Lead In Your Sweet Spot - w. Jacob Robinson

Have you ever wondered what it takes to carve out your niche in leadership? Join me as I sit down with Jacob Robinson, the dynamic CEO making waves in the amusement park industry. Together, we unearth the nuances of being a 'zero to one' leader—those rare visionaries who breathe life into ideas and create teams that push boundaries. Jacob's journey from service sector CEO to theme park entrepreneur delves into the importance of playing to your strengths, strategically filling gaps with talented individuals, and the transformative power of stepping back to let others shine.

Leadership isn't just about vision; it's about fostering trust and empowering your team to soar. This episode takes a hard look at the pitfalls of micromanagement and the vital role of autonomy in nurturing talent. Hear firsthand the story of a COO friend who thrived under the weight of an overbearing boss, and how that experience sculpted my own 'learn-do-teach' philosophy. Together, we'll explore how clear communication and the courage to let others lead can turn a struggling team into a high-performing powerhouse.

Alongside my friend Jacob Robinson, host of 'Chasing What Matters' podcast, we discuss how DigWorld is not just an amusement park, but a mission to impact lives through joy and shared values. So tune in and let the spirit of adventure and leadership guide you through this inspiring episode.

Find more about Jacob and Dig World at:

Email
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Chasing What Matters Podcast

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Order your copy of Jon's book at RedefineYourServantLeadership.com, and don't forget to utilize the additional resources, or purchase access to the Workbook and Coaching Videos.

Send your Leadership and Business questions to Jon at podcast@leadwell.com.

For more information visit https://leadwell.com

The Leadwell Podcast gives mission-driven leaders principled and practical advice to do just that, lead well.

In each episode, your host Jon Kidwell, interviews leaders with great stories, to share strategies that help leaders navigate complex, confusing, and often down-right challenging leadership, personal growth, business, and workplace culture situations.

Jon is a nonprofit executive turned coach, speaker, author, and CEO of a leadership development company. In working with nonprofits and businesses, big and small, he realized the unique challenges leaders face when they are committed to keeping the mission and people the top priority. Those leaders’ commitment to their principles and the people they lead, plus seeing the need for more leaders who strive to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons, is what inspired Jon to start a leadership development company dedicated to the success of mission-driven leaders and their organiza...

Transcript

Leadership Sweet Spot

Speaker 1 0:00

You lead well when you are leading at your best. And to lead at your best, you need to be in your sweet spot the strengths that you have that you can bring to the organization Teaching people and getting people to come in and run and lead other parts of the business, focusing on the priorities and the things that only you can do. And today our guest, jacob Robinson, is going to talk all about how he figured out what his leadership sweet spot is and guide us into how we can do that. Before we jump in, let me tell you a little bit about my friend, jacob Robinson.

Speaker 1 0:32

Jacob, in 2023, by Houston Business Journal, was named one of the most admired CEOs in Houston. That's pretty amazing, and he is a bit of a serial entrepreneur starting and growing businesses. What I love about what Jacob does is they are all in the service space, they do things to help people and lately he started working in all of his love of family and bringing people together by building amusement parks. Yes, that's right. Jacob Robinson is my idea of Jesse Cole in a cowboy hat building and buying and running amusement parks. I can't wait for him to tell you all about it.

Speaker 1 1:13

Let's dive into our conversation with Jacob Robinson and how you can lead in your sweet spot right now. Jacob, I am so glad that you are here today because I really want to talk about the fact that leaders feel like they have to do everything and they have to be everything and they have to be able to touch everything inside of their business, multiple businesses, their organization. And you and I were sitting down for breakfast one day and you said, hey, I am the zero to one guy, and then I got to find people to help run and manage whatever we build and it just blew me away. So start telling me about this zero to one idea and how you started to figure that out.

Speaker 2 2:07

Yeah, no, man. Well, first off, thank you for letting me be here today. I'm super honored to be here. I'm super excited. I've been looking forward to this for a while. So thank you all for letting me be a part of it.

Speaker 2 2:16

You know, the idea came. I would like to say that I had this epiphany in the middle of the night one night and I woke up and it was like, oh my gosh, there's this perfect leadership saying about how I'm wired. But no, it was a friend of both of ours, andrew Deerhead, and he and I were talking together one day and he said, man, you know, I look back at, like, what you've done and what you're currently doing and you're a really good zero to one guy. You're not a good two to 10 guy. And I actually I heard Louis Giglio the other day, a pastor out of Atlanta. He was on a podcast and he described himself as an A to B leader and he needs C to Z people on his team. And so, you know, we can call it zero to one, we call it A to B, whatever we want to call it, but the idea really is, you know, I'm the idea guy, right, I'm the idea guy, I'm the mission guy, I'm the vision guy, I am the corraler of the team, and then, frankly, a couple things start to happen at that point. One, the organization or the idea or the team starts to quickly become too good for me. I don't really have a role anymore, because we've either put smarter people around me you know go-getters around me that are taking it to the next level and I kind of get left behind or two, what happens is we really start to say, hey, listen, that's not my skill set, like building out an operating manual, for example, like my brain doesn't work that way, my eyeballs will fall out, all of the above. If you ask me to do an operating manual. However, we've got people on our team that they just crush it and I love looking at it. Like, when it's done, I'm going man, how, how in the world did you come up with that? Like I never in a million years would have seen. Uh, that if you had asked me to do it.

Speaker 2 3:55

So the idea is is really, how do we get something going, how do we get people to believe in what we're doing? And then, how do I, quickly as possible, get out of their way? And I think a lot of times this adage that we've learned, and you may say, hey, you're terrible, this is a terrible thought process, but I think a lot of people say, hey, you need to work on your weaknesses, work on your weaknesses, work on your weaknesses. Listen, I think it's great to acknowledge your weaknesses and then I would argue that's an interesting viewers can see. Did you see that? Thumbs up, wow, all right.

Speaker 1 4:30

Okay, we're full. Ai is just baked into this right here.

Speaker 2 4:35

I'll try not to talk with my hands as much.

Speaker 1 4:37

It's a multidimensional experience.

Speaker 2 4:40

That's right, no telling what's about to happen, but I think a lot of times we work on trying to get better at the things we're not good at and are not in the way the Lord wired us and, instead of leaning into the way you know, we're designed, created the way that we can add value to an organization. Now, that does not mean I need to raise my hand and say, well, hey, listen, I'm not good at that, so I'm not going to do those, those five things over there. But no, really acknowledging hey, I drive value here, you drive value here. And so when we can go out and we hire against our weaknesses and filling the room with smart people you know you've heard people say make sure you're the dumbest person in the room. If you've done that, you'll probably start leading really well. Right, and because the ideas that these other people are going to come up with are just amazing. Right, and because the ideas that these other people are going to come up with are just amazing, and so I've really tried to focus on who complements my weaknesses, who thinks the same way I think about work and our drive and our goals and our mission and our vision. But really, who's who's so much smarter than me at these things that I'm terrible at, and then, at the same time, acknowledging what I can bring to the table Right and saying, hey, we don't need two of me, I'd rather go hire somebody that can, that can, work on my weaknesses. So, you know, I've really leaned into that zero to one. Now that doesn't mean I need to just, you know, chunk the deuce and get out of town and leave all responsibilities, but rather trying to hand the keys over to the person.

Speaker 2 6:05

I told our general manager this other day, one of our, our, our, businesses. I said, listen, you're in charge. Like, I appreciate you calling me, but you're in charge. I trust you explicitly to deal with this and I trust you that you'll make the right decision. And whatever decision you make, I know you've thought about it, I know you you've weighed the pros and cons and you're going to make a decision and I'll support it. Because I trust her so much that that, that she's good at what I'm not good at, that she's seeing things that I'm not seeing, and so, uh, really trying to own that zero to one, um, and be the the collaborator of teams. I love building teams, I love putting people together, I love connecting people, and so that's what we tried to do.

Speaker 1 6:42

I love connecting people and so that's what we try to do. That is awesome, and you're going to turn around and you get to coach me, because that's one of the places where we are is how do we move into that next stage for us at Leadwell? But also I'm thinking about CEOs that have been in their role for three years and they've kind of got it set and now they need to jump into strategy to vision. Somebody that just hired somebody six months ago and they're getting ready to offload, to pass on, to give the growth opportunity to somebody on their team to pick up some of the work.

Speaker 1 7:21

And I'm sitting here listening to all of these things and it all makes sense and I still am like Jacob, but they don't know what I know, they might not do it the way that I do it and like, what do you mean? You're in charge, you, you just run this like you're still responsible for this man. So how do you start going about getting these people? Cause I'm guessing you probably haven't hit a home run every time at least nine out of 10 times, for sure, but not every time. That's right, that's right.

Empowerment and Trust in Leadership

Speaker 2 7:51

Well, listen, listen, let me be very clear. The way that we got to Jacob today is through a painful process, right, like it's learning my terrible leadership traits, starting out when I was young and just wanting to just conquer the world and was scared of failing and wanted just to go, go, go, go go. It didn't matter who was in the wake of it team member, not team member, it didn't matter and then a lot of it changed you know part of our story that you know after my son got sick and a lot of just my philosophy on life changed, right Of how I view life. That doesn't mean I work any less hard. Frankly, I probably work harder today than I did before. That for a lot of reasons, but it helps frame up what's important. And so I think when we could start to let go of things is when we can actually hand keys over, right? I mean, that's an obvious statement. But one thing I've learned is, if you don't allow your team members to actually lead the organization or do the thing you've hired them to do, they will leave, and what will happen is you'll never get great talent. So what happens is this cycle, right? Well, this person left, so now I've got to do this again. See, I couldn't trust them with it.

Speaker 2 9:05

Well, did you actually give it to them? Because? Did you actually? Did you actually let them run with it? Because if you didn't let them run with it, yeah, I'd leave too if I were done right? You said, hey, you know, john, you hired me to do X, y and Z, but every time I look over, I would have done it. I'm just going to go, I'm just going to leave.

Speaker 2 9:19

Right, I've got one of my best friends. He's working for a guy right now who cannot get out of his way and you know what's about to happen. He's got a small team of seven people and I bet five of them are about to leave and the guy cannot turn anything over. He hired my buddy to be the COO of the company and told him you're going to do X, y and Z. And I know my buddy and I know he's telling me the truth, and I've seen the emails and I've heard the phone calls, the amount of things that he's been given to do zero Truly given to do zero, because you've got this control on top. And again, yes, it's your baby, you get it. You know where all the dead bodies are. You know which clients to deal with, which ones not to deal with. But listen, what's going to happen is that guy thinks he's controlling the business and he's about to lose his entire team, and so unless we actually give people the rope to fail, then they're going to leave us and then we're never going to be able to build great teams. If we want to build great teams, you actually got to let the team go do something.

Speaker 2 10:21

Now, does that come with failures? Oh yeah. Does it come with mistakes? Oh yeah, you know, I, I, I, uh again. I'll reference our general manager. The other day.

Speaker 2 10:32

Uh, at one of our businesses, we have this constant debate going on about it, one of our internal issues, and and I, I, I say I always fall in love with hey, you know where I stand on this, but you're in charge. And she said you know what you mean when you say that. You know you're actually casting a vote right, and I'm like, I know that, but I want you to know that if you go against me, I promise you I'm good with it. Like I've written that off in my head. Or I've said hey, listen, I reserve the right to be right or wrong or whatever it may be, and she goes. You know, every time you say that though you've actually, I've actually changed my opinion to what you want me to do and we've actually ended up being right, I'm like, well, listen, that's not actually the goal. I've been wrong on plenty of things, but but if I really do believe I'm giving you the power to do it, knowing that we may fail.

Speaker 2 11:18

And here's the deal, man, listen, especially when you're dealing with young people and I think young people are bad at what I'm saying is is um, um, work experience, and and I'll, I'll follow, like our, our sales team, and I'm like I would not have said it that way. So let me, let me, let me talk to you about how we should say it this way. Did we think about this angle? And listen, people do that to me. I was just on a call with a, an executive coach, right, like I don't have all the answers.

Speaker 2 11:43

I asked, asked him how would you do X, y and Z? And he was going through one of our pitch decks and he's like, well, why'd you say it like that? It's a great question. I actually have no idea why I said it like that. Help me figure out a better way to say it. You know, and so this is not a. It's your baby, right? It's literally. It's your name, you know, and so that's tough to let go. But you will not build the organization you want to build with awesome A-plus talent unless you actually let them go do what they're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 12:18

Yeah, Amen. So I think you said a really interesting thing in that sometimes the tighter we grab on and the more we try to control, the less control we actually have. That's right, Because now all of a sudden, everything around it is going to change and it's going to become uncontrollable because they leave and you've kind of squeezed the life out of this thing. The other thing is there. You you referenced in there so much communication. It was just evident in how you're talking with your GM.

Leading Through Communication and Coaching

Speaker 1 12:45

This you know what we're going to do and learn, almost like a learn do teach type of thing, where you're just out there and it's like go do the sales call, let's coach on it, let's talk about these things. So, communication, coaching, what are the things that you are trying to do in that chief leader role, owner role, executive role and as one that says I'm going to focus on the things that only I can do, but I also need to help. What would you call it? Lead, teach, coach? For the other things, Like, what are the things that you are focusing on to make sure it keeps moving on the tracks the way you are envisioning it moving?

Speaker 2 13:24

Yeah, I mean, that's I'm, I'm. I'm struggling with that right now, trying to figure out, like, my exact role and what that looks like. What does that look like on on reporting structure? What does it look like on meeting structure? Uh, what does it look like on what reports I actually want to see or which ones I actually could care less to see. You know, and I actually making just somebody have a meeting for the sake of a meeting, I don't subscribe to that.

Speaker 2 13:43

You know, I have tried my best, I'll say it this way. I've tried my best to constantly communicate to my team what I'm doing, and not that I owe it to anybody to explain what I'm doing, but if you know what I'm doing, then, one, it shows you that I'm not doing your job behind your back. Two, it lets everybody know hey, this is what Jacob does. Jacob goes and does X, y and Z and I need the rest of the team to do their job. And so if I'm communicating with you what I'm doing and what I am not going to do, then that helps pick up the slack of what your expectation is right. And I'm very upfront from the beginning. Hey, listen, I'm going over here. I'm very upfront from the beginning. Hey, listen, I'm going over here, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. So therefore you've got to do X, y and Z. So I think that's part of it.

Speaker 2 14:29

The other thing is, I want to create an environment where I want every team member to know I'm good with you failing, I'm good with it, I genuinely mean I'm good with it, mean I'm good with it. And I think once we like, if we actually give that away, that's when we can actually see growth in them. But also we can have the opportunities to coach or we can question hey, why did we do it this way? What were we thinking? Walk me through why you did that. And a lot of times you'll get an idea go, yeah, that's a fantastic idea. Never would have thought about that. And and what it does is it creates the freedom for them to push back as well. And I'm trying not to jump in and be a parachute leader where I actually I say you can go, do it, but then at the last second I'm going to jump in and I'm just going to fix it. And so I think a lot of it is creating that environment to fail and knowing that when you pick up the phone, you call me and you tell me you just made a colossal mistake. I'm not going to shoot you out, I'm going to go. Okay, how are we going to fix it? And let's, let's go on from there.

Speaker 2 15:23

But but that's an evolution, right, like, like that was not Jacob. Like in in in 2017 or earlier, right 2017, like, I keep saying, is when my son got sick. That changes how I view everything. Right, like there are bigger fish in this world to fry and there are bigger problems in this world than did we just lose in an account. Now, does that mean your business might go under? Maybe, but do we still have a family? Do we still have our faith? Do we still have those important things? Yeah, if we have those things and, man, it's just a work problem. It's just a work problem, and, and so I think that, but that's an evolution. That's an evolution that has come over the last few years in the hard way.

Speaker 1 16:02

Yeah, I mean all of those right. It's like I think, everybody that we talked to that has a significantly different perspective, has a massive crisis, kind of a wilderness where I'm lost, or just something that has completely blindsided them, that forces them to change. And you referenced that your son kind of life-changing perspective. You referenced a coach and a good friend speaking in and saying man, this is where I see you winning. Talk through some of the other components that kind of pulled you through there. Because, like we said, there's the idea that if I'm the leader, I got to do everything. I got to do everything, I got to touch everything. If I don't even have the answer, the moment that my board, my investor, this team member, says X, like well, then I'm a fraud, or I'm not good enough, or I'm not supposed to be there, like that's a. It's a very long process to get to the place where you can say here are my priorities, here's what I'm good at and here's all of the things that I need help with.

Speaker 2 17:06

Yeah, yeah, man, you know it's funny. I battle the imposter syndrome daily, and it's not even really daily, it's probably hour by hour. Right, I'm going no, no, no, I belong here, I belong in this room. You and I were saying that the dinner we were at you and I were saying that the dinner we were at, you know, a couple of weeks ago. How on God's grand earth are we sitting in this room?

Speaker 2 17:22

Right Like, but it's they actually knew right, you know kind of kind of deal and and so let's be real, we did not belong in that room it was grace and generosity that got us in that room. That's exactly right, and it was wonderful, that's exactly right, no-transcript.

Speaker 2 18:12

And so then I struggle with well, am I ever going to be there? And I think you and I talked about this. I think we've got to get clear on what we're even defining. What's the scoreboard? Sometimes I get lost. I'm not even sure what the scoreboard is. If I don't know what the scoreboard is, I don't know what game I'm playing. Do you want a high score or a low score? I'm not sure if I don't know what game I'm playing. I think that's what I struggle with.

Speaker 2 18:40

I say that from a point of struggling to go. The good days, the days that I feel like I'm I'm doing well, is when I'm living in exactly how I'm wired to be, and there, and there's some books I've read there's, there's people I've talked to allow people to to, to give me good, honest, loving feedback of saying, hey, you are not. I don't need you to go do X, y and Z, I need you to do exactly what you're doing right now. Now, yes, there's times where you need to jump in and you need to sit through doing a you know an operating manual or something like that, where, like, that's not your skill set but, but overall, no, it's better for the organization if you're not doing those things and and being confident in that and not that I have to have all the answers. And I had one of my business partners he told me one time. He said, man, we got to get really good at going. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question. It's a great question. I'll figure it out, I'll get back to you. And I think you know whether it's being young or it's probably actually, it's probably anybody, but especially when you're raising money or you're casting a vision of business and they and they got those questions.

Speaker 2 19:40

Not that it's like even a gotcha question, it's a question. You're like I never thought about that or actually I don't know the answer. That's a unique question. We're so prone to try to figure out the answer on the fly, right, because we don't want to be, we don't want to be caught or we don't want to. You know somebody go. Oh my gosh, this kid doesn't know what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 19:55

I've gotten more positive feedback from people when I go you, you know, actually I don't know. It's a great question. Let me get back to you tonight on that. They go, okay, sounds good. I've yet to encounter the person that goes. You don't know the answer to that question. If you don't know the answer to that question, get out of my office, right, I've yet to find that person out there. And so I think it's this, this evolution of of, of figuring out how you're wired, how God's wired you, and being super confident that now I say all that to say I've got to get better at being super confident that on a daily basis. I don't sit here mastering that yet, but I know what I need to be. I know what I need to do.

Speaker 1 20:31

Yeah, I think that is so powerful that the lie that we tell ourselves is that we have to give an answer for people to think we know what we're talking about when really, if we say I don't know, let me get back to you. We gained so much trust and respect because everybody can tell when it's a BS answer anyways.

Speaker 2 20:53

Yep, yeah, and I think I think not only like to like investors or board, but man to people that that quote unquote report to us or our team members. I think if we can say it to those people, I think that that shows them, oh okay, it's great they were modeling right, like we're mine, cause I don't want them to BS an answer to me. I don't want to turn around and say, hey, is the number of this or this? And they go. Well, this one hold on, I'd rather you go. I actually have no idea.

Speaker 2 21:26

Let me do some research, I'll get back to you. I don't want you to make it enough and so, if I can show the humility of going, I don't know, it's a great question. Let's figure that out. I think I think we've gotten, and probably we've always dealt with this as a society, but we've got this mentality that we have to have it all buttoned up, and that transcends outside of work too, I think in life, I think raising kids, I think being friends with people, I think you know, managing your finances, all of these things. I think we'd be better off to go. I actually have no clue and I'm all ears, so I'm trying to learn that in every facet of my life.

Speaker 1 21:54

Yeah, fio, figuring it out is a good place to be, and I know that you have a lot of things that you do extremely well that you can and need to be confident in, and one of them is the thing that I just absolutely love and I picture in my brain you as Jesse Cole from Savannah Bananas, as a cowboy going and doing amusement parks. So I hope that you live into my vision of the cowboy amusement park Jesse Cole personification. This is what I'm hoping for, but please can you tell us about amusement parks and Dig World and the fact that you have a company that is going to purchase and run and make amusement parks and entertainment a part of your business portfolio? So tell us all that you want to tell us, because this is so much fun.

Speaker 2 22:46

Well, man, listen, you just probably gave me one of the highest compliments I've ever been given. So if I can, you know I'll start telling people I'm the zero to one guy and I'm Jesse Cole with a cowboy hat. I am good with that comparison by a lot. Jesse Cole, like John said, the owner of Savannah Bananas, his book Fans First, highly recommend. Everybody needs to read it. Just really how he's revolutionized the game of baseball and how he's created this fans first experience and loves on people. So highly, highly recommend that book.

Speaker 2 23:17

But you know I've referenced a couple times now my son got sick. My son got sick in 2017. He contracted bacterial meningitis. They left him with permanent disabilities and he's got a whole host of issues now. But he is a happy, joyful little dude. But you know he's permanently disabled and he's in a wheelchair, nonverbal and epileptic and, you know, deaf in both ears and you know the list goes on and on. But one of the things that he always has loved pre getting sick in post, is construction equipment garbage trucks, dump trucks, the whole nine yards. And so we we stumbled across this opportunity of a theme park. It's up in New Jersey where they let kids operate real construction equipment, and so we said, man, if that's a real thing, we need to do that in Texas.

Speaker 2 24:02

And we need to do it because Pierce loves construction equipment and you know, what At the end of the day, let's figure out a way to bring families together and family can mean a lot of things right? Let's bring friends together. Let's bring cousins together. Let's bring college roommates together. Let's bring just people together and have a good time and really show them what we you know, I'm a believer in Jesus and we want to show them the gospel without hitting them over the head with a Bible, and we want to meet people right where Jesus would meet people and love them. That's the name of the game. And oh, by the way, we get to do it at a theme park. And so we set out to build a theme park where we let kids operate real construction equipment, and so it's based here in Katy, Texas.

Speaker 1 24:44

Can you describe real construction equipment, Because I am thinking of oh yeah, we had those little sandboxes where it was like three feet tall and I got to pull my little arms on the crane and do this thing. And my friends, that's not what Jacob is talking about.

Speaker 2 25:03

That's right. We are talking about real mini excavators that you see on the side of the road every single day digging ditches, and we're talking about real skid steers that you see on the side of the road moving dirt around. These are full blown machines. We've obviously re-engineered them to where they're safe, but we let kids as young as three years old operate them by themselves and they can dig dirt, they can play games and try to move objects around. They can drive the skid steer around the windy track.

Speaker 2 25:24

We've got some other things out there at the park, but we opened it in March of 2022. And we knew nothing. We knew nothing about theme parks and that showed in the first few months. We've been paying the price ever since. But what In the first few months? We've been paying the price ever since, but?

Speaker 2 25:56

But what we did find is that man I'll talk about in a second. We get to be in a space that truly ingrains memories into a family's memory bank. There's a lot of great things in the world, and there's a lot of great businesses in the world, and there's a lot of great people in the world, but if you think back about your family and your life, there's things that you reference right. A lot of times they're trips and a lot of vacations or or theme parks you went to and we get to be the holder of those memories for people and that's like that's a huge honor and a huge blessing. And so we, we felt like there was an opportunity in the theme park space across the country. So think middle market theme parks, so think your regional roller coasters, your bigger rides not Six Flags, not the big, big, big, big stuff but kind of middle.

Speaker 1 26:40

You're not going to purchase Disney at any time soon. Not any time soon.

Speaker 2 26:44

Now, if Bob Iger wants to call next week, we can talk prices, but that $10 million to $100 million revenue range. And so we're out there pursuing theme parks, water parks, other attractions, kind of like a dig world resorts, and what we're really doing is we're trying to. We want to show people Jesus, but we're going to do it through the theme parks and it's a really unique asset class. I was not, I'm not, a theme park guy. I didn't grow up going to theme parks. I'm actually scared of heights. But what I've found is this awesome opportunity and where we get to really invest in the community, invest in the employees and and we, we get to invest in those assets. And so these are a lot of times they're family owned. They've been owned for a really long time, Like one of the one of the parks we're looking at has been owned in the same family since 1924.

Speaker 2 27:35

And so we get to help shepherd that to the next, the next.

Speaker 1 27:38

You know era um, and one's been owned since the, I think, 1890 it's a long time, long time, oh my goodness, before theme parks even existed that's exactly right, exactly right, uh.

Speaker 2 27:49

And so we, we that's what we're building, uh, and we want to kind of operate that middle market space, uh, of owning theme parks and water parks across the country. And you know, and we get to it's really unique on who we get to hire, too right, like we get to hire kids starting at like 15, 16 years old, all the way up to, you know, people that will be career people at our company and that's really awesome. Like, if you think about, like there might be a kid out there that works for us when they're 16. And the way that we set our culture, our standards, our leadership, whatever we want to call it, and that shapes the trajectory of their life, that's awesome. Like that's if we get to be a catapult into their story man, that's super awesome, super humbling. So, anyways, I am turning into your theme park guy. So Jesse Cole is the Savannah Banana guy.

Speaker 1 28:36

I am. I am getting you a very large uh cowboy hat. This is not even normal size Like. It's just everything's bigger in Texas and I want you to be ridiculously awesome uh and wear it to uh any, any event that you go to that has to do with the theme parks, Absolutely Now I may I may have to take it off in the airport.

Speaker 2 28:57

Uh, he, I think he wears his yellow tuxedo all the way through the airport, but uh, but, so he may be tougher than I am, uh so you know actually like it's interesting, right, like going back to what we just talked about.

Speaker 2 29:07

What's interesting about him is he talks about his book man. That's who he was like, that's who he wanted to be and and he said he got. He had to even get comfortable wearing his yellow tuxedo through the airport because he thought people were going to look at him. So I say I say I say encouragement is man, people that we idolize and we look up to and we aspire to be, they're struggling with the same things and if we're all just honest with ourselves, right, we can all can encourage each other a little bit better.

Speaker 1 29:30

Yeah, well, I hope that everybody's encouraged by Jacob's story and really to lead in your sweet spot and that you get there by getting really clear and really to lead in your sweet spot and that you get there by getting really clear and really comfortable with the value that you bring, with what you need from other people, with the priorities that you have in life and in work and then inviting people in and just like y'all say, in Dig World, hey, we are all always under construction and so, to anybody that's listening, you have to come to Dig World, you have to connect with Jacob and I. We will do dinner and we will play around on machines that we have no business playing around on.

Speaker 2 30:08

That's exactly right and it would be awesome.

Speaker 1 30:11

So, jacob, before I let you go, we are on the Leadwell podcast and I have to ask you what does it mean to you to lead? Well, it's a good question.

Speaker 2 30:22

You know, I thought about that question. I would say, to love people. And I think if we truly set out to love people, like Jesus did, I listened to a book one time and this guy said you know, he was sitting with a local pastor of a homeless ministry and this person came in and was talking to him and he said I looked at that person, I looked at that pastor, look at that person and he saw a soul that Jesus created and it was worth dying for. And I think if we can love people, no matter the backgrounds, no matter the baggage they bring to the table, no matter their flaws as an employee or a co-worker or a guest or whoever it may be, but if we can love people.

Speaker 2 31:00

Well then, I think we've become a better leader. So that's what I aspire to do. I'm trying to get better and better at it.

Speaker 1 31:09

Love people well to lead people well. Jacob Robinson, thank you so much for being a guest on here. Everybody, you can find out more about DigWorld at digworldtxcom and we will put that and some ways to connect with Jacob as including his podcast, that he's a co-host chasing what matters. We will put all of that in the show notes. My friend, thank you for doing this, for your generosity and being here. You are an absolute pleasure and a joy and and I can't wait to follow my own Jesse Cole cowboy wherever he's going. So thank you, jacob, I love it. Thanks for letting me be here, brother, appreciate it Absolutely. Everybody else, be well, lead on, and God bless.