
I would say one sentence. Understand the value of kindness, because kindness is one of the most quintessential things we can be and do that move mountains, that move people, that motivate people, that get ourselves to that next level, but also elevate others.
- [71:42]
A
Perfectly said. Thank you, Aaron, for being on.
- [71:47]
B
Jeff. This is awesome.
- [71:48]
A
Yeah. Great time. This has been Aaron Selko here with Jeff Duden. We have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.