How You Can Chart Your Own Course: Insights on Entrepreneurship and Leadership Growth, with Chad Harward

What does it take to break free from the corporate mold and chart your own course as an entrepreneur? Chad Harward, founder and CEO of Pinpoint Management, joins us to answer this question with a frank discussion about his own journey from marketing director to business owner. Navigating the uncharted waters of entrepreneurship, Chad shares valuable insights on risk-taking, leadership growth, and the power of purpose in business. 

This episode is a treasure trove of strategies for staying motivated and on track in the dynamic landscape of entrepreneurship. Learn from Chad's experience of reverse engineering a five-year plan and the importance of quick execution and financial trust in realizing your business goals. He offers a compelling perspective on adaptation and the necessity of making changes, illuminating these concepts through his monkey trap and monkey bars analogy. 

But Chad's wisdom goes beyond mere business strategy. He encourages a shift in perspective - from just making sales to making a difference. Recommending reads like Simon Sinek's 'Start With Why' and Michael McCallowick's 'Profit First', he underscores the transformative power of continuous learning. And for those looking to elevate their leadership skills, Chad introduces his coaching services - a resource for leaders seeking to grow and thrive. Join us for this inspiring conversation with Chad Harward and glean the insights you need to steer your own ship towards success.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Speaker 2: 0:16

Hey, it's William and welcome to today's episode of the Catalytic Leadership podcast. Each week, we tackle a topic related to the field of leadership. My goal is to ensure that you have actionable steps you can take from each episode to grow in your own leadership. Growth doesn't just happen. My goal is to help you become intentional about it. Each week, we spotlight leaders from a variety of fields, organizations and locations. My goal is for you to see that leaders can be catalytic, no matter where they are or what they lead. I draw inspiration from the stories and journeys of these leaders and I hear from many of you that you do too. Let's jump in to today's interview. I'm so excited today to have Chad Harward on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Chad is the founder and CEO of Pinpoint Management. Chad holds a BS in business administration and marketing, and his business acumen includes business organization planning, structure implementation, financial management, marketing and sales. He's also served as marketing director for billion dollar companies, where he received multiple high performance awards. Today, chad is a seasoned business analyst, working with hundreds of business owners in multiple industries. With over 25 years of experience, he has successfully worked with business owners to identify critical business needs and establish best practices to maximum profitability. A proven, powerful and engaging speaker. Chad has presented to hundreds of business owners specializing in multiple industries, including retail, services and construction. He's especially skilled in connecting with his audience and adapting the discussion to meet a wide range of solution needs. Chad, I'm so excited you're here today. Thanks for being on the show.

Speaker 3: 2:06

Hey, thank you. I'm excited. I appreciate it. I've got to take you everywhere with me. You made me really good, I think we could sum all that up and just say and a lot of years of trial and error, that would be a business owner right.

Speaker 2: 2:20

A few lessons learned along the way. Oh, yes, well, I would love for you to start by sharing some of your story with our listeners, chad, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Speaker 3: 2:34

Yeah, great question. You know what? I followed the script in college which was back then get a degree, go get a C-level job. Yeah, I did that to the tee, had a great job as a marketing director at a software company large software company and then realized in fact, stayed there for what? A couple of years anyway. Everything was great. In fact, I got one of the top performance awards. Everything on paper, statistically, should have just been predetermined. Following the script, until the month after getting the top performance award, I was laid off. Nobody told me wait, that wasn't part of the script, right? A major plot twist? Yes, right, that was one thing. That's the short version of that story.

Speaker 3: 3:37

What was also going on behind the scenes that maybe some of your listeners can relate to is I started realizing there was something different about me that nobody told me about in college. That was as I punched that clock and showed up at my office nine to five very predictable I realized something was missing. I felt like wait, this is. I feel like it's a bit monotonous. I feel like there's part of me that's not what living at its highest capacity, at the base level. It was just the job I had while it was marketing, I didn't feel like I was at least with the corporate perspective not able to exercise all my creativity. There were other things I wanted to be doing that didn't necessarily fall into that job description. I think the telling sign was after hours was when I had fun. That's when I worked on my consulting company and my marketing agency For little to no money and it didn't matter how many hours I was working. It was so fun.

Speaker 3: 4:58

I was hanging out in that space for a while. I had a young family. At the time. My heart was saying you know what? In fact, I even had an uncle who was a successful commercial real estate agent that I was doing projects for. He said why don't you just do your business? Do this, this is what this is your wheelhouse, this is what you've been designed to do. I kept putting him off because the logical part of me was saying no, young family, check on the fifth and 20th won't be coming anymore.

Speaker 3: 5:34

I just kept in this spinning motion where my heart was going one way, my head was going another. Sometimes I think, when we're not on our ideal path, what I call our highest level self, our best self path, the universe has a way of nudging us. In my case, nudging was getting laid off when I, in all logical reasons, shouldn't have my initial thought. While it was not fun, I initially panicked, I was also somewhat excited, realizing wait, I just got control of my whole path. Now I got control of those hours from nine to five that I can do anything I want. That's when I realized I guess the first principle of leadership was I need to be in charge of my own ship. I need to captain my own ship. I need to be in charge of my own ship. It sounds easy, but then when you're placed with okay, you got these guarantees in exchange for that control, do you still? How committed are you to that now?

Speaker 3: 6:51

And it was tough, especially as a young you know, young starting out my career, young family. I hadn't learned all the life lessons, the real world lessons outside of the controlled environment of college, yeah, so I'm super grateful at this point for all of those experiences, because that made me who I am today. I think lots of the most valuable life lessons are often those we just experience, and I'm sure you and others can relate, because they're your lessons right. You feel them, you see them, you live and breathe it and it sets a blueprint, it imprints and that becomes part of our trajectory and if we choose to learn from those things, they can actually be very empowering and potentially very inspiring as we lead. It's simply, I think a leader is simply somebody who's willing to pay it forward, willing to give others what they're not seeing, and I think that's why our own journeys can be so invaluable, because you're the only one that went through that and if somebody's headed down that road, they can lean on you and perhaps learn the lesson faster, making it quicker, making it less expensive, maybe less painful, and we can truly be a mentor in the form of our experience.

Speaker 3: 8:22

So long story short, or longer. I guess that's how I've arrived where I'm at today and have been in building my business. Now, that thing I was doing after hours first. Now I've been doing it for 25 years and feel like I still am relearning it over and over again. Even as we hit our million dollar marks and things like that, you always feel like you're still in re-invention mode. You've never really arrived, it's just new levels of what I call higher level challenges. But staying committed to yeah, I like the feeling of captaining my own ship and those, as we talk about, entrepreneurs, people that own their own businesses, leaders, you know there's just this dynamic that is very real and that is, you know, what you've been designed to do.

Speaker 3: 9:18

You feel it and nothing against corporate level or executive leadership and jobs at all. You just know if it's a fit for you and those that I've talked to other business owners. One universal agreement is yeah, when I come to that realization, there's no way I can go back to the job at that point, because at that moment it's like, yeah, I'm designed to do a different path, which is awesome.

Speaker 3: 9:49

And then it becomes okay, how committed am I to that and what's next? And staying on that path, no matter how crazy it gets as owning a business there's definitely days just like a job. You're not gonna have great days sometimes as a business owner and you might even question, man, maybe I should have just stayed in the job. And then that lasts about 30 seconds for me anyway and I go. No, I'll still take my worst day captaining my own ship. So there you go. That's kind of me in a nutshell.

Speaker 2: 10:21

That's so good, jen, and I totally agree. There's no such thing as a wasted experience in your life, because they all make us who we are. You would not be who you are today were it not for all of the experiences you've had, including some of those catalytic ones like getting laid off unexpectedly.

Speaker 2: 10:39

The month after you get a high performance award. That's just crazy, and I think there are people who are listening who can relate. Yes, one of the things you told me when we talked previously that I thought was fascinating. You said I don't think I've ever heard anybody put it this way. You said I think there is a pandemic of ball and chain businesses. Yes, what do you mean by that and how on earth do we solve it?

Speaker 3: 11:04

Yeah, great question. So to me it's one of the saddest things when somebody does finally commit to this dream, let's say, of my best life living my best life captaining my own ship.

Speaker 3: 11:21

The sad thing is on paper. We think okay, I've got control of my nine to five, I can choose to write my own paycheck, I can choose how many hours I want to work because I'm a business owner. As we know and as statistics tell us, though, the reality is all too often the opposite of that. When I talk to business owners, one of the first questions I do, I call it a freedom pulse check, and I check their time freedom and their money freedom the money side.

Speaker 3: 11:51

I say I look at their P&L and we take their net profit money after everyone else spent paid divided by their weekly hours in the business, including after hours, doing bids, whatever it is, weekends $10 an hour on average. So minimum wage is what typically comes up. And I ask them I'm assuming you didn't sign up to do this, no matter how much you love it for $10 an hour. And they say yeah, that's part of the problem. And then we look at the time side and I say once the last time you've been on a vacation, they say well they just laugh.

Speaker 3: 12:30

What's that? Well, once the last time you forced yourself away from the business. Well, a couple of years ago, my spouse said you're coming this year, figure it out. So they forced themselves on the vacation. The whole time they're on the phone and telling the family no, this is my last call, I promise I'll catch up. And that goes on till eight o'clock, and then at eight o'clock there's nobody left to talk to on the phone.

Speaker 3: 12:55

I ask them okay, so at that point were you on vacation? And they say no, because mentally all I could think about was well, who didn't I talk to? What didn't I catch today? What's gonna be waiting for me when I get back? And it's all valid, because they have tried it in the past. And sure enough, they come home to a bunch of messes that they just need to clean up to where they resolve that. Well, it's not worth going on a vacation because I can't be on vacation. And then my reward for that is coming back to a lot more work to clean up. That I could have avoided if I just never went, which is super sad, because in the end they go, but I still want a vacation.

Speaker 3: 13:36

I just don't know how to do it and so what they love originally, it becomes a ball and chain. They can't stand being there. They're doing it for minimum wage, they can never get any time off to where it's like. Then you start really thinking maybe that job is pretty good because I get paid time off and I get a guaranteed paycheck that's much higher than $10 an hour, and they're stuck because then they go back to. But I know I can't do the job either. That's gonna be settling, I won't be happy. And they're stuck in this messy middle. Now to your question how do we get out of this? So, if you can identify with this and, by the way, I've talked to company business owners that are doing million dollars two million multi-million dollar businesses that are that tied to the business steel. It's just, they're just spinning the wheel faster, but in the end they're not keeping very much of the money and they have even less freedom in their time.

Speaker 3: 14:38

So, regardless of how long you've been doing what you've been doing, regardless of what you've chosen to do because that's the mindset as well maybe I'm not a good framer, but I could be a great fitness club owner or a restaurant or the reality is business owners who fail at business or who don't have a lot of freedom won't have a lot of freedom in the next, second, third, fourth businesses and vice versa, those that you probably know, people who made a killing at one business did a completely different kind of business. Different industry, made a killing at that, sold, built and sold multiple businesses, and they win by the same reasons. Both will win or lose by for the same reasons, and so let me give you what I believe, after doing this for 25 years, seems to be the pivot points of those that have lots of freedom and those who consistently have the ball and chain. Regardless of how long they do what they do or what they chose to do, they just keep repeating history. First is you have to know where you're going. What I mean by that is clearly defined destination. Most of the time when I talk to business owners who that's the first thing I ask is where do you want to go? Where do you want to take this business, where do you want it to take you, and what choices do you want to have, what kind of lifestyle do you want to have and what's the longest you're willing to put in to have that. I usually, at that point, have glossed over deer in the headlights like I have no idea. I haven't even had a chance to think about that, much less I don't even know how to put my head around that. If I did so it's really simple. You have to have three things to chart a destination. First, is it's got to matter to you emotionally first, meaning it's got to live for you. Everything, just like how we spend our valuable resources, time and money, are spent emotionally first, and then, logically, we defend them. Strategies follow an emotional cause. There's billions of dollars that are spent on charities, where people get nothing other than that really makes me feel good and I contribute to a cause, so it doesn't have to have a tangible meaning. It does have to matter, though. Before I write that check, regardless of what that is, I'll give you an example.

Speaker 3: 17:08

Talked with a plumber a month or so ago. Second generation plumber, he was given the business, took over the business from his dad. Dad was awesome, and I asked this plumber where we go? Where do you want to take this in five years? Where do you see your role being? What's the money? What's your lifestyle? What does your day-to-day look like in the business. And he said man, that's the big question right now, because you don't want. My problem is, I'm really bored with this business. I don't like plumbing. It's boring to me. I said, dude, we got a problem.

Speaker 3: 17:44

Then, right now, before we talk about any strategies, it's got to matter to you. You won't do anything, you won't have any urgency if it doesn't matter to you first. So I said what do you like to do when you have time with your wife and kids? He said we love to hunt. We all love hunting. We can never get enough time of doing that. I said awesome. What if your next step we'll call it point B is a family hunting guide business, where you and your wife work with the spouses, your kids work with the kids, you get to teach your kids how to run a business. You all are doing the very thing that you all love to do. If you have the choice and, by the way, you get paid really good in return for doing something you love doing I said what do you think about that?

Speaker 3: 18:36

And he said sign me up for that right now. I said perfect. So that's where we're headed. What does that mean about your plumbing business today? He said well, that means every dollar profit I can save and every minute that I can create an efficiency where I'm not working in the business can be one more minute and dollar toward my hunting guide business. I said, exactly Now does your plumbing company matter? Yes, now I see there's a bigger purpose. I said perfect, then let's do that. So that's what I mean. So one task is, if you've lost the purpose and for sure those of us that have been doing this for a length of time, it's easy to lose track of why did I start this in the first place? We might have to go back to where, where, go back to the beginning and see what mattered, and sometimes that moves on us over time. What was important five years ago may not be our true North and we need to find that again.

Speaker 3: 19:36

Second, once you've are actually one last point on destination. So once that matters emotionally, then it's time and money. Right, we've got to stick a stake in the ground and have some definitive, and you do that with time and money. Your money side needs to do three things. It needs to pay off all your personal debt, all your business debt and with what's left you can maintain your desired lifestyle at that phase not having to touch the principal. So you've got enough left in the bank and you don't owe anyone anything. So financially now you've got choices, you don't have to work financially. Second, you need to put a stake in the ground on the amount of time that you want to take to get that. So what's the longest period of time that you want to continue to invest in your path, in your business, before you have that option?

Speaker 3: 20:31

Some people say I got five years left in me. I would say set. My experience is a business, even fairly new business, even one that you've been doing five, 15 years along the way. If you're using best business practices day to day, you can take a business from zero to being able to exit at least your day to day role as the owner within five years. It's very predictable to do that. Five years, five years, wow. See it over and over again. When you solve the real issues in time and money and then you take the winnings of that time and money freedom and reapply it to the next most critical problem, then it's just like that balloon payment where you just gain momentum. It's how we go out of business, one dime at a time, one hour at a time when you reverse that cycle. The reverse can happen too where you've got the math working for you. So that's knowing your destination.

Speaker 3: 21:37

Second is closely to what I talked about, which is okay.

Speaker 3: 21:41

That means, if I know, I've got five years and it's mathematically I need this number to achieve that. Now I just reverse engineered that, which means I need to know my own math. I need to know it's crazy how few business owners I talk to know what is your net profit need to be, what's your break even and what do you need to be doing on every job, every bid, every sell that you make today times five years to equal X number. That's why you've got to start with the big number, the true North people, and then you reverse engineer that and you quickly find out oh wait, that means for me to have no longer than five years.

Speaker 3: 22:20

I've got to raise my prices by 15%, or we've got to make 7% more profit on every sale, or we need to raise our prices. Whatever that is we need, we've got to. We know. Now I know what I need to do and I just keep tweaking until the math lines up with my five year plan Last. So, know your destination, know your math to get to the destination. And then it's all about execution, speed of execution. So just knowing your destination, knowing your number, still hasn't moved the bus out of the parking lot.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Now we've actually got to drive.

Speaker 1: 22:58

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 22:59

Lots of people still parked in a bus with the idling and that's no different than the bus driver that has nothing, no destination on the front. They're just aimlessly doing work, churning day to day, but they have no destination and eventually run out of gas. Neither will get to the destination. So it's about looking at the math and how does that line up? Just like your GPS, you set that coordinate, it will tell you to the 10th of a mile, to the minute, when you can plan on getting to that destination once you put it in there and it's dead on every single time. I mean just, I've tried a couple of times to out guess the GPS and I lose every time. Your business has a GPS. It's your financials, it's your time over money, and you just need to trust the financials that, okay, we have got to hit no less than that 7% net profit or we will add more time to our destination. There's things in your company that need to be modified and changed. People need to be let go. There's outside forces like economy, interest rates, supply chain, all of the pandemics, all this stuff that happens, inflation, things we don't have any control over, that are going to require a detour, just like your GPS is there and you check it regularly. Once I put it in there, how often am I looking at it? Is there a detour it's telling me to take? Otherwise we'll add a lot of time and money to the destination or never get there if I don't make the necessary changes. The problem is people either don't know their numbers, so they don't know what changes to make, or they know the information it's telling them in big flashing lights and we won't let the person go or we won't replace the salesperson. It's funny.

Speaker 3: 24:56

I usually use to illustrate this monkeys as an example and how they catch monkeys. They put their favorite food in a log or a tree and it's peanuts. A lot of people think it's bananas. It's actually peanuts. They'll put a handful of peanuts in the hole. The monkey reaches in, grabs them, but it can't get its hand back out unless it lets go. He will not let go. Once he's holding onto them, the peanuts will go moldy. They'll hold onto them so long and the reason is the peanuts represent survival, represent life. Then the crazy thing is, even if there's other alternatives outside, they will not let go, whether they've got in their hand. And because I might starve to death if I let it go. The crazy thing is they guarantee their death by holding onto them if they never let go.

Speaker 3: 25:50

And in business I see this happen all the time Business owners who won't raise their prices because they're afraid of losing their customers, even though the numbers show you if you keep doing your bids at 15% below profit, you're gonna run out of business. You'll go out of business. Holding on to those customers or bad marketing, that's like oh, but I'm hoping next month I'll double down and make up the money I lost last month, or it's my idea. I mean ego can show up here. It's lots of versions of moldy peanuts, so that's. The third thing is you've got to execute fast and you shift from the monkey trap to what I call to the monkey bars, if you remember that, ah, nice, back in the grade school. It's hard to do at my age now.

Speaker 3: 26:37

That's the only way I do this before, but it's the same idea. To get to the other side, you gotta let go of the bar you're on and you swing and you're grabbing. So when you let go, that's step one. But you also need to replace what you just let go of. If it's a bad salesperson or an employee or a marketing campaign, now it's okay, what do we need for that spot? Because you need somebody in that seat. The question is okay, what did we learn from that and what do we need? Who is that person? Who's the skill set? What did the numbers tell us? What did we learn? And then you start looking for that and the next person may be even worse.

Speaker 3: 27:19

So you have to be committed to evolution and change, not getting it right every single time, Because Fortune 500 companies failed lots of times. The difference is they learn from it and they're very fast at changing and execution. So those are my three tips to evolving getting out of this ball and chain that so many businesses I talk to are experiencing. Knowing where you're going, charting it in clear, definable time and money terms, knowing the math that's gonna require to get you there from a day-to-day basis. And, third, being committed to changing and changing quickly, because time is the most valuable asset, Even more than money, is how do I get there?

Speaker 3: 28:05

If it's about learning, then I just wanna learn quickly, so don't take. If we need to, then if it's let go of people, I'm gonna let go of them monthly instead of keeping them for a whole year and then decide, okay, we better finally make that choice. Too many people ride it all the way out hoping it will somehow magically change, Causes so much time and money that we'll never get back. If you do those three things my experience has been you will absolutely. At the very least, you'll fly at a level you've never been at and you'll have much more control and certainty about where you end up getting in that time and money freedom, predictably with your business.

Speaker 2: 28:50

That is so practical. I know that so many people listening are writing this down at a fever pitch. I talked to agency owners, to business owners, to leaders, and I'm sure you do as well. These entrepreneurs started this thing because they wanted time and money freedom. They wanted that. That was their goal, but somewhere along the way they lost their motivation. They lost their passion because they're just stuck on this treadmill and they're just running and running and they're in one of previous guys called the Freelancers Trap where they can't let go. They can't stop because they're at the center of the spider web, Everything connects to them and if they step out, the whole thing collapses. That's not what they intended to build, but it's exactly what they built. I'm guessing that road to burnout is one that you've seen with entrepreneurs a couple of times.

Speaker 3: 29:43

It is All too often, most of the time, everybody. That's the universal thing they're feeling and seeing. It's like even those that are paying bills, those that even caught lightning in a bottle with getting the right business at the right time. They're just as stressed as the ones that know why they're not making money, those that don't know they go. I don't even know how I got here, and so that's just as stressful because I know I could lose it that fast too, and it really it does boil down to that. They're just in this hamster wheel of unknown, unpredictability, and it definitely doesn't need to be that way. It can be just the opposite of that. There's plenty of examples of people that have lost a time of money predictability out there. They just do it differently, they learn faster, they apply principles, practices and they're okay, evolving To your point. That's the vicious cycle is it has to be an extension of us, it has to be our craft. We started and we are wearing all the hats. That's a necessity.

Speaker 3: 30:54

What you don't want to do is be wearing those hats 15, 20 years down the road and, emotionally, what you can't do, which is super hard, easier said than done. At some point you got to be okay handing off your baby to somebody else. If you want to get time and money, freedom and truly have what you say you want, you've got to trust some other people, some other. You know, I partnered with a great partner three years ago, one of the toughest things I've done. I've been working this for 15 years on my own, forming my craft as a consultant, and I thought my paradigm was I'm a consultant. How could I possibly deliver my solution without me being the one delivering it? They're buying me and I finally realized, well, I can either subscribe to that or I can find another way where I can help a lot more people, still using my philosophy, still using my processes, but expanding my team. And the reality is, yeah, they're getting taken care of great at higher levels. Why? Because me and my partner synergistically offer, have way more to offer than I could alone on my best day.

Speaker 3: 32:05

But that took me emotionally letting go. I had to let go of that peanut and go. Ah, it's going to be hard, but I'm willing to swing to getting a partner and then building a team around us. And our business tripled in the moment I did that and continues to grow at a much faster pace than my hardest working day ever. And best the best part is I'm putting out way less emotional effort. I'm still working the business, I still put the time in, but I don't have that heavy weight that comes with man. I look around and it's just me and that's just a job still. All we've done is we've created the job to where, okay, you can have your name on the job and you get to work unlimited hours for maybe some money.

Speaker 2: 32:54

It's like that's not actually an upgrade from working for the corporation.

Speaker 3: 32:59

You're better off sticking with the job if that's what you're committed to. But easier said than done.

Speaker 2: 33:06

So well said. That's so. That is that's so lines up with the experiences I've seen in so many of the people that I talk to. I want to take you back, chad. I want to take you back to when you came out of college, that fresh faced young leader with that diploma that's still got the curl in it right. Yes, it was rolled up. If you could go back and talk to that chat, given what you know now, what would you tell yourself?

Speaker 3: 33:40

First thing that comes to my mind is trust your heart.

Speaker 1: 33:43

Trust your gut.

Speaker 3: 33:44

That's good. My gut was just screaming. So I still remember to this day, just like I still remember the feelings that I was having back then, that inner struggle, and I just know myself. I'll speak for myself, but maybe others can relate to this. It's just my lightning rod. It's like, whether it's personal or business, it's just life, right Life, fulfillment and how we choose to spend those valuable minutes and the path we choose and we've all got so many choices. To me, it's the one thing I can always rely on, regardless of how old I've been. It's never wrong and it's still an individual choice. Every time, that fires up again because as you grow business, you're going to be checking in. It's like okay, is this the best decision? Is this the best path? And as I talk to business owners and I lay out from my perspective, after looking at their numbers and looking at their plan, I'll give them a path and go. It seems like you're much more happier going this direction or with this strategy, and I will always hear yeah, you know what, chad, you're right.

Speaker 3: 35:03

I felt that for years and I'm going why didn't we do? We just burned three years. We could have gone back and saved a big detour of three years, that who knows what we could have created with that time back, and all they had to do was just trust it. And it's easier said than done. It's like why? So? Why aren't we doing that, or they or?

Speaker 3: 35:26

The other piece that I would say to that self is you start. We start as we're hungry, as we start out, we're fresh on that career path, on that business building path. We start doing really amazing things. We get creative. We're doing all of these things that actually start working and why this happens, I have no idea. But as we start making money, as we start maturing, we quit doing some of those things that actually work really well. They're kind of innovative, and we just, I think, just comfort. We can start getting passive. We start cutting corners, we forget, and there'll be those conversations that I'll have like or I'll bring stuff up hey, you ought to try. You know what about these things? Like, yeah, you know what that's interesting, you bring that up. I was doing those things when I started. Why aren't we doing them now? I don't know. I just kind of fell out of the habit. So that would be my other thing is keep doing the things that definitely worked. Make business, make career path, make leadership easier by continuing to keep the things that worked and building on those things. If you know they work, then you know. It's the longest numbers and things don't tell you otherwise why wouldn't we keep doing those things? And so that would be. That would be my other point.

Speaker 3: 37:00

The third one that I'll leave you with is what I have gained, which I would think is just kind of more wisdom, because it's part of the journey. We start out with our need and focus to make a dollar and I believe we reject and end up where our focus is making a difference. And that is all about people. And what can I do to make a difference in everybody's life? How can I shift from making a sale to making a difference?

Speaker 3: 37:31

But can we do both? Can I shift my sales conversations to from hey, how do we get you into my product or service today? To hey, how, what do you need and what could I do to help you get there, whether it's with me or not, whether it's doing business with me or not, and that, I believe, is kind of the new for me. Anyway, that's been my latest evolution, and sometimes it's tough to go. Well, that's mine, so I'm giving myself permission to not get the sale. Yes, you're giving yourself purpose, self permission to making a difference instead of making a sale, making a relationship, leveling somebody up and my experience is, when that's our primary focus, the money actually takes care of itself it will show up whether it's that person or a referral from that person who wasn't a fit for us.

Speaker 3: 38:26

but they give us three people who were because of the experience they had with us that they can trust that will take care of the relationship, so that would be my third one.

Speaker 2: 38:36

That's good, that's really good. I love that focus on making a difference and I agree with you. I think that as we go farther and farther into our journey, that becomes more and more of a focus. Is there a book that has made a difference in your life? Chad, Something that you've read that you would recommend that every leader, every business owner who is listening. They need to pick this up, they need to read this, because this is the one that makes a difference. Great question.

Speaker 3: 39:04

Man? I probably I will, in full transparency. I've never liked to read, but I will listen to a million books. I've probably listened to 10 to 12 books a month. Of all my books, I would say the one for everybody, whether you're a seasoned business owner, a seasoned in your career or starting out Simon Sinek.

Speaker 3: 39:27

Start With why yes, such a great book, great great one. That's the emotional piece. And then, if you want to add the financial piece, the logical piece, it's Michael McCallowick's Profit First Paint yourself first off the top, rather than last Paint yourself the most than the least, putting money away while you grow your business instead of your career, instead of putting it back into it, hoping at the end there's enough left over. There's just the rule that when our profit, what we get is always viewed as whatever's left over. There's never anything left over.

Speaker 3: 40:07

We always spend to what we make, whether it's a career or a business. So you have to take the top off and then you make the decisions off. If you want to keep 10, 20%, then you operate on the difference and your money is safe regardless. That's how we can organically create a predictable profit exit, whether a career and retiring or a business, in selling it. And if you start with why, we also are fulfilled throughout that whole process, because that why has to get us out of bed every day and keep us moving. And then financially, we've got a roadmap to take care of the money and have a plan for it before it arrives.

Speaker 2: 40:51

So good. You know, people often will walk away with one thing from a podcast episode, one thing from a book, one thing from something that they've watched. If you could define what the one thing is that you want people to take away from this conversation today, what would that one thing be?

Speaker 3: 41:10

I would just say stop where you're at and take a breath and decide what do you want. What do you want emotionally, what do you want financially? And get just super clear on that, and it doesn't take a lot of, it's not rocket science. Chart down on a piece of paper what you want your life to look like in five years, and what is that. What will that cost in time? What will that cost in money and what will you do with those resources when you have them? That's how you tie the money to the why. That's good.

Speaker 3: 41:48

When people say, well, I want to make a million dollars, like, okay, why, I don't know? I just thought that's all what you always hear. You want to be a millionaire, I don't know why. Well, what would you do with the money if you had it? I don't know. I just think it'd be cool to say I made a million.

Speaker 3: 42:05

The problem is statistically, and you can see people that win lotteries and things like that. If you don't have a why for those resources, they will go away. Time and money have names to them before they arrive to you. That's why I would say your most important thing you could do from what we've talked about today is take a step back and go. I'm captaining my own ship. What do I want my ship to be in five years? What do I want that to feel like? What do I want it to look like? What's the difference I plan to make in the world and other people's lives because I achieve those things, and how I will use those resources when I get there? And then simply reverse engineer that math to today and that starts right now. Today you can, regardless of how many messes you've had up to this point, you do have 100% control of where you're going, starting today.

Speaker 2: 43:04

Now this has been so incredibly practical. I think people can take what you've said and they can begin to put feet to this I think is the sign of true wisdom. I know folks are gonna wanna stay connected with you. Like, what is the best way for people to do that?

Speaker 3: 43:21

Yes, you know what. I have a couple of options. I'm on LinkedIn chat. Hard word on LinkedIn. You can message me If you would like to spend some time talking about your path. And how do I chart that? How do I do what we've talked about today? Go to chatwithpinpointscom. That goes right to my calendar. You can book some time with me, no pressure, no obligation.

Speaker 3: 43:46

My why is I want to help as many people as possible live their best life, whether that's in a business, whether it's in a career path, as a leaders, leveling them up and create reality off of that what often feels like a mirage. Can I ever get that? My website is ppmanagementcom. You can go and check us out, see what we're doing, see some of our customer experiences. But yeah, those two ways message me on LinkedIn. Schedule some time with me chatwithpinpointcom. I would love to hear your story, would love to help. However, I can try to pay it forward If it involves us. We've obviously got lots of experience and tools figuring this out over the last 25 years and we're still figuring it out too. But whatever I know I will be happy to pass on.

Speaker 2: 44:40

Dad, thank you for being so generous today with what you've learned so far along the way.

Speaker 3: 44:46

Thank you, william. I appreciate the time. It's been amazing.

Speaker 2: 44:50

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Speaker 2: 45:26

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Speaker 1: 46:12

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.