How To Master Delegating Leadership To Make Business Grow With Richard Sargent

Most entrepreneurs struggle with delegation—but what if the real issue isn’t delegating tasks, but failing to delegate leadership? In this episode, I sit down with Richard Sargent, a seasoned innovation and strategy consultant, to dive deep into what it truly takes to build and scale a business that thrives without you.

Richard shares how he went from dismissing leadership as "fluff" to realizing it was the missing link in his company’s growth. He unpacks the hard lessons learned while selling his agency, revealing why systems—not just revenue—determine a business’s true value. We also discuss the dangers of overcomplicating your business, the power of intentional culture-building, and how personal branding can elevate your success.

Whether you're leading a small team or a fast-growing agency, this conversation will challenge you to rethink how you approach delegation, leadership, and long-term success. Tune in now to discover the game-changing strategies that will help you scale smarter!

Connect with Richard Sargent: 
If you want to learn directly from someone who has built, scaled, and successfully exited a business, connect with Richard Sargent. Whether you’re looking for insights on leadership, delegation, or building systems that actually work, Richard is the person to learn from. Find him on LinkedIn or Facebook—just type in his name and look for the beard, tacos, and

Right now, you can get an extra 20% off your ticket for the Scale with Stability Summit with my exclusive code CATALYTIC20 at checkout.

Visit scalewithstability.com to grab your ticket—I hope to see you there!

Right now, you can get an extra 20% off your ticket for the Scale with Stability Summit with my exclusive code CATALYTIC20 at checkout.

Visit scalewithstability.com to grab your ticket—I hope to see you there!

Right now, you can get an extra 20% off your ticket for the Scale with Stability Summit with my exclusive code CATALYTIC20 at checkout.

Visit scalewithstability.com to grab your ticket—I hope to see you there!

Chapters

• 0:00 Leadership Isn’t Optional
• 6:08 The Struggle to Delegate Leadership
• 12:53 Selling a Business: The Hard Truths
• 20:36 Keeping Business Simple for Growth
• 26:16 Building a Culture That Creates Loyalty
• 32:31 Personal Branding and Business Success
• 39:46 The Legacy of Leadership

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:37

It is a real honor today to have Richard Sargent on the podcast. Richard's an innovation and strategy consultant With over 20 years of experience in the marketing field. He specializes in helping businesses unlock new opportunities, optimize their resources and drive meaningful transformation. His role involves a blend of ideation, strategic thinking and problem solving to help organizations stay competitive in an evolving market. When he founded his company, the Sargent LLC, in 2017, the mission of the company was to help solve more significant marketing problems for their clients and to help them better understand their marketing needs in order to provide a better return on investment. They provide solutions based on individual problems rather than on general industry obstacles. Today, the marketing solutions they provide have helped over 100 clients in 46 different industries to achieve real results. Sarge, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Richard Sargent: 1:43

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Intro/Outro: 1:46

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:54

Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway coach, dr William Attaway, I'd love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Richard Sargent: 2:14

Yeah. So it's pretty cool. The first time, you know, when you mentioned this, right, I was just like, well, it was like Boy Scouts for me back in the day, right, like the first time you get put in a leader. And I was like like what is it? 10 year old, 12 year old boy being put as leader? That's weird, right. But like yeah, you're learning those tactics, right.

Richard Sargent: 2:31

But before that and everything else, I think I was viewing myself as a class clown. So I was never the leader. I was never the like you know if you want to run for school or anything else, but like who wants to be president, vice president, everything else is like boring, that's not for me. I'm not going to be about leadership. Like I also just didn't have like a healthy balance of leadership, like what it is. It's like, ah, who cares? Whatever you know. And so now, going into like I would say, more mature phase of life and just seeing the leaders I've had good and bad and everything else Right.

Richard Sargent: 3:00

Leaders have had good and bad and everything else right and the healthy and unhealthy has helped me to understand that I need to be a better leader and actually I'll just share one thing by trying to delegate everything. It's definitely a topic I'd like to talk more about with you. Trying to delegate everything. It's almost impossible to delegate leadership unless you put someone in that role.

Richard Sargent: 3:19

I delegated strategically, but then the people that I was trusting with that stuff and everything else didn't have a leader on there. They had a coaching mentor but not a leader, and that was hard because the effect didn't happen right away, but after a couple of seasons you could see it wear and tear on people, and that was hard to watch because you can't just go and fix and put on a superhero cape. That's so true, yeah. So leadership to me nowadays is like the utmost important. It's what makes a lot of differences in a lot of different organizations and it's the one that I, for lack of a better term, punted the ball on a lot. Ah, it's just leadership, it's fluff, it's this and that.

Dr. William Attaway: 3:59

You're not the only one. So often, leadership is seen as an optional add on. I'll get to that. I'll get to that Like that's, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, leadership, yeah, and it's, it's. It's like it's the the, the stuffing in the pillow. You know, it's nice if you got extra, that's fine, but in reality, that's what makes everything work. That's what makes a business, a team, to actually operate at its highest capacity. And I think what I've watched in you and your journey is watching somebody who is grabbing onto this with both hands and saying how can I step into this in a better and more intentional way? How can I become what I want to be, instead of just waiting for it to magically happen one day? Like you're going to wake up one day and like wow look.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:45

I'm an amazing leader. I don't know how that happened, but here I am, like that's not how that happens, that's not how that works.

Richard Sargent: 4:52

I'm still waiting for that day, by the way.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:54

You're going to be waiting a while, because that's not how that works. So, thinking about your journey, you know, and going from the class clown and I love that and I think that's I still see a little bit of that. I'm just, you know, I think there's a little bit of that there, like moving from there into starting a business, leading a team and learning how to delegate. And I love how you made this distinction between delegating tasks right or delegating responsibility, and delegating authority, because I think that distinction is one thing that leaders have to learn. If all you do is delegate tasks, then you get a bunch of task people who are just going to do that task and then wait for you to give them the next one. If you delegate authority, all of a sudden, now you're building a leader. That's different. How did you move in that direction? Like what caused you to get there?

Richard Sargent: 5:49

It actually, I would say very recently. I would say in the last like two years, I've gotten to that level and it's actually through selling the sergeant as well. So when I sold the sergeant, it was delegating everything else, and when all the processes and everything else lived in my head and that's how I delegate everyone else I had the superhero cape. It was my last name. It's the sergeant, it's all about me. That's how the agency was built. And so when an offer came to buy it and make it an internal marketing agency and they were going to remove the name and everything else, I was like well, this is cool, pretty penny, I definitely like this. This is going to be awesome.

Richard Sargent: 6:23

It felt like a deposition to take all my knowledge and everything else and put it on there. It took two and a half years. It wasn't this overnight success. It wasn't cranky, it was grueling At the end of it if I had to do it again and everything else. It taught me how I need to approach it, moving forward. The biggest missing piece throughout even you know, something I've been working on recently I've been very grateful of this opportunity is just what. How important leadership is, because I've always just if you have a great idea or anything else and you get people hyped up.

Dr. William Attaway: 6:50

That's leadership and yet I'm consistently shocked and amazed at how many people think it's just that the leadership is simply the charismatic front man or front woman who just can yell louder and try to hype the room. That's not leadership.

Richard Sargent: 7:09

Yeah, those are the skills I lean into. I'm like a wedding DJ and all these different things, so like if I can just hype everyone up, but it's the I would say, the quiet parts out loud, with your team behind the scenes. Are you a leader to them there? Are you a leader beyond work into their personal life? Not that you're setting unhealthy boundaries, but do you actually know their family members' names? Do you care when they bring something personal? Do they come to you with that or do they put up a wall in the face and just keep it business, personal and everything else?

Richard Sargent: 7:36

One of the coolest things and we just did this recently, but with the new hire coming on is I had the idea of saying, hey, why don't we DoorDash them something? Well, doordash wasn't available, so Uber Eats and then we Uber Eat them. That's hard to say Donuts right Before the meeting. So meetings first thing in the morning they get donuts and it's like, hey, donuts are on your door, check it out and everything else. Those are such cool moments. But if you asked me a year ago if I ever thought I'd done that, the answer would have been no. It's just like you're obligated to be on this call. Here's what we're supposed to do. Sit down, do your job. We're going to move forward. Oh, that's such horrible leadership and that's how I used to operate. So you can imagine how I feel now and I don't regret anything in the past of that stuff right when it comes to leadership, but I'm just grateful for the moments now of learning what not to do. I would say.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:24

That's powerful, and I love the idea of thinking about your team members. And how can I create an experience for them? How can I create an experience that is beyond the expected, beyond just the demand of, of course you're going to show up, it's eight o'clock, it's time for our meeting. No, no, no, we're going to do something different, and I think that the people listening can say hey, how can I do that? How can I step into creating an experience? Because the reality is, as leaders, that's what we do. We create experiences for the people around us. We create experiences about how they're going to interact with us, how they're going to experience us, and we create the environments in which they operate. We either do that intentionally or we do it in a way we didn't mean to do it.

Richard Sargent: 9:09

Yeah, absolutely, and let's take the word right of those experiences and let's get a label on there. Are we creating a safe experience, an inviting experience, an inspirational experience? What type of experience are we doing versus one that I used to operate, still do at some points is are we creating chaotic experience? Because a lot of people don't know how to navigate chaos and so if someone brings into the room, it's easy to now see that that's happening, and then it's like, oh well, we're here for the ride, let's buckle up, click, we're going for it, but most people will shut down in those moments and it's not enjoyable. No one wants to walk away with that experience it's so true.

Dr. William Attaway: 9:48

So how long have you been an entrepreneur?

Richard Sargent: 9:51

this is cool. I think from okay, I got a really cool story that I've rarely have shared, right, unless it's like fireside chat, hanging out with buddies and everyone else and now you have to share it now.

Dr. William Attaway: 10:00

Now I'm, now I'm doing that. Oh no, I'm definitely.

Richard Sargent: 10:01

No, it's right, because the second you mentioned, I started playing it back and everyone else, and now you have to share it. Now I'm doing that. Oh no, it's funny because the second you mentioned it I started playing it back and everything else. One really cool story my parents have been entrepreneurs their whole life as well. They've had the steady jobs but still wanted to make more money, so they own side hustles and all these different cool things on there. One of my favorite stories is, I think, for for band back in middle school. You know the See's candy selling for a dollar. Yeah, candy bars and everything else, right, people don't realize that anymore. That's not a thing anymore as much. Right, I used to sell my candy bars for $2 and if you bought one for $2, you get one for free. I sold a dollar candy bar for $2 and then gave you one for free.

Dr. William Attaway: 10:42

Brilliant, I love it.

Richard Sargent: 10:44

I would sell out of boxes so freaking fast. I would go work every teacher. I'd go work every business. I'd go into business. I didn't. Here's the thing. This is what was kind of crazy.

Richard Sargent: 10:54

I didn't stand outside, so people can avoid me, and it's not that I went in businesses, but I went to all the businesses and they're saying hey, you didn't have time to go, and it's like Stady Brothers and stuff back in the day. Those are like the West Coast stores. But take your favorite supermarket or anything else. And I would go to the small shops next to them and says hey, I know you don't have a chance to go buy a candy bar, but I that's already in the store right now. Do you want a couple right now and you can have some for later? I can do a special like five, and you get like what was it? If you buy five of them, I'll give you like nine of them or 10 of them for free or something Like something crazy.

Richard Sargent: 11:30

It worked out five for free, sorry. So I was like but I won't get one. So I was trying to get $10 from them. I wasn't trying to sell just one, I was trying to set $10. I was trying to sell their weekly supplies. I wasn't trying to sell one and that was from like day one man, just that mindset. I still don't have a discount. I have a disconnect on if people get mad at me or like rejection or anything else. It just doesn't register for me. So it's crazy.

Dr. William Attaway: 11:54

That's not a bad thing.

Richard Sargent: 11:56

No, not at all. It's crazy.

Dr. William Attaway: 11:59

So, thinking about your journey as an entrepreneur, what are some of the challenges that you've hit? What are some of the things that have been obstacles in your path?

Richard Sargent: 12:07

I would say the obstacles have been not sticking to like one journey or one path. Once I solved it in my brain, and even if I did certain pieces of it, I would move on to the next one right, which I didn't realize until I got diagnosed now, like just over a year and a half ago, with ADHD. But I went all my life into my late thirties without understanding that I have this, and so can you imagine the frustration that it creates if you're constantly doing new things and everything else, because I would go solve something and then I would just be done. I was the starter of stuff. I wasn't the I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, and that's I enjoy my life. I was like the second. I mentally solved it, I was done with it. I didn't even have to do the activity. If I was like man, I should own an ice cream shop, what would I do? And I think about into an ice cream shop, wow, wow. So what drew you to marketing? Oh, man, we're hitting all the good stories today.

Richard Sargent: 14:15

I in high school took AutoCAD like engineering. Right, it was a junior and senior class. I took it freshman sophomore year and so I was able to get into like the premier, like trade school, for like two school districts combined to make a trade school Right In California called CART, like in Fresno, california, absolutely amazing school. I consider that my home school versus my actual school. I went to the public school and what happened there with this trade school? Because you would go half days to each school. So it was amazing. So I go half day there. I went for engineering, right. So I did AutoCAD I mean drawing the houses freshman, sophomore year, just competing with the best. I'm like this is it I'm going to be here. I was also in drumline and stuff, right.

Richard Sargent: 14:52

I went my first day of class there. I sat there and every kid looked like me small, white, nerdy and just like I tried cracking jokes, I tried being the cool kid and everything else. I had the thickest glasses, everything else and everyone was just socially awkward and I felt anxiety because it wasn't settling. It was just like this and it was quiet and everyone else was comfortable with that and I was like, oh, I can't do this. So I got up and I walked around. I saw this class playing a game in icebreakers and everything else and there's these cute girls and all these things happening in here. It's my junior year of high school and I just walked in and I just started playing an icebreaker game and then I sat down and I lied and said, oh yeah. My counselor said I was supposed to be in this class. They wrote me in into that class. It was a lottery pick to get in the class.

Richard Sargent: 15:38

The only reason I got into the whole school because I had to try out for the engineering class but everything else was a lottery pick so you couldn't just get in, you couldn't sign up for this, you had to be chosen to go to the school. I got into a different class and then transferred. Once I got in there, unbeknownst to me that what I was doing, that was my introduction to marketing. If we take two seconds, it was a two-year program, right. The second year the seniors were able there's balloons, the seniors were able to compete in like a statewide California competition entrepreneur program. We got second place. The people that got first place were in the same class as us.

Richard Sargent: 16:11

So I was pissed, I was mad, right, but we built a business. We got to check for it and everything else. We decided not to do the business but like we built like a real business. In senior year of high school, while I was in California, I did go back every single year and just go teach that my teacher, who's been there for over about 20 years, is still there, close to retiring, but that's how I got into marketing. So before that I had an engineering mindset background systematically, which has transferred over into marketing.

Dr. William Attaway: 16:41

So not too many people know that story, but yeah, that's a wild ride and a journey ever since know that story but yeah, that's a wild ride in the journey ever since you know that makes so much sense. Like watching you as you now are coaching other people a lot of agency people and you're talking about building intentional systems and structures and processes, thinking operationally. It makes so much, so much sense given your background.

Richard Sargent: 17:05

Absolutely. You give me a wireframe. That's a good time to me. I'm freaking all those connectors and everything else. They have to line up, they have to be perfectly gridded and just the flow of it and the structure. And if we stress, test, like and to see that stuff in real life being used in humans and playbooks and processes and it not requiring us whatsoever, that is my true dopamine.

Dr. William Attaway: 17:28

You know, one of the things I love about your story is that you achieved already something that a lot of business owners in the agency world really want to achieve. You built something substantially and you sold it, you exited, you build it, you exited, and now you're on the other side of that exit A lot of people. They only aspire to that. They've never experienced it. What are some of the things that you learned in that process about yourself as a leader?

Richard Sargent: 18:00

I learned what not to do. I would say Interesting. The reason why I say that is because I think people think of selling a business as very sexy. I would say, and I have the complete opposite experience. Do I enjoy the process and everything else? Yes, but the multipliers and everything else like, hey, your business is making. I think at the time I was making like, let's say, $35,000 in revenue, and keep in mind the goal was they were buying me to be an internal marketing company, so revenue and everything else didn't really matter. They would keep clients and everything else. Let some go. But they just want an in-house system for all their investment properties of over like 70 of them and stuff or investment companies. And so what ended up happening through this whole entire experience is just understanding like the multiplier went down for like very key points. I'm able to turn over the keys today and it works without me.

Intro/Outro: 18:44

The answer is no.

Richard Sargent: 18:47

Multiplier down right. Does Richard cause chaos? Multiplier down right Does everyone know how to do their job for a year without Richard talking to them? Multiplier down, so it went down to like no multipliers. It was almost like a liquidation buy is what it felt like Wow. But here's the thing we still went through process everything else I, but here's the thing they. We still went through process everything else. I got guaranteed money throughout the thing. So it was creative financing, so it wasn't like this lump sum or anything else, but the experiences I could have never gotten anywhere else.

Dr. William Attaway: 19:15

Telling you right now.

Richard Sargent: 19:16

So, like I am so grateful for everyone involved with it, even the people that said like cause I was so proud of like my software costs, which people are going to freak out. Proud that, like my software costs, which people are going to freak out and some people are going to feel offended by this my software costs for like a 30 to 35 000 agency a month. Right was like six thousand dollars. That's what it takes for an agency. You know what they did? Nah, you gotta cut that by 90. You have 30 days to do it. Whoa, uh, do you know how many softwares got cut and services that were shiny. But I was like, yeah, we need all these things because we barely use them. But you know what. We need them in the queue. And you know what's the funniest part? Guess where a lot of my profit came from Cutting expenses.

Dr. William Attaway: 19:55

Wow.

Richard Sargent: 19:57

My brain did not. I love numbers, but not these types of numbers and expensive thing else. I love numbers and opportunity, not inexpensive numbers in opportunity, not in expenses. It's weird how I can change that brain around.

Richard Sargent: 20:08

I was always able to sell my way out of any problem possible. I could sell my way out. I can just do this, I can do this. But when we did that and now there's a thing called profit sharing we did K1 distributions quarterly. We even talked about freezing everything else, and then the people that bought into my agency were partners and we shared that profit. Have you ever been able to pay yourself your monthly salary and then almost get like a monthly salary again every quarter? It is the coolest feeling ever. Wow, amazing.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:36

And now you take the experiences of what you went through and you coach other people.

Richard Sargent: 20:42

Yes, 100%, absolutely yes 100%.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:45

Absolutely why. Why did you choose to take those experiences and not just say, hey, I'll go do it again, but instead say, no, I'm going to focus on helping other people to achieve what I did.

Richard Sargent: 21:02

Yeah, so I did start an agency. We can get into that as well. But if a simple-minded, stubborn guy like me can build an agency, a lot of people can build agencies. I'll tell you right now if you can get charisma or sales or anything else and if I could do it, it's pretty much that anyone else can do it as well type of story. There's nothing special about me. There's no Kobe Bryant superstar in me. I am the average Joe that figured it out and just persevered on there to make it happen.

Dr. William Attaway: 21:26

So let me. Let me dial into that for a second, because one of the things that I have appreciated about you is that you are constantly learning. You're constantly taking in information, processing it, applying it and you execute. You are all about execution. Thinking about your journey, what is some of the best advice that you have gotten along the way? What is some of the best advice that you have gotten?

Richard Sargent: 21:47

along the way. Yeah, the one that I haven't paid enough attention to until more recently is relationships are the highest form of currency, and so focus on the relationships that you have and what you can do with them. On there, how can you give and what can you ask for? I'm not saying that you can receive it every time, but, like, what can you ask for? The other factors on there about, like, just takeaways and stuff that we're going through is staying simple. Honestly, I think we what's the whole fancy fails? Simple scales. Yeah, like, keep it simple, and I think too much is that. Like and I went through this as well the second I got bored with it. I would switch my whole business up. Have you ever worked at a business where every operation is working and then you come in on Monday and it's completely different? I was the guy on the weekend flipping the whole business around for fun.

Intro/Outro: 22:37

You must be more efficient.

Richard Sargent: 22:38

It's like learning a new language. It's a new dialect every single weekend, and I didn't do it every weekend but on a random weekend, didn't tell anyone and they would come in on Monday to chaos, and then I would have to take two hours explaining the whole process, and when it's way more efficient than everything else, I was the problem here, wow. So my takeaway keep it simple and allow others to comprehend it and for them to build it.

Dr. William Attaway: 23:03

I hope everybody listening is writing that down, because what you just described is not terribly uncommon, particularly when founders who will walk in turn the whole Apple card upside down, whether it's operationally or even just emotionally, and all of a sudden everybody's like wait, what just happened? Everything is so. And then they walk out of the room.

Richard Sargent: 23:29

Yes, sometimes, sometimes they sit there in fear, but at no point did you get their buy-in or the confidence that they believe in what you're about to do. I did it my way, or the highway type of mentality for a long long time Poor leadership.

Dr. William Attaway: 23:44

I would say Well, and I love that you are now being a conduit of what you've learned and sharing it with other people so that they don't have to drive into the same ditches that you drove into.

Richard Sargent: 23:52

Yes, 100%, saving people one ditch at a time.

Dr. William Attaway: 23:56

One ditch at a time. That's right. Save without alignment. So how are you intentional about your learning and your growth? How do you stay on top of your game and level up with new skills that your team, your clients, are going to need you to have as a leader?

Richard Sargent: 24:14

Yeah, that's really important. I always look at it from my personal self and my journey on this, and when we're talking about skills and learning, I'm always going to say it that way I don't plan on retiring. Will I lessen my work and everything else? I don't plan on retiring. So there's no like quote unquote end date that I have already planned out. Like, oh, I want to retire early or anything else. I'm going to be working until forever, pretty much Right, and so I cognitively cannot work anymore. So I'm going to continue learning.

Richard Sargent: 24:40

Because here's the thing I've done I was in Google ads when it was penny a click it wasn't even called Google ads or in Google AdWords. It was like some like weird random name back in the day. Right, it was a penny a click. So you can imagine that I got pretty mad when it became 10 cents and now, with it being like $30 a click, sometimes right, like yeah, it's through the roof. But here's the thing A lot has changed since, right, and if I stay stuck in my ways of, this is what I've done and this is how I've won and everything else, and hold my arm.

Richard Sargent: 25:05

I'm so great at this. No one's going to care or remember that, and here's the thing I always talk about, like how fast innovation is moving. You have the biggest accelerant that, like, we can watch this podcast in 10 years and it still be true. Ai has wiped out a lot of the people that are not embracing it, that are the very stoic oh no, that's just a fad and no one's going to care about it. Blah, blah, blah, right. So how much do I have to stay on top of my game? Because I had this offer and it worked in several different niches that were high ticket and it worked for years. If I was to go that same exact offer and trade nothing right now, it'd be like oh, you offering billboards, that's what it would feel like, right, Right, oh, that's so cute, you're offering billboards or the yellow pages. It would just be that old an offer and the thing is that offer is only a couple years old. But that's how fast the market moves. That's crazy.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:57

It's also fun, but crazy. Well, it creates an environment where growth is not an option for you, not if you want to stay at the level that your clients and your team need you to stay at.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:07

Not, if you want to stay at the level that your clients and your team need you to stay at so, thinking about your business. Like you said, you don't ever want to retire in the traditional sense, but every leader that I know is going to leave a legacy. There's going to be people who know Sarge he was, he is, know sarge, he was, he is. If you could define that, what do you want your legacy to be?

Richard Sargent: 26:34

yeah, it's funny you mentioned this. I am so bent on this legacy thing and I love it, like my daughter, who's seven years old, and now we have a newborn as well. My daughter's asked me questions from this book about, like, just parts of my legacy and everything else, and I struggled and actually got pretty depressed over it about not leaving a big, wealthy legacy and everything else. I wanted to make millions of dollars to do these different things, but that impact can happen financially. What was any of these different things? So my impact now is of love, language, everything else. I just want to be known as a guy that served as much as possible.

Richard Sargent: 27:07

And you know what's the coolest part about this? There's this one person at church, right, we went to this new church and got in there and we found out her son's name, who's like a young adult. His name is mac, and so I was like what's up big mac? And he loved it, this kid, because I guess like, and I was like dj, they're like what's up big mac and else. And the reason I'm telling you the story is because we found out that it was going to become his birthday, right, so we found out he's going to be like 21. Right, so that was really cool for him, and so I took my daughter, who's seven years old. We went and bought him a gift card at McDonald's. We tried doing for $21.

Richard Sargent: 27:39

That would have been cool, yeah and so. But we got for 25 and the coolest thing is we went and we said, hey, where's he at? He was serving children's ministry. And so we found him and we're like, what's up, big Mac, how's it going? Gave him a high five, the cool way, and everything else. He's like what's this Like? Happy birthday man, congratulations. Right. Two weeks later, so not even right away there's no gratification from anyone else. Might as well just happen saying how much she loves that experience and everything else, and she came up and told me this and everything else and it was just like I want to leave moments like that for so many people's lives and it doesn't have to be this grandiose thing or anything else, but can people be seen and heard?

Richard Sargent: 28:21

And I'll share one more thing. My mother-in-law does t-shirts for her school. She works at a death and heart in here in school in here in Utah, right. She works out of death and heart in here in school, in here in utah, right. She does t-shirts for, like, the students and for them, and they do these fun themed t-shirts and everything else, and I know you have this as daughters in volleyball and so forth and everything else. Do you know how many people in life have never been a part of a team and wearing the same uniform? Yeah, do you know how many people miss on that experience of just not wearing the same shirt, the same uniform, anything else? And when I, when I reframed it for her, it was like, you know, you're really creating some memories that some people, even teachers, have never had. They've never been on sports team or anything else, and you're creating a deeper unity. I love creating those moments and being a part of that. That's the legacy I want to leave, no financial, anything else.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:12

Can else, can it go beyond my scope and everything else? That's what I want. So good, that's so good. Wow, man, really that, that, that got me. That's, that's really powerful, creating a sense of belonging for other people where they know they where they know they are valued and have worth.

Richard Sargent: 29:29

Absolutely, and I'm a pretty big proponent of my agency. Right now it's 100% delegated. I'm in coaching full-time, and then I have an agency where every single piece of the operation day-to-day is run by virtual assistants. I call them team members. Around the world, Primarily, Philippines and South America are the top two spots. I love talent at um and so they run everything and we just did a webinar or anything else. I'll keep this short, but we asked what would be their dream income and the average amount was a thousand us dollars a month would be their dream income that can take care of the whole family and everything else. Am I able to teach them how to do a job with ai and everything else and a normal role in anything else where they can make a thousand dollars and make a dream come true, and can I build SOPs and processes to train others and they can also take this and do this as well? Can I make a bigger distinction of that? And this is now two years ago and this ties in.

Richard Sargent: 30:26

Two years ago I had a team lead for a better job and I was mad because our whole operation was kind of around them. They're very charismatic and everything else, and someone reframed it to me here in Utah and he was like hey, you should treat every single team member that leaves as alumni of your company. What do you want alumni to do? You want them to come back and be celebrated and everything else. And I didn't have that attitude. And so now, if I am creating the best possible alumni for this global economy to help make a bigger difference, even put up SOPs that other people can follow that never know who I am, there's people that are hired in my agency right now.

Richard Sargent: 31:04

I have never met them. I see them in everything else and this is where I'm looking to step them back into becoming a better leader and training better leaders, them and everything else. And this is where I'm looking to step them back into becoming a better leader and training better leaders. But just seeing that we are able to help change people on a bigger level, that also help our clients. And so there's so many people out play here. Kids are able to go to private school in the Philippines because their family member makes $2,000. Wow, and we're over here. Like you know, for some you know the people that are probably listening like $2,000 is a lot of money, but for some people it's like I'll probably make that in a week for some people that are on this, you know listening to this. But like for those people in the area, to make that much money is life changing and to know that we can connect those dots and build that legacy with them and everything else and just be a part of it. It's their journey and everything else.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:52

We can become journey and everything else. We become their guide. My cup is full. This is amazing. Well, and there it is again, this idea of being a conduit and not just being a reservoir. It's not just all for you, it's being a conduit of what you've learned, the experiences that you've had and the generosity that flows from sharing open-handedly. It's so much a part of your story, sarge, and I just love that. I think that's so awesome and I hope that everybody listening is feeling what I'm feeling, which is man. How can I lean into that? What does that look like in my world? How can I take that idea, that principle, and find my own Big Mac? How can I find my own team members that I can say, hey, how can I pour into and invest in you in such a way that it's going to change your world and the world of the people around you? I think that's a really high calling of being a catalytic leader.

Richard Sargent: 32:43

Absolutely.

Dr. William Attaway: 32:45

So you read a lot. Is there a book that has made a really big difference in your journey that you'd love to recommend to the people who are listening.

Richard Sargent: 32:53

I mean, where do we start? I'm looking at my camera right now and the book's behind me. Sorry for not remembering the exact name Dale Carnegie. The Win Friends Lose.

Dr. William Attaway: 33:01

Money, how to Win Friends and Influence People. Thank you.

Richard Sargent: 33:04

Do not quote me on that one. All right, let's cut that one out. I mean, there's so many books. If I was to take just one up here and I'm going to give you a deeper one versus the typical that you would hear from everyone else I'd actually probably choose you Are the Brand by Mike Kim on there, so the one just right here. The reason why is because the personal branding helps you to have better self-reflection on who you are, and one example that he shares in the book that I absolutely love is that you get to be known as one person and everything else, but when you become so popular and polarizing in your own networks and everything else, you can do whatever you want and people are going to love it. And so the example that he uses is the Rock right, dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson can start any company and everything else and people are going to buy into him because his personal brand is absolutely amazing.

Richard Sargent: 33:50

On there and with AI and everything else, I think we're losing the uniqueness of who we are, and how do we stand out Like when we're coaching people? I want to get out to like what makes them unique, because there's one guy who jumped on call. We didn't kick off. But first time I ever talked to the guy right and we're sitting and talking and he's just like, I'm like everybody else, and that's just kind of the story. He's saying and I'm like, and then it turns out he is a professor, a professor with an MBA in strategic marketing. If I go ahead, just like everybody else.

Richard Sargent: 34:21

That's what I'm saying, and so, to see that and to hear that from him, I helped craft on that first call, which is rare, by the way. It's not normal for me to be able to do that craft on that first call, which is rare, by the way, it's not normal for me to be able to do that craft, how he is unique in this market Absolutely. And so now experience.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:37

Yeah, yes.

Richard Sargent: 34:38

All I did was lean into his experience and my favorite part is, if we switched roles, which I've done with you before, why I switched my background and had some fun with it. Right Made my background your background stuff.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:47

Yeah.

Richard Sargent: 34:48

If you, if you switch roles and it's actually what you did on the intro as well is you told me about myself with the information I gave you and that you were able to research, right, but to hear that from others.

Richard Sargent: 34:56

People don't get to hear that about their life and everything else. So when you restate people's lives or what they should be doing and everything else, just of the information they gave you, guess what happens when you see people light up, my cup fills up, my cup is full seeing this person light up because you know what's going to happen, and this is something that's really important to me as well, For the coaching perspective and team members and everyone else. Everyone wants to go home at the end of the day, back to their families and everyone else, the hero of their day. They don't want to go back being the victim or the villain or anything else. People want to go back and be the hero. Are we creating heroes every single day with what they're doing? Are we beating them down into their jobs where they can't wait to go home and decompress? Are they walking home like you would never believe what I was able to do today. That was absolutely amazing. How many of those moments are we creating for people in their wins journal.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:44

So well said, and this is why you bring the innovation and the strategy and this is why people line up to work with you Because you can bring this out. You can help them see what they can't see and add so much value in the process. Yeah, as is true, every time we talk, I walk away having learned something, and I walk away a little more encouraged, and I thank you for sharing that today with our listeners and being so generous and open-handed with that. I know they're going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you and more about what you're doing and how they can engage with you. What's the best way for them to do that?

Richard Sargent: 36:22

Yeah. So either I know this is everyone has like a cool website and everything else right. I'd either go on LinkedIn and Facebook and just type in my name, richard Sargent right here You'll find me. There'll be a beard, there'll probably be a picture of my family if it's on Facebook and everything else Probably some tacos in the images and everything else right, pretty big on that. But just come and I tell every single person just come and message me, come and reach out. A lot of people were scared, I would say up front, about like well, if I ask him, then I'm going to get rejected and he's going to charge me for consultation. You'd be surprised how many quick questions people can ask me on Messenger that I can take 15 seconds on my life. I can have a better trajectory of validation for them. They're the ones that came up with it. I said yes, I agree with you, you should do that they come back to me like, hey, I sold this $15,000 bill down.

Richard Sargent: 37:08

They loved it. You know how much. They came to me at first and I didn't tell them that. I told them to raise their prices. They chose the price they were going to sell it for like a thousand dollars. They would have got the thousand dollar sale but I said you know, really, compared to market and everything else, you're actually selling way higher than that. I had more than 10 XM. They're like a thousand. That's the worst that's going to happen. They said they didn't even blink at 15,000. I said now, first off, I'd be a little bit mad that I sold something for too low.

Richard Sargent: 37:40

What happens and I'm personally, and I tell this to them as a caveat don't attach your self-worth to how much you sell for, but how much more confidence do you think that belt is going from a thousand dollar build out, which is absolutely amazing Some of the best billets I've ever seen to now. $15,000 bill that you're dealing with a different client and the bill that's almost done. They have it done in less than a week and the client's loving it. And you know what happens as well is the person's value and how fast of a turnaround it was to get everything built out. They love that Most times, people have a scarcity mindset.

Richard Sargent: 38:05

What I mean by this if it only took you a week, then by this If it only took you a week, then you charged me too much, when it's the complete opposite. He poured in and did everything possible to do that. Now, in this equation, what did I do? Added confidence. He asked me a couple of questions. Added confidence. He was able to make an additional $14,000. All I did. And here's the thing I don't think enough people get enough validation or confidence from others.

Dr. William Attaway: 38:29

Yeah, I agree. I think Kathy would always say you want to know how to know if somebody needs encouragement, If they're breathing. It's real talk, love it and he started an organization, a company that is still with us today, chick-fil-a, where, if you haven't been encouraged today, go to Chick-fil-A and you will be treated with respect and feel very encouraged when you leave with that chicken sandwich.

Richard Sargent: 38:53

Absolutely. Do you know what we do every daddy-daughter date on Fridays? What's that? Chick-fil-a.

Dr. William Attaway: 38:58

Yes, you do.

Richard Sargent: 38:59

That's right Every Friday. I love it. It is Chick-fil-A and an activity.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:05

There you go.

Richard Sargent: 39:06

In so much that my seven-year-old daughter said it would be fun to work here. Have you ever heard anyone say that it'd be fun to work at a fast food spot? I don't think a lot of people have ever said that. But in that environment and everything else, what she can see with her emotional intelligence. She's looking at that like that would be a fun spot to work at as a seven-year-old. That's meaning and having difference.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:26

That's healthy culture.

Richard Sargent: 39:28

Yes.

Dr. William Attaway: 39:29

And again we could just go for another hour. This is so good.

Richard Sargent: 39:31

Sorry, it's on the next hour.

Richard Sargent: 39:33

You're coming back, so that's just a given You're going to have to come and find me, because I see everyone that's on this podcast, everyone listening right, and I'm looking at these people as a student with a notepad, listening to people, and I'm like you have me sandwiched around some super titans in the industry and everything else and absolutely amazing people. And I'm over here, that guy who just stayed consistent, joe Schmo, and it's not the story I'm telling myself. There is a greater story to this, but I'm just in awe of the culture and the leadership that you've cultivated from others and how you're able to extract it out of everyone. So I thank you for that.

Dr. William Attaway: 40:07

It's a joy, man. It's what I get to do. Love it, sarge, thanks for being here.

Richard Sargent: 40:13

Absolutely Thanks for having me.

Dr. William Attaway: 40:14

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.

Dr. William Attaway: 40:50

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.

Intro/Outro: 41:36

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.