Practical Leadership with Guest Michael McFall

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of building a billion-dollar brand and transforming workplace culture? In this electrifying episode, we sit down with Michael, the visionary CEO of Bigsby Coffee, a coffee franchise that's taking the Midwest by storm. But there's more to Michael than meets the eye. He's not just a CEO—he's a barista-turned-entrepreneur who has cracked the code to extraordinary results.

Get ready to be captivated as Michael shares his game-changing insights on leadership, workplace culture, and entrepreneurship. From his humble beginnings as a barista to spearheading a fast-growing coffee empire, Michael has discovered the untapped power of creating an environment where employees leave work feeling more inspired than ever before.

But that's just the beginning. Michael's wisdom goes far beyond brewing the perfect cup of coffee. He dives deep into the connection between workplace culture and employee well-being. In an eye-opening revelation, he exposes the startling truth that stress and anxiety are the leading causes of death in the United States. By reimagining the workplace and infusing it with love, support, and nurturing, Michael is on a mission to combat this silent epidemic and contribute to saving lives.

Join us in this mind-blowing episode as we unravel the secrets behind Bigsby Coffee's meteoric rise and explore the transformative power of workplace culture. Discover how Michael's unique journey, as the founder of Global Orange Development and a renowned author, speaker, and professor, has shaped his revolutionary approach to leadership and success.

Prepare to be inspired, motivated, and armed with invaluable insights that will revolutionize the way you think about business, leadership, and your own potential. Buckle up, because this episode will take you on a thrilling ride you won't want to miss. Tune in and be ready to embark on a transformational journey with Michael as your guide.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Practical Leadership Podcast where leaders share their tools and practical advice to make you a better leader today. My guest today falls in the category of what I call a true entrepreneur, a person who's ahead of his time leading the way in establishing a blueprint for others to follow. He's a founder of Global Orange Development and the c e O of Bigsby Coffee, a fast-growing a hundred million dollar coffee franchise with over 250 locations across the Midwest. Michael is the author of Sorter Business Books Speaker A Professor. He's got quite the story about his journey from going to barista to entrepreneur and c e o lots to talk about. Let's get into it. Michael, thank you so much for joining us here today. Thanks for having me, max. I'm looking forward to it. Excellent. Excellent. So to get us started, what has been something good that's been happening in your world? Something positive, something we all wanna know about? I think I always have to go to my kids on that one, and so that's where I get most of my positive energy in life. And so my older kids, I have four kids. My my two oldest and one, one is 17 and one is 16. And my 16 year old daughter is living in Spain for the year. And that's pretty extraordinary. I'm going to visit her next Wednesday for the first time and I haven't seen her in eight months, so Wow. That's gonna be great. And then my 17 year old in the last month has committed to do a, uh, trip after he graduates high school called Class Afloat, which is a, a sailing experience that's nine months long. You sail on a square rig, tall ship, he'll sail across the oceans and see the world and the fact that they're interested in doing amazing things in the world. I just love that and it inspires me. That is so cool. Thank you for sharing. I'm not surprised that you went to family. I believe that. Read a little bit about you and your story and what you talk about. It really is all about people and it's about others Right, as well. So thank you for sharing that. Let's get a little bit into the leadership conversation. So I'm gonna dive right in cuz I know you have a lot to share on that front. So what is your philosophy? What's your approach? When you think about leadership, what comes to mind? I know you have worked on developed, teach profess a lot of tools. We'll get a little bit into that a little bit later. But what's your like mindset around leadership and what it looks like? First and foremost, that what we need to do as leaders is create environments where people show up to work, they're nurtured, they're supported, and the expectation is that they're gonna grow and thrive as people. And if we can take the people that work within our organizations and support them in a way that they can develop themselves as leaders, that we will end up with what I call pods of superheroes working within our organizations. And they will take our organizations to places that we as leaders maybe can't even imagine. And so it's about creating an environment for people to thrive within. So tell me a little bit about how you learned, discovered, realized your current approach, and I'd like to take it back as far back as we can regarding when did you first learn about leadership? First hear about leadership, where did your ideas of what leadership needed to be, how did they get built and put together? I've been on a fairly long journey here now we're 27 years into building our company, and the first maybe 15 years of the development of the business. I was a fairly immature leader, is, is what I would say. And I was autocratic, I was immersed in the details, micromanaging, and I went on a journey that was really powerful and important for me and my business partner. And what happened to us is, in 2015 or so, uh, we were managing a very successful business and it was growing and thriving. And by the outside vantage point, we were successful, but we were losing our inspiration to show up to work. And we were having this conversation on a fairly regular basis. And so we were searching for something and, and at that point, I don't even know what we were searching for exactly. We didn't know, but we just knew that everything we talked about in relation to the business, in terms of maybe gaining inspiration, we were talking about doing acquisitions, we were talking about starting new companies, developing new brands. All of which led to this concept of growing the business. But the end result of that was for what? Why are we growing the business? Because we were successful. We had money, and so more money and more success in growing the business. We just realized that that wasn't going to inspire us to show up to work. So in that whole moment, this is gonna be, I think, an unusual story. I ended up going on a camping trip and I was with my son and I was with my brother, and we were at this remote island in Michigan that you can only get to by boat. There's no restaurants, there's no retail, it's just campsites. And on Saturday afternoon we went for this long hike around the island and at the most remote part of the island. I looked over and there was this couple, and they were hunched over a camp stove and I think they were making tea or something. I just had this serene moment. I looked at them, I felt it was like this very peaceful in my mind. I didn't interrupt them, I just kept walking. That night at our communal campfire, they showed up and we started talking. The husband started talking to my brother about his work in what's called conscious capitalism and his consulting business in relation to conscious capitalism. I was listening partly, but mostly just goofing off with my son. The next day on the boat ride home, I handed him my card and I said, Hey, I'd like to learn more about what you were talking about last night. And he called me about a week later and within five minutes of that conversation starting, I said, boy, I wanna get my business partner involved in this. That's, we hired his name's Nathan Habe. We hired Nathan as a consultant and he started us on this quest to do an evaluation of our business. And in conscious capitalism, there are six stakeholders. He evaluated the six stakeholders, and so the six stakeholders are vendors. The customer, the community in which you do business, the shareholder, the employee, and the customer. Did I say the customer twice? Don't forget. Nope, nope. You got them all. Those are the six. And he, how he started and how he engaged it was he surveyed all six stakeholders and we were doing well enough in 5 0 6. We were quite miserable in one. That one was our employees, our direct employees. And so then that led us into a quest to work on our purpose and our vision. And it took us two years. But at the end of that, we had a purpose and a vision that we were both my partner and I, and our entire team, we were completely and totally inspired with. And that set us on a course and that transitioned us completely. And I, there's a ton of detail in there, but, but really at the end of the day, solidifying that is what transitioned us into. Being inspired, again, loving our work. And that's the book that I just wrote is the end result of that and so on. So I'd love to talk a little bit about the book and some of the magic that's inside I'll, so it's interesting. I actually have a similar story experience. Not gonna share it today, but it's out of a moment of desperation comes inspiration. And it's often said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears right? Then there's kind of synchronicity. And for you it happened and you met the right person at the right time. You were looking, they showed up and they presented you a framework and a model that helps you quickly identify your gaps. And your gap was the lack of purpose and vision or the lack of clarity on it. And then you said something super powerful. I work with clients. We talk about purpose, we talk about vision, and sometimes they have this expectation that you sit down for two hours in the conference room and you come out of there and you know what it should be. Right. And then it gets written on paper, posted on a wall, and that everybody should be happy and everybody should follow it and and I always say that's not how it works. There's a lot of discovery that needs to take place and not a lot of introspection. So can you tell us a little bit about, Hey, why did it take two years? Okay. I'm glad you dove into that. Thank you. Because the details of that story I think are important. And I never know if I'm rambling too long and going into the detail is too much. So thank you for pulling that out, because to me that's one of the most powerful parts of the story. And so what we did is we met on Tuesdays at one o'clock and it was the management team, and then it was an open meeting to everyone in our organization. Anyone could show up. And so what we did is we set our tables up in a U shape, and then we had everyone join us. They would sit around the outside of that U and the expectation was, is that people could contribute. So it wasn't just the leadership team. Discussing and engaging. Anybody could raise their hand and engage. And so we went through it and we spent the better part of a year defining our purpose and our purpose. We settled on our purpose, which is to support you in building a life that you love. And so no matter who you are, if you interact with our organization, we are there to support you in building a life that you love. And so we love that purpose. And then we moved into to vision That took the better part of the year, and the vision was to improve workplace culture in America. And that we, again, we love that because to me, and I could go on a five minute rabbit hole on why workplace culture is an area that is incredibly powerful in relation to the psyche and mindset of our communities. Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. And here's why. I think that this idea of organizational culture has been mainstream for a few years now. It gets discussed, but it does not, the execution of it, the how to do it right, is just not discussed or understood well enough. I see it every day and I'd love to hear, because it sounds like you figured out a way to make it work for you guys. I think our audience would be delighted to understand, cuz everybody's heard about the importance of culture. Let's dive. Yeah, thank you. Let me start with the reason why workplace culture was something we wanted to take on and, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna take some leaps here, but the leading cause of death in the United States is chronic disease. The leading cause of chronic disease is stress and anxiety. The leading cause of stress and anxiety is workplace and finances. And so by taking on workplace culture, by taking on the workplace as an environment where people show up to, we believe we're taking on. The leading cause of death in the United States. And so then that's the inspiration behind it for us. Now, how do we do it? That is the premise of my book and the concept is that an employee should be able to and can show up to work and leave more inspired when they go home than when they showed up in the morning. And how we do that is through building, nurturing, supportive and loving environments where the workplace is a Petri dish for self-improvement for that employee. And so we work together as teams and we begin to intimately understand what each individual on the team is working on themselves personally, both in their personal and their professional life. And then we go all in on supporting each other in pursuing those developmental goals and working hard to support each individual in their own personal development. And so if you show up and you've got, say, a team of seven and you got six other people that are headlong into supporting you, building in a nurturing environment, to me what's more inspirational than that? Yeah, the big disconnect is that I was interviewed in the last month and that was a nice interview and we're going along and we get to the end of it and the host says to me, he says, so Mike, you really think that you, I didn't get into my vision metric, but we have two, we have a purpose metric and we have a performance metric. Our performance metric is to be a billion dollar brand by December 31st, 2028. And so he said to me, he said, you really think that you can build a billion dollar brand and. Do all this loving and supportive and nurturing, and you can do both of those. I'm gonna pause for a second. I'm gonna give our audience a chance to think about what the answer is. I have an idea of where this is going, and I just want everybody to have a chance to think about where is this answer going. All right, that's enough, Mike. We are going to build a billion dollar brand because we have a loving and supportive and nurturing environment. And that is the massive transition in leadership that we have to get to, which is by building a culture where people show up and they have this, you know, powerful experience every day at work that will get to and lead the organization to extraordinary results from a traditional metrics perspective, profit, revenue, so on and so forth. And if you aren't doing these things in the coming five to 10 years, you are gonna get left behind. Because organizations like mine are doing them. I love it. And I think that's exactly the approach that we need to understand as a business community, right? People have options now more than ever. Why should they even come to work for you? And less and less people are willing to and wanting to work for a paycheck. It's not like our grandparents generation that they were just happy to have a job. They're looking for purpose. They're looking for meaning. And I'd love to get your thought on this, cause I think you're doing what I like to discuss, what I like to describe, which is I think that culture is the way describing building our organizational culture is part of what we're used to talking about. But what I see the best companies do and what I see you pushing and driving is a community. And to me, um, I use the word culture less and less. And I use the word community more and more because it sounds like you're building a community of loving and caring individuals. That are on the same purpose, both personal and professional growth, as long as along with your organization's purpose. So I would like to hear more about the, like the pieces that go into building these loving, caring, supportive community. Because that's a little bit of the magic, right? That's the magic. That's the how. That's where people say, yes, okay. I wanna build a community. How sure I, I can give some real practical nuggets. One is that we start every meeting with a opening of personal and professional highs and lows. And so you enter the meeting and you talk about since the last meeting, what the low points for you professionally and personally are, and then what the high points are. And a lot of people advocate checking in and talking about the great things that are going on. But it's also important to talk about the struggles you're having and to allow people to connect around the. Those kinds of issues and then support each other. So that's one thing that we do. We also do a, at a minimum of five minute debrief at the end of every meeting where you get to clear the air, where you get to say to somebody, Hey, listen, when you approach that topic from that perspective, I want you to know that, oh my gosh, that hurt my feelings. Imagine saying those words in a meeting in corporate America. You know, you hurt my feelings. I don't, I don't feel good about that. Another thing that I advocate for leadership is had a, I did an interview with QSR Magazine. It's a leading periodical for quick service restaurants, and at the end it was a c E to C piece. And at the end of it, they asked, if you have one word of advice to give to every CEO in America, what would it be? And I said, shut up. And the reason I say that is, as the leader, you have an outsized voice in the room. You steer the conversation wherever you want it to go. But why do you believe that? Where you want the conversation to go is the appropriate place for the conversation to go. And what we need to do as leaders is we need to make space for our teams. We need to allow people to contribute, and we need to sit back and let those conversations happen and occur. And I and I talk all the time about how as the leader and one of the fallacies of leadership is that you know the right answer. You don't know the right answer. You think you do, you're arrogant enough to think you know the right answer, and you think you know what the end result should be for every conversation and every meeting and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, the group is smarter than you are. And if you don't believe that, I, I think you're in trouble. So these are some things that, that we do to try to create an environment where the, where it's a healthy environment for the team to thrive and so on. I love it and I'm gonna go to a pain point. Everything you're saying resonates really well. I think we can all understand the value of this. And there's a, but how do you get through this and how do you get through this is how do you make sure that those lows don't become drama, that suck people's energy and emotion, and it goes down a rabbit hole of loss of productivity and, and that and bad feelings. Understand that those bad feelings are occurring anyway. Whether you talk about'em or not, people bring the outside world into your environment in both the positive and a negative way. So, so for example, maybe somebody's high is that they're going on vacation tomorrow and all they're thinking about is sitting on a beach with a margarita in their hand, and they're distracted as hell and they, and you know it, and it's okay to engage that, to, to be supportive of that and encourage it. You know, you make them feel their, their, what's going on for them is important. And then the lows. Yeah, sometimes it's hard. But that's what's going on for your team. That's what's going on for your people. And so to avoid that and just act like they should be performing normally when they just found out that their mother is diagnosed with cancer or their dog died or whatever it might be like, yeah, let's take a moment. Let's honor that for that person. And that's what groups should be doing. And so everybody's gonna know anyway. And so why not take the moment? And so we had a, a woman in our group that her, her mom was diagnosed with cancer and it was a long, drawn out saga, as it oftentimes is with cancer. And the, instead of her having to have. Eight conversations in a day with eight different people talking about how talk updating them on her mother, which people are gonna ask. She got to give us the two minute overview. We all got it, we all engaged and we got to move on. And so is sitting and talking about a woman's mother's cancer diagnosis, is that, is that difficult? Is that dramatic? Is that, yeah, of course it is, but it's gonna happen anyway. So why not? Why not make it part of the ethos of the team? So I love the response right there. You can't sugarcoat it. Bad things happen. You need to acknowledge them, understand the impact that they might be having on the people or the team members, and then you have to move on. And I think that's the key, right? I see people getting stuck there, right? And there's like a whirlwind then bad news about emotions, about vibes in the adas. We're here to help support, but let's move on. So how I think. It goes a level deeper than that though, because when somebody feels supported, their brain, they can bring the, their whole self to the team. And to me, when the team's engaged in the situation or the issue, then you have the ability to absorb it and move on because the person feels like the team's engaged and is understanding and so on. And then you have the ability to move on. But if it's just, Hey, listen, thanks for updating us, and you're just gonna pound through it and move on to other stuff, then that person's not moving on. Does that make se, I don't know if that makes sense, but I I, well, thank you for clarifying that, because again, it's not, oh, okay. So sorry, let's move on. There's a, connecting with it and, and understanding it. And I guess that, like that to me sounds like a place where you need some skill in being able to maneuver and manage that, right? So you give it the time that it needs, the space that it needs, but then we can move on. Because what you don't want is a whole team to, to collapse on the bad news and it become dramatic and draining. So I think that's one of the places where you need to have the skill to, to manage that. And I think you're building a lot of psychological safety in that space. Yeah, exactly. And there's a lot of trust. So when people have heard the bad news, have shared their feelings, support emotions, it's okay, we can, we're we're good here, we're good now let's move on. I, I love that term, psychological safety cuz that I, that's what I was trying to articulate and that's exactly right. What, when you have that and you can address things, then you have the ability to move on in a healthy way. Yep. Yep. So it's, it's one of those things sometimes where, cause again, I see this all the time where team members listen to something and it sounds great, and then they try to implement it. It doesn't work for them. And that's because you sometimes have to do the work prior to being able to do the skill, the maneuver, the job. That requires having to have first set the, um, what's the term? Right, the foundation for it, the groundwork, so then you can do something else, right? Because if right now you bring this to the team and people don't have trust with each other, don't have the relationship with each other, it's gonna be difficult for the team to handle something like that. Yeah. And that the key, the two key words there were the relationship that's built on trust. And as the leader, the, what we're working in the direction of is building the trust between the members of our team so that they can have healthy relationships too. And that's when you start to eliminate the drama because when you have trust and you have a strong relationship with everyone on the team, you watch drama just go away. It just vanishes, right? Because when you have a loving, trusting relationship with somebody there, there isn't drama. There's, there's no talking behind bags. All the crazy stuff that happens when drama starts to fire up. So let's talk a little bit about the transformation for you, because things are going really well, but you haven't taken on this conscious capital capitalism approach yet, and you start to transform the organization. You have a clear vision, clear purpose. You understand the need to change the organizational culture to build a community, but it doesn't happen overnight either. What did you notice regarding team members? Some, did you change how you hired, what you looked at, how you provided feedback, changes in personnel? Like how do you start the transformation? I think there was a moment for me when I was sitting in a room with my leadership team and I looked around that room and I realized that the people in that room were some of my, the primary relationships of my adult life. And we had been together for 10, 15 years. And so once I made that transition, cuz I used to have this big brick wall up in between me as a person in the world and then me as a manager and or leader of the business. And I didn't cross that wall very often. And, but once I identified that the people in that room were primary relationships for me and the, I think the reason why I built that big wall was because I, as the entrepreneur, as the leader, I always was worried that I was gonna have to make a decision at some point down the road that would benefit me, but would put all of my people in harm's way, right? So I was gonna sell the company and I'd leave my people to whatever devices the new owner brought in. And I had this realization that that didn't need to be my outcome. That sure, that's the prescribed outcome for most entrepreneurs, but that didn't need to be my outcome. And that I could do something different. And so once I had that epiphany, then I started engaging people as human beings, not as strict employees, that were simply there to perform a task and to create value in the organization by, by, by being great employees and so on. And I really started to engage people as human beings. And then that, that changed everything. And we talk about this stuff, we talk about the values and the way we run the business with new employees constantly. We just have, in the last three years have developed a leadership training program for all of our leaders to engage this kind of thinking and this approach. And it is, it was a remarkable journey for me and a remarkable transition. And how do you build a loving and supportive and nurturing environment that is, it's the premise of the book, and so much of it is, Anti the traditional way of approaching leadership, and that's the quest I'm on, is to have that conversation in the world that that's where I was headed. And it's my favorite type of conversations to have. That's what we were taught. I like to make, I like to joke that it's like 1950s management and at the time, for whatever reason, that was the latest and greatest technology. But things do change and they change quickly. And what used to work no longer works. Actually. It looks so outdated, but yet we still hold on to all these limiting beliefs in these paradigms about how things are or should be. I still hear that. Don't get too close to your team members. Yeah, don't get too close to your team members. And yeah, I've seen the benefits of being close to your team members. I've seen the downside of being close to your team members that are not a good fit, that are under performers. So what is your approach for that? Because I'm like, Hey, yeah, you know what? Looks, sounds awesome. Love my team, love my people, would love to be friends. But what happens if they don't perform? What happens if the company outgrows them? What happens if they're no longer the right person for the job? Yeah. The million dollar question right there. And I think that what the transition that we need to make is what I call full transparency and authenticity. And so when you're working with somebody and they aren't a good fit in their job and the role they're in within the company, you have to have the conversation with them about why it's not a good fit. And then also what do they think would be a better fit. And then as the leader, you have to work hard to try to find the right fit for that person and, and there are times. The outcome of that isn't great, or maybe it is great because then when you move them along and to, to a different, uh, to a different job and they take a different job, maybe that was a great opportunity for them and you can support them in that, right? And you can be a part of that transition being healthy. But it first starts with authenticity. And so every conversation you have with the person, if they're underperforming you, you need to have those conversations. And what I find, I call it the culture of amazing in, in the world today, and it is, everybody does an amazing job every, every time they present, they hit it out of the park. And I find that ridiculous, and I don't, it happens at our organization. It's like somebody goes up and they give a presentation, and then you hear somebody walk up to'em and say, boy, you did a great job. That was amazing. And you're sitting there and you're like, what? But, but, but sad thing was you were far from amazing. And so then at that point you have to walk up to them. You have an obligation to walk up with them based on your own integrity and give them the feedback. Now, at the end of the day, you can't give positive feedback if you aren't also providing critique and negative feedback. Because if it's always positive, they know that's disingenuine. How many times Mac do you give a presentation or a talk? You don't hit it outta the park every time and you know it. And then what you want though is you want the genuine feedback. And then when you get the genuine feedback and then that person comes up to you and says, Hey Max, that was a good one, that you then you believe them, right? And you believe that it was a great talk or a great presentation. And I think it starts with, if we're not having the authentic engagement and telling the truth, then you run into difficult spots. Right. And that, that's, it starts with, there's a great book by Kim Scott called Radical Candor, and that book is amazing from the standpoint of you have to have the conversation as a leader. And there's a, oh, the woman who's a, was a leader at Google, oh shoot, I'm gonna forget her name. Isn't that terrible? Anyway, she worked for Google and her boss came up to her at one point and pulled her aside and said, Kim, when you say you sound stupid, stop saying. And in the just a little minute example, in the moment, it's hard to hear, but she was right. And that's the kind of feedback we just have to be, we have to be candid. We have to, we have to be authentic, and then we can have real conversations. And at the end of the day, I find that when you're authentic with people, you never end up in a terrible spot because everybody understands. Yeah, I love it. I'll go back to the big idea of. You, you've gotta be in the right environment for that to work. Right? Because without the relationships, without the trust, without the understanding that we're trying to do something good and positive, and that we're here to support each other, all that feedback can be easily, quickly taken the wrong way. And so if somebody went right now and tie in my next meeting, I'm gonna tell somebody that they sucked. That might not work. Yeah. This might tough work. You gotta build the relationship first. And so anytime somebody brings you feedback in a trusting in, in a trusting environment, you take that feedback as a compliment that they care. Absolutely. And that they want you to get betterly. And that's, that's the power of the authentic engagement is that you take it as a positive. Yeah, exactly. What happens nowadays is that people take it as well, you're just trying to inflate your ego, right? Like you're trying to make yourself look good and feel good by making others feel bad. But when people recognize it, I'm like, it's for you. Right, right. This is, this is for you actually. It's actually a risk for me to tell you Yeah. And provide you the feedback. Cause you might not like me after I provide the feedback, so I'm taking a risk. So hopefully you appreciate that. I'm taking a risk to, to help and support you. I, I'll go back to the question I had just asked. In, in this transition, did you have to make some major moves? Shifts or did you already have the type of people that were open and willing to play along with you in, in, in like, in this new journey and direction? No, we had to make major shifts and just try this, try this hat on for a second. We fired everybody from the current positions well in this transition. And then we had them reapply for the jobs that they wanted and went, we went for almost three weeks, maybe even a month, with nobody having a position within the company. Now that's not exactly true. People were still functioning in their old responsibility. Mm-hmm. But, And so then people applied for their current positions and we had to make really hard decisions, really hard decisions, but that moment was completely freeing for the organization and we ended up with some very significant changes. We elevated someone who was fairly junior in the organization to a very significant role of leadership, and she still is one of the most powerful leaders in our company. What are we now? Eight, nine years later? And that we did, that was a massive en engagement. And other things that we did in that moment is we made the financials of the organization can completely transparent down to every penny, every account in the financial statements. Everybody in the organization knew exactly how much money me and my partner were making, and that was, and then we made that part of our culture, full transparency on financials and ask any question. I tried to take it to a place and I still believe in this, and I hope someday gonna get it executed even in my own organization. But I want everybody to know what everybody else makes in the company down to. So if you're sitting next to somebody and this person's making$12,000 a year more than you, and you think that's unfair, that's a healthy conversation to have. You wanna bring that up to your leader, your manager, and say, why? What's going on? And then there's probably gonna be a pretty good answer. And if there isn't a pretty good answer, then now we have an issue that needs to be resolved. And full transparency on what everybody makes in the organization. Everybody knows. And that's a, that's a fairly progressive idea in most environments. I believe in it, and I think that people that are uncomfortable with that, it's like, wait a minute, why are you uncomfortable? Because maybe there's things going on in the organization that aren't healthy and aren't appropriate, and don't we wanna uncover that as a leader and don't we wanna have that conversation? Yeah. So what you've done and what you're describing is going through them, go, going through health and back, right? Because you're putting the company at risk. You are generating tons and tons of uncertainty for yourself, for your team members, all while the business needs to continue to run. It needs to continue to grow. And, and you're saying, I gotta bite the bullet to make the change. And the question that I have for our audience is, are you brave enough to be able to go and make the type of change that's required to take your company to, to take your purpose, to take your vision in the right direction? Because it is scary and it is risky, but you've got here, you've got another story. And Mike is telling us, right, once you do it and you're doing it for the right reasons, with the right purpose, with the right vision in the benefit of others, the outcomes couldn't be better. And, and so many people get stuck with the wrong people because it's so difficult. Yeah. And I, when I made that transition in thinking, Back in the day where I went from thinking about, you know, that I was gonna liquidate at some point and move on, and I made the transition to, no, this thing is my life's work, that I gained a longer term perspective. And I knew that the current culture that we were in, that we had was not gonna work. And, and I talk about in the opening of my book about the fact that leaders are, I think, oftentimes sell or bring in private equity or find a strategic partner because th they are scared to make the transition themselves. And, but what my partner and I decided to do in a really powerful moment is no. Like we can figure out what that professional manager, what that private equity firm would do, and then we can do it. And we can build the team, and we can up our game as leaders and become more sophisticated. And like that is, that's just the journey of learning as a leader and taking the risk. And I grant you, there is moments that are gut wrenching and, and are very risky. So I'm glad you brought that up because, but all this stuff, there is downsides. There are, there are moments that are really hard, but at the end of the day, you've got that north star. When you've got that thing that you're focused on, you will force yourself to go through those to get to that result. And I was just gonna ask you, how did you overcome the fear? Right? What gave you the courage, the determination to overcome that fear? I don't, at the end of the day, I, I don't really give a shit. Facts. I, yeah. Meaning this isn't the one all end all be all of my life. I, I love this company and so on. What if, for whatever reason, if I screw this whole thing up, I got all kinds of other really cool stuff going on in my world too. And I don't wanna start over for sure, but at the end of the day, I'm not all wrapped up in, in this lifestyle that I have and so on. It's what if it were to go sideways? Okay. Like at least I went down trying as hard as I could and I took the risks. And I have a personal, what we call in our organization, we call it Moonshot. And it's your big hairy, audacious goal quoting as it Collins, right? Different Collins. Yep. Yeah. And, and your, or your primary aim by Michael Gerber from Emith and mine is to own the Detroit Red Wings. Oh, nice. Alright. And I gotta have that, I gotta have that be in my net worth to be able to pull that off. And so I have to continuously. Learn, learn and grow and take more risk and get better at running this company. And so that, that's what we're on. That's what all of us on our team are on this journey to become world-class leaders. I, I love it. I'm taking some notes. You've shared so, so many good things. I gotta ask about this last part. Where does that idea or the desire to become a world-class leader come from? If you're not growing, what are you doing as a person? And so it's just this quest to, to try to always get better at what you're doing. And we certainly don't have everything figured out in our world, and we've got a lot of places that we need to do, do important work and so on. But the, this idea of trying to become a world class leader, if you're not interested in that, What are you doing? I guess I know. What are you doing? Are you just, is it just a, you're leading a team or managing a business to make a living and and so on? Or is the work itself inspiring and are you growing because of it? And so I just don't think there's really any other approach. Let's grow, let's learn, let's lead. Ha. Have you always been like, you listen in that sense? Yeah. As something I, I just tell people I'm dumb. There's so many people out there that can analyze things and just dive deep into the weeds and de the details and so on, and somehow I just. I'm not sure it's fearless, but I just fly across the top of all of that stuff, and that is, that's something that is just innate to me. And I don't know, fearless. No, I, I would definitely not put myself in the fearless category. I got a lot of fears, most of'em had to do with my kids and my family's stuff, but the business, and I've also always taken this approach to the business that, to me, leading a company and growing a business, it's like a really awesome, complex game of monopoly. And it's just a game. You know, it's, it isn't my essence. It's not who I am, and all I'm trying to do when I show up to work in the morning is I'm really just trying to get the, to win the game, which sounds trite, but win the game for me doesn't mean necessarily the billion dollar net worth that the win the game is to live a really, truly interesting and inspiring life, and that's winning the game. And so that's what I do when I show up. I am the difficult things, the the lawsuits or the whatever, the hard things. Like you just gotta get through those and it's just part of the game of getting to the end result that you want. And so that's how I just plow through that stuff. And I, I just, one last closing thing. Oh, please. Is tab I was in an interview and we get to the end of the interview and in these interviews you always shut it down. Then you talk after, right? And the gentleman that was interviewing me, he said, Mike, this is gonna sound weird, but you make all this look easy. And I know it hasn't been easy, but you, and it took me back. I didn't have a response in the moment. I was like, I never really think about the fact that maybe I make it look easy. But anyway, so I thought about that for a few days and I called, his name is Jeff Sloan. Uh, he started, it's, he started Startup Nation here in Detroit. It's a really cool, it's a really cool company. And, and I called him back three or four days later and I said, Jeff, I've been thinking about that question you asked me. And I said, The only thing I can get to is it's all based on attitude. And when you show up with the attitude of positivity and you know you're gonna get through anything, you're gonna power through, you're gonna get to your, to the end and that, and that's your attitude every single day. Yeah. I do think that maybe it can appear like it's easy. Love it. I think I'll add something. Maybe it can help answer the question from my perspective. So I think it's both. Both the attitude and the, and the supportive people around you. Totally. I think, I think that you're, you've created that environment, but when you're in a consistently supportive, nurturing, loving group, then all of those kind of fears melt away and you do things out of love. Cause I hear that a lot from you and see that a lot from you, right? You're leading with love and vision and the possibilities and the transformation and how you're making this world a better place so nothing can get in your way. Yeah, there you go, Seth. You said it perfectly, right? That's it. And so it's attitude, but you're right. It's the group that you're with and doing it together and being in it together, and that's just some of the most inspiring stuff in the world. That is awesome. We have a few minutes left and there's two parts. One, I'll do a summary in a little bit, but the book coming out in June in, in a couple of weeks from now. Tell us a little bit about, tell us a little bit about it and just share a couple of like nuggets regarding leadership in there that we haven't talked about before. Sure. So it's the second book in a three book series. The first book came out in 2018, and it was from the day you commit to a concept to starting it to your very first day of cashflow, and it was the ethos of startup. And then the second book picks up in that bootstrapping phase of the journey of a leader, of an entrepreneur, and takes you on this long journey from bootstrapping entrepreneur. To effective leader to the end result of what I call irrelevance, which is you as the entrepreneur, are no longer necessary for the business to grow and thrive. And so that first part is really about, about leadership. And then the second part, and by the way, that transition from bootstrapping entrepreneur to effective leader is a really difficult transition because so much of what got you to the point of success as an entrepreneur gets in your way in terms of becoming an effective leader. The controlling tendencies, the, the autocratic style that, and, and that, you know, and I wanna say out loud that a lot of that stuff is necessary in startups. Mm-hmm. But then as the organization grows, you have to move into a space of creating a team and building a team that's gonna run the business with you and for you. And that transition is critically important. And so you asked for some nuggets. Yes, the, I did, did I already talk about the c e o, uh, article where I said shut up? Yes. Okay, so that's a nugget, right? That is a nugget. As the leader, you gotta shut up. The other thing that you have to do is you have to let people lead. And so when you appoint someone to run a department within your organization, you are not going to agree with everything that they do, but you have to trust them that you've put them in that position and allow them to lead. And when you medal, you actually get in the way of the development of that leader and of the department. And so the key is to not think that you're the smartest person in the room and that you have the answer. And so to me, I like the phrase speak last, if at all, as a leader, and don't tie yourself to a specific outcome. And we were talking about risk earlier. When you're tied to a specific outcome, then what happens in, in a meeting or in the development of a team and so on is that you have risk, but if you're not tied to that outcome, there isn't risk. And so letting go seating control of your team as it develops. Now that is a journey. At the beginning you are not seeding control all over the place, but we're talking about this relatively long art. And so over time you seed control. And then there are moments when you gotta dive back in and you do have to engage aggressively as you get to that pinnacle where the, you're an effective leader and you have an effect the team in place. As you make that transition, how often you need to engage and how often you need to take control diminishes. And that's, that is a very significant transition that you have to make. Yeah, I, I see it all the time, right? You gotta get really good at hiring the right people and putting them in the right position. But once they're there, you definitely have to let them, you have to let them go. And I really love what you said about speak last, if at all. And don't tie yourself to an outcome. And I'm gonna translate to what I understood. And it's, you go into a meeting and you're not trying to take the team to realize the outcome that you want, right? Or you're just in there and you're open, right? And it, and it's having this ability to, being able to holding your mind to opposing ideas at the same time and being comfortable with that and, and not putting your judgment on that, which makes you more open. And then you let your team do their job. And it's one of the most difficult things to do because what got people there is that they're really smart and capable and knowledgeable, and they have been working really hard and know the industry better than anyone else. So then you're saying, and now shut up. Yeah, but you don't shut up overnight. That's, that's important. And I think there's a quick story here around the idea that you hear in leadership, which is, I'm gonna go ahead and let them skin their knee around this topic so that they can learn. But the fallacy in that is, is that you know what the outcome should be and when the group, when you trust that the group is smarter than you and that you might disagree, but when you walk away from the idea that you know the outcome, that's when the group starts to perform and work together and perform at a high level. Because otherwise, all they're trying to do is figure out the outcome you want. And so there's no creativity, there's no innovation. All they're trying to do is figure out what you want and then once they do figure out what you want, cool, then they can go do that. But that is not a creative, that's not a innovative environment. You're not cutting, no one's coming with their A game, bringing new ideas to the table, cuz that new idea might disagree with what you want as the leader. And do you really wanna shut that down and just get to your outcome? That is manipulation, that's manipulating the group to get to your outcome. And that, and why do you think that your outcome is the right outcome? This whole podcast would've been worth it with just that last minute. It's su such a powerful idea, right? Su such a powerful idea that because you think you know better versus really being open is actually limiting your team. And. If you don't believe that the collective team is smarter than you, then there's something wrong that you need to look at. In other words, right? But if you believe that they have the right dynamics, the right people, the right conversations, then you don't know. You really don't know. And if you think, then again, we go back to the first iteration that you don't have the right people that are smarter collectively than you. So I, I love that. I think it is a, it is a major concept, right? It's a major concept that goes beyond these ideas of speaking last or letting them scrape their knee. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I'm gonna try to do a little summary. We've talked about a lot. I'm gonna take the next few minutes. I might, when I finish with my summary, I'm just gonna ask to see what have I missed in, in terms of the summary or anything else that you wanted to share. Today. And then after that we'll kinda wrap up. This will help you figure out what is something we haven't talked about today that we should have talked about. All right, so here's my attempt of putting all of this together. So create environments that nurture and support people to grow in their personal and professional lives, and you're trying to build pods of superheroes. Let's see, we're talking a little bit about your journey of again, being this entrepreneur, that that was immature, autocratic, micromanager, and you were growing your business and you were being successful. And then the big question struck for what's the purpose in all this? Why does this matter? As we were saying, when the student's ready, the teacher appears, and you started looking at and working on conscious capitalism. Six key areas, not gonna go over them, but you identified that you needed to do some work on your purpose and your vision took two years, not a sit down and get it done in 20 minutes. Engage the team collectively, build the purpose and a good, strong, powerful vision. And you have a powerful message that people need to leave work more inspired than how they showed up to work, both, and that they need to be growing. That these environments need to nurture their personal and professional growth. You said something really chilling, leading cause of death, stress. Where do you get stress from? Work in finances. They go together. So if you recognize that you recognize the need or creating the work environments that that actually do the opposite. Ok. A few pieces of advice we talked about at that moment, open with personal and professional highs and lows. A lot of people know about starting with a high, getting some of those good chemicals flowing, but we talked about the importance of. Acknowledging, recognizing, understanding that there's things in life that suck. And when you have a supportive, caring, nurturing team, you could trusting team, you can recognize them, provide your support, provide your care, and at the same time, you can move on. Right? And it's like everybody knows you're there and that you care, that you understand, but it also allows you to move on without having to make it dramatic, right? Without having to go down the negative path. Another piece of advice is spend five minutes debriefing meetings and giving an opportunity to, for people to clear the air, talk to each other about emotions, right? What they liked or didn't like. And, uh, kinda allows for that attention to dissipate and to not build grudges or resentment. And I think that's a very powerful thing. More definitely gonna start implementing that. Leaders need to be more quiet or as you said, leaders need to show up, shut up. They have to make space for their team. Allow them to do the talking. When leaders think that they think they're right or they know they're right, that's a fallacy they don't know. We covered that in the last, which, which I'll wrap up with that as well. And it's like this belief that the group is smarter than you. And if you don't believe that the group is smarter than you, we've got to do some work there. Right? Gotta build relationships, built on trust you, right? Big reality, and I love that you mentioned that you realize that your management team are your primary relationships, right? That's the people you spend the most time with, talk, talk to the most. And you have to change your paradigm or your limiting beliefs or what you've been taught. And you have to go from, uh, I gotta keep my distance to, I gotta closer to them. And what allows that to be successful on the business side of things is transparency, full transparency and authenticity. Because you can have a great friendship and relationship and you could both say, yep, I'm not good enough for that position anymore. That's not working. We're underperforming and we want the best for the team, for the group, for the company. And there's no ego in there, right? It's just transparency and reality. I like this part. We talked about the cultures of amazing where everybody's trying to be supportive, but they actually are hurting each other instead of helping each other, right? You have to be honest. You have to have this radical candor, which we talked about, right? If you're trying to help people and they didn't do a great job, it's okay, right? It's okay to acknowledge that and to provide them good feedback, and then when they actually do a great job, then you're sharing, and then that's actually going to move the needle emotionally for them because they're gonna know that it really matters. We talked about the big changes in your organization, and one of the big things that you did was everybody needed to reapply for their position. Everybody needed to reapply for their position or for the one that they wanted, and I've talked about that sometimes in the past, and. The thing that I think you helped clarify was you're doing that while you're still at work. It's not like people are home sending in their resume. It's a process of what job do you really want? What job do you think you really want to have? And how that allowed you to identify talent and put them in the right place, which I think helps deliver on your promise of developing people and helping people. We talked about why companies sell, and you said they sell because of fear, right? Because of fear that they can't do it, that they don't know enough, that they don't have the leadership skills, or that things could go sideways and you shared that you know that everything will be okay for you regardless of what happens with that business. And ultimately that the business doesn't define you. It's not who you are, it's what you do, and you wanna live an inspiring life. We also want the Detroit Red Wings, so not gonna forget about that one. And that what makes it all positive is possible and make it easy, is this positive attitude. Knowing that you can, knowing that you'll figure it out, knowing that everything's gonna be fine, the supporting team in group, and, and that you don't even stop to think about whether you can or you can't or it's harder, it's easy. You just go and you just do it because there's a lot of, there's a lot of energy behind it. Your purpose and your passion. And the last part, this is gonna be third time we talk about it, but I think it's super critical, right? You gotta let your people lead. You put people in a certain position, you gotta let them do their job, speak last of it all, don't have an expected outcome when you're going into a meeting, cuz then that means you're just trying to manipulate the team to get to your conclusion, which then means that you think you're smarter than the group. And then I do believe that something magical happens because people can, people know because there's language, body language, emotions, energy, vibrations, whatever you wanna call it. They know when you want something and you're pushing things in a certain direction. So when you actually get into that space clear of mind, you give them the space, and then their performance increases and improves their conversations, their relationships, they come, come back with better answers and outcomes that you could have even ever imagined. And it's not theory, it's not stuff that's in spiritual books, it's stuff that Mike, you've experienced, you've seen, you've proven. So thank you so much for bringing the case study to that approach. Really powerful. Sure. I missed some things. What else have I have we not talked about that you would really like to share in starting our wrap up of our podcast today? Well, let me say, that was an am, an amazing summary that, that Well, thank I'm gonna use that if you don't mind. That was fantastic. Thank you for doing that. I, I think that the thing that I wanna leave. The impression I wanna make is that we have major issues in the world and the most powerful force in the planet, in my opinion, is private enterprise. And we have, in my opinion, we have the ability. And as successful entrepreneurs, we have an obligation to take those on. And nobody can do it. No one else is gonna do it. In my opinion, we have to. And so if every organization, if every entrepreneur that's running a successful company can take on one piece that they're passionate about in the world to help improve what, no matter what that is, imagine the impact. We can actually change the world. And so that's, that is, so I've got a third book coming, a little foreshadowing. So this was a three book series. That's the premise of my third book. Is, okay, here you are. You've got a, you've got an amazing organization. You build, you've got all the resources in the world. You've got a, a beautiful team. You're well connected. You can, you can call anyone and get a return phone call. Okay? So now what are you gonna do? How are you gonna improve the human condition? And to me, at the end of the day, that is what people in organizations get inspired by when they know they're showing up to work and when they contribute. That's the impact that your organization's gonna have on the world that fires people up. And that's why Gallup just did a poll and 75% of employees stated that if they could find the same job or the same position in the company, but the position had more meaning to them, they would switch 75% as leaders. Let's give them that meaning and we can do it. That's what I would like to leave us with. Thank you so much, Mike. It's been a wonderful podcast. Where could people find your book? Find your website. Engage me@michaeljmcfall.com. So that'll have all the links to my social medias that'll have putting a, a, putting a ton of content on there. And that would be the place to connect with me and to learn more about the stuff I have going on. And I just wanna plug the book that, that, if this conversation was meaningful to you as a leader, the book is the practical place to get so many different tools. And I talk about filling people's toolbox up with effective tools. And that's what the book was written to do, is to give you the tools to be able to go in and lead in this way in your organization. Really appreciate that. That's the whole premise of practical leadership, right? We can level up significantly. We just need some tools and we don't have to reinvent the wheel. You've, you've lead. You've got the examples. You've laid out, the blue, the blueprint for us to follow. Now let's take advantage of what you're sharing with the world and everybody knows it's coming from a place of love and caring for others. So it's gonna be good stuff. Thanks Max. Thank you, Mike again.