An Olympic Coach’s Advice for Tradesmen Who Can’t Afford To Break Down

Summary

Podcast Summary: An Olympic Coach’s Advice for Tradesmen Who Can’t Afford To Break Down

Podcast Information

• Title: To The Point - Home Services Podcast
• Host/Author: RYNO Strategic Solutions
• Description: The Home Services podcast that gets to the point, with solutions to help your service company grow. Focused on aiding HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Roofing, etc., companies in marketing and operational strategies.
• Episode: An Olympic Coach’s Advice for Tradesmen Who Can’t Afford To Break Down
• Release Date: July 15, 2025

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Introduction to the Episode

In this compelling episode of To The Point - Home Services Podcast, host Chris engages in an insightful conversation with Coach Chris Hummer, a renowned gymnastics coach with nearly four decades of experience training U.S. junior National Olympic gymnasts. Joined by Chad Peterman, the episode delves into the parallels between elite athletic training and building a successful home services business.

Background of Coach Chris Hummer

Coach Chris Hummer brings a wealth of experience from the gymnastics world, having dedicated nearly 40 years to coaching elite athletes. His expertise extends beyond sports, as he has transitioned his coaching philosophies into the business realm, offering unique perspectives on leadership, discipline, and long-term planning.

Notable Quote:
"Most people who are in that three to five month time frame, they're looking for an edge, a supplement. They're trying to cheat time. And you can't. There's no shortcut."
— Chad Peterman [06:44]

Applying Gymnastics Principles to Business

The core of the discussion revolves around how the stringent training and disciplined mindset required in gymnastics can be effectively applied to managing and growing a home services business. Coach Hummer emphasizes the importance of long-term vision over short-term gains, advocating for a steady, methodical approach to building a business.

Key Points:

• Long-Term Planning: Transitioning from focusing on immediate results to embracing a multi-year growth strategy.
• Discipline and Consistency: Establishing world-class basics and maintaining relentless consistency in operations.
• No Shortcuts: Understanding that sustainable growth requires time, effort, and unwavering commitment.

Notable Quote:
"I'm not in a hurry. I'm not looking for a magic bullet or a secret technique. You have to be in it for the long haul."
— Chad Peterman [06:44]

Talent Identification and Development

Coach Hummer discusses his approach to identifying and nurturing talent, drawing parallels between coaching elite athletes and building a high-performing team in business. He highlights the significance of recognizing inherent talent and fostering it through rigorous training and support.

Key Points:

• Identifying Grit: Seeking individuals who possess resilience and a refusal to quit, akin to SEAL team members.
• Developing Talent: Investing time and resources into developing employees who demonstrate potential and commitment.
• Accountability: Holding team members accountable to maintain high standards and continuous improvement.

Notable Quote:
"Anybody who's just focusing on that next step in front of them is not going to get where they're trying to go. Because some things just take a long time to build."
— Chad Peterman [06:44]

Discipline and Consistency in Building a Business

The conversation delves deeper into how discipline and consistency are essential for both athletes and business leaders. Coach Hummer shares strategies for instilling these values within a team, ensuring that every member is aligned with the company's long-term objectives.

Key Points:

• Establishing Parameters: Assessing the current strengths and weaknesses of the team to create a solid foundation.
• Brutal Honesty: Providing honest feedback to foster improvement and prevent complacency.
• Relentless Work Ethic: Encouraging a no-excuse mentality that drives continuous effort and excellence.

Notable Quote:
"You don't have to have talent to take action. You just have to start doing something."
— Chris [82:44]

Leadership Styles: Boss vs. Coach

Chris raises an important question about the differences between being a boss and being a coach, exploring how business owners can adopt a coaching mindset to lead more effectively. Coach Hummer responds by emphasizing the importance of accountability, inspection, and fostering a culture of excellence.

Key Points:

• Influential Leadership: Transitioning from directive management to a more coaching-oriented leadership style.
• Accountability: Regularly inspecting work to ensure standards are met without resorting to micromanagement.
• Selecting the Right Personnel: Being meticulous in hiring to build a team of high performers who align with the company's values.

Notable Quote:
"You need someone who just has grit. I can't give someone grit. I can't give someone talent. But what I can do is identify that talent and then develop it."
— Chad Peterman [07:52]

Personal Stories and Insights

Throughout the episode, Coach Hummer shares personal anecdotes that illustrate his coaching philosophy and resilience. Notably, he recounts his battle with terminal cancer in April 2019, highlighting his determination and positive outlook despite life-threatening challenges.

Key Points:

• Resilience: Overcoming personal health crises with unwavering determination.
• Continuous Improvement: Applying lessons from personal struggles to enhance business practices.
• Value of Coaching: Demonstrating how mentorship and guidance are crucial for both personal and professional growth.

Notable Quote:
"Everything has to make sense. Where are you aiming for? And then I want to know who's the best in this space."
— Chad Peterman [15:00]

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode concludes with Coach Hummer offering actionable advice for home service business owners. He stresses the importance of striving for excellence, maintaining discipline, and fostering a team culture that mirrors the dedication seen in elite athletic training.

Key Takeaways:

• Pursue Excellence: Aim to be the best in your field rather than settling for mediocrity.
• Long-Term Commitment: Invest in the foundational aspects of your business for sustainable growth.
• Cultivate a Strong Team: Hire and develop individuals who are committed, skilled, and aligned with your business vision.

Notable Quote:
"If your product's not the best, does it matter if your product's the best? You're always going to get rewarded if you're, if you have a world-class product."
— Chad Peterman [72:30]

Final Thoughts

This episode offers valuable insights by bridging the world of elite sports coaching with the dynamics of running a successful home services business. Coach Chris Hummer's methodologies underscore the universal principles of discipline, consistency, and excellence, providing listeners with actionable strategies to elevate their businesses.

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For Further Listening:
Coach Chris Hummer also appeared on the Tim Ferriss Podcast, where he shares more about his coaching techniques and business philosophies. Listen here to gain additional insights from his extensive experience.

Transcript

[Chris]

Welcome to to the Point Home Services, the podcast where real contractors share real strategies. We cut through the noise and get straight to the point with the contractors that are working in the field right now. If you run a home services business and want to lead, better, grow faster and stay sharp, you're in the right place. Now, before we get started, I need you to do one thing. Only 30% of our listeners are following the show. So stop what you're doing, hit follow, and let's get to the point.

[Chad Peterman]

This is to the Point a Rhino.

[Chris]

Experience voted one of the top home.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Services, marketing and operations podcasts.

[Chris]

Cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point. Hey, what's up, to the Point, listeners? It's your boy, Chris. We have an exciting episode today, Chad. A really exciting. I have a guest in studio, actually, the first time I've met this guest face to face. We've texted, but we've never actually met, which is kind of weird. And I'll explain later in the podcast why that's a little bit odd. But I know you're prepared for this episode, Chad. I know you're excited about this episode. I can see it all written all over your face because you're reliving what you thought you could be in your early days and you thought, man, I'm going to be a gymnast. That's what you thought, right? The floor routine was actually the one you really wanted to specialize in.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

I can barely skip, much less flip around on a bar and do all the crazy stuff that they do. I love watching it. Not an active participant.

[Chris]

Hey, those limiting beliefs are why you can't do it, buddy. Okay, that's half the problem.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Yeah, I do have a good story, though. So when I'm in. I was in eighth grade, and they would get all the Catholic grade schools together, and you would do this, like, academic competition. Well, the last. The last event is what they call super quiz. And each team, each school gets two. Eighth grade, there's teams of two. You get two teams. And the year that I was in eighth grade, the theme or whatever was Olympics. And I'm sitting there with my partner. And the last. We get. We have to get the last question right to win. And the last question is, I can't remember which way it went, but it was. Name which one of these answers is, are all of the men's gymnastics events. And I was like, I've watched the Olympics for days. That's the answer. He's like, do you think we should take some time to talk about it? Go. No, Absolutely. Not that is the answer. And we ended up winning. Great story.

[Chris]

I'm pumped. 8th grade champs.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

That's right. Watch out. Stick up my pedal.

[Chris]

Well, that's great because we have a, we have a, a gymnastics icon in here, which is. I'm excited to talk about icon, buddy. I'm giving it to you. You're gonna, you're gonna give this one a good one here. But we have Coach. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna give you the respect, dude. Coach Chris Hummer, legend in the, in the gymnastics world. Okay. 40 odd. Nearly 40 years.

[Chad Peterman]

Ish.

[Chris]

I don't wanna date you, man, but nearly 40 years of coaching U.S. junior National Olympic, you know, gymnasts, men. Was it most. Was it men's men?

[Chad Peterman]

I did, I did a little bit of prep for Carly in 2004, but she ended up ninth at trials.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Chad Peterman]

She didn't, she didn't quite. But she looked good.

[Chris]

Well, so we. This is going to be a fun one because people are like, well, what the hell does gymnastics have to do with running a business? And I bet you it's more than they might think.

[Chad Peterman]

100%. Yeah, I was surprised. So maybe mid 15, 16, some. I did a Tim Ferriss episode.

[Chris]

Yeah, I saw that.

[Chad Peterman]

And I was amazed how many people reached out.

[Chris]

It's number one business podcast on Apple for like I remember did Tim Ferriss. If you haven't listened to it, it's awesome show. My wife listens to it.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, Tim. Tim's a good guy. That was. I think whether it's sport, whether it's business, whether it's arts, high level, they all think the same. If problems solve the same.

[Chris]

Yeah, I think I have some really good questions that are going to translate well for our listeners because like I told you at that time, you know, these are a lot of home services companies, owners, you know, leaders, managers, like all kinds of people, people who might want to become owners, private equity companies trying to buy owner, like, you know, companies kind of a mixture. I read your Sports Illustrated article that you don't remember how long ago was, but I read through the SI article came out.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, it podcast with John Welborne, NFL vet.

[Chris]

I read it. So I was just reading through the notes on it and, and I was able to take away some things. So which is actually helpful for this podcast because some of the things I wanted to talk about it translated well, like you were kind of touching on it in that episode. But you also founded a company called Gymnastic Bodies, which is a gymnastic strength training system designed to make the elite level training accessible to like non gymnasts.

[Chad Peterman]

Right.

[Chris]

It's okay. Which is interesting. I'm really curious about, about that how you're taking the non gymnast and creating an elite level gymnast or trying.

[Chad Peterman]

No, no, not at all.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Chad Peterman]

So we'll say maybe it's for your non competitive athlete.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Chad Peterman]

They just love it. So my, my concern, like my last athlete, Alan, I trained from 6 to 18 and when he was 6, my big concern was what will I have overlooked when he's 18? Right. When he's going in Olympic trials, what's going to break?

[Chris]

You're thinking this at 6, 106 years old.

[Chad Peterman]

Sure he was, he was probably my. Depends how you break him up. But he was my fifth or sixth generation of athlete wise and you know, so I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm looking for and it's just that slow, steady grind. So there's a lot of physical prep I do to prepare a structure. Same thing we use with our spec op guys we work with and all that. And takes time. Takes time. So what normally happens? So one of your questions I liked is how do you get people to change their mindset from three to five months at a time to three to five years? And it's simple. I don't have to change their mind. If they don't change it on their own, they're going to fail. It's just nature's law. Right. Anybody who's just focusing on that next step in front of them is not going to get where they're trying to go. Because some things just, they take a long time to build.

[Chris]

Yeah. And you have to have patience. Yeah. To, to be able to build something like that. I mean, the fact you're thinking about that at 6 is pretty cool. But having been down this path, Chris.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

My question, my question would be, I mean obviously you see these sports where you have like these, you know, generational talents and stuff like that. Like the Olympic sports are ones where like, you know, they train for so long and so on and so forth. I guess from, from your perspective, like how do you identify? Because I'm guessing just throwing it out there. I'm guessing the mental side of being able to compete, being able to hold your focus for that many years and all of that stuff. Like there's a big mental component. How do you identify that or how do you train that in such a young person?

[Chad Peterman]

Can't train it. It's kind of like one of my best friends is I have a lot of friends in Spec ops and seals. And you don't, you don't develop a seal. You're born a seal. Right. That, it's not like everyone talks about buds. Buds is about last man standing. It's, I tease him as it is. They're trying to find the guy who's too dumb to quit.

[Chris]

That's when you got to ring the bell, right?

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, you're gonna ring the bell. It's. You're looking for someone that just has grit. And I can't give someone grit, I can't give someone talent. But what I can do is identify that talent and then develop it. So like Alan, I had, we added them up one time. I had over 16,000 hours in training with, with me personally. Hands on. And so, but may maybe the closest we're seeing right now in other sports is wrestling right now in the US where we're seeing a lot of club wrestling.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Chad Peterman]

And you're getting guys who are world and Olympic team members who are opening these clubs and starting little dudes from the beginning. So you've got, you've got someone at my level, but in something other than gymnastics, doing everything right from the beginning. Whereas I'll get pro athletes who come in football, hockey. I've got a picture right now. And it just kind of came up through the rec system, you know, junior high, high, some college. And it was just kind of who was going to be a volunteer. Maybe they're good, maybe they're not. Probably they're not. And it was kind of what you were saying. They were genetic freaks, they were gifted and they survived despite bad prep. And now you're seeing a wrestling. Someone who's being selected for talent and trained well from the beginning with my approach of three five year vlogs, you know, and then you're seeing, we just saw a high school kid take out an Olympian just this, just like a month ago here in the US and it's becoming more common simply because now before you had to get to the Olympic level in order to have access to a coach at my level. And now you're getting people who can have access to that level of coaching at a young age and with no mistakes. So a lot, a lot of what happens with these athletes is you get a guy who means well, but he goes down the wrong road. Wrong exercises, wrong prep. He's Russian. There's no foundation, there's no basics. It's, it's the difference between basketball here in the States and basketball in Eastern Europe where our, our coaches want him to play five, six, Days a week, practice basics. Once one day a week. And in Europe, it's exactly opposite. They're like, why, why are you rushing to compete now? You know, you need things you need to take care of. And I found that, that, that approach translate just to bring it back where we are. I found that approach translates to business. Well, because when I started GB, early 2000s, right, who knows? I'd never done business. I'd been intelligence analysts for National Security Agency, Mandarin linguist on there, went into coaching that was going well and then segueing into business. And one of my mentors was like. And I'm a little overwhelmed, right? He was like, approach it the same way you would developing an athlete for national team. And that just clicked in my head, right? That's easy. What are the basics? Grind them out, Grind them out. I'm not in a hurry. I'm not, I'm not trying to get somewhere. I'm not, I'm not looking for a magic bullet, right? I'm not looking for a secret technique, you know, which is what I find. Most people who are in that three to five month time frame, they're, they're looking for an edge, a supplement. They're basically, they're trying to cheat time. And you can't. Shortcut. Yeah, there's no shortcut. And so, you know, you've got to be in it for the long haul. And the people, I kind of like that though, because the people who are serious are going to stay the course. And it's harsh, but the wannabes, they're gonna fall by the wayside. And that's how it should be. Right? That's how it should be. That's, that's how you separate the wheat from the chaff. I mean, the Olympics is not a participation award, you know, and business isn't either.

[Chris]

I bet. I like that. I didn't find you to be a participation award fan. Well, to our listeners also, what's cool I didn't mention right in the beginning is Chris is also actually my neighbor. And though we and I have texted back and forth we've ever actually met. So this is like the first time face to face that we're meeting, which is pretty cool. But now I know I have this access to. That's right, right across the road from me.

[Chad Peterman]

House of pains up on the hill.

[Chris]

Right up on the hill. It's Chad. You know what house he's in is, you know, when you or the lot that I'm building the house, it's the, it's the big one. Like right next to it, the big multi story 1. You can't miss it. When you're laying out the backyard, you see his big ass house. So we literally look our backyards, look at each other.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

No, I don't want you. I don't want you. I fear that next time I'll be coming. You're going to be out there doing gymnastics, getting hurt or something like that. Out in the, out in the street.

[Chad Peterman]

We broke all the.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

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[Chris]

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[Chad Peterman]

The technical gymnastics out. We just do the physical prep clients and so you know, interested in joint prep. So I, I didn't realize that therapists around the world were using my stuff. So I started getting notes. That's how I had Seal Team 6 reach out years ago because one of their brothers, one of the operators brothers had had chronically damaged back and they're just like, you know, too bad, tough. You're gonna be in a, you're gonna be in a cane later. It's how it is. And came across my stuff. And a year later he was better. And so one of the operators reached out through some other people, some mutual friends. He said, you know, we're we're beat to pieces. But, you know, as a national team coach, hopefully the same with business. I'm kind of not looking for everyday solutions because if I do what everybody else is doing, I'm going to get what everybody else gets. Right. We're looking for, well, one, it starts with vision. What am I aiming for? And then I want to know who's the best. Who's the best in this space. I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I don't believe in reinventing the wheel. I want to find out who's the stud. I want to break it down as much. Well, an old intelligence analyst, right. So I want to break it down as much as possible, and that's going to be my starting point. Master their skills, move on from there. But I'm not, I'm not going to be presumptuous enough to take someone who's best in the world. Well, I know better, otherwise I'd be the best. So, yeah, we, we. I just use that approach with everything and it's worked out well for us.

[Chris]

So. So you coach, I mean, you coached athletes to Olympic performances. Now how are you building? Like, because this is completely. You can attribute this to business. You gotta have discipline. You gotta have some consistency in what you're doing, like all these things. But how are, how are you, how do you build the discipline and that consistency and someone from like the ground up? Because I think, I think it was on the Sports Illustrated episode that I read you were talking about how somebody can come in just naturally gifted, strong, smart, all these things, but still might not be end up being the best.

[Chad Peterman]

They always drop out. Drop out always. Every time.

[Chris]

But so what are you doing then to build like that, that discipline and consistency in someone, like from the ground, like, from the ground up. Are you like, you are planning, Planning it?

[Chad Peterman]

I'm, I'm. And initially I'm the will because I'm, I'm just relentless. I'm just relentless, you know, so I'd had. And it's kind of stupid also. So I'd had surgery years ago and I was back like the next day or two in the gym coaching, hunched over, couldn't sit up, sitting on some stupid chair. Was, was that couple of days of training in a matter. No. Was it ignorant? 100%. Right. But that's also that drive that's necessary, especially initially in your career. You know, there's just. Once you start making an excuse, that first excuse is hard. It's hard. You're like, oh, and then that second Excuse. Well, it's a little easier. So I just don't make excuses.

[Chris]

Yep. I think everything I read is, you don't sugarcoat. You don't sugarcoat anything. You're sharp, direct, zero patience for fluff, like no nonsense type guy. Like it's black and white.

[Chad Peterman]

Well, it should be. You know, you're, you're either you did your best or you didn't. You know, almost your best is not your best. It's not now. It doesn't mean I don't recognize it's better. Business, sport, prep, it doesn't matter. Better is good. But if it isn't great yet, I'm never going to say it's great. Not ever. And some people, the best way I described it to Tim was think of it as world class talent married to a blue collar work ethic. Because Tim was frustrating, you know, Tim, Tim. So it's Tim Ferriss, right? He, I don't know, somewhere in the mid teens sends me a note and it's Tim. So it's a huge business opportunity and he reached out through a friend. He's like, what can I do in 30 days? I've got my staff around a table sign. We're talking, we're not saying, you know, guys, I can't do it. I just, I can't. There's nothing I can do in 30 days. I just can't. I'm like, it kills me, but I gotta tell them. And that's what I told him. You know, I was expecting to hear, well, you know, screw you. And instead, you know, Tim came back with, all right, well, what am I doing wrong? You know, and so now we've been friends and goodness, coming up on almost 10 years now, which was, you know, completely running into me was completely opposite of what Tim did in his life because he kind of went from project to project to project and I'm here saying, nope. He said it's kind of boring. Yep. Does it get more exciting? No. The lesson I wanted to teach Tim and that we teach our athletes is the end goal matters. The end goal matters. What you're, what you're doing to build out your business, it matters. But same as an Olympian, right? I know a lot of Olympians who are miserable, just miserable. They hate life. They hate life, they hate training, they hate their coach. All to get to what's basically a really fancy athletic competition. Competition. And then the comp. They spent all their life building this and it's done in two weeks. And now what? And they're despondent and Then we see athletes who should have pivoted to something else. And not because they love it, but they're going to go for another game because it's all they know. And their self esteem, everything's tied up in that. And so what I wanted Tim to understand is pick your goal that you're looking for, but enjoy the process. Enjoy the process. You know, come in, do your best. And now, of course, I'm a son of a gun in the gym, right? So come in, do your best. But I want to see your best you're capable of right now, this turn, not next turn. And if you have to go again and again and again and again reasonably, but give me your best. And what that does is because they're exposed to this thousands and thousands of time over a long period of years. You get kids who they just understand. They understand. And so, and I, I don't whether it was, I always leveraged it with the athletes. I wasn't building jocks, right? That's, you know, even if you become Olympic gold medalist, you're going to retire someday and the last thing the world needs is another knuckle dragging jock running around. We're living the glory days, you know, who gives a damn? Who gives a damn? And so what I taught the young men is that, you know, we're building, gentlemen, we're building character, we're building perseverance. And as I got better at producing that in my athletes, I've got a slew of doctors as former athletes, engineers, I mean, you name it. Right now I've got another one who's went into anesthesiology at Duke. And I, I, because we use gymnastics as a training tool, you know, was, it was for life, you know, and then, okay, now take. And we do the same thing with our spec ops guys because they'll come out and they'll think all I'm good at is pulling a trigger. I said, no, you're, you know how to be comfortably uncomfortable, you know how to master a wide range of skill sets. I can give you a new weapon system and you're going to take it apart, right? I said, just apply that in whatever else you're looking to do with that same character and same thing we saw Kobe Bryant do, right? He was three years before he was getting ready to retire. He had pivoted. He had all those companies he invested in, he had his publishing house, he was doing, he had his personal care products, whatever that sports drink was, they had done. And it was funny listening to the billionaires that were Mentoring him, because he would call him at like 3 in the morning, just question, question, question. And my mentors did the same thing when I was coming up, so.

[Chris]

Because that's how he was. That's how he was training.

[Chad Peterman]

Because it works.

[Chris]

Yeah. So he'd already kind of built that in his autopilot. And so that was what he was like, okay, I see what you're saying. So. And it almost seems like when you're talking about the SEAL team guys and I can. You can. You're relating this to businesses. You actually have like, I think this gift of being able to recognize people's talent beyond maybe what, maybe what they even understand.

[Chad Peterman]

So.

[Chris]

Which is applicable to anything that you do. But you're trying to create and build this. This like I use autopilot and this person to. No matter what the task, this is the job. This is. This is what we do. These are the steps. And you do it at your best again and again. And so. Which is everything that we do, right? Everything that we do.

[Chad Peterman]

So.

[Chris]

So you're. When you, When I hear you, you know, when you talk about, you know, starting with someone when they're six years old, I mean, that to me, that seems so early. There's clearly something to that that I don't understand other than people because I'm not a psychologist or. But when I think about, you know, Mason, my son was five when he started at the Predator wrestling club. I kind of picture this. I cannot picture this little dude starting, you know, like that age. I'm like a regiment. Because he wouldn't even pay attention. Like, I could barely get him to focus.

[Chad Peterman]

I don't crank on the little ones. So with the little. With a little one. What we're doing is we're teaching them to listen, we're teaching them to focus, play a lot of games. I teach them to compete. So everything is a game. Everything is a game. So some of we would do with the little guys would be push up wars, right? So we'd have. I'd call out two athletes, they'd go down, I'd have two fists out and I'd count them, right? I didn't care how many they got. Didn't matter to me in the slightest. And then whoever won stayed. Loser went. And now a fresh guy comes up. So the guy who's left, I've made him hungry that he wants recognition for doing well. The guy who won is pumped, but now he's at a deficit because he's pre exhausted, but he still wants to win. I ended up with kids that were doing 300 pushups at a shot just because they were playing.

[Chris]

Chad, when's the last time you did 300 push ups? Never.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

I'm more concerned about this whole getting a six year old to listen. I have a six year old daughter and I have not figured this one out.

[Chad Peterman]

It's harder. It's harder as a parent.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Chad Peterman]

When, when they're, they're in another environment and they come. So especially because boys, Girls are different. Girls socially bond and you get boys together and they just want to wrestle and run around and bounce off walls. So it becomes a competition. So whoever did best, it's in the front of the line. Boys will do anything to be in the front of the line. They will do anything. That was something Greg did well. So I was the first gymnastics guy for CrossFit back in the day. And Greg did get that, right? That even as adults, you know, men like to compete. You know, they want to. That his. Greg didn't expect whiteboard to be so effective. He didn't see that coming at all. It wasn't intentional. He just wrote shit on the board and then. All right, you wouldn't put it up. And people were killing themselves. And he's like, oh, all right. Thank you.

[Chris]

Got something here. You. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pivot just for a second. I mean, I wanna stay on this like systems and discipline thing for just a second, but in some of my prep, you say no brain, no gain. No brain, no gain. So how are you, how are you applying that philosophy to creating systems or processes to drive performance? And can, I mean, in your world and can a business owner have that exact same mindset to build that business?

[Chad Peterman]

So no brain, no gain means. So what we're taught is no pain, no gain. Right, Right. And so what I'll tell athletes is I get, I get pro athletes. I work with a lot of pro athletes. Calm. Just because I like to keep my hand in. I enjoy that world. I enjoy that problem solving. But they're so broken from that attitude. They're just, they're just destroyed from the.

[Chris]

No pain, no gain.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah. And, and the. So like, if, if someone's a business owner, that that business is their baby. They're nurturing it and they're watching it. And the problem with pro sports is that a lot of times the athletes are commodities and they're treated like a set of tires. So I've got. I've got a NFL guy right now I'm working with. He's retired, but he has the worst knee I've ever seen in my life. And he had come in, he'd been working, doing stuff for two years. And he and I, I had just, I, I, I'm supposed to be dead now. I had terminal cancer, right? So I stopped doing public events. And Michael just kept calling and he just kept calling. Finally, after a couple years, like, dude, he's in Tucson. I was like, just come up, just come up. You've, you've earned the right to come up to the house. And we were going to do an hour, we did like nine hours. It was, it was a good time, but he had questions and he was changing to go. We've got a gym at the house. And he was changing to a train. And he took his warmup pants off. I've never seen a knee this bad in my life, ever. And it affected his hip, it affected his back, it affected his shoulder. And he's like, coach, I can't. I'm good. I do this and dude, no, no, I, I need imagery, right? I, I, Is there anything there? So does that mean I can't train? I said, no, we'll work around it, but I need to know if I was working and it's going to make it worse or not. And so, you know, he's gone. Some of it's pretty bad. I won't share all this stuff, but it, it's that he's, I've got a picture the same. He got re drafted as a catcher, and then at training camp, they said, you're a pitcher. They blew out his shoulder and they blew out his elbow.

[Chris]

That's quite a pivot.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, well, he was, he was, he was the right, he was the right phenotype, right? So he had the right length of arms, he had the right shoulder, he had the right height, he had the right mobility in the shoulder girdle. And so they just said, yep, you got the right tools. But they didn't know prep with him, none whatsoever. And in my world, that's, that's criminal. That's criminal. But that's same with hockey players. I work with NHL guys.

[Chris]

What's the basis of your, of what you're doing?

[Chad Peterman]

Right?

[Chris]

Is, is creating that discipline prep plan.

[Chad Peterman]

And I was, I'm unusual. Like in, in America, I don't fit, I don't fit in America. America, I'm too methodical. But I fit in Russia and I fit in China and I fit in Japan and I fit in Eastern Europe. Because they're methodical, right? They're methodical. We're gonna do things. So, you know, Dimitri Belozer, chef, is a friend of mine. One world's at 16, you know, bunch of gold medals in 88. And he's grumpy like me. So we'd always be rooming together at Olympic training center and you know, when we got to talking and Russians don't visit. Russians don't like to visit. You know, they certainly don't like to talk about training secrets. They don't, they don't like that.

[Chris]

So they don't talk about feelings either.

[Chad Peterman]

Well, now they'd have no feelings when you meet them. They have no. But later on when you become friends, you can't get them to shut up because they're just goofy. They're just goofy. But he started talking at maybe 7 or 8. And finally I passed out at like 2 in the morning. I had my laptop, I'm saying, and it was all just math. We're going to do this at this age. We're going to this many reps, we're going to these skills, we're going to do this prep. And what it does is. And it's the same in business, right? If someone's going to be a successful contractor, I would hope they're first technically proficient in what they're doing, right? But I, I see a lot of guys who are running into stuff before they're technically proficient. And then I see guys who are technically proficient but have failed to increase and improve their skill set. So, you know, and no, it doesn't work, guys. You got, you got to keep moving. And so that's, that's where, you know, our, our training that I had learned as a national team coach is. I'm very comfortable. First we establish what are the parameters of this world. Where are you starting? Just brutal, Brutally honest. Where are you strong? Where are you weak? If it hurts your feelings, I'm sorry. You know, as much as I'm capable of being sensitive, we'll be sensitive, right? And then we'll try to establish where you'd like to go. We're going to establish what basics we need to address. And then you kind of let them go and it kind of becomes, well, one, do they have the talent to make it work? Because there's nothing I can do if they don't have talent. And then do they have the drive and the character to make it work? Especially if you're an entrepreneur because there's no boss telling you what to do. Most people are suited to be employees. I know it pisses them off to hear it but most of them have to be employees because they need someone to give them the. Give them objectives. They need a schedule, they need due dates. And I ruined some really bright employees by trying to put them in executive positions, as I, I would. We're not, we're not a giant company, but we're reasonable. Right. And so, you know, as an executive, I want them to, I want to identify a problem and I want them to bring me solutions. I don't want to hold their hand. That's why they're paid to be executives. And a regular employee will have a nervous breakdown from that. I've, I've had programmers who finished their project and I like the programmer and they're sharp. And I said, all right, your salary is going to stay exactly where it is right now. All you got to do is new maintenance on this. Your job now is to go find me. Nuggets.

[Chris]

Couldn'T take it because there's no actual, like, direction. Like, what am I building now?

[Chad Peterman]

You're having to go and figure out not even them. They came to me and they said, I need someone to tell me what to do. I need someone to check in on me. I need to have meetings, I need support. Because being an entrepreneur is effing lonely.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Chad Peterman]

And not everyone's cut out for that.

[Chris]

So how are you correcting, like, I'm trying to think about it from. You talked about being technically proficient and that makes sense if you're like someone in our world who's going and working on an air conditioner or whatever. But there's also business owners like, you know, Chad doesn't. Chad's skill is. Was business. Right. Or, or leadership. He's a good leader who, who never turned a wrench. He's not technically provision. So it's like, how do you like you, you. I. You say, okay, well, I have like this plan for this person and I can recognize their talent and I could tell they gave their best but fell short. Like, how do you keep. Keep on them to get better, but also keep them like, motivated, you know what I'm saying?

[Chad Peterman]

And not like, took me forever to learn. So notice we'll. We'll pivot a bit. Steve Jobs notice that people either loved him or hated him. And you'd get all these conflicting reports. Steve is a cast iron, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or he's visionary, he's wonderful. I enjoyed every second working with him. And it's completely dependent upon the personality of the employee. So take a couple minutes and look at that first group of. I think it was seven engineers. All hardcore self starters, right? And so what, what does a self starter do? So notice most people you hire, they're concerned about what are my vacation days, when's my next, when I get day off one of my benefits, when's my next promotion. Compared to a guy who's going to come in and not just do everything you asked, but he's going above and beyond. So I had one of my students ended up being special projects for the president of Ticketmaster, right? And he's young, small little ticketing company, small little thing, right? And he's exhausted. And I'm with the family on vacation in Hawaii, cruising around through an art gallery and phone rings with Matt. He's like, coach, I got a bail, can't take it, you know, it's late, it's this, it's that. And I said, dude, no, no, I said you need to be not only the guy he looks to on this special project you're working on now, but you need to become his main guy in the next project. And if you can double dip right now, I want you to become his guy that he can't live with out. And you're not going to get paid for it. You're going to get worked to pieces. And you're young. That's exactly what you should be doing right now. That's, that's what he did, you know, because has the dues have to be paid. They have to be paid. So you're either, you're either going to do it when you're young, before you have the family and everything going on, a lot of responsibilities, or if they're coming to this later in life. Sorry, I'm sorry you got a family. I'm sorry you're running the business. I'm sorry you have all these other things and you're gonna have to do three things at once. But it's got to be paid, you know, and there's just, there's no escape from that. So you know, the hardest what I found is that if someone doesn't have that obsessive work ethic, they're not going to be successful at a world class level. I think that's important. It doesn't mean they can't be successful local, you know, a mom and pop shop, things like that. But you know, if someone's aiming to be a real stud in their space. Sorry, it's. It's a 247 deal.

[Chris]

You know what, Chad? You know what this reminds me of? When Chris is talking about this, I almost feel Like I'm disrespecting you by not calling you coach. Okay, make sure we're clear. Even though you weren't my coach, you've earned that title. You know, whenever Coach Saban was talking about the high achievers don't like mediocre play. Like the high achieving players don't like the mediocre players. And, and you know, do you remember that whole thing like what he's talking about actually kind of makes me think, think about how you can still be a really freaking good player and play for Alabama football, which you have to be, right to be recruited. D1 Alabama football. But yet he's still looking for the high achievers and the really good players. And that's what sets Alabama apart all these years. But he's building that into his team. Like that is his process. And so we had him to event a few years ago. One of, one of my events I put on, which is why he's up on the thing there. And I mean, greatest football coach ever, right? And so, so it was, it was just. I'm kind of like getting the same thing from you on, on. It's not about gymnastics, it's not about football. It's just about. This is what works for the human being. And everybody, it takes, it takes zero talent to take action, right? Like you don't have to have talent to. You just got to start to do something. But I think having a coach is good because not everybody has the gift to 100%. So like a lot of things that will have people on here who like some of the most successful contractors in the home services space ever. And they all had coaches. It's just like Tiger woods, right? Tiger Woods, a swing coach.

[Chad Peterman]

Well, someone, someone pointed out to me I was among my daughters. Michael Jackson had a vocal coach.

[Chris]

It. And they can't be wrong, right? Like if, if the best are doing it like you gotta have.

[Chad Peterman]

I couldn't train myself for high level because I get tired. Yeah, right. For everything I know I get tired. And so you need someone there to hold you accountable.

[Chris]

But isn't it, isn't it fair that I mean if you're the one like you specifically, and I'm going to attribute this to like being a leader in your business or even a manager of a team. You're holding yourself to a standard to do what's best for the person that you're coaching and you have a plan, you have discipline. All the things that you've learned over all these years on how to sculpt this person to what you want it to be. Right. This is what you're doing in gymnastics is the same thing at some level that anybody who's leading a human being should also be falling.

[Chad Peterman]

Right. 100%. I. I didn't just. I used to get hassled all the time from Russian friends or national team coaches because I wouldn't just work with the best.

[Chris]

Can you speak Russian?

[Chad Peterman]

Little. So right now in our house. So I have a. A daughter we discovered late is talented with languages. And I was a Mandarin linguist for the military back when. So right now she's doing Latin, ancient Greek, Spanish, German, French, and we just tacked on Russian.

[Chris]

Chad. How many languages do you know?

[Coach Chris Hummer]

I barely know English.

[Chad Peterman]

I know, right?

[Chris]

Did you go to dli?

[Chad Peterman]

I did.

[Chris]

Did you?

[Chad Peterman]

I did. I'm surprised.

[Chris]

You know, my daughter just graduated from there.

[Chad Peterman]

Really?

[Chris]

Yes.

[Chad Peterman]

That's awesome. What language?

[Chris]

Russian.

[Chad Peterman]

Okay. Yeah, I was. I was there for Mandarin way back when.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Chad Peterman]

It's a closed base and I tried to take my family.

[Chris]

It's weird. I came like, I came. Say anything about her other than that.

[Chad Peterman]

Because it's eight hours a day. I'm sure Russian is similar to Mandarin. It was 47 weeks, eight hours a day, native speakers.

[Chris]

The discipline in that. Like, I didn't realize how much of a badass you are to. If you can graduate through DLI until I went to graduation and I listened and I was like, oh, my God. Like she's. Now she's in Texas doing more training. I went to Texas, down San Angelo.

[Chad Peterman]

Yep.

[Chris]

That's where she is.

[Chad Peterman]

An intelligence.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Chad Peterman]

Yep.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Small world there. That was two people from the same neighborhood about that.

[Chad Peterman]

Wow. And it's. You know, I had. I had an. A retired admiral once. And he found out, you know, what I'd done in the military, and he kind of stopped. He was in a big room of military people. He stopped. He's like, dude, you're the rarest bird in the military. I was like, I appreciate that, sir, but no. He said, no, we can find seals. We can't find son of a guns like you because it requires such a high IQ kind of with that practical and that other stuff, and they just can't get them. But, you know, as a young person, you don't know that. You're just out having a good time. You know, you don't know what you're capable.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Coach, I got a question for you. Just because you have this experience with like ultra high performers, like the best of the best, but you know, in business, you don't have all high performers. You got maybe a B's and C's.

[Chad Peterman]

Not in athletics either. Yeah.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

How do you, how do you balance that kind of, you know, I think probably the three of us, very driven, want to do all of this stuff. Like how do you balance that mentality with maybe others that you know you need on the team and play a vital role, but they're not, they're not bought into that.

[Chad Peterman]

Really good question.

[Chris]

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[Chad Peterman]

It's a really good question. I started touching on a little bit where my Russian friends coaches would hassle me because I'll work with any level of athlete. But what I want is someone who just refuses to give up regardless of town. I, I, I had one young Ian's a pilot and a major in the air force right now and I swear and I give him crap all the time. I, I used to tell him, you know, I could have taught a kid in a wheelchair this before you, dude, are you serious? And, but he had this wonderful family who, they weren't, they weren't concerned. They weren't, what's the word I want? They weren't concerned about placings. They weren't concerned of kind of the, the trappings of success. They were concerned about character and effort. And I was on board with that a hundred percent. And so, gosh, I had him from, again, five or six till he graduated, and we still visit. And good Lord, he's an old fogey now. But I, I love that kind of person. And I think you need that in your business too. You know, if you've got, if you've got someone who's, if they're high main, not high maintenance in that they need to learn things, you've got to help them acquire skills. But if they're high maintenance in that you're constantly nudging them by your other ass because it's never changing because that's a core component of their personality and it's never getting better. So you know what the. I was taught, Be slow to hire, fast to fire. So, you know, if they're. And just So a buddy of mine, you guys are a nice sized company. And a buddy of mine had built his to 150 million. What's interesting is Dan, a wonderful eye for talent. Wonderful eye for talent. And that first location he had, out of that, out of that group of employees, eight of them went on to run locations for him. He had that good. And they crushed it. They crushed it. And now, of course, he's expanded and it's, I, I, I gave him crap. I said, you, you've grown so much that you've outgrown your supply chain because there just aren't that many studs. And so now he's at that point to where how do you maximize the effectiveness of the studs? You have to give guidance for your people who, through no foul of their own, have lesser level of talent, because you can't have lesser level of talent running your important area. So I had another friend who was running big medical service. I Forget he had 32,000 employees. And I asked Dave, you know, how many matter? 7.

[Chris]

32,000. His answer was 7.

[Chad Peterman]

7, because they're the ones that drive everything else. And then you hold those seven accountable. And then if you've done your culture right, those seven in turn hold their support. That's accountable. But the heart, the hard thing is there always comes a point in growth to where, because you can't get enough great world class talent, mediocrity starts creeping in. And mediocrity is protected by. And you've grown. So now there's bureaucracy and bureaucracy loves mediocrity. So you need, you need a degree of bureaucracy to survive, but it's also a little bit of your death now. And so how do you balance being efficient and growing without now your vision's drifted, your quality's drifted and it's, it's a son of a gun. So, you know, the best answer I can give is our chargers. You know, people who are just gonna. The guy who's first in the office and last to leave, I'm going to be watching him, be watching him. And the guy who so, so like me, I'm the worst. If you're a regular guy, I'm the worst employee in the world. I will just drive you say, because I'm going to, I'm going to be all over everything. I'm going to work like crazy and I'm constantly going to be bringing refinements, maybe even. And I'm not shy. If the owner's dropping the ball, I'm in there hassling the owner, hey, we could be doing this.

[Chris]

You don't strike me as that kind of guy.

[Chad Peterman]

But on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to have that personality type and you're working for someone who's a hard charger, that's what Steve Jobs was good at, right? Very abrasive personality, but a really good eye for talent, right? And then those guys love working for him because he's going to cut them loose because he's going to hate micromanaging them, right? Which of course someone who, they're going to expand into that role. They're going to love it. So we don't like limits because everybody knows who's run, who's built a business up to reasonable success. One of the obstacles is everyone around you questioning who do you think you are? Know, Basically it boils down to know your place, know your place. Because very few people outgrow what they were born into in terms of socioeconomic status, right? You're, you're born into a certain level of society and that's where you stay. You behave this way, you consume this way, you're educated this way. You work these kind of jobs, you marry this kind of woman, you raise these kind of kids. And when you start expanding out of that, people are going to resent that. I didn't have that. My wife and I Didn't have that. As we were, we were always like, that's awesome. We were never jealous. We're an envious. Teach me, teach me. But your other, your regular people, they want the illusion of excellence because it protects this kind of fake self esteem they have. Because you, in order to, in order to move forward, you got to accept the fact I'm less than I want to be. So that means then I have to go and I have to ask questions that make me look stupid. I have to admit I'm ignorant. Okay, whatever. Because as that national team was really good for that. Because I can't, I can't go to Olympic trials. No one cares if I think I'm awesome. They don't care in the slightest. What product did I put out on the floor? Did we win? Do we not? When do we make team? Do we not make team? Boom. Done. It's over. There's no marketing. Doesn't matter. Right? Being brash doesn't matter. Trying to be over the top doesn't matter. None of those things matter. It's. Are you excellent at what you do? Yes or no? And now I went into the fitness industry where 99% of it is. All right. It's people running around saying, I've, you know what? I, I had a vision. I had a visitation from the Lord. He's given me this new training protocol. It's the best thing ever. And people will go, wow, that guy's really confident. We should. Instead of have you verified this guy. So his job before this was what, he was a stock boy in circle K? Maybe you shouldn't be listening to this guy.

[Chris]

It's a 22 year old life coach.

[Chad Peterman]

Thank you. That drives me crazy. Or the people who. I do like how the algorithm right now is pivoting to where we went through a period where the algorithm measured by how much views and how much reach you had. And so you had people who were basically, they were just plagiaris, right? And they would go and they could have nice video production, do all these things, but it's no longer rewarded. Now it's, you know, they're trying to pivot to are you a personal brand? But they have nothing, have no expertise to market.

[Chris]

Yeah. No real substance.

[Chad Peterman]

There's no substance. And so I think, especially for your, for your audience, you know, for those of them who are really good at what they're doing, that's first and foremost most important. 100%. 100%. And so the other stuff to me is, so the founder of Orange Theory is a Friend of mine and we, we had helped Dave with some is, is insane. I found out the hard way that intermediate slopes at Jackson Hole are not the same as intermediate here in Arizona.

[Chris]

Oh, we were talking about that, right? Yeah, that's right. That's when I was in Montana. We were talking about that.

[Chad Peterman]

My daughter and I go up and this, it's just this vertical, it's intermediate. And I'm looking down, I'm like, I'm a gymnast. No, no. And so my daughter and I are getting ready to get back on the gondola and this woman gets off of these two little like four and five year olds and they come to the edge and they jump off and they go down. I'm like.

[Chris]

Now what? Wow.

[Chad Peterman]

My Testosterone just dropped 10 points from seeing this, right? So I, I, I let, I had testosterone poisoning and I went over the edge. Major mistake. And it took me long, so, so long to get down there.

[Chris]

Were you plowing?

[Chad Peterman]

I was falling. And they were all up on the edge. The very first thing I do is I wipe out like 10ft from the lip. And they're all, are you okay? And I, here I am, a national team coach going, well, I just really want to die, right?

[Chris]

You get the little six year old trying to help you up.

[Chad Peterman]

Oh, yeah, yeah. They're all, stop. Are you okay, sir? I was like.

[Chris]

A very humbling moment.

[Chad Peterman]

The monstrously humbling. But what Dave had done for us is because so he loves snowboarding and I'm not talking out of turn and surfing. And so Dave was concerned he was getting the age where he couldn't enjoy those activities anymore. And so then he helped us a lot, helped me a lot with business development. He was like, hey, I'm an open book, dude. Anything you want. Anything you want. And so then he hooked us up with his marketing company. And we're, as you can imagine, we're, we're, we're great clients and we're horrible clients, right? Because everything has to make sense. I want to know the where and the why. Where. They don't want that. Because you guys already know most businesses are gone in a few years, right? Three to five years they're gone. And so they're, they're mar. Their business model is set up on that, that, so they just got to get you going along for three to five years to you're out of business and move on. Don't ask questions and they'll give you meaningless metrics, right? And so I sent all my senior staff out to their headquarters. I have showed up at this marketing company and they're spending a week out there and they want to know where in the wise. And we, we squose them dry in two months because there just wasn't really much to learn. And so I know the same approach we had done in gymnastics in that, you know, if someone's great, I'll overpay for excellent service 100% just to make sure they're around. But if I'm getting conned, right, we're gone, we're gone. And so especially someone who's in a service industry, you know, your customers, if you're providing excellent service, like I don't believe in commodity pricing at all. I'm not going to argue that I can go a nickel cheaper than Guy down the road. You want world class service, you want a world class product, you have to pay a world class price. You have to. It's just, you know, and if you can't, then you can't have this level of service. You just can't. And so, you know, for your people are out there if you, you need to be able to charge a premium. And in order to charge a premium, you have to offer a premium value.

[Chris]

Can't just say it.

[Chad Peterman]

Can't just say. And I see a lot of people who they immediately, well, like you said, I'm a Life coach. I'm 22. I've never done anything in my life, right? I've. Why would I take advice from someone of how to become a millionaire who's not a millionaire?

[Chris]

But I graduated college kills me, kills me. And I was the social chair for my fraternity coach. It's gotta stand for something.

[Chad Peterman]

We run into it all constantly and I think what it is, is it's your wannabes who are most susceptible to that. They've never been successful, they don't know what to look for and they're not humble enough. As, as hard charging as I am. When it comes to skills in that I'm humble. I don't know, I'm gonna, I'm shut up, right? The last thing I want to do is step on someone's toes who's sharing world class experience with me, right? I'm Sir. No sir. You, you tell me what to do, you tell me how hard to do it, how long to do it, how often to do it. That's what's happening.

[Chris]

And if I do that, it takes me here because you've got an idea of where you, what you're trying here.

[Chad Peterman]

But so I got a call from, gosh, I won't I won't share the name, but he's a billionaire who runs a big hedge fund. Right. I'll share the name. First name, Mark. And.

[Chris]

Does last name rhyme. Rhyme with Reuben?

[Chad Peterman]

No, no. That would have been interesting, but. So I got a billionaire who wants me to come out and do a private seminar for him. What do you charge a billionaire? I have no idea. So I call Tim and Tim says, okay, you're going to charge him 25,000 for the weekend and you're going to let him talk. He's going to talk you down to 20. Son of a gun. If that isn't exactly what happened. It's exactly what happened. And so I go out, we do the seminar. He's a super sharp guy, learned a lot. In fact, I learned so much from the being in that environment, talking business around, the training. I never turned in my invoice. I never even turned in the 20,000. And I, I think I came out ahead. Right. But here was someone you know is billionaire world class. You can't, you can't get access to that kind of information.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, makes sense. I. Yeah. When you think Tim Ferriss wrote Four Day Work Week. Was that his book? That was Tim, right? Tim Ferriss here. You hear that book?

[Coach Chris Hummer]

I have it at home. And then he wrote the. What was it? 4. Is it 4 hour body or something? Something body.

[Chad Peterman]

4 hour body. 4 hour shaft. Tools of Time.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Yeah, that's great.

[Chad Peterman]

Got a couple chapters.

[Chris]

Oh, that's it.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah, I got a couple chapters in there. I was busy torturing Tim as he was writing that. He's working on another one now, too.

[Chris]

Well, you have. You had a book.

[Chad Peterman]

Worst mistake I ever made.

[Chris]

Building the Gymnastic body. That's what it was.

[Chad Peterman]

I, I made a ton of money off that. But knowing what I know now, I should have restricted that information to a membership service and I would have. So that that podcast that I did with Tim was my first million dollar month. Right. If I'd have known then what I know now, that would have been my first $15 million.

[Chris]

Ouch. Yep.

[Chad Peterman]

And so I ran, I went back and I ran the numbers over the years and I was like, ah, I lost 200 million.

[Chris]

Well, don't think about that.

[Chad Peterman]

Okay. All the time. All the time. I'll be at home with, with a son going, hey, my wife's. You're thinking about it again, aren't you? No.

[Chris]

Hey, coach, listen, I'm going to give you some good coaching right now, okay? The windshield is bigger than the rear view mirror for a Reason. Okay. You got. It's. It's a bigger. The future.

[Chad Peterman]

All right.

[Chris]

It's a bigger window as you move forward. I stole that from Jelly Roll, by the way.

[Chad Peterman]

Oh, my. I'm not sure about the source, but I like that a lot.

[Chris]

I'm certain he stole it from somebody else. Else.

[Chad Peterman]

Okay.

[Chris]

But it actually.

[Chad Peterman]

It makes sense 100%. I mentioned earlier that I had terminal cancer, and it was to the point there were. Here's. Here's some oxy. Good luck to you.

[Chris]

How long ago was this?

[Chad Peterman]

I was diagnosed in April of 19. And then that doctor told me if I didn't have surgery in the next week, I'd be dead in six weeks. Weeks in front of my wife.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Chad Peterman]

Yeah. I don't know why I never share his name. I shouldn't share his name and embarrass him and run him out of town. But total. Describe him. This could be a family show.

[Chris]

So it's not really a family show.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Yeah, we threw that out the window.

[Chad Peterman]

A long time ago.

[Chris]

We have a bunch of contractors.

[Chad Peterman]

Coach with military and national team. Get a little salty.

[Chris]

Gotcha.

[Chad Peterman]

What? It went from stage two to stage four, and then in December that year, the tumor melted, Just gone.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Chad Peterman]

And I'm supposed to be all kinds of effed up. I'm not supposed to be able to eat, talk, drink. I'm just supposed to be. And it just went. But not. Not doing pity party. But what that left me with was I already had a low tolerance for bms, and so after that, I had even less. And so now I'm interested in doing what I want to do. I'm interested in good quality. I'm interested in surrounding people myself with people I find interesting, that I can learn from, and I'm just not willing. I wasn't willing to settle before, and now it's like a religion. I'm just. I'm not interested.

[Chris]

And you're how old today?

[Chad Peterman]

62.

[Chris]

62. Well, good for you. That. That panned out.

[Chad Peterman]

I think it's because I'm annoying and there just wasn't room in heaven for me yet.

[Chris]

You got more work to do, man.

[Chad Peterman]

I could end up being the wandering Jew. I could be here for who knows how long.

[Chris]

The wandering. There's your next book.

[Chad Peterman]

Wandering Coach has been on Earth for 2,000 years. There's no room.

[Chris]

He's a hard son of a bitch. Won't go away.

[Chad Peterman]

No. God won't let me in. He's like. He's annoying.

[Chris]

He's like, not yet. Not yet.

[Chad Peterman]

Not yet stay out.

[Chris]

Hey Chad, I want to make sure I'm being cognizant of your time too, bro, because you gotta bail out in about 5ish, 5 minutes or so. Do I have just one last question I want to ask coach too before we, we wrap. And it's around you, it's around. And I've, I've experienced this. I'm sure, I'm sure you probably have too, but the difference between being a boss and a coach, you know, or being, difference between being. What kind of leader are you? Are you, are you a, you know, a dictator? Are you an influencer type of leader? Like there's different types of leadership that people respond to. I think most people, I believe most people lead towards influence. Like being influential. Maybe that's not the right word. You know, I don't like telling somebody what to do versus kind of coaching them through what to do. To me feels better. I think there's a time to be, to be direct, but I don't think I've got it all figured out too. All I know is this is how I would like to be led. And I'll lead and I'll lead that way. But the difference between being a boss and a coach and like, how can a, how can a business owner shift into a coaching role to lead more effectively? In home services, speed to lead is everything. Chirp stands out. By transforming your communication strategy with Chirp, accelerate your lead response time with instant sms, text messaging, email and ringless voicemail automation. Chirp's cutting edge technology ensures you're the first and the most persistent, helping you close more deals than ever. But that's not all simple. Say goodbye to missed opportunities with Chirp's incredible follow up system. Keep your leads engaged and moving smoothly through your sales funnel without lifting a finger. And with Chirp, deep integrations with top CRMs like Service Titan, Housecall Pro and Jobber, you can launch laser targeted campaigns to connect with the exact right leads at the exact right time. Automation creates efficiency. Efficiency unlocks scale, ability. With Chirp, you can automate speed to lead, estimate follow ups, rehash abandoned call follow ups, canceled job follow ups, review requests, outbounding to your list, annual reminders, membership expiration follow ups and so much more. So stop chasing leads, capture them, connect faster and close more deals. With Chirp, contact Chirp today and elevate your. Your communication game.

[Chad Peterman]

Can'T teach what you don't know. So first they, first they have to grow because I see a lot of people are trying to, you know, Fake it till you make it. And that's fine on a personal level, but your, your staff know if you're full of shit. They may not know right away, but it's eventually going to come clear.

[Chris]

Then you're in trouble because now you've lost a little trust. You've lost.

[Chad Peterman]

In a perfect world, you've hired people who are brighter and sharper than you are. Right? It's. It's your job to be the heart and soul, right? This, this is, this is who we're trying to be. This is what we're about. And it's. It's not just about talent. You know, we, we'd get programmers coming in and first, when you have an interview, first thing we would do is give a skills test. Here's. Here's a coding exam. People would lose their mind. Lose their mind. Sorry dude, but I need to know your proficient before we go any further. And that's usually they want to do that. Of course we learned that the hard way because everyone's full of shit, right? Yeah, you have. They have to be able to demonstrate.

[Chris]

Proficiency and what gets measured gets managed a hundred percent. And so I know what you're working.

[Chad Peterman]

With like a hard lesson. I did. I hate micromanaging. Hate it more than anything in the sun. But at the same time though, only the. I use this in my own head all the time. They'll only respect what you inspect. So you know, there's gotta be that line, I can't just cut them loose, right? Unless they're just insane like I am. Or they're gonna do it anyway. Most people you're gonna have to drop by and just kind of see. And are you proficient? So I, I can manage programmers, no issue. Even though I don't program because I had enough of them for long enough that I know when they're bullshitting me, right? And I know that a programmer likes to work for six months and then it's broke. And then he wants to go back for six months and look for bugs. And so I put in place. And they hated this. Oh, the coach. You're not. I don't hear it. We signed that check. We're doing this my way. So every day you, you program, you're going to check it and make sure it works. Today you're going to put it in the sandbox and you're going to kick the tires and make sure it's right. And then tomorrow we're moving forward. Oh, they hated that. They just hate it because some, some of your higher level technicians they use that to their advantage to be lazy. Right. So you're paying for eight hours of work, and maybe you got an hour and a half. And so you just have to learn how to hold them accountable so that. And they respect what you inspect. You know, you sit down the other day, what'd you do? Well, I. I wrote this really cool game for an app. Sorry, dude, that ain't good. That's not what I paid you for.

[Chris]

Miss. Miss the job. Missed the task.

[Chad Peterman]

Well, you have. You have to have people that you want to coach. Are they. Are they worth. Are they worth your time to coach? Because if you think about it, this is going to sound kind of stupid coming from someone who's a national team coach for almost 40 years, but coaching has to be one of the dumbest jobs on the planet. I mean, think about. I. I poured 16,000 hours into Allen. That's one athlete. What if I had poured 16,000 hours into me? So you're pouring time and effort into developing other people's excellence. Now. I learned a lot with it. So then what it becomes is, it's not that you're not going to do that, is are the people you're pouring your heart and soul into worth that effort? And if they're not, don't do it. I mean, it's. It's literally that black and white. If they're not, don't do it. Get someone else.

[Chris]

And when you think about the timing you put into someone else versus yourself.

[Chad Peterman]

Sure.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Every day, wild.

[Chad Peterman]

Every 100%. Because employees leave. And that's okay. Because you want them to grow. Right. Because their success if. If they've been prepped. Right. Their success should be a reflection of your success. Right. Because you want, just like your kids, you want. You want them to exceed what you've accomplished. But if you've chosen the right people, they'll respect that and they'll always come back and say, hey, I appreciate the opportunities you gave, rather than you chose poorly, someone without ethics or character. And now it's backstabbed. Back talking. It's all, you know, the negative things we all hate. Yep. So, you know, go. Going back to choose carefully.

[Chris]

Chad, I got one final thought. Question. It's a banger.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Banger.

[Chris]

Sorry, buddy. Sorry, buddy. I didn't really let you talk a whole lot on this episode, but I had a whole bunch of questions. I. Okay, coach, last question. All right.

[Chad Peterman]

If we do this in an hour and 15, it'd be like my shortest one ever.

[Chris]

Well, we have to be. We have to be at least cautious with time frames on this type of a podcast. So hour 15 for us is like a long episode, which is, I mean, we're usually like around an hour or something like that, so not like super long. If, if, if you were coaching a home service company right now, an owner of a home service company right now, the same way you coached like a young gymnast, what would be the first thing you'd focus on to get them to world class basics?

[Chad Peterman]

So I had a friend of mine is, I'm not sure how Zillow's set up, but the guys are in charge of like Arizona Zillow. One of the partners is a good friend of mine and he said, hey, you know, George really wants to sit down with you for lunch. And so as totally, I love, I love talking this stuff. And so that he was kind of waiting for tricks and tips and this and that. And the first question I asked him is, are you guys the best realtors in the country? He's like, well, I don't understand what that means. Are you the best? Really simple question. Are you the best? Yes or no? And he said, well, no. And I said, why not? Why not? As in, it's one thing to be able to deliver a product and all the different revenue streams and funnels. Listen, if your product's not the best, does it matter if your product's the best? You're always, you're always going to get rewarded if you're, if you, if you have a world class product, my opinion, you have a world class product, you're always, always going to receive world class compensation. Always. So to my mind, instead of having a substandard product and running around and putting coats of paint on it and singing songs and fireworks and then delivering the substandard product, have the best. Be, be the best you can be in your space. Just the best. Just the best. And then everything else to me is secondary.

[Chris]

I mean, how do you quantify that? How do you quantify being the best?

[Chad Peterman]

I'm going to look at who's the best performer right now. So you got to choose your metric. So a friend of mine, they want to be, their goal is to be the largest classical education provider in the United States. Okay, that's fine. But that if you guys, you guys are young, you're not going to remember. But back in the 90s, Toyota wanted to be both the best and the largest. And it ended up with a massive multimillion vehicle recall. And they never recovered because prior to that, Toyotas were just rock solid. Right? I listened to the president of Toyota North America, and they. I just listened to the, the Ford president speak and they asked him what's an acceptable degree of failure coming off the line? And he said 10%. If 10% of the cars roll out of the factory and have an issue, we're okay with that. We'll address it at the dealer. Then they asked the president of North America, Toyota, what's acceptable? And he said one, what's not acceptable? He said one. He said 1%. He said no. One vehicle coming off the line that's bad is unacceptable. But where Toyota got in trouble is they try to do two opposite things at once. You can't be the best and the largest. Like you could never have as many horse, can't sell as many vehicles as Ford, can't be done right, not in maintained quality. So kind of that same thing, you know, in your space, who, who's the best at what you do as far now, you don't. You don't have to have. You might mess up and choose someone who's not the best, but it's the best you can figure out right now. And then you keep growing. So, like when I'm. When I decided I want, I'm sitting the US Olympic team in 1988's in our gym. They're training before for a week before they go to Korea. And I'm young, I'm sitting on the stairs watching. I'm like, youthful arrogance. Well, this is no big deal. I got this. I got this. And I'd already been mentored for some years with a national team coach, but what occurred to me was, I don't care who the best in my city is. I don't care who the best in the state is. I don't care who's best in the region. I don't care who's best in the country. I don't care. I care who's best in the world. That's who I'm going to model myself after. Because if I model myself after him and I come close, I've automatically outperformed all those levels underneath. Whereas if I do the local guy, maybe that only applies right now. And now I've got to. I learned something, I got to set it aside and no longer appropriate. And now I gotta learn a new skill set. But if I just go right from the top, I learned one skill set. And now instead of having to learn, that's what, that's what I tried to explain to Tim. He's like, it's really, really hard. Coach. How do, how Do I train every day? How do I do this? I said, well, if every day is a new decision, that means in a year you had to make 365 decisions. What are the odds that you're always going to make the right decision? Zero. So you make one decision. I'm going to do this to the best of my ability. You made one decision. Well, how long will it take us? Who cares?

[Chris]

As long as it needs to.

[Chad Peterman]

As it takes. Sorry, sounds so simple. It's simple. But simple doesn't mean easy.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah. I, I, before the chat, before I close, do you have anything else you want to ask Coach and I, No.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

I, I just can't thank you enough for your time. It's, I played, I did not play athletics at a world class level, but I played them all my life, even in, even through college.

[Chad Peterman]

And I was going to say up through college. That was one of the reasons I wanted to come in because you guys both had athletic background and speak and.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Like I compare so much of what we do. I was a football player and I'm always like telling our team like, this is just like a football, this is just like a football team. If the dispatcher doesn't do her job, if she's playing, you know, outside linebacker and you're the safety and the dispatcher doesn't do their job, you're not going to be able to do yours. And everybody's got to do their individual, individual part on the team and sometimes that could be offense and defense. Someone's not even on the field and they've got to hope that someone else does their job and so on and so forth. And so for your perspective on, you know, training, you know, some of maybe our country's most decorated, I mean, just incredible athletes to be able to put that much time and effort in there to know that you were leading them. I can understand why they were good. So I appreciate your, your, your time and, and ins. I apologize that you will have to live closer to Chris here in the short term.

[Chad Peterman]

So he's going to be doing construction.

[Chris]

Next and going to be doing a little bit of construction next to your house. Coach, I apologize. Right now, Right now.

[Chad Peterman]

And it's, it's like solid granite. So it's going to be so loud.

[Chris]

I apologize again already.

[Chad Peterman]

I'll be camping in your backyard and get away from it.

[Chris]

But, but when it's done, you'll be able to enjoy it as well.

[Chad Peterman]

I appreciate you doing it because it's going to put my, my property.

[Chris]

It's certainly going to raise your value. Yes, it is. It's kind of. So you're welcome. You're welcome. So listen, coach, you're going to have to endure a little bit, okay? There's going to be this period of time.

[Coach Chris Hummer]

Here's where we're looking to get. It's just going to take three years to get there. So we get. We'll battle together.

[Chad Peterman]

That's true. You said three years. Because Chris said two. It's actually always means three.

[Chris]

It was actually three, but now we're down to two. We're supposed to break ground the end of the year.

[Chad Peterman]

So you're going to break ground in the spring. Supposed to be back again.

[Chris]

Supposed to. Yep. Didn't happen.

[Chad Peterman]

God was on my side.

[Chris]

Knew I didn't want to.

[Chad Peterman]

Loud summer.

[Chris]

We're trying to ruin everybody's summer. Okay, but listen, it was. It was. I'm glad we finally made it. Made it happen, you know, and I still got to get you over to the house too, you know, which seems like that should be pretty easy. But maybe you're as busy as I am, too. I feel like I pass you enough, but I don't actually get to connect with you. But I'm glad to finally get you in here, too, and to share with all of our listeners. You know, I mean, it's a bunch of, you know, contractors, you know, just trying to get better. That's why I listen to this podcast and, you know, some of the really good ones look outside of our world.

[Chad Peterman]

If I, If I had to do it over again, I, I think I would have gone into your guys's space. I, I think there's tremendous opportunity for growth and wealth development. I think you're going to see a lot of people coming into your space. I was always academically oriented, but there's kind of a glass ceiling there, you know, even. I mean, I. We all make way more money than a neurosurgeon, you know, unless he owns a big practice in that. So I think. And your guys services and the people you're representing, they're essential. You know, it's not like, well, toilets broke. I'm not calling the plumber. No, you're calling them. And so it's, It's a wonderful opportunity. So, yeah, I'm, I'm excited to see what happens there over the next few years.

[Chris]

Well, I hope you're. You're right. We all hope you're right. I'm learning that. I mean, you did come from intelligence, right? Okay. So, like, okay, I called.

[Chad Peterman]

What's going on? In China right now, 20 years ago. And they all said, kosha and I will go on the economics and the resources and everything. But I was like, no, it's a paper tiger. It's unreal.

[Chris]

Well, I believe you when you say it, because I feel like you've done your due diligence and to understand. Well, and just coming in here, you know, and giving us the time and pouring into, you know, our listeners and these contractors, it means. It means a lot. It might seem like this isn't that big of a deal. It's pretty big deal. I like for them to be able to hear other people's perspectives from outside of our, like, sphere, our industry. So it's good to all to hear and then say, oh, actually this makes so much sense. I see how the two come together. It's discipline, it's training, it's being a good coach to your teammates. It's constantly learning. It's finding the end goal and working the plan back and then not deviating from that and coming up with one excuse which is the hardest, and the second excuse gets a little bit easier. So, like, all this stuff is applicable. It's just nice to hear it from these different perspectives for these guys to hopefully, you know, apply to the.

[Chad Peterman]

You look for core principles that are universally applicable in all areas that. That's when you know that you've really.

[Chris]

Gone onto something in every facet of your life. Love it. Sounds like a great spot to close her out then, to me. So, Chad, I appreciate you, brother. I think. I appreciate you staying late for us. I think this was well worth it to spend some time with Coach and Coach for you. I appreciate you coming down here and to our listeners. To our listeners, listen. He was on the Tim Ferriss podcast. He's going to Apple and check it out. You can listen to his episode. It's like, really long. I'd listen to it in chunks.

[Chad Peterman]

It's long. It's long. And then my guys, I got chewed out today because they found out I was coming on the podcast. Like, Coach, you didn't give them, hey, so I'll give you guys some. Some basic stuff for our stuff that.

[Chris]

We will make sure to get you all hooked up and we'll. We'll create a bunch of stuff for you too. Clips and things like that. But we appreciate your time and we'll give that stuff back to you to be able to use and kind of help with the marketing and things like that. So to our listeners, as you know, you know, gotta do everything but dang it. You gots to do something, just like Coach says. Just be very methodical about what that something is. No zero days welcome to to the Point Home Services, the podcast where real contractors share real strategies. We cut through the noise and get straight to the point with the contractors that are working in the field right now. If you run a home services business and want to lead better or grow faster and stay sharp, you're in the right place. Now, before we get started, I need you to do one thing. Only 30% of our listeners are following the show. So stop what you're doing, hit follow, and let's get to the point.