The Owner's Odyssey
The Owner's Odyssey is a business podcast focused on exploring the unique journeys of real business owners co-hosted by Brook Gratia, Paul McCoy, and Zach Jones.
The Owner's Odyssey
"The Road Less Stupid" by Keith Cunningham : An Owner's Odyssey Book Review
Unlock the secrets of strategic thinking and transform your entrepreneurial journey with our latest episode of the Owner's Odyssey. Drawing inspiration from Keith Cunningham's "The Road Less Stupid," we promise to guide you on fostering clarity and innovation amidst the chaos of business ownership. We'll share personal stories and insights that illuminate the power of asking the right questions to drive both personal and professional growth.
Imagine creating a dedicated space for uninterrupted thinking, where you can reflect and strategize like never before. That's exactly what we explore as we discuss the impact of strategic and emotional thinking on managing life's challenges. Just like athletes who must balance proactive planning with reactive responses, business leaders can benefit from a disciplined approach to decision-making. Through relatable sports analogies, we highlight how prioritizing objectives over personal pride can prevent costly misdirection and maintain focus.
In this episode, we also dive into the art of journaling with intention and how it can enhance your personal development. Discover how altering your approach to self-reflection can unlock deeper understanding and clarity in your decision-making process. As we revisit Cunningham's financial lessons, reminiscent of Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," we emphasize the power of maintaining focus and harnessing the right questions to achieve your desired outcomes. Join us for this compelling discussion filled with gratitude and inspiration.
Hello and welcome to the Owner's Odyssey, the podcast where we delve deep into the transformative stories of courageous business owners who have embarked on an extraordinary adventure. I'm Zach Jones and I'm Brooke Gattia. We're here to explore the real life experiences of entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:Each episode, we'll embark on a quest to uncover the trials, triumphs and transformations of remarkable individuals who dared to answer the call of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Like all adventurers, our guests have faced their fair share of challenges, vanquished formidable foes and braved the unknown.
Speaker 2:Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner or simply an avid listener hungry for captivating stories.
Speaker 1:The Owner's Odyssey is here to help you level up. So join us as we embark on this epic expedition. This is the Owner's Odyssey. Let's start our adventure.
Speaker 2:So today I thought we'd do something a little bit different and, rather than interview people, take just a short little conversation between us to talk about a few things that probably have been inspirational or help as business owners. As business owners, I think that as we're talking to people and we're hearing their journey and what things they've been successful at, what things they've not been successful at, I think there's also just those quick little things that I've learned along the way that have been really helpful to me, and a lot of them come from inspiration from other people, topics that they talk about. So I'm a big reader. I love to.
Speaker 2:If you went into my house when we remodeled, my other half loves Legos and I removed all the Legos from the house because we didn't have enough space as we had kids coming in and then it was time we were still running out of space and my other half looks at me and says, hey, you know all those books, we need to put them in a box. And I'm like no, you can't put my books in a box. And she was totally like Nope, you made all my Legos go to the basement, all your books. I'm like dang it.
Speaker 4:You're right, you don't get rid of the Legos before the kids. Right, right, right I know.
Speaker 2:So I'm a big book person. It's therapy for me, like no tomorrow, but I'm not a huge business book person. I think I get through the first like three chapters and I'm like that's just, I'm good, um, but uh, I think I was talking with Paul when I was first meeting with Paul, which we've known each other for like two, three years and literally I don't know, we just talk about random things that have inspired us and ideas, and move very slow with all of them, but we have fun, fun, and Paul has always had brilliant ideas and things and like, hey, you should talk about this person. So he enlightened me to and this is what I kind of want to talk about today for like five, 10 minutes. Our little clip for the day um is uh, what is his name?
Speaker 3:Keith.
Speaker 2:Cunningham.
Speaker 3:It's morning.
Speaker 2:I'm chit-chatting through.
Speaker 3:Zach called it. Huh, zach called it, you were fried.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I'm totally fried, it's Monday morning and I'm like here. But he wrote this book called the Road Less Stupid. I did say that, right, correct, Correct. I found this book hugely helpful and I use it a lot in conversations with a ton of my clients and just business owner friends when we're sitting down and chatting. But he basically says shut up and think, Like slow down, stop up and think, Slow down, stop and think. And as a business owner I feel like I'm running a mile a minute. I have all of the stupid hats, Sorry they're not stupid.
Speaker 2:He would yell at me the HR hat, which I love my people, but gosh, it's like okay, I now need to make sure that I'm mentoring and inspiring. And oh, by the way, I have to get some work done for my clients and I got to make sure that they're feeling connected. And oh, by the way, I have a really not happy client that I got to deal with. And oh, we have to do some marketing. And yeah, by the way, our TV is not working in our office space, so can you get that fixed? All those things that start to pile up on you and I have children and a spouse and I want to read my books, so all of those things. You just start moving, moving, moving and all of a sudden it's six months and you, all of a sudden, it's six months and the last time you slowed down and did any strategy sort of thing has been a long time. And Paul's totally sitting here shaking his head, just for those who can't see that part of things. But like there's some like this is this is business, like ownership, like you're going crazy and you have to create space to just think, and I really appreciate it. He actually gave what he does basically every single day, no, twice a week, I think he said, or something on a pretty regular basis, but not too crazy.
Speaker 2:He has a thinking chair in a thinking room. The thinking chair has no window-facing space, there is no electronics in his thinking space and he has a pad of paper and a pen and he writes on the paper a question and he sets a timer for like 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes and he writes his question and then he puts a bullet down and he answers the question and then he puts another bullet down and he keeps going and he always puts a bullet after each one of these like answers that he does. So he sets his timer and he starts just answering the thing and the thought pattern is one, all the shit is gone, you just push it, pull it out of your space Like I'm going to just think. And two, by putting these bullets on, he is leaving space for there's always another thought, like you're not done. Like you done, you keep kind of just dump and when you're done, your timer goes off.
Speaker 2:You now spend another five, ten minutes reading over your stuff and circling kind of what pieces you need to kind of build off of, and I don't know. I loved that concept. And then he would go through here are all these business questions and he'd have chapters of little stories and be like how do you deal with inspiring people? What's your roadblock for your marketing? Various different questions that he has been challenged over his life. But he's asking business owners and I don't think there's a one set question that needs to be asked for everybody.
Speaker 2:But I think the point is, have you asked yourself questions? Have you shut up? Have you stopped doing stupid things like just running and just moving, and have you digested, kind of, what are your roadblocks and things that are going on? And I just I'm not a big person who says you go to those courses that say, hey, this will fix everything for you. There's no such thing. There is no. We're all so different. We all come at it with such different trauma, such different um uh advantages, uh, all of the stuff that builds into come from different cultures, whatever those things are, um, that impact how you make your decisions and there isn't just a one stop all, but really teaching you how to think through your problems and slow down, and you probably know a good amount of them already and I just it was it's basic Shut up, think, write it down.
Speaker 3:What's his tagline at the end of every?
Speaker 2:chapter. You'll thank me for this.
Speaker 3:Stop and think you'll thank me for this later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, stop and think you'll thank me for this. Stop and think you'll thank me for this later. Yeah, stop and think you'll thank me for this later. Every single one of his questions. And yeah, cause you will like you'll it. Um, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It was one of my favorite books I highly recommend. Not favorite it was instrumental business book that I didn't just get lost in the first. You know two chapters. Now, to be frank, I haven't read the whole dang thing all the way through because it's a lot of questions, but I read a good amount of it and it's chapters I could pick up at any point in time and jump around and do different things, and so it's I if I'm recommending a like helpful for you to get through your journey. That's just not a one-stop shop thing. It is a really brilliant thought pattern and people talk about it all the time. You need a journal, but sometimes I'll talk to people. I just journal. I just sit there and say the same thing I'm moaning and groaning about. I totally stopped myself from saying the B word because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to change.
Speaker 4:It does change the streaming category, it does.
Speaker 2:So I thought I would like I do have to check a little box. Yes, I won't, I won't do that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you just sit there and you're like just vomiting your junk and you're just repeating yourself over and over again, and so sometimes journaling perpetuates some thoughts. But I think, if you can figure out how to change the way you reflect and journal and put space to and you know people talk about vision boards and putting out your goals and all of those things which are also very, very helpful I think that journaling and learning how to think through, I have a problem or I don't. Do I have a problem? Sometimes you simply have to ask yourself do I have a problem? Yes, I mean, and that's a yes or no, but like what would be, like things that are going on that you kind of have to talk through.
Speaker 3:I don't know, that's my. I think his power from that is uh, the power is in the question, the quality of the question, not in the quality of the answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So really think about what it is you're trying to solve and you know, asking the right question gets you better direction than just answering. You know what's my vision. That's easy to just jump into and get a direction, but you're going in the right direction. That gives you the best benefit. What you didn't mention about Keith Cunningham is he's the subject of a another famous book. What book is that? Rich Dad, poor Dad, he's the Rich Dad, poor Dad, he's the rich dad, poor dad.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Robert Kiyosaki.
Speaker 2:yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he made a ton of money in real estate in the early, well late, 90s I'm going to say 80s, 90s, 2000s and then lost his arm leg and everything else in 2008. He was overleveraged. Everyone thought real estate was just going to make money, his arm leg and everything else. Um 2008 he was over leveraged. Everyone thought, you know, real estate was just going to make money and he was in the hole for a lot of money. I think. Uh, I think it was a hundred million dollars or something, just crazy and uh. So that's where he then got together with a lot of his friends and said, okay, I'm writing this book. What? What can we do?
Speaker 3:And my sort of thoughts on this book is it's the modern-day version of I Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. You know, he was, I think, dale, was it? Carnegie asked him to write this book, so he went to Ford, he went to 100 different people and I think you know, 100 years later, nearly, or 80, 90 years later, cunningham had been through it. And when that was done, I did some made some fundamental errors that if you looked at my portfolio, it was all in real estate. I was highly leveraged, making tons of money and then bang, you lose everything because of you know this subprime mortgage, you know banks, you know going bankrupt. Whatever happened in 2008 layman's, I think, was the first one that happened late 2007 but uh, yeah, he lost an arm and a leg, went bankrupt and uh, and then regrouped and recovered and I think he says at the beginning of like that that's I did not realize he was the same as see you come up.
Speaker 2:You know all of these fun stories, um. But yeah, he did talk at the beginning of how he he just lost it all and he definitely had to slow down and go. What the heck happened, um? And you hear stories like that of people all the time where they just tank like they just burned something and they sit back and they learn from it and they grow and it was hard and it was painful, but taking the time to reflect and learn about what it is. And there's small things. I have small things all day like okay, that didn't go very well. What do I need to learn and adjust from? And sometimes it's just me. I walked into the office in a grouchy mood. Maybe I could learn how to like not bring my shit. We can edit that bit out or not?
Speaker 2:Anyhow. So I think our kind of quick thing for today's little podcast is if you haven't picked up Keith Cunningham, if you haven't picked up Rich Dad, poor Dad, that's a cool book too. It's very interesting thought patterns as you're raising your children too, it's true, you can tell more if you want to.
Speaker 4:It's interesting, I feel like. I don't know if I haven't read it, so I don't know if he acknowledges this, but it seems like there's a benefit, an inherent benefit, to taking time for strategic things, for strategic thinking, emotional thinking, kind of like planning thinking, because these are the things that you can't shut off in your brain. So it's not really a question of like do I want to do this or do I not want to do this. It's like do I want to set time aside for this and kind of then, like you almost free up the rest of your time to just run the route and shut your brain off and stop thinking about it when you know you've got the thinking chair there or whatever your dedicated space is. When you don't, you're kind of always spot-checking yourself and also, in a kind of very pseudoscientific, probably not actually helping you.
Speaker 2:Causing anxiety, not a great space for things Right right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, running a business, I think, is a bit like running.
Speaker 3:I used to run programs for a large aerospace engine company and if you don't plan, if you don't get the right direction, you'll spend a lot of money and I've seen it absolutely going the wrong direction.
Speaker 3:So, similarly with a business, you've got all this option all this time, you've got 24 hours in a day, and if you don't set the direction for you and for your business, then you may be on a path to failure. But think of it then, when you're leveraging people that work for you, if you set them off in the wrong direction and don't or don't have the checks and balances in place to say, okay, give me a plan, tell me where you're going, and just let them run loose, they may be spending, you know, weeks I've done it spend weeks of going down a path that will not fulfill the initial requirement of what you're trying to do. So setting back and thinking and understanding and planning, putting your goals in place, is fundamental to business, and the more I delve into different businesses, the more I realize that they don't do that. And this is you know goals and objectives and setting personal goals. People just don't know how to do it.
Speaker 4:I think we underestimate how reactive we are as humans as well. The work that is drawing your attention is almost never what you should actually be working on in that moment.
Speaker 2:But then if you sometimes don't respond to the things you need to react to, it can blow up into something more. So, prioritizing reactions, it's kind of like my new software we have. There's a triage space. You don't ignore it but you keep the priority things at priority and you appropriately schedule the rest of it. But you have to be in the right. You have to be very clear in thinking and planning and to know what is in the right categories of stuff.
Speaker 4:And also be able to put processes in place that afford you that space, which is tough too, it's tough when you find you're like oh this process doesn't give me time to prioritize appropriately. And then, yeah, you've got a bigger question.
Speaker 3:And then back to your point about coming into the office and not being in a good space when you I see this with sports you know you see someone who's angry. They're either going to be brilliant at what they do or they're just going to tank. And if you can get only I think, 10 or 15% will thrive being angry and being getting better at what they do and doing phenomenal things. Most people will tank because they'll, you know, like if I'm playing against you and all of a sudden, you know you upset me, I want to be considering, you know, harming you as opposed to playing my game and that's what happens I see it in. The best one I see it in is golf. You get under someone's skin. They're not going to be, excuse me, they're not going to be hopefully hitting you over the head with a golf club, but you can psychologically overpower them by just simple, as the British call it, gamesmanship. Or in cricket, it's sledging.
Speaker 3:It's a word that is used. I taught someone that recently and he went that's brilliant. And he looked up on me. He went oh, a, it's a word that is used. I taught someone that recently and he went that's brilliant. And he looked up on me he went oh, it really is a word. Yeah, I just told you I didn't make it up but it's this, it's this.
Speaker 3:Uh, you know you're in cricket and us just beat pakistan, actually in new york. Uh, for the first time ever, they they drew, but they won because of back counting or whatever. Who? Who knew that? You know, cricket, probably the biggest game in the world, followed by more people, because you know, a billion people in China, in India watch it, in Pakistan another half billion people but the. So there's 11 people on the on the pitch that are fielding and then it's like baseball, but you've got two people in the middle and the fielders, and then the batsmen are talking to each other and trying to put each other off and as the bowl is coming down, then the batsman on one end is probably giving him something to think about.
Speaker 2:It's like the catcher in baseball, like talking smack to someone. Absolutely, it's all mental game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and sledging is a is a classic one. I've played, done it a little bit.
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm sure you've done it a lot. That's one of those. I feel like my go-to phrase in that sort of context is like or maybe more an argument, argumentative kind of space where you're at odds with somebody. There's a lot of times where your options are like you can be right or you can get what you want, and there's not necessarily a right choice there.
Speaker 4:But I think you have to lean into one space or the other because typically, when you are just you know, asserting confrontation, or you know your inherent correctness or whatever it is then like you're diametrically opposed to that other person and nothing else can get done.
Speaker 2:When you're coming in, when you're angry, you're like I just want to be right and not realizing you just totally butchered the goals you were going after for your pride and your ego, and that's a huge question that I often have to ask myself is how much is my ego getting in the way of, like, whatever needs to happen here, and it's a huge piece of business, piece of it. So, yeah, so our recommendation at the end of this podcast is and we get no kickback, so you know, go buy a book. The Road Less Stupid, take some time, think, and I think it'll be very powerful to kind of get through and find the right questions.
Speaker 2:I think it'll be very powerful to kind of get through and find the right questions. I think that's half of it. Sometimes I sit down and just write out questions. What are the questions I should ask myself for 20 minutes and then have other thinking sessions to think through them. And actually it's been a little bit since I've done it myself so I maybe should take my own advice. But anyhow, Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us. Thank you Bye.
