Our guest this week is Doug Nohe who is the Vice President of Field Operations and is responsible for managing the national operations of SCORE's 300 chapters and 10,000 volunteers as well as overseeing the headquarters field staff.
Hosted by Tamara MacDuff (pickle#1) and Sid Ragona (pickle#2) of Re-Thinking Business: Success Sauce & Two Pickles Podcast
Our guest this week is Doug Nohe who is the Vice President of Field Operations and is responsible for managing the national operations of SCORE's 300 chapters and 10,000 volunteers as well as overseeing the headquarters field staff.
Hosted by Tamara MacDuff (pickle#1) and Sid Ragona (pickle#2) of Re-Thinking Business: Success Sauce & Two Pickles Podcast
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for listening to another edition of rethinking business success sauce in two pickles. I'm Tamara Macduff with my co-host, as I said, we're going on? We do have a very impressive guest today. We have Doug Noey who is the VP of, of field operations for score national. And did you know that in 2020 score national helped over 45,000 businesses get started?
Speaker 2:Well, since we're interviewing our boss, technically I'm bound to say, of course I did. Of course you did. Of course I did. But technically I didn't realize if the number was that high.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, um, mentors such as yourself and me and all the other 10,000 other mentors across the nation, we've been able to help create 74,000 non-owner jobs across the United States, which brings a total jobs created to 119,562. That's the jobs impact and business impact that score as a national organization has been able to bring to the small business community and the man responsible for all of that to make sure all of that flows easily is our guest. And I'd like to welcome to the show Mr. Doug Noey. Doug. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. And I, first thing I would say is I am absolutely not the person responsible for that this per person, people responsible for that are individuals like yourselves, the, you know, 12,000 people we have in the field who are volunteering their time to be able to spend in helping all these business owners and potential future business owners develop, uh, the, the success level that they want to achieve. So we all thanks really good back to you guys and everything that you were doing,
Speaker 1:Oh, we couldn't do it without strong leadership like yourself and everybody else in the leadership at score national. Um, you guys have been doing a yeoman's job in these past couple of years. You spent a difficult couple of years putting everything back together, but you guys have done a great job and we appreciate the support and the leaders.
Speaker 2:So Doug, I know we've spoken before, uh, but I think it would be very instructional if you could actually go through just a little bit how you came to actually be associated with score, uh, when you first heard about it, when you first joined and how you moved up through Scott to your current position.
Speaker 3:Sure. So I probably came into the headquarter staff in a very, very different way. I came through, uh, as one of the individuals that I just mentioned of the 12,000 people who are volunteering for the organization. So I was lucky enough to, um, retire early. And, um, at that time after selling, uh, the last business that I had was looking for ways to be able to use all the things that I've learned over the years of my career, um, and be able to help other people, well, when you start looking at that there's one organization in this country that can satisfy that desire, and that is the score association. So I joined score, uh, back in early 2013, and I came on board as a volunteer in Chicago and then ultimately wound up taking on a chapter chair position in Chicago to help be part of the leadership team there, uh, to, you know, work with all the various, uh, volunteers that we had in supporting all the clients in the greater Chicago marketplace. And during that time, I spent time not only assisting the leadership at the local level, uh, but you know, reaching out to others around the country, in similar positions, uh, to learn from them, to find out what were they doing to effectively help their communities and the business owners and so on, and, uh, began to have ongoing conversations about, uh, things that we could do. And through that process, I also spent a lot of time probably bugging the people at headquarters and making the phone calls and asking the questions because I, I just wanted to learn. So I had, uh, then spent two years as the chapter chair in Chicago and was asked by the leadership at that point to join the national advisory council for a score, which is just an incredibly talented group of people that I had an opportunity to work with, uh, that were really thinking through, um, things that are, are planning for the future and, um, reaching out to the, uh, volunteers and the, the field leaders, um, working with, uh, the headquarter staff and the board, um, and doing research about where we think the organization is going, or what could we do, and really being that, um, sort of skunkworks of development of things that would come for the future and truly enjoyed that process by learning that I also spent a lot more time working with the staff and getting to know the staff and those things. And ultimately I was asked to then also take on a role, um, to help develop, uh, some outside partnerships, uh, to bring in a organization like the USDA and so on and forge relationships there to bring to score. Um, so again, I had always been a part of as a volunteer, working with the whole organization and trying to structure things, pull them together when, um, we went through a field leadership change and the person who was in that role was stepping down, uh, and moving on to another opportunity I was asked to come in and serve as the VP of field operations on an interim basis, you know, just as we went through that process of finding that next individual and so on. Well, like most things as a volunteer, uh, sometimes I'm at the same thing in this, this position. Uh, when you step up to do something in the interim, it winds up being a little bit longer than you thought. Um, and you know, three to six months, it turned into a year which turned, you know, agreeing to stay on full-time, which turned into, gosh know how long it will be. Uh, just because we've had an incredible opportunity over the last couple of years to really help look at ways of transforming the organization for the future and spending the time, truly listening to the field and the field leadership about what we need to be able to do to support our clients. And if anything, that's been the best thing that I've found, um, over this last, uh, two and a half years or so was working with the field leadership, learning from them, um, and putting into practices things that the field is recommending.
Speaker 2:And so from all of that, how do you think score is going to change in the next two to five years in terms of what will the clients see as a change?
Speaker 3:So let me take a little bit step back there and then have that go to where the clients will see the changes as an organization. One of the things, if you look over the 55 plus years history, uh, the organization really have always was this, um, Confederacy of chapters all around the country, you know, the 300 locations all with their own leadership and everything else, but one of the things, as you began to think to the future, that there were so many opportunities of ways, like when I was talking about reaching out to others, um, when I was at a chapter chair position and learning from them and sharing resources that more and more, um, we could do those types of things. And then technology actually had an opportunity for us to be able to engage in ways that we had not thought about before. And as an organization, we were planning for doing things with technology to integrate and to communicate and do all those things as well as being able to serve our clients in different ways. Well, one of the things that happened as we all know, um, you know, a little more than a year ago is as we all confronted the pandemic, was it really forced the organization itself to move to the future very, very rapidly and adapt to the needs of our clients and being able to serve them in ways that we had not done before. Specifically that meant moving into a virtual environment, both on our mentoring services, on that one-on-one communication that we have with clients, as well as the educational programs that we have all across the country and trying to bring together people on a virtual basis. And when we first saw this happening, the fear was, Oh my gosh, one of two things could happen. One, the field was not going to be able to adapt very quickly because it was brand new skills that they had to learn. And so on. And the other was, you know, with the, the clients themselves, um, want to work in those types of environment. Well, the one thing we learned was that it was an absolute yes, to both of those, the field stepped up, um, they, they learn the technology. They embrace the opportunity to still do what they always did to reach their clients. And the clients actually found this as a way that saved them a lot of time. It enabled to speak to someone faster, as well as being able to reach into this total network of 12,000 volunteers around the country for all of us together, to work, to find the right resource, to be able to support that client. So then if I look to the future from there, one of the things that also is happening is under this concept and culture of a one score is that we all are working on ways to solve the problems of our clients to get them the resources that they need no matter where that resource is, whether it's within your local chapter, a district or region, anywhere across the country, finding the right person to help you to assist your client or looking at the right resource, whether it's within score or within other partners in the community, doing everything we can to focus on the client and solve that client's need. And that will take us to the future to be able to assist more clients in more ways than we've ever done.
Speaker 2:So do you think that, uh, the COVID outbreak that started a year ago as possibly sort of fast forward is by about two to three years in terms of what was hoped to happen?
Speaker 3:I will go back and say, when we first introduced the idea of our volunteers using email, that seemed like heresy at the time, and it took us a long time to get everybody to accept that. Um, and then utilizing, you know, a singular, um, score, volunteer that org email, everybody embraced that as taking time. I would say it's probably fast-forwarded as beyond, um, five years. Very, very rapidly. Just it happened very, very quickly.
Speaker 2:Yes, definitely. I can, I can imagine that. Sorry, tomorrow, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Okay. I was just gonna ask, um, I know that one of the missions or the mission of score is to build vibrant small business communities. And I know that the culture of one score is something that we're all striving to do so that it's all seamless and we're no longer necessarily operating in silos, right? So we can help anybody anywhere in the country, depending on whatever their need is, is. And there may be no way to answer this, at least not right now, cause I'm sure it's, it's just ongoing, but I'm wondering how is the ones score culture is going to allow each of the individual chapters to maintain their individuality, not autonomy necessarily, but individuality because each community has different needs. How's that all gonna fit in together?
Speaker 3:It actually works incredibly well. And this concept, I think when we were first beginning to talk about this, we know that we want to foster vibrant small businesses communities when volunteers volunteer, they also volunteer not only to help small business owners, but they also are striving to enhance and help their own local community, which they serve because the backbone of communities around this country really is the small businesses up and down main street USA. So how do you go about doing that? But saying now I might myself be serving a client in a different area, or I might reach out to somebody across country to help my client. The most important thing is, is that we want to be able to serve that client at that local level with a resource, no matter where that resource happens to be, but it's still about serving and working in developing those businesses in that local community, which really is ultimately the core of who we are and what we do. So that perspective will never change to the organization. It really is about focusing on the clients at the local area where that business resides to be able to support them. One of the other things we also talk about is it's not just the idea of the client engagement and so on, but it's this concept of the community engagement. So even beyond the mentoring and talking to clients and doing those things at that local level, it's reaching out and understanding who the other partners happen to be getting to know those resources, um, and sharing what we can do to help the community and the businesses, but also finding out what those other skills are that others have and bringing them into that conversation and mix so that we're all working together to focus on that community.
Speaker 1:I think this is really going to help some of the smaller chapters that we have, that, that aren't necessarily that resource rich, but just because of the size of their chapter, I'm thinking of some smaller chapters here in New York state that, um, do reach out for assistance because we can connect them with stuff in our community that could help their clients as well.
Speaker 3:No, absolutely. And said, one of the questions you were asking earlier too about the future was just to that very point, say for our educational programs, one of the things that I'm moving to the future of, of having, um, webinars, as opposed to face-to-face, uh, educational programs, one is we can reach more people and we can find the absolute best resource to present a topic. And that can be presented from, you know, one of the chapters in New York state, but it can have participants from other areas in the state as well. So we have the opportunity to make sure that we get the best information about a particular topic that we can bring to our community no matter where that presenter themselves happened to be. So that's a great example of it
Speaker 2:In looking towards the future. Are there any initiatives underway that will help in the recruitment of new mentors, the sort of rewards that a mentor might get when I'm talking about rewards, I'm thinking not a monetary rewards, of course, basically stopping the treadmilling where somebody becomes a mentor for a few years and then starts decreasing
Speaker 1:Their involvement. How do we actually keep people engaged?
Speaker 3:So first and foremost is to recognize and understand that this is an organization of these 12,000 volunteers and that purely as them dedicating their personal time to do what they love to do, um, in supporting that, that community, but you're right. Any volunteer position that someone does, you know, whether they're building homes, um, or handing out food or working with small business owners, there has to be something in that for them that, that really encourages them, that fulfills something within them, um, that makes them want to continue to do that. So one of the things that we have to make sure is that we understand why people volunteer with us. We have to understand that, um, a lot of communication has to take place with others who are also volunteering the organization to make them feel part of a community so that they can have those discussions and conversations. Um, many times people are also looking for opportunities to continue to learn and grow themselves. So making sure that we have opportunities like that. So someone is getting bat fulfilled, uh, for lifelong learning individually, uh, as an important thing. So it really is always making sure that we look for ways to engage them, um, and also share and recognize them for what they're doing. You know, being able to highlight, uh, what we're doing organizationally, what we're doing at the local level and chapter level, and really boil it down to there is true value in what someone does. And that value is what I get up for every single day. And to hear the story of, you know, someone who's now created a business out of nothing, and they, they talk about what that's been as an inspiration to their lives on now having and creating a business that serves themselves and their family and people they hire as employees and the roles that, you know, those people can do to help support their families. And so on. Those are the things that I think our volunteers truly value. So sharing more of that in the stories of what those people are accomplishing, um, out there, I think really helps to, uh, continue to build that relationship.
Speaker 1:Thank you. That is, and it, I think scores making, um, a lot of really great, great strides, you know, and, and doing things better. And one of the things I've been really pleased to see is that, um, I know you guys have made a concerted effort to do some diversity and inclusion and equity work. And we, uh, our chapter, our greater Rochester chapter has started to really step up our inclusion efforts by having our webinars interpreted. And so it really falls under that umbrella, that score national is now looking towards more inclusion and then the will follow basically. So what are some of the things that national is doing to secure that sense of, and build that culture of inclusion across the chapters?
Speaker 3:Sure. And I guess the, the right place to start, that is maybe the why, why is this important to us? Why are we, um, focusing on, um, this area? And so on, the one part of me can say, well, if, if I'm role looking at this as a business, and I know I want to be able to grow that business, uh, substantively, we want to look into the markets that we may not be serving as many or as much as we are in others. So one of the areas that's been a challenge for us is making sure that we made inroads into, uh, the underserved communities of small business owners and so on, and be able to make sure that we had an understanding clearly of what is needed and when we, um, develop the right information programming and so on to also ensure that we had the volunteers, um, who would mimic the communities in which we serve. And ultimately that's what we need to be. We need to be an organization that is incredibly diverse, um, diverse in skill sets in, uh, industry background in age and other skills, ethnicity, language, you name it. So from a culture of inclusion, it's making sure that our organization also recognizes that that is an important thing for us to grow into the future. The communities are changing the areas and support that we need is changing. And again, as we did with moving into utilizing virtual opportunities, we also have to adapt this way and to say, the markets are changing. The growth opportunities are changing. And in some cases, especially as highlighted after this pandemic, other communities were hurt much more than others. And how do we make sure that we do everything we need to understand how to support them as we would with any business, but especially those right now that have a critical need. And that's some of the things that we're doing internally. It's a process it's not flipping on a switch one day and saying, you know, all of a sudden we have this new, um, diversity equity and inclusion, um, um, organization, uh, exactly how we want it. What it is though, is a process. It's the development and the creation of our culture. And where do we want to be two, three, five, 10 years from now as an organization, um, to be able to do and serve, um, the community and how they want to be served with the services and the delivery modalities that they need and so on. So we will continue to adapt to be able to do that by focusing on inclusion and making sure that anyone is welcome. That is an imperative for us to get to the point where there is complete equitable opportunities within the organization that will ultimately lead to a much more diverse organization where everyone is welcomed. So that's the process that we'll go through, um, in working with our field leadership and training the organization and focusing our efforts on client and volunteer developers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's fantastic. And I know I've been encouraging people in our district and in our region because that's who I've been exposed to and who I've had questions of as a leadership in this area. And they, they ask all the time, how do we do this? And I say, get involved in your community, go out into your community, start inviting people to the table, so to speak, make sure they know that you want their feedback. You want their insight. I know that I can only speak for my region and I'm sure it's happening. Although all across America, our listeners are all over America and even in the UK. So I I'm sure it's happening everywhere, but I can tell you that it's definitely happening happening in the Northeast region, that people are starting to really get out into their communities and do business with the smaller businesses to bring them on board for things that their chapters may need. And that's one step into building that community and inviting them into participate to hopefully become mentors. That's at least what we're doing,
Speaker 3:But it's funny are there, I mentioned, um, what inspires me to wake up every day with these success stories from our clients and everything else. And, you know, I would be remiss if I don't talk about the inspiration of the volunteers themselves, that I see every single day and how much everyone is contributing of their own personal time. But one of the other things happens to be in this area of our diversity equity inclusion, as we're working on all of this, to see just the incredible people who have stepped up organizationally to add one more thing to what they're doing to help support this process. You know, working with us in developing the training materials and information and reaching out into the chapters to begin the process of training and holding the sessions as thought-starters to create a conversation, uh, at that local level of what we need to be able to do and how we can reach into the communities and everything else. It just is truly amazing to me, just to watch individuals who will step up, um, to support their local chapter, um, their community, their region, and then all of our clients nationally. Um, it truly is inspirational.
Speaker 1:Everybody that's involved in score that I've had the pleasure of coming in contact with. They have all done yeoman's jobs in terms of reaching out to their business communities, getting the businesses started and just connecting everybody with resources. It's amazing. The kind of work that goes on behind closed doors that some people don't know about, you know, but when some small businesses walk through our doors that are like, how come I've never heard of this before? And so we're doing, we're trying do our part to, uh, let people know more about the scores and organization. And of course, as you know, as our chapter and things like that as we grow, but I wanted to ask you too, you were a mentor, right? You started on your journey into leadership. So from a mentors perspective and now sitting in the leadership position as well, what do you think is the best piece of advice we could give somebody who starting a business. Wow. Put your mentor hat back on.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I guess it really depends on at what stage they happen to be at. I don't know if there's a universal answer for any of those. And if you think about the people who do come into our doors, it is those that are thinking about an opportunity. They have an idea. They haven't really, you know, move forward and just want to find out whether or not this makes any sense. And it's almost like they're looking for someone to give them some approval to go ahead and try it and start all the way through, you know, businesses who have been in business and now have either faced some challenges or, you know, want to continue to, to grow. And they're asking for, um, some experience to help and so on. And then you also have on the other side where people are winding down that business, and one finding ways to be able to do it. If I looked at what one common thing happens to be with all of those, it was the fact that they actually did reach out and wanted to talk to someone that by itself is a huge step for someone to be able to make where you realize that, you know what, maybe I don't have all the answers. Um, maybe I need to reach into, um, a community of individuals who've been there, done that, uh, or it could be a resource to support me in whatever stage or whatever effort I'm trying to make. And then to be open to the discussion, the conversation, hear what that your mentor is, uh, talking to you about and utilize that for the best way possible to make it so that you continue to grow in whatever role or level that business opportunity you have. So it's first and foremost, be open to it and to listen to it, and then to utilize that information to continue to grow.
Speaker 1:I love that piece of advice because that does go all across the whole landscape of everybody that comes to us because score does for the life of your business, right, from just kicking around an idea, is this a good idea or not to your exit strategy, we've got mentors that can help you and everything in between and using your resources is a huge piece of advice. That that is definitely a really good piece of advice. And have you seen anything in your mentoring sessions or just heard from other chapters around the country? What is the biggest need that are, that the clients are wanting that maybe we could do a better job at meeting them where they're at?
Speaker 3:Again, it depends on what specifically they are looking for. What I think we all have to recognize. And sometimes we can fall into this trap is that you make an assumption as that mentor, that the person is coming to you with knowing exactly what it is that they need. And then we try to resolve that issue that that person has. But if you would spend a little bit of time upfront asking them some questions, what you may find is that what they thought was the most important thing for them, maybe that actually really isn't the most important thing, that there are other things that they should know about or consider before they even get to that point of, of that question person says, well, you know, I want to be able to have more revenue. You know, that's why I'm there to, you know, get a question, tell me how I can get more revenue. Well, when you all of a sudden realize if there are a small manufacturer or something like that, and it's great to get more revenue, but if your supply chain is not effective or your product is not actually meeting a demand in a marketplace, you know, you can say, I want to grow revenue all I want. But if the issue is you have manufacturing, or you've never actually found out whether the consumer wants the product, you know, other conversations are moot. So again, the most important thing is really understand and ask questions that would get to the root cause of what that person really does need. First and foremost,
Speaker 1:That's excellent. And listening is definitely the number one skill that us mentors need to have because not only do we need to listen for what they're telling us, we need to listen to what they're not telling us quite often. My expertise is in marketing and digital marketing, social media and stuff. And I'll have clients come in and say, Oh, I need to increase my marketing and get my awareness up. Or in order to increase sales. And I'll look at their cash flow and I'll look at their marketing plan. And I'm like, well, that's not the problem. This you're fine. Everybody knows you. Here's what you gotta do. You know, you had to raise prices or, you know, something else that was kind of unrelated to what they thought the problem was. You know, they came in with a symptom and I had to find the problem where we're diagnosticians. Did you like that big word? I use said diagnosticians.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was thinking about it. I was thinking, well, I fought to you in many different ways, but not that one where I can even pronounce it properly, but there we go.
Speaker 1:But that's what, that's what we are. We're mentors and diagnosticians.
Speaker 2:So Doug, throughout your life, it's probably be obvious that you've had many mentors along the way. Are there any particular mentors that you would like to give a shout out to?
Speaker 3:Just one I truly comes to mind is my father. Um, my father was a serial entrepreneur. He, uh, lived in breathed that opportunity of creating something brand new. And he really instilled that in all kids that you know of, which I have three brothers, I'm one of four sons. And even though when I first started my career, you know, I went the path of, uh, many people in moving into the, in fortune 500 companies, everything else, but it wasn't too long into that, that I realized that where my true heart was, was the things that my father had done his whole life. And that was to be able to create something out of nothing and take an idea and build it. And from there you pulled together other individuals that all work together on creating something new and unique. And that has really driven me my entire life and my entire career. Just be the inspiration that I got from him in the trials and tribulations and the successes and the failures along the way, but he never lost that gleam in his eye of what that next opportunity.
Speaker 2:So in later life, did you ever sit down and discuss business problems with your father?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yep, absolutely did. And you know, it was, it was interesting that, um, you talked earlier on about listening, right? One thing is I had actually noticed, I, I would always go to him and if I had a problem, I went to him expecting he's just going to get, give me this great answer that was going to solve my problem and everything else. And, you know, after talking to him for an hour, I always realized that he said very little, but at the end I had an idea of what was going to happen and what I was going to do and, and everything else. And that really went back. And truly I learned from that, um, in helping others and supporting others and mentoring others as well, is that really is all about listening. That sometimes, maybe, you know, the right answer, but you just need somebody to talk to and, you know, work it out with, and that's what he taught me through that process.
Speaker 2:Well, it's probably had far reaching consequences, uh, given your current position,
Speaker 3:It's been helpful.
Speaker 1:Sure. And you have interests like all of us, right. Outside of score and outside of the mentoring and leadership and all of those things. What about some of those outside interests? Do you bring to the table to your leadership when you're leading the score mentors or the score organization, or even did you bring as a mentor to, to the business? Because I have mentors who will come to me and go, you know, I don't have any mentoring skills. I don't know how to mentor. I've never done that before, or I don't have this. I only worked in corporate and I'm like, but did you do this? Did you do this? Now you can talk about whatever and I help them see where their different skills can come to the table to help somebody. So what are the most important things that you've learned outside of business and outside of leadership that you actually bring into your leadership role?
Speaker 3:I think the biggest thing is to come with a real understanding of empathy. And I think you have to bring that forward with, especially in a role like this, where you're, you're working with so many diverse people, um, with so many diverse needs and experiences, and it's sometimes easy to fall back on and say, well, this is what I did. If you would just do that, you know, you'll be fine. Or the fact that we don't, again, going back to that listening, we don't really listen for an understanding of what the person is asking us for. And by being empathetic and by being able to listen to what someone says, sometimes we help them in, in ways that we never thought we would. You know, oftentimes, you know, we hear stories about people wanting to start this business and invest, you know, the, the life savings that they have. And you're there as a mentor and you're listening to this and you're fearful for this person that they may make a decision that ultimately could be a poor decision for them. Long-term. And how do you have that conversation with them to talk about what the risks happened to be and the rewards and the opportunities and encourage them and not dissuade them, but also have them recognize that they need to spend a little bit more time and think about this really clearly and understand what the consequences of decisions happen to be. And that could be with almost any decision that a person has. The other one is that sometimes you'll hear an idea that you think it's crazy, it's not going to work whatever. And maybe just having that person, I'll go back to the conversation with my father, just listening to them and asking them some questions, you know, and let them come to the point of self-discovery in there. But you've got to let that nurture and develop you. Can't just tell somebody something because they're not going to learn from that. So if anything, um, you know, I try to bring that to, uh, what I do and in, if I were to pair that with anything else, I love working in teams and working with other people. And I just think we accomplished so much more and, you know, taking the time to really listen to what our team members are saying and what their ideas happened to be, and incorporating those into the plans that we make for the goals that we have as an organization. I think those are critically important for our success.
Speaker 2:And that's very important too. I've always found it a very delicate balance between the empathetic listening and then also controlling one's facial expressions. When you're listening to something that you don't think is a good idea, and trying to smile your way through it, because we don't want to give any bodily cues that that would throw cold water onto somebody is essentially embryonic idea. So I've always found that when I'm sat listening to somebody I've developed a posture and a smile, and my son's being able to recognize it once he comes up with all sorts of ideas and, and at one point he said, dad, I'm not one of your clients. I'm listening. You're asking probing questions as if I'm a client it's called listening and digging a bit deeper. Yes. Active listening, active listening, active listening. Uh, absolutely. Uh, Doug, I know from previous conversations that you're an athlete.
Speaker 3:Well, I play one on TV. How about that now? So,
Speaker 2:Okay. You play one on TV, but I know that you are a triathlete. I also know, and correct me if I'm wrong. Cause I may have got this confused. Uh, but you have, um, actually gone to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep. I absolutely love being out outdoors outside. Um, there's nothing quite like, you know, getting out there and, you know, climbing the proverbial mountain no matter where that happens to be where you're using every part of you, you're using body, heart, soul mind, uh, in order to achieve a particular goal. And, and sometimes it's incredibly hard, uh, but it is incredibly fulfilling and you never feel more alive as when you are, when you're doing something that's so difficult to do, but it makes you so incredibly focused, um, in order to, to achieve what you're doing. And, um, I just love doing those types of things. So whether it's climbing a mountain or, you know, trying to get better and better at times and everything else, but a different race type things. It's just what I like doing
Speaker 2:Fascinating. And some of the time I'll have to ask you more questions about Mount Kilimanjaro. I'd love to hear the stories.
Speaker 3:Hi. Well, let me tell you, I'll tell you one quick thing about that. The most inspirational thing to me there was the people I, that I just could not believe. Um, individuals, the porters, whoever they were helping us on this, you know, Trek up the mountain and everything else working incredibly hard there w you know, I've got all the great equipment and everything else, and they've got up a tire with some string wrapped around their feet. Um, you know, carrying all the heavy weight and everything else, smiling and laughing. And at the end of the day where the entire group of people breaks into song and they're willing to do whatever they can to help you to answer your questions, to laugh with you. Um, I truly loved the people there. That was the greatest thing I found by, uh, by doing that.
Speaker 2:And how long is actually the track, uh, to get,
Speaker 3:So we were five days up, two days down. Okay. Yep. And what was the elevation? Uh, 19,375 feet. That's a big,
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, the oxygen there is like one third, one third partial pressure
Speaker 3:A lot. And it was cold the night before the summit, we were staying up in, uh, the crater, uh, you know, giant volcano. And then you're sleeping at about 18,500 feet on a glacier. Um, and it cold, the wind was howling, you know, everything was shaking and stuff like that. And you're waking up at three o'clock in the morning, uh, to hike up the rest of the way. So you could be at the summit at daybreak. Um, so it it's, it's hard work, but boy, it was well worth it.
Speaker 2:So tomorrow are you attempted? Nope. Okay.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what I climbed the high peak in the Adirondacks. And as soon as I got to the top of the mountain beautiful views, right. You could see the whole full chain, everything I said to my dad, I said, where's my shade for light. There were no trees. He's like, enjoy the view. I'm like, yeah, I'm ready to go.
Speaker 3:I'm going to be a 45, or I've probably done seven or eight of the peaks there. You know, we go on vacation and all so absolutely gorgeous. I love the Adirondacks.
Speaker 1:Well, every year I just don't hike. Not anymore. I don't, we don't do any of that, but, you know, we enjoy the Lake. That's my speed, the beach.
Speaker 2:So Doug, we have a question that none of our guests are allowed to escape. Uh, and that is what advice would you give to the younger version of yourself, say 20 years younger? Uh, and this is something like 10 years before you're about to retire. What advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 3:I have a hobby. So one of the things, if you're looking at it, as, you know, the 10 years before I wanted to retire or something like that, I think one of the things that, especially men, um, quite frankly, oftentimes what we do, and I know my career, you focus so much on your work and all the time that you spend on that every single day, that all of a sudden that day comes, when you say, okay, I'm going to retire and you say, Whoa, what now? What do I do? And, you know, there's this big law period of, um, going a hundred miles an hour or two zero. And how do you make up for that time and understand what it is you want to do for your future and the time that you have and everything else. So I would, for anyone say, make sure you think about what your hobbies happened to be, have interests outside of, um, what you do for your career. Um, love your family, reach out to them on a regular basis when you get to that point where you can look back, have that next thing that you're thinking about doing, and continue to learn, enjoy your hobbies and give back to others.
Speaker 1:I think that's great advice
Speaker 2:Out of my mouth.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. I didn't mean to steal your thunder, but I love that because I think it's really important that you do have something, you know, besides what you do to enjoy. Absolutely, absolutely. So that brings us pretty much to the end of another episode of rethinking business success sauce into pickles. Uh, Doug, I want to thank you very much for being our special guest. Uh, we've really enjoyed having you having this conversation and learning more about what score national is up to as an organization, as a whole, and to our listeners. If you guys are thinking about starting a business, or if you have a business and you want to know how you can run it better and grow it, or you're thinking about getting out of it, get yourself a mentor, and you can find a mentor@score.org. Just go to that website and click on, find a mentor type in your zip code or the keywords that you're looking for for expertise. So if you're looking for sales or marketing or business planning, whatever it is, put it in there, and you'll get matched with a mentor in your area. You can also check out the workshops. And if you want a workshops that are interpreted in American sign language, you can check our chapter's website out@greaterrochesterdotscore.org. And until next week for another edition of rethinking business success sauce in two pickles, be good to yourselves and be good to each other. Thanks again, Doug.