Lessons in Team Building from a Champion NASCAR Pit Crew Chief

Summary

Stay Paid Podcast: Episode Summary

Title: Lessons in Team Building from a Champion NASCAR Pit Crew Chief
Host/Author: ReminderMedia
Episodes Hosts: Luke Acree and Joshua Stike
Guest: Cody Smith, Co-founder of Deck Leadership and Former NASCAR Pit Crew Chief
Release Date: February 17, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Stay Paid Podcast, hosts Luke Acree and Joshua Stike delve deep into the art of team building with their distinguished guest, Cody Smith. As the co-founder of Deck Leadership and a former NASCAR pit crew chief, Cody brings a wealth of experience from the high-octane world of motorsports to the realm of business consulting. The episode, titled "Lessons in Team Building from a Champion NASCAR Pit Crew Chief," explores the intricate dynamics of building high-performing teams, the significance of company culture, and actionable strategies to elevate business operations.

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Cody Smith's Journey from NASCAR to Leadership Consulting

Cody Smith's entry into NASCAR was serendipitous. Originally a Canadian hockey player who immigrated to the U.S. with aspirations in sports, Cody found himself thrust into the competitive world of NASCAR pit crews. Over 13 years as a pit crew member and 10 years leading the pit crew department, Cody honed his skills in managing teams under intense pressure and strict time constraints.

Cody Smith [01:38]: "I was accidentally found my way into NASCAR years ago and was tapped to take over the worst picker department in NASCAR. Both teams outside the top 25 with half the budget to compete with other teams."

Under his leadership, Cody transformed two struggling teams into top contenders within five years, emphasizing that great design often emerges from restriction. This experience laid the foundation for his transition into motivational speaking and business consulting.

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Transition to Motivational Speaking and Authorship

Cody's pivot to motivational speaking was almost accidental. Invited to speak at the NFL Combine through his then-employer, Cody received significant positive feedback from NFL personnel, including the New England Patriots. This validation prompted him to author the book "12 Second Culture," which draws parallels between the precision of NASCAR pit crews and effective business team dynamics.

Cody Smith [03:04]: "It was this validation point, and it was like, well, maybe I do have something to say. And so wrote this book and started speaking."

Despite moments of overconfidence and imposter syndrome, Cody embraced his role as a leadership guru, sharing insights from his high-pressure NASCAR background to inspire business leaders worldwide.

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Core Principles of "12 Second Culture"

"12 Second Culture" encapsulates the essence of high-performance teams, drawing directly from the pit crew's necessity to perform flawless tire changes and refuels within strict timeframes. Cody emphasizes two main aspects:

1. Building the Program: Establishing a culture that values each team member and inspires them to perform at their peak.
2. Sustaining Excellence: Maintaining high standards and motivating team members consistently to operate on the edge of human capability.

Cody Smith [04:12]: "The guy that's a team member, they operate right on the verge of what's humanly possible."

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Valuing and Caring for Team Members

A cornerstone of Cody's philosophy is the unwavering value placed on team members. He argues that in today’s fast-paced business environment, people are often undervalued, leading to diminished team performance. His approach involves:

• Personal Attention: Recognizing and celebrating personal milestones, such as birthdays and anniversaries, to foster a deeper connection.

  Cody Smith [07:18]: "If you can catch these people in these areas of margin, you have a chance to create huge impact."

• Intentional Communication: Regularly expressing appreciation and acknowledging hard work, which builds a positive narrative around leadership interactions.

Cody Smith [07:41]: "This hits people different. You become the first boss that changes that narrative."

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High Standards in Hiring and Retention

Cody’s commitment to excellence is evident in his stringent hiring and retention processes. He shares insights into how Trackhouse Racing maintains its competitive edge through:

• Selective Recruitment: Only the best candidates, often from elite sports backgrounds, are chosen based on their ability to handle pressure and exhibit an ownership mentality.

  Cody Smith [11:14]: "If you can get through that, I'm going to send you for lunch with six of our people... that's a go or a no-go."

• Cultural Fit: Prioritizing team synergy over individual accolades, ensuring that each member contributes positively to the overall team dynamic.

Cody Smith [14:00]: "Justin Marks... let some exceptional people go. That is just an absolute conviction that you want to do it this certain way."

Cody underscores that maintaining high standards sometimes necessitates letting go of top performers who disrupt team harmony, emphasizing that the cost of teamwork outweighs the benefits of individual brilliance.

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Unique Team Building Workshops

Expanding his expertise beyond publishing and speaking, Cody offers unique team-building workshops that simulate the fast-paced environment of NASCAR pit crews. These workshops include:

• Real-Life Simulations: Bringing race cars to corporate settings, wrapped in company colors, allowing teams to engage in hands-on pit crew activities.

  Cody Smith [21:03]: "We will put the guns and tires and wrenches, all that stuff in your hands, and we’ll talk about how to build high-performing teams."

• Athlete-Led Training: Utilizing former NFL players and other sports professionals to lead exercises that promote teamwork, efficiency, and rapid problem-solving.

These immersive experiences aim to instill the principles of high-performance teams in corporate environments, translating NASCAR's precision teamwork into business success.

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Managing Underperformers

Addressing the inevitable challenge of underperformers, Cody outlines a transparent and data-driven approach:

• Performance Tracking: Utilizing AI technology to break down each pit stop into detailed metrics, ranking team members weekly.

  Cody Smith [21:25]: "Change your people or change your people."

• Problem-Focused Feedback: Instead of personal critiques, Cody advocates for addressing performance issues by focusing on the problem, not the person.

• Support and Improvement Plans: Providing underperformers with clear feedback and actionable plans to enhance their skills, while understanding that persistent issues may require personnel changes.

This approach ensures accountability while maintaining a supportive environment for growth.

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Actionable Takeaways

Towards the episode's conclusion, Cody and the hosts highlight practical action items for listeners to implement in their own businesses:

1. Intentional Recognition:

   • Know Personal Milestones: Track and acknowledge team members' birthdays, anniversaries, and other significant events.
   • Express Appreciation: Regularly communicate gratitude for team members' efforts and contributions.

   Luke Acree [24:46]: "Knowing the life dates is insanely practical."

2. Visual Goal Representation:

   • Mark Goals Visually: Create tangible representations of goals or missed opportunities to keep them top-of-mind.

   Luke Acree [25:12]: "The visual representation of the mess or the desire."

3. Create High-Performance Environments:

   • Simulate Team Challenges: Engage teams in activities that mimic high-pressure scenarios to build cohesion and efficiency.

   Cody Smith [20:11]: "We think we have one of the most unique team-building events in the country."

4. Data-Driven Performance Management:

   • Utilize Technology: Implement systems to track and assess team performance objectively.
   • Focus on Problems, Not People: Address performance issues with constructive feedback and support.

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Conclusion

Cody Smith’s insights from the NASCAR pit crew translate seamlessly into effective business team building. His emphasis on valuing team members, maintaining high standards, and fostering a supportive yet performance-driven culture offers actionable strategies for entrepreneurs and agents aiming to elevate their businesses. Through intentionally recognizing personal milestones, visually tracking goals, and maintaining a transparent performance management system, leaders can cultivate teams that are not only efficient but also deeply committed and motivated.

Listeners are encouraged to implement these strategies to foster a life of freedom and business growth, aligning with the core mission of the Stay Paid Podcast.

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Connect with Cody Smith:

• Email: [e-mail]
• LinkedIn: Cody Smith at Trackhouse Racing
• Phone: [phone]

Stay Connected:
For more insights and actionable business strategies, subscribe to the Stay Paid Podcast and follow hosts Luke Acree and Joshua Stike on their social media channels.

Transcript

[Luke Acree]

Welcome to the Stay Paid podcast where we help agents and entrepreneurs master the latest business trends to unlock growth and create a life of freedom. Brought to you by Reminder Media.

[Joshua Stike]

Welcome to Stay Paid. Where marketing meets motivation. My name is Joshua Stike.

[Luke Acree]

And I'm Luke Acree.

[Joshua Stike]

What do you think of that?

[Luke Acree]

Dang, dude, that was a new opening. Yeah, I was like, Josh is going rogue here.

[Cody Smith]

You know who came up with that chat?

[Joshua Stike]

GPT. Yeah.

[Luke Acree]

Where marketing meets motivation.

[Joshua Stike]

Meets motivation. And we've got some motivation today. Joining us as always, Cody Smith and Stephen Acree from the Acree Brothers realty team, number one real estate team in Lynchburg, Virginia. Welcome, gentlemen.

[Luke Acree]

What's up boys? You guys aren't very excited.

[Joshua Stike]

Slow day in Lynchburg.

[Luke Acree]

Must be a slow month in January here for you guys.

[Joshua Stike]

And our special guest today is Sean Pete. Sean is the co founder of Deck Leadership, a business consulting company based in Charlotte, North Carolina that is looking to transform the modern workplace by uncovering opportunities for diversity, efficiency, culture and kindness. His book 12 Second Culture draws upon his experience as a NASCAR pit crew coach on how to deal with the pressures of working in performance driven, fast paced profession. Sean, welcome to Stay Paid, guys.

[Cody Smith]

Thanks for having me. Thrilled, thrilled to be here with you.

[Luke Acree]

Sean, man, we're excited to have you. Our VP of corporate sales heard you speak and said you guys have got to talk to this guy. He found you extremely one insightful but really motivating. I would love for you to kind of share your background. What's the whole pit crew, 12 second team and performance culture idea? Where did that come from? How'd you get started in that?

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, you know, I think it was born from an opportunity. I was accidentally found my way into NASCAR years ago and was, I was tapped to take over the worst picker department in NASCAR. Both teams outside the top 25 and we had half the budget to compete with the other teams. And you know, I think a lot of times great design is a product of restriction. And our restriction was we had no money so we literally had to weaponize our culture if we had any chance to compete with these other teams. And in, you know, two short years we had both teams in the top 10 and by year five, we had both in the top five with the, with the best team in the sport.

[Luke Acree]

Holy cow.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, and you know, it starts with inspiring human brilliance and, and you do that by valuing people and we just, we got very intentional about that and you know, built this thing that we're really proud of.

[Luke Acree]

So now then you translated that. So you did that for how many years? How many years were you in the pit crew?

[Cody Smith]

So I was. I'm Canadian. Came to the States to play hockey, actually, and. And I was in a pit crew for 13 years, and then I took over this department about 10 years ago, so. So yeah, so currently we're training up five groups to go race at the Daytona 500 in three weeks.

[Luke Acree]

Oh, wow. Okay. I thought this was something. So you're still doing that?

[Cody Smith]

Oh, yeah, yeah. The race cars are just on the other side of this wall right here.

[Luke Acree]

Oh, that's sick. So then how did you get into the whole motivational speaking business side? Like the consulting stuff?

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, completely by accident. They sent me up to Indianapolis to speak at the NFL combine simply because the. The company I worked for had a big footprint in that city. So they sent me up there. I thought it was terrible. Turns out I got invited out to a bunch of NFL teams, and I was leaving the conference center that. That day, and this guy stops me and he said, hey, man, I took more notes in your 30 minutes than I did the first two days of this conference. And we get into a really great conversation. And at the end of it, I'm like, well, who you with? And he said, I'm with the New England Patriots. And when you're in nascar, you don't think you have anything the world wants to hear. And it was this validation point, and it was like, well, maybe I do have something to say. And so wrote this book and started speaking. And honestly, guys, I'm somewhere between overconfidence and self crushing imposter syndrome every day because I'm in rooms and on stages where I'm like, are you serious? So it's been. It's been almost a surreal ride here.

[Joshua Stike]

Well, talk about your book. So 12 second culture, it's a unique kind of hook. I'm assuming it has something to do with the amount of time that it takes to. To. To run a pit stop.

[Cody Smith]

It does. It does. So like a NASCAR pit crew, their job is to change four tires and put two cans of fuel. When we wrote the book in 12 seconds, we have since got that down to eight seconds. So, like, these guys and girls that pit these race cars, they operate right on the verge of what's humanly possible. So the book talks about how we built the program, and then the second part of the book talks about how we sustain that. How do you. How do you have people show up every day and do something to operate right on the verge of what's humanly Possible and it goes back to that inspiring human brilliance piece.

[Stephen Acree]

Now were you not concerned at all with other people taking your, your stuff? Like you say you're just giving out your standards, right?

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, no I'm not. I think because it was all hard won by us.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

And the one thing that I think that we do better than anybody else is we care about the people in this building. And you know, I think as companies what we forget sometimes because the pace of business now, right. Like it's, it's only getting faster. And I think a lot of times what we forget is to value people. And honestly there's, we were just purchased three years ago. This was Chip Ganassi Racing, it was bought by Justin Marks and it's now track house racing which made every single one of our athletes a free agent. And I already told you, we don't pay the most. Our teams were first and third. So the vultures were coming. We lost one person. And that's just it. Like these new kids that are coming, these kids are not, they are purpose over purse strings. You can't even incentivize them to be great.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

You have to inspire that. And we, we understood that early on and you know, decided to write about it and companies started to hear it and yeah, we're, we're all over the world now. I was in Barcelona last week speaking was in Christchurch late last year and then all over the country.

[Luke Acree]

That's something else. Can you walk us through? Like, like always the difficult thing for me is that you want to be a company that values people. Like I don't think you would meet a business owner would say I devalue people. Well maybe, but probably not. The problem is the practical like practical execution of that.

[Unknown]

Sure.

[Luke Acree]

Like where have you found execution wise how you can do that day to day whether it's process driven or systematic in your, in your organization.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah. Let me give you two simple examples that, that work to great effect for us. So I think the whole thing is to catch people unaware.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

If you can catch these people in these, these areas of margin, Right. You have a chance to create huge impact on. So one of the things that we first did was was something as simple as the after work phone call.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

As business owners we all work long days. Correct. So we're driving back to the house at 8, 8:30 at night. I'm going to take the opportunity to call one of my athletes and I'm just simply going to say hey look, I don't always get to say it but your hard Work doesn't go unnoticed. Thank you for everything that you do for this company. Okay? First thing is you could be thinking about anything in the world and you're thinking about them, okay? Second thing is, they're at home. They're probably with their spouse, right? And that person is going to ask them who's calling. And every call that they've ever received at home is probably bad news, especially from their boss. Right?

[Stephen Acree]

Yeah.

[Cody Smith]

What if. What if you're the first boss that changes that narrative, right? That hits people different. You know the other thing that we've used, I'm a student of great leadership. Remember, Tom Osborne was the head coach of Nebraska Cornhuskers, right? And what he, you know, he, you know, won all the national championships. One of the things he had is. This is going back. He had a Rolodex on his desk. Remember those? That had all the cards in them.

[Joshua Stike]

Oh, yeah.

[Cody Smith]

And he had every important date in his players lives, right? Companies, we all know each other's birthdays, right? He took it a step further. He would know your wife's birthday. He knew your parents birthdays, he knew your anniversaries. You knew all of it, right? And he would take this card out to practice. So what we did is we took that model and we got all these important dates on our intake form, put them into our phones, and five minutes before I walk out to practice, I have 36 alpha males warming up. I can go put my hand on my jackman and say, hey, don't forget to call your mom. It's her birthday today. No one's ever done that for them before, right? We had a guy, we were late one day, and this guy was still carrying tires out back. And I asked the other coach, I'm like, why is Mulan still here? And he's like, I don't know. So we go back, we're like, dude, you need to get out of here. It's your anniversary. And he goes, no, it's not. And we're like, yeah, it is. And this guy, this guy's wife's affectionately known as the warden. Not a lady you want to disappoint, right? So we call down to Charlotte, get him dinner reservations. There's a florist on his way home. There's flowers waiting for him. He grabs the flowers, walks through the front door, pretends he remembers his anniversary. How do you think I get that kid the next day? Yeah, lit up. Yeah. Yeah, lit up. And you know, the best piece of this for business owners costs $0, right? It costs $0 to care about people. It's just you have to have some intention wrapped around it. And if you can do that, you motivate people and if you have motivated people coming through the front door of your office, you're going to do big things.

[Stephen Acree]

I hope that guy's wife knows the story already.

[Cody Smith]

I don't know that she knows that. We call her the warden.

[Luke Acree]

Hopefully she doesn't listen to stay. Dude, that's crazy. But it makes so much sense and it applies to the business world. Like Evelyn, my daughter, she just turned 4 on Sunday and I got a text from our good buddy Sean Carpenter. I hope you're listening to this. He's a listener of the podcast. He texted me and said, happy birthday today to little Evelyn. Hope she's, she has a fun party and maybe her daddy's commanders will win today. And it's like two things. One is he knew it was my daughter's birthday. Two, he knows I'm a fan of the Washington Commanders. And he's a real estate agent and trainer, coach, speaker. But you go, yeah, yeah. That's a guy that, his whole career has been built off referrals and relationships and he's living it out in a simple way just like that. And nobody else, you know, texted me that or, or reached out on that because, you know, it's, it takes that intentionality of tracking the details. Do you guys, when you're onboarding somebody, do you get those details when you onboard them?

[Cody Smith]

We do, we do. We have a very, we have a very highly curated first day experience here. Like our competitors, they recruit the SEC and the Big Ten and all these football conferences. Anybody in the country can come to track house racing and try out and, and like I said, we've hidden all the behaviors we want to see in the hiring process. So we ask you if you want to try out here. We ask you to be here at 7:00. If you show up at 6:30, you get a check mark and you move on. If you show up at 7, you're gone. Okay? Then you're gonna watch two and a half hours of NASCAR pit crew practice, right? Which is, you guys can imagine there's lots of dirty work, greasy wheels, okay? If you pick up a rag and jump into that work unprompted, it shows me that you have an ownership type mentality, right? You get a check mark and you move on. If you don't, you're gone. Okay? Now you're going to come and join us on a Wednesday, which is the hardest workout of the week. And I'm not going to ask you to lift the most or jump the highest. Right. I just want to see if you can get through it. Because intestinal fortitude matters to our success, right? So we actually had a kid throw up in the middle of it, come back, finish, he thought he was done. We loved it.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Cody Smith]

Check mark and move on. Now imagine this. You're on campus for three hours. You're exhausted from the workout. I have former NFL linebackers, guys that won the super bowl, all American baseball players, all American swimmers. And I'm just going to tap you on the shoulder and be like, hey, Josh, break the group up for me.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Cody Smith]

That's hard to do. Hands in the middle and say something that inspires these people that you're probably terrified of. It shows me how you handle pressure. Okay. If you get through that, I'm going to send you for lunch with six of our people, and they're going to kind of get a feel for you if they're a go or a no go. And if they sign off on you, the last thing that's going to happen is you're going to come sit down with me. And what I'll do is I'll do one of two things. I'll either ball a piece of paper up and put it right in the middle of the door jamb. So when that person comes into the office, there's only two things they can do. They can either step over it, or they can pick it up and throw it in the garbage. Or I'll have a stock of boxes in the office and be like, shoot, I know we said 1:00. I just got to get these up to HR. There's more boxes than I can carry. If they just sit there and they've navigated the rest of the day, they're gone.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Cody Smith]

And what's crazy, guys, is every time we've deviated off it, we've regretted it. So this took us about four or five years to get it dialed in, but that is on the first day.

[Stephen Acree]

So do you guys have pretty high standards for your company too? Like once they become employees or.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, we. You know, what our company is, was really interesting like when Marks, when Justin Marks bought this and it became track house racing. It parallel the time when NASCAR made this massive change, right? So instead of building cars in the shops here, we would get the entire sport, gets them out of Indianapolis. Okay. And that necessitated us cutting 80 people out of the building. And the only thing that determined whether you stayed or went was Was what kind of experience you were?

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

Like. Like. Cody, if I asked you this question, right. If I asked you, what kind of experience are you? How do you answer that?

[Stephen Acree]

What kind of experience am I? One that's a hard worker, I guess. Yeah. Like, I have no idea how to answer that.

[Cody Smith]

You have no idea? Steven, you want to take a shot.

[Stephen Acree]

At what experience you are?

[Cody Smith]

Like, what kind of experience? What is it like to experience you?

[Luke Acree]

Yep.

[Stephen Acree]

As. As a fellow co worker or what's the situation?

[Cody Smith]

No, what is the experience of you if I. If I run into you right now? What. What. What am I feeling?

[Stephen Acree]

I would answer that for you. You want to answer? I would say, yeah, experience me. You would say someone that's an encourager that helps other people move along and also carries his own weight.

[Cody Smith]

That's great, man. And that's the right answer. You want to know why? Because. Because you had so much doubt at the start of it.

[Unknown]

Right? Great.

[Cody Smith]

Great humility is rooted. Great leadership is rooted in humility.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

I asked the CEO of the biggest tire company, tire entire company in this country that question. His answer was, I was. I'm the man. That's the wrong answer. Right.

[Luke Acree]

But.

[Cody Smith]

But think about that for a second, right?

[Unknown]

As.

[Cody Smith]

As human beings, we all carry divine energy, and we are an experience, whether we. We think we are or not. So what is that experience? Are you a. Are you a kind experience or are you a condescending experience? Are you a rushed experience or you have present experience? And what. What Marks understood was that you gravitate towards people that you enjoy working with, and when you do that, you get more done with less. So we had a crew chief with seven wins. We had one with zero. We let go of the guy with seven wins. We let go of our top sales guy. We let go of one of our best engineers, right? Because we. You can't win with brilliant jerks, Right? The cost of teamwork is simply too high. And because of that, and that's the philosophy we've rode with, there's only three teams that have more trophies than us since our inception. Hendrick racing, that has 525 employees, Penske Racing, that has 380 employees, and Joe Gibbs, that has 400 employees. We have 160.

[Luke Acree]

Wow.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, dude, that's.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, that's crazy. And what's interesting is you're so committed to it and the philosophy and the values that you're driving that you're willing to get rid of the top winner on the team, the top engineer, the top salesperson, because you're so committed to the team, which then in myself, I go, that is the winning mentality. Just as the tire company guy said, I'm the man and he believes I'm the best. You believe so much in the values of the team that that commitment is what grounds people are like. Because the devil's advocate would be, you know, you watched the Last Dance with Michael Jordan, and a lot of people didn't like to play with him, but he won a ton of championships.

[Cody Smith]

Yep.

[Luke Acree]

And you go, is the difference there that he was so committed to winning, but that still was a grounding commitment, Just like you're so committed to teamwork. You get what I'm saying? Like the. Like, how do you parse that in your mind? Is it really the teamwork or is it really your commitment to it that grounds everybody and gives purpose? If that makes sense.

[Cody Smith]

No, it does. And I think. I think what it boils down to is, do you amplify the people around you?

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

Think of the people you've worked with, like the brilliant jerks that you have worked with, and all they do is tamp down ideas, tell you stupid, make you feel small, all that stuff. Right. What Jordan did is he elevated the people around him. Right? That's what you want. And the problem is, so many of our businesses, we hold onto the brilliant jerk because what we stand to lose is measurable.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

We can look at their sales and be like, holy, shoot, if I move off this person, I lose X.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

And that's measurable. But what you stand to gain could be 5x or 20x or 100x, because this person has muted all these people around them.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Cody Smith]

But that's conceptual. You can't bet on that. And that's why a lot of us were paralyzed by letting this person we know is destroying our company. And we hang on to them. You know, I credit Justin Marks, so it's really. Sorry, go ahead.

[Luke Acree]

No, no, you're good. What do you give a ton of credit to Mark for?

[Cody Smith]

I give a ton of credit to Justin Marks because there are millions of dollars on the line for him buying this team, and he let some exceptional people go. And that is just an absolute conviction that you want to do it this certain way.

[Luke Acree]

Agree? Yeah, I respect that so much because I agree with you. You're essentially saying it's the person that is bringing other. Like, putting others down and not bringing the best out of them are the people that you have to get rid of. Like the Jordans in the world, the Brady's in The world, they might light you up. You might not like being around them for that time because they're basically making you puke your guts out, you know, you know, doing the, you know, whole workout. But they elevated a better version of you.

[Cody Smith]

And, and they cared about their teammates.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Cody Smith]

There's a huge difference. The brilliant jerk cares about themselves and elevating themselves, their own sales. This. Those guys, if you care about people, you give them the tough news, right? You challenge them. You make them the best version of yourselves. When I was done playing hockey, I wrote letters to my four hardest coaches that were a nightmare to play for. Because what they did is they gave me the best shot to make the National Hockey League.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

I hated the coaches that told me I was good when I knew I wasn't right. Because they allowed me to be mediocre. When I look back on life, like, you know, one of those coaches at my wedding, you know, so it's, you know, it's funny, people think people aren't going to like us. We, the people you revere the most in your life, are the ones that stepped out and try to make you the best version of yourself.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah. So well said.

[Stephen Acree]

And all your stuff was action based too. Like, even your interview, like if they check a box or not, was all action based. So it's teamwork, but also showing it in action. Not just, you know, saying is.

[Cody Smith]

It is. And like I said, man, like, great teams, great efforts are all born out of intention.

[Unknown]

Right?

[Cody Smith]

And, and it's getting intentional about, like, how what is winning here look like? Like, what do we want that to look like? Who do we want to win with? And there's so many opportunities for that. Like when you guys come in, if you've ever visit Trackhouse Racing, our second year in existence, we finished second in the championship and we finished 325ft behind Joy Logano at the final race in Phoenix. Wow. So instead of just letting that pass as lightning in a bottle, what we did is we came to the race shop, we painted a starting line, we measured out 325ft. We did put a finish line. We marked 325 in the middle of the driveway. And then we painted the curbing the same color as the walls in Phoenix so that every day that you drove into track house racing, you were driving over the distance that separated you from what a lot of people in our building was a trial.

[Luke Acree]

That is sick.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah. So it's right out this window and that way. So the thing is, is you see how short that distance was between that dream of yours. So could you have worked a little bit harder? Could you have been a better experience? Could you have come up with a better idea that maybe served us? But you. You played small and you didn't. You didn't bring it out into the world. So it challenges every day. It's like, how do we. How do we shorten that gap?

[Joshua Stike]

Yeah, that is so cool. You mentioned before we got on and started recording, you do kind of workshops, I guess, where you'll bring the race car. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, yeah. We think we have one of the most unique team building events in the country. And. And, you know, it was born. We kept hearing companies and teams saying, you know, we want to operate like a pit crew. And there was these corporate businesses saying that, and I was like, well, they don't know what that is. So what we did is we built this package and we will literally travel the race car anywhere in the country. Like, we've done it in the classic car club in Manhattan. We've done it in dog patch studios in San Francisco. And what we'll do is we'll wrap the race car in your company colors, we'll come to the parking lot of your business, we'll bring the real athletes, like the guys that won the super bowl and the guys that are pit in the cars now, and we will teach your team how to operate like a pit crew. We'll put the guns and tires and wrenches, all that stuff in your hands, and we'll talk about how to build high performing teams. And you guys, will you go? Basically heads up in a tournament style pick crew competition. It's pretty wild. We just.

[Luke Acree]

That's. That's awesome.

[Cody Smith]

We just did one for Anheuser Bush's ELT out in Nashville and it was. It was awesome, man. Those guys were. Brought a ton of energy and it was a lot of fun.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, that's. That's sick because I'm sure that teaches you so much. What do you do with underperformers? Right. How do you tend to manage underperformers out of your organization or up? Because that's, you know, a really difficult task for people.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, I think there's a couple things is we don't. We don't surprise them, Right. Like, there is a running tally in our building. So when you come in, every pit stop is filmed. And then we have this AI technology that literally breaks down to a hundredth of a second the 36 movements that you do in a pit Stop.

[Unknown]

Okay.

[Cody Smith]

And Then what that does is it puts those, that data up against every other person at your position in the shop. So you're ranked 1 through 12th every single Monday morning. So you know exactly where you are. And if you're 12th consistently, you know, we're having a plan, you know, we're with you, trying to figure out, you know, where your deficiencies are. And I, and I think, you know, for us, it's. We don't surprise them. And the thing is, when there's problems, we don't, we don't look at the person, we look at the problem.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

I think what a lot of companies do wrong is, you know, there's a poor performer or something goes off the wire and they associate with this person and that's an emotional response. Right? We look at the problem, not the person. Now if the problem is tethered to the person over and over and over again, change your people or change your people. Right. So it's up to us to get that person back to proficient. And then, you know, what a lot of it happens or what a lot of it boils down to is the unseen hours.

[Unknown]

Right.

[Cody Smith]

Like our hardest working guys, the guys that regularly sit at the top of our board, the amount of unseen hours that they put in the shop is. Is mind blowing.

[Luke Acree]

That's so good. Change your people or change your people.

[Joshua Stike]

I love it. Sean, thank you so much for coming on the episode today before we close out, let people know how they can connect with you, learn more about your company.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, please, Sean pete@sean pete.com. i'm on LinkedIn. I'm at Trackhouse Racing. So yeah, please, if you're passionate about talking about this stuff and yeah, if I can ever help you with anything, guys, if you ever want to come to a race, you let me know and we'll get you there.

[Luke Acree]

That's amazing.

[Joshua Stike]

Appreciate it. Cody, Stephen, thank you as always for joining.

[Cody Smith]

Absolutely.

[Joshua Stike]

Before we close out here.

[Unknown]

No, we reached out to us and he said someone called the other day after our last podcast. So taking calls after everyone let us know if you need help with anything. And phone number is 434-216-5306.

[Luke Acree]

All right, so we just finished up with Sean Pete, Amazing, the leadership guru. I want to talk about some action items that you guys can apply.

[Joshua Stike]

How cool is that? That like they treat as a sport like this?

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, it's wild. I thought, I thought NASCAR was just a drinking. Honestly, I didn't want to say I should have said that to him on the show, but yeah, that Guy was jacked, man. I didn't want. I mean, he gave 68 stitches to that one guy.

[Cody Smith]

He gave me three hour workout exactly.

[Luke Acree]

Here, here's what I was thinking. Say, what'd you say, Cody?

[Stephen Acree]

I thought he was in the military.

[Luke Acree]

Like, man, he did kind of remind you of the Jocko Willinick type demeanor? Because we've had jocko speak. He's the extreme ownership guy. The action items, I see very, very practically two action items right away. One is the intentionality of knowing the birthdays, anniversaries, life event dates, the special dates for the people that mean the most to you. So your team members, like you guys think of your team. Tim on your team, Noah Carson, your, yourself. I mean, like I think of you, Josh. I go, your birthday. No. Is in like the next month or two, right? I don't know this.

[Cody Smith]

Last month.

[Luke Acree]

It was last month. There you go. It was last month. So like, I don't know, Cody, Cody, like, I don't know your birthday.

[Joshua Stike]

It's so hard to stay disciplined with that. I used to do that because I remember listening to a podcast, I mean this was 15 years ago, called Manager Tools and they had their one on one sheet. On your one on one sheet, you wrote down all of the significant, their other, their pets, the dates and everything. And so it's easy to start. It's so hard to stay disciplined.

[Luke Acree]

That's what I'm saying. It's like I like when he was saying that, I was like, I don't know any of you guys birthdays. I guess I know yours, Steven, because you're right.

[Joshua Stike]

Do you know Steven's birthday?

[Luke Acree]

January 15th, right? Yeah, it just happened. There you go. So knowing the life dates is insanely practical. That that's an action item for you. The second is the visual representation of your goal. The visual representation of the mess or the visual representation of the, the desire. And if you think we've had other people on the podcast, remember that one guy we interviewed where he wanted to be the, the dominant agent in this Geo farm and he wasn't. So he printed out the face of the number one agent in that Geo farm and he put it on his mirror every day. So he had to steer that stare, that competitive agent in the eye every day when he washed his face and brushed his teeth. This guy Sean, right? What does he do? He literally paints on the driveway, the 325ft that they lost by. So every day you have to drive over that. So it becomes top of mind. So like the second action in my mind is how are you putting a visual representation in front of you of the goal that you need to achieve every single day? Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown]

And it's just the intentionality too with remembering the dates as well, like the problem solving that comes after that. So he gave that story of his employee forgetting his, his anniversary date and they were able to set up a date for him, you know, to go out to dinner, flowers, all that good stuff. So it's the intentionality of using that date to actually solve, you know, to actually do something for your, your people. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Acree]

I've started to implement. I'm writing birthday cards now. Just started it this week after a suggestion from my mastermind group where every employee is now going to get a personally written, hand written note. A person who written Henry a birthday part. I wrote three of them.

[Joshua Stike]

Be a card every day.

[Luke Acree]

I wrote three of them today. I gotta write them today. Exactly. So that, that, that is happening. Like that's one thing I want to do. But knowing like Sean Carpenter, I mentioned it on the show. Right. Knowing my daughter's birthday and, and him, it's different. Everybody might text me on my birthday or comment on Facebook. Nobody does it on my daughter's birthday. But Sean, immediate separator. And you go, that is the real gold mine to me is going not just your person's birthday but their people's special events. And like that, that, that to me is, is the key.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah.

[Luke Acree]

So there you have it, guys. That is our wrap up of the show. We're going to start trying to do these little wrap ups to give you action items that are really intense.

[Joshua Stike]

We should bring in our listener questions maybe.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, that'd be a great idea.

[Joshua Stike]

We can kind of. We guys, you guys send in so many awesome questions. We want to make sure that we get some more.

[Luke Acree]

We have some big things coming for this show. Big things that is gonna blow you away. It's gonna be the best show on the face of the planet. Giant, huge pig. So remember, get out there, change lives. Remember the difference between top producers and mediocre producers. They take action. Take action on that today.