Off the Rak

Coaching Leaders to Flourish in Life and Work with Steve Graves

• Walt Rakowich

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Ready to discover what separates truly effective CEOs from those who just look good on paper?

Seasoned CEO advisor Steve Graves shares hard-won insights from three decades of coaching executive leaders. With 20 books on strategy and leadership under his belt, Steve has developed over 100 frameworks specifically designed for CEOs navigating the complex intersection of personal growth and professional demands. In this episode, Steve breaks down leadership through his unique lens of age, miles, and address, introduces his “three H’s” framework for sustainable leadership, and reveals his reverse-engineered approach to the five essential CEO tasks. Tune in for Steve’s battle-tested frameworks that could transform your leadership approach.

About the Guest

Steve Graves is a strategist, CEO advisor and author. At any given time, Steve is working with a handful of remarkable executives leading large global organizations and young, hungry entrepreneurs just starting out. He has authored twenty books and worked with thousands of leaders weaving themes of strategy, leadership and faith hoping to help people flourish in their life and work. Additionally, he co-owns a half-dozen companies ranging from next gen travel to sports media to consumer goods (CPG) ventures. When Steve is not steering notable leaders or creating fresh content and frameworks, you might find him back-casting in the cold clear rivers of Northern Arkansas or chasing an epic fishing adventure somewhere on the planet.

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Walt Rakowich:

Welcome to another episode of Off the Rak. I'm Walt Rakowich and I'm grateful to have you here as we explore what it means to practice transformative leadership Now. Steve Graves, My guest is a strategist, CEO, advisor and author with more than three decades of experience experience working across both large global organizations and frankly, scrappy startups. He co owns multiple ventures from next gen travel to sports media and consumer goods and has authored 20 books all woven with the themes of strategy, leadership and faith. As owner and chairman of Cornerstone Fulcrum Collective, the Steve coaches executive leaders and entrepreneurs toward flourishing leadership. He's Partnered with remarkable CEOs and rising founders, bringing insight and clarity through both consulting and content creation. Steve also serves on nonprofit boards like Praxis and Q, while also growing his own business ownership portfolio. His blend of coaching and and ownership experience gives him a rare vantage point on shaping both culture and enterprises. Steve lives in Northwest Arkansas, a place of cold rivers, bike trails, and perhaps just a few too many traffic jams, as he might say. He lives with his wife Karen. And when he isn't fly fishing in those clear waters, you're likely to find him spending time with his three grown children and a growing collection of grandchildren. Join us for a conversation with Steve Graves. He's a purpose driven coach who blends faith, leadership and bold ownership to help leaders flourish in life and in work. Steve Graves, I am really excited to have you on today. Really excited.

Steve Graves:

Great. Well, thanks for letting me join you guys today. My pledge, my pleasure, my honor, and gonna be fun. Thank you.

Walt Rakowich:

Absolutely. Okay, so before we get started into, you know, some of the business things that we need to talk about. I understand that we've got a little bit in common, especially our love of travel. And I've also heard and, and read in your books about the fact that you're a fisherman and you love the fish. So I would, you know, I, I don't fish nearly as much as you do, but one of my favorite adventures was a trip that I took to the Rogue river in Oregon. Actually, I've done that adventure several times and we went fishing for steelhead salmon and all that good stuff. It was a blast. Tell me about your most memorable trip or maybe if you'd like to share a bucket list, something that happened to you in fishing.

Steve Graves:

Yeah. Well, great. I have not been to the Oregon river that you've mentioned, but I would, I still have it on my list to go one day. You know, I get to go on two or three just fantastic trips every year kind of by engineering. Decided I'm just going to go one with my son and then one with a couple of buddies and then usually one with myself. So I've gotten into saltwater fly fishing a lot in the last few years and so I love chasing bonefish. That's a lot of fun for me. But I live in Arkansas where there's a tremendous fishery called the White river that has just humongous brown trout in it. And so I fish, you know, I fish probably every month for big browns. Memorable trip. Actually, my son and I went down just this year back in the early, back in May, and we did a trip down to Mexico, kind of chasing some tarpon and some permit and some bonefish at the same time and had a wonderful grand slam. It was fantastic. And. Oh, that's, that's probably one of, one of the most memorable trips I've had in a while for sure. So thanks for asking. And yes, I do love to fish. I do.

Walt Rakowich:

By the way. I didn't even bring this up, but you know, I did go on a fishing trip in Cabo where I, I actually caught 120 pound tuna.

Steve Graves:

Oh my. Now see, that's a, now that's a, that's a different level, my friend. Well, wait, get the trophy and go. That's fantastic.

Walt Rakowich:

It took a couple other guys to help me pull it in though. I will say that that's a, that's a big fish. Well, Steve, let's get into coaching a little bit. You know, first of all, I want, you know, I've worked with executive coaches during my whole career and so I know how beneficial they can be leaders. And matter of fact, I write about how beneficial coaches have been to me in my book. And I'm curious about how you got into this type of work and you know, how you define your approach to coaching high level leaders.

Steve Graves:

Yeah, thanks for asking. You know, Walt, I kind of backed into it, to be very fair and honest, Decades ago, one of my earliest business partners, and I've had tons and tons of partners since then, still the very best business partner I've ever had, hands down, the best one. He and I started a company together and it took about a year or two for me and him to realize that, that we defined a difference between consulting and coaching. And this is just our definition. We're not trying to push it on top of anyone's matrix or fabric at all. But for us, consulting was working with the company as your primary customer and then adding a little bit of value to a few individuals along the way. Coaching was working with an individual and then adding some value to the company along the way through that leader or that individual. And my original business partner migrated toward consulting and I migrated toward coaching. And so, you know, I've just been coaching CEOs and business owners and founders for the last, you know, two, three and a half decades. And, you know, my model is a little, a little bit different. You know, I'm not an industry specialist. I assume that you as a CEO really understand your industry enough for, for us to work on the things that need to be worked on. But, you know, if you've worked with the top three of the top five poultry companies of the world, you learn a little bit about chickens or eggs or something. So it's not like you don't, it's not like that. I don't have any industry depth to me, but I am not an industry specialist. What I am is I'm a CEO specialist around a couple of areas. And one of the big premises that we build is we really focus on trying to make sure that the person's formation growing at the same rate as their vocation or their work opportunities. And so if you take a infinity circle and bring it down on its horizontal plane, just think about, you know, these two circles being blended together. Well, a lot of times what happens, just one, one reason or the other, a lot of times a leader is really not growing who they are as a person at the same rate as their vocational trajectory or their path forward. And so we have a model that we've designed and I've created about 110 or 111 frameworks and models through the years that we, you know, we use to drive our coaching practice. And you know, we're not a, we're not a practice that's like whatever you need, we do. We can, you know, we're everything for everybody. That's not it. We're a highly specialized, pretty top, top tier, pretty selective kind of a model and a firm. And you know, and it's just, it's just been a great, it's been a great thing that fits who I am. Love the model. And it's been a great way for me to be able to journey alongside, you know, a CEO for a season, a stretch. I'm not the guy that embeds myself in your P and L. And you're, and you're forever saying, now what does that guy do again?

Walt Rakowich:

Or that is not us.

Steve Graves:

We work off of a dashboard. We drive things forward, we make progress, get, get it done. And Then we, you know, we shake hands and say, man, be a great friend for life, and we're out and gone. So that's kind of our model, if that makes any sense. I don't know if that's helpful, but there are so many different coaching models and, and, you know, love all kind of people doing all kind of models, but that's kind of our model.

Walt Rakowich:

So I'm kind of curious. You, you probably have coached executives, global executives, entrepreneurs, difference between those groups.

Steve Graves:

Yeah.

Walt Rakowich:

From one person to another.

Steve Graves:

Yeah. Great question. You know, I mean, there's. The answer is, yeah, there's a whole bunch of difference. You know, there's difference in wiring and personality, all that. But I think the biggest distinction would be maybe what we could. We could lock in and call this a difference in age, a difference in miles, and a difference in address. You know, the, the age difference is often different. You can still have an entrepreneur who's leading a very huge global public company, but their wiring is very entrepreneurial. They're always driving innovation, whether it's incremental or moonshot innovation. They're reinventing themselves. They're practicing the founders. You know, I mean, they're doing all kinds of stuff. Yeah, but the age is a big difference because age sometimes not all, and not certainly not by itself, but age can distinguish how you're thinking about the task of leadership, the people that are working with you, your team, the market, opportunity, the risk, a bunch of stuff like that. So age is a variable. Miles is a variable. What I mean by miles is just miles on the truck. Just miles on you. Like, like, you know, if this is your first go through with taking a company public, then that's fine. If this is your fourth company to go public, then, like, it's. Not that you're an expert, but this is not your first time through. You know, you're. You're not scrambling in a, in a compressed way, trying to get your learning curve going faster. The miles will help you with that. And, and then the last is the address. You know, if you, if you're the CEO or if you're the, you know, the leader of, Of Walmart, you know, that's one thing. And we were talking about a mutual friend of ours that you've had on your show. Mike Duke's been a longtime friend. Well, being the CEO of Walmart, and Doug is a. Is a wonderful friend, too, but I mean, being the CEO of Walmart is one address. It's another address. If you're the, you know, the CEO or the founder of A fantastic, you know, mechanical company that has, you know, 400 employees, and it's fantastic. But that, that's a different address, that's a different location of work. A lot of the similarities, but a lot of differences. And so for me, I don't really start with wiring and, you know, personality type. That does come into play. But for me, it's a little bit more about, you know, your age, maybe your miles, maybe, and then your address, like what it is the assignment is for you. Right? Now I remember, you know, I remember while I was on a panel one time in the Bay Area, California, years ago, and I actually showed up. I got there right, barely. The thing had already started. My plane got delayed and all this stuff. And so we finally landed, I jumped in, a quick trip to get over there, walked in and they were, they were working on the question of what makes the perfect CEO. And I'm less about that person looks like this and can do these things. Mine is more about that person's age, miles and their, and their, their. And their wiring, but it's more about their. Their rightly fit for the company's season they're in and the season they're going through. They. The one they're headed, you find that person still might not work, you know, but. But what that does is that takes off all of the historical competence. Like, I know you did it over there, but can you do it over here? You took that team to the national championship, but we just hired you and paid you a boatload of money. Can you take this one? Well, you don't know because this one might be in a whole different cycle or season time. So those are some of the differences in my mind of, of being a large or a different CEO here versus a CEO or an executive there.

Walt Rakowich:

Yeah, I, and I get that. That makes a heck of a lot of sense. But are there some universal truths about leadership that apply to both ends? You know, the entrepreneur, the. You know, the miles, all that. So there's some universal truths that you found.

Steve Graves:

Yeah, great, great question. I actually feel like I should be asking you because you wrote, you wrote a book, the book on leadership, for sure. So I definitely would love for you to weigh in, but, like, yes, there are some definite, definite things. There's a cultural fit for me that we just, we had to let one of our CEOs go in the holding company that I'm the executive chairman of a couple of years ago. And I remember one of the reasons was, is we thought on paper this was going to be a great Fit. But it just wasn't. It just wasn't. And a lot of times you don't know fit until after the fact. You, you, you. Now, I'm not saying you never know. And maybe you're, Maybe you're right 70% of the time, 80% of the time, but there are occasions that, that you don't know fit until someone has moved into the address, you know, and they're doing the work. And then you realize and say, oh my, this person is just, it's just not going to work. You know, and so fit is very important. And when I say fit, I mean fit the culture, fit the fits the owners, fit the family, fit the market, fit the industry. You know, there's a lot of people that jump industries and they were incredible in this industry. Very science based, very metric driven, you know, all of that. But then they jumped to a more creative, conceptual industry and they just can't make it. But you don't know that until, until they get there, you know, so fit is a very important one. Someone's what I would call philosophical or theological view of leadership. You know, that one is really important. And you know, and you and I both, you know, Walt, you have been a CEO and you also have worked with a zillion CEOs and leaders through the years. But you and I both know, I know CEOs that are really top down driven, they're the alpha dog or the alpha female dog or, you know, I mean, they are, they are very top down driven. I know some people that are very aggressive outward. I know people that are very introverted, they're quiet, they're collaborative. And so it's less about personality, but it's about the philosophical, theological, ideological view of leadership. So, for example, are people here just to make me successful? Is everyone here simply a transactional robot, even though they're humans and all that? But is their existence really here for me to be, for me to be successful on my stage? Or do I have I have I figured out my role, you know, in the drama, in the play, and I'm comfortable with it, but like it's not really about me.

Walt Rakowich:

Right.

Steve Graves:

I do play a role, you know, and so that's what I mean by that one. So those are some, those are two things that would be, you know, similar. But I'd love to hear you. I mean, I hate to put you on the spot on your own podcast, but like, you re, you play it back. I mean, like, you know, what are some similarities you've seen?

Walt Rakowich:

No, you know, I used to always say that. And you're right, sometimes it's a personality thing. But I used to always say, you know, people used to ask me, what do you look for in an interview? And I actually look for three things and I called them my three Hs. But I look for humility. You know, your, your comment that it's not about me. I look for honesty and I look for humanness. And humanness means, you know, putting others first. I don't think leaders last long term if they put themselves first, and certainly not in the corporate environment today. And so, you know, everybody has a little bit of different take on it, but those are the qualities of leaders that I looked for and, and I tried to exemplify. It's hard, I mean, it's, it's hard to not every once in a while get caught up in your own success and, and brutal honesty is sometimes very difficult, especially when you're managing people. But I found that those, those are three characteristics of some of the best leaders that I've ever seen.

Steve Graves:

Love it. And, and to your original question, those would apply regardless of someone's age, someone's address, like whether you're working on that side of the street in a massive global company. Complicated. Yeah. You're working on this side of the street, you know, in a chain of restaurants and whatever. I mean, like, I completely agree that that would be universally applicable to a leader across the board.

Walt Rakowich:

So one of your books goes into detail about the five tasks that every senior leader needs to do. I guess I would ask you, was that in response to something your clients were dealing with or. And which of those tasks the leaders struggle with the most?

Steve Graves:

Yeah, great question. The answer is emphatically yes. Everything that I've written and all of the stuff that I've created generally is from the street back. I'm not a classroom out guy. And it's not because, I mean, I'm not the smartest person in the room. I'm not the dumbest either. And so I don't. I like researching. I love reading, but I'm not a, I'm not an, I'm not an academic kind of moving conceptual theory out, trying to figure out how it might be applied. I'm a guy that's living out. I'm interfacing with CEOs, maybe not every day anymore, but a lot every week. And, and I'm. And I'm real time testing things that I'm trying over and over and over. And so the five tasks actually came kind of in reverse engineering from the streets after I'd worked with CEOs for a few years and I finally sat down and said, wow, I'm saying the same thing over and over. I might as well throw that into a book. The five tasks are this. Now, there's a whole world of leadership about building who you are, the being part of a leader. And that's not what I'm addressing in this one. In this one, I'm addressing what it is your seat requires you to do if you're sitting in the CEO seat, regardless of your enneagram type. Doesn't matter. The seat requires you to do at least these five things. Now, in a big public company, there's a few things layered on.

Walt Rakowich:

I get that.

Steve Graves:

But I'm reducing it to the bare minimum. The minimum list of things is to set direction. We're going there, not there. And for these reasons, okay, set speed. You don't set the speed of the market. No company sets the speed of the market. They might set it for just a minute with an innovation or a product or something, but the market sets its own speed. I mentioned Walmart. I live in Northwest Arkansas. Walmart's up the street. Love that company, love the people there. But I mean, they're not. They're not setting the speed of E Commerce. Amazon's not setting the speed of E commerce. Your company is setting the speed that you're going to relate to the speed of the market. And so the leader's job is to set direction, set speed, set risk. I'm going to risk all of my farm. I'm going to risk half of my farm. I'm going to risk your farm. I've talked to you in a way to putting your farm up for my idea. So I'm. But you got to. You got to set risk, set resources. And even though resources are a plethora of things, I usually reduce it to three kind of things in the toolbox. It's people, money, and structure. If you set those things up correctly, if you get those three, that's kind of your hammer, your screwdriver, and your pliers or whatever way you want to call the big. The big three in the toolbox. So it set direction, speed, risk, resources and culture. And culture. You know, we all know a lot about culture there, but it's your job to set it. The question of which one is the easiest and hardest, I think depends on a number of variables. It depends on who I am and how I'm wired. It depends on what season and cycle the market is asking or the investors or the opportunities are asking for my company to excel through and in, you know, that's another one. And then, and then it, it might be, depending on what it is I'm really trying to, to get done, I might have to elevate up or down. So in my practice all through the years, you know, we would take every quarter, we would set a scorecard for these five. For every CEO you're going to set the scorecard and then we would look that you would benchmark and trend pattern them over the course of the year. And in one quarter you might, you know, you might be worried about speed and, and that might be the one that you really need to say, hey, I need, I need a, I need us to run faster in this industry of becoming, you know, an integrated this or whatever. You know, whatever. And so it, it for me, and I hate to, I'm not trying to weasel out of the question, but they're really, it's totally dependent on some variables that are driving the organization in the market at the time of your leadership. Does that make, does that make sense?

Walt Rakowich:

Totally.

Steve Graves:

Yep.

Walt Rakowich:

Absolutely.

Steve Graves:

I mean, with that. Does that so. Well, again, your experience would that, that rings true with, with the way you would think about a, you know, a CEO setting those five things.

Walt Rakowich:

It does. I actually find that the last one, setting culture, is probably the most difficult. Not for me, but I think for a lot of leaders that. Well, me too. I mean, it's not easy and you know, you can get the direction, you can get the speed and you get the risk and maybe the resources are a little more difficult. But setting the culture is really. And so that everybody is working, you know, in the, in the same direction is easier said than done, I think.

Steve Graves:

Yeah, no, I completely agree. And we, and we know, we know, you know, research proves and shows that if you can ever get the culture into kind of what its potential aspirational idea is, the culture can become an incredible asset. I mean, it's like having a, you know, it's like having a line of credit with no, no ceiling on it or something. It has incredible upsides for a CEO to be able to wield and shift and move and lead and then sustaining and reanimating that culture, you know, year over year, three years over three years. Especially in fast moving organizations. That becomes almost like a Groundhog day where you say to yourself, we just did this. But you got to say, but look at all that. You know, 30% of our hires are new or whatever it is, you know, or we just open up a new Division on the west coast or whatever. And so having to reanimate that and refocus yet on that same thing over and again, you know, that becomes, often that can become a fatiguing thing for leaders because, you know, I have seen leaders get up for the first run, the first, you know, it's the first few miles of the Culture Marathon. But then it's like that mile, you know, mile 19, way out there, year seven, still saying culture is what it is and what it should be. And when you begin to move CEOs, you know, cycle in and out or whatever, it, it's never, it's never, It's a never ending. To your point, it's a never ending task. Yeah. Leader to set them. And just so you know, in the book, you know, when I say set, I mean set like set like a volleyball and a volleyball tournament, or set like a, a fence post in the, in a, you know, a gate. It's, it's, you know, you're. When you can set it top down, bottom up in the middle and go both ways, but it just has to, it has to be set. And, and the miss the misnomer is if you don't set it, it just won't happen. That's not true. You know, if, if you're in my company and I'm the CEO and you're in my company and I don't set it, I promise you, you will. Now, you might be you because you're, that's who you are. You're not some guy. Now, we might have trouble, but I mean, you know, and so it's a CEO's job to make sure it's in place, that it's being done, you know, and so, you know, I, I completely agree. Culture is a. Culture is often the hardest for people to maintain. The, the rebuilding and the, and the.

Walt Rakowich:

Animating of it or said in the first place, because sometimes it sets itself.

Steve Graves:

Great point, great insight. Completely agree.

Walt Rakowich:

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna switch gears just a little bit. Steve, you know, in, in recent years, you've not only coached execs, but you've gotten involved as a co owner in some ventures, I think, grocery delivery, outdoor adventures, sports media, all these companies. First of all, how does being an entrepreneur across all these industries shape your coaching approach? Do you, Are you coaching yourself?

Steve Graves:

Probably. And I probably let my, my clients coach me when I'm at my other hat. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I do have the fortunate privilege of being. I'm the executive chairman of a holding company. Primarily cpg. It's primarily consumer product goods. And we live in northwest Arkansas and Walmart, so it's an easy place to be for that. But, you know, probably about 12 to 15 years ago, you know, Walt, I backed into owning some companies and being the primary partner, either the financial partner or the strategic partner or the scale partner or whichever term happened to fit at the time with the person, and then was able to get in and get out of some things, which then allowed me to continue thinking about, you know, was this something I really liked. And one of the things I never. One of the things I always wanted to do is I wanted to make sure I was not just a theorist with ideas. Even though. And I'm not. This is not a sideways slap at counselors or other coaches or consultants at all. Got huge, Huge. I mean, you know, I had a heart. I had a heart attack eight years ago, one stint in. To my knowledge, my heart surgeon, who's a great friend of mine, has never had a heart surgery. So this is not one of those that until you've been in the CEO seat or until you've owned the company out, you don't really know anything. It's not that. But that said, you know, in the world of business enterprise, owning companies has allowed me to carry the weight, you know, of the payroll and the, and the financing. It's allowed me to be involved in the hard questions, not just as a, you know, as somebody riding in the right seat of the, of the cockpit, but being in the left seat where the pilot sits. And you, you have to answer, are we, are we not flying through this thing or whatever? And so it's been really, really helpful for me and growing me as, as a person. And one more thing on that, it's really, it's really refined my ability to be a partner. And I'm a partner guy. There's some people about wiring. They're sole proprietors, some people are corporate by their wiring. You know, I'm a partner guy by my wiring. And so I've had just lots and lots of partners and it's been a great place for me to, you know, kind of refine my own self growth and development as a person.

Walt Rakowich:

So, yeah, I think, I think it's, I think it's fantastic that you're also seeing the other side of things. And I think it probably helps you, you round out the way that you think, especially when you, you've had to go through it yourself.

Steve Graves:

Yeah, I, I think it does. I, you know, to be, you know, Walt, to Be really, really frank. I probably, I probably can slide into my coaching hat pretty easy sometimes, but, but it holds the tension, it holds me in tension in places that if I really want to grow and continue developing as a person, you know, I, I have a chance right there. I got a chance right there, you know, and so yeah, thanks for the question. It's a, I, I don't, a lot of people, I don't get that question that often, but it's a, it's a good question and it's, and it fits who I am as a person. It's been a ton of, ton of fun and we haven't won on all of them. I mean, you know, we've lost, you know, until you've written off a few companies, it's kind of like, wow, you know, it's easy to recommend somebody just shut it down and take a loss and get to the next one. But like when you have to hit, hit a hit, exit on a few of those that you read the, maybe the majority on or something's like, okay, here we go. Is this really going to happen?

Walt Rakowich:

Oh, I know. I, hey, let's look. There's nothing, there's nothing more significant than experiencing it yourself.

Steve Graves:

Right? So, totally.

Walt Rakowich:

So again, switch gears a little bit. One of your books is called Flourishing and Oh yeah, you, and in that book you explore thriving both personally and professionally, which I think is a huge challenge for leaders these days, you know, at least sometimes for me is like I'm either all in or I'm not in at all.

Steve Graves:

Right.

Walt Rakowich:

It's kind of, and you know, finding the times when you're all in and not in at all and being able to do both is not easy. But I just kind of curious, what does flourishing look like for you? And, and you know, how do you know when you've arrived there?

Steve Graves:

Yeah, well, I, I, you know, I think I, I think what I try to do in the book and what I, what I really believe is, you know, and remember my, my theory of writing, you know, you know, it's, I'm not some self prescribed expertise at something. I'm just a guy who took enough time to slow down and capture my thinking in a book and then I'm going to go on down. But the thinking's been, it's been, it's, you know, it's been curated from the street, from other really wise, really smart people. And I just began to watch people and look at people that I really admire, that they were flourishing both in their work life and in their personal Life to some degree and begin asking myself what is it that they're doing? And than distill it all down. And so the book outlines some of the things I saw them doing. The really funny part of that whole book is the thesis of that book I completely left out. But it's in some. In the next printing I'll make it back in. And the thesis of flourishing is right thinking plus wise living over time. So that's if you're going to have a formula of what it looks like to flourish. It's why it's right living bundled with right thinking. Excuse me, Right thinking bundled with wise living. That means living out the. That means being actionable with your right thinking and then letting that cook over time. You know, Letting. Letting that cook. And so let me give you an example. In the flourishing book, I built out a model and a framework that I've been using for 30 years. I try to apply it to myself. I don't always do a great job, but it's the. It's the model called living out. Chasing and living out a composite scorecard of life. The composite scorecard of life simply means there's a bunch of things that are important to you all at the same time. I mean, anybody can live. This is only the only thing I live for and nothing else matters. I'm going to run marathons and I don't care about anything. Don't care about my family, don't care about my. About my money, don't care about my boss. I don't care. I mean anybody do that. The question is, is can I run a marathon? Can I still be a good family man? Oh, by the way, I just had three kids. Three small kids that my wife would love for me to be involved in. It's not me, I'm a granddad. But as an example, you know, and oh, by the way, I got three partners that really expect me to grow the company forward that they just put money into. I mean, can I do all those things at one time in parallel fashion giving energy and fuel to the one at the moment that really needs it. So chasing a composite scorecard, that is what right thinking looks like for success. If success is a one dimensional, you know, mountain out there, then that's. That's wrong thinking. So if I have right thinking and then I'm somehow converting that into wise living and I'm. And I'm running that play over time, there's a pretty good chance that I will find myself. Whenever I sit down and look in the mirror, I'm not going to be completely unhappy now. That doesn't mean that I don't have tragedy. It doesn't mean everything was up and to the right. It doesn't mean that, you know, my bank account just kept going up and up and up and up. It doesn't mean that there's not blood on the table with some relationships or something. But I will not be sitting there with massive regrets, you know. You know, and all of that, because I will. I will have lived a life of flourishing if I get those things lined up so now. So the question of is, you know, do. Am I living it? My answer is, I'm trying to. And some weeks, months, years are probably better than others with benchmarking, but, you know, I'm trying to, like, I, I got a bunch of stuff going on as a businessman. I've got six grandkids that are really little. I love to fish. I got a bunch of business partners. And so, you know, I got a wife that we still love to travel. And so the question is, can I chase that as a portfolio composite mentality? And you can't do it just one at a time because they're all live, they're all real at the same time. So that's an example.

Walt Rakowich:

You know, I love that somebody recently told me, life is like an investment portfolio, and there's a plethora of things that you have to do. And the question is, in any one day, which, which are you going to overweight and underweight? And you must think of it that way. And, and. But he who does invest in a portfolio, diversified portfolio, ultimately wins down the road. And so it's just a question of how do you allocate your time?

Steve Graves:

Absolutely.

Walt Rakowich:

Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of that. So, Steve, you. You've spent much of your life exploring the connection between theology and leadership. And some of your books, including the Gospel Goes to Work and your most recent book, Radical Stewardship, you know, look, they dive pretty deeply into the spiritual dimensions of leadership. and that's near dear to my heart, I'll be honest with you. But what, you know, what are some of the ways that you encourage leaders to integrate faith authentically into their daily business practices? Do you, do you some, you know, what if. What if someone just doesn't simply want to believe?

Steve Graves:

Yeah.

Walt Rakowich:

Or have faith? You know, how do you, how do you deal with those things?

Steve Graves:

Well, yeah, and thanks. Thanks for the fair question and setting it up in a fair way. You know, I mean, I don't lead with my faith. I'm Not a guy that's. I'm not the Christian CEO, you know, coach. I mean, there are out there organizations that, that's what they do, and that's fantastic. So I don't lead with that. But, you know, my faith shapes and informs every single thing that I do. I try to, I hope it does, you know, and, and so, you know, it starts off just making sure that someone really does understand that their faith and their work are not two separate worlds, that they really do live in the same, you know, sector, the same quadrant. They're supposed to, we're supposed to be fully integrated people. Now the good news about founders, owners, CEOs is the higher you get in the organization, the more integrated and baked in life can be. If somebody's trying to do that, if they're trying to segment and become fractional and compartmentalized, you can do that. You can pull that off at any, in any level. So I try to make sure somebody realizes that, you know, the faith element and the spiritual element is part of who we are as humans and people. And to discount that is kind of, it's like, it's like discounting, you know, your health or your relationships or your family or something. Now that said, you know, what happens after that is depending on the person and depending on, you know, what the opportunity and the assignment is in my coaching task with that, them. With some people, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll bleed my faith language and stuff a lot more easily and clearly with them. But others, others, you know, I'll hold it, but it's still at work. It's still working itself through. And I remember I had, years and years ago, I had this CEO of a public company, a technology company, and he was this incredibly educated dude. I mean, I'm not going to go, I'm not going to list it in case, you know, he ever would hear this. But like, he, you give me a credential. If you think an MBA from Harvard or Stanford is important, check. If you think a doctorate in business from an international school in Europe, check. I mean, just, dude had, he had a brain like 10 times bigger than mine. It was like he was, he had everything, you know, and he was not a Christian, but one year during the holidays, I remember we were sitting in his office and. And I would fly to this certain city. We'd spend a long two and a half, three hour lunch once a month together. And I remember he wheeled his chair around and I had his back. He had his back to me like this. And I Was like, okay, all right, what's happening here? And he was looking out this big glass window, and he said, hey, man, can I ask you a personal question? And I said, well, sure. I mean, like, that's what we are doing here. Like, yeah. And. And he said, I don't know how to ask you. I said, come on, man. We've been working together for a couple of years. Just. Just grab me and jump in. No, we're not going to drown. Jump in. So dude starts tearing up a little bit, which I'd never seen him, never, ever had that level of that kind of emotion. He had motion, but. And he said, hey, man. He said, I got a. I got a. I got a. I got a few kids. And specifically, I've got. I've got two boys, and one of them loves me and one of them hates me. And he said, I just don't even know what to do with the one that hates me, you know? And so we dug deep into that. Well, here's the. Here's what I'm trying to tell you, okay? It was impossible for my faith not to show up in that. Impossible, because my faith was helping me shape how I think about parenting and children and faith and hope and. And relationships and being vulnerable and all of that stuff. So, you know, my faith. My faith is central to what I do and who I am, but it doesn't. It doesn't come out in the same. You know, it's not the same menu item, regardless of who you are and what it is we're doing. But, you know, and I. And I don't. You know, and I'm. Look, I'm still growing tremendously and developing in my own faith journey. You know, I am not the guy I was 20 years ago or even 10 years ago in my own faith journey. I'm still learning a lot and applying and trying to figure out, does the Bible have anything to say about discrete elements that drive the. The modern markets that I. That I work in? You know, pick a topic and ask. And I'm still trying to figure that out some, so don't know if that helps any or answers your question, but that's how I think about it.

Walt Rakowich:

No, it does. You know, when I was running the company, I one time stood up in front of them. I used to say this quite a bit, but I remember the first time I said it. I used to say, you know, guys, we're going through a really difficult time right now. And I said, you know, adversity leads to perseverance and perseverance builds character. And somebody came up to me afterward and he said, when? Where'd you get that from? I said, oh, it's, It's. It's in Romans in the Bible.

Steve Graves:

I'm just.

Walt Rakowich:

I sure. I sure didn't come up with it, but it really is a great idea.

Steve Graves:

Eight is pretty solid. It's pretty. It's pretty solid truth.

Walt Rakowich:

It's pretty solid truth. So. All right, so, Steve, you're. You're now in what I think you refer to as season 6.0 of your life. I love that God only knows what 1 through 5 is. But anyway, what do you. What do you mean by that? And like, you know, what's next for you in this season?

Steve Graves:

Yeah, I don't know what's next exactly. What I did is, you know, I made my. I had the reason for. I had a reason that I needed to sit down and I needed to actually bring language to the seasons of my, of my career and my work and my life and stuff like that. And, and so, you know, I'll turn 70 this December. And, you know, I'm in the 6.0 season, and I've been in it for, you know, probably four or five years now, but the 6.0 season for me is the season that. And. And I put words against each season, which was helpful for me. You know, I'm just a. I'm just kind of a. A content farmer. I'm always doodling and creating stuff, you know, and so I put some words against the 6.0 season. And the words that I'm using that frame this season are words like harvest, words like transfer, you know, words like impact, words like legacy, words like enjoyment and satisfaction, you know, which is a really. It's a. It's a. It's a really kind of a squirrely word, but it sits right in the middle to you, to use your point that you just made, it sits right in the middle of Ecclesiastes and says, satisfaction is actually a gift from the Lord. And so, you know, instead of me always having this, you know, gotta. I gotta push and climb another mountain. I'm trying to. I'm. I'm trying to enjoy more satisfaction to life. And so, you know, now if you ask my wife, she'd say, I. I don't know how good you're doing it, you know, laying in the plane on a few things. But. But I'm in the harvest season. I mean, I'm harvesting. I'm not starting a bunch of brand new things. That doesn't mean I'm not doing anything new, but I'm not, you know, I'm in the harvest and I'm transferring. You know, we added a managing partner to our coaching firm. My son, after a little stint in some business and entrepreneur stuff, joined us and a couple, two or three other people. And I would have never done that by myself, you know, but I'm transferring a lot of stuff to them. So, you know, that's the season. That's the 6.0 season that I'm in. And it's. And it's overlaid with more and more time for, you know, my wife, my family, my grandkids, you know, we spend a lot of time with our grandbabies, and. And then when I can, I try to go fishing, you know, I understand.

Walt Rakowich:

You know, the, the book that I wrote was. Is called Transfluence Being Transformation. Transformationally Influential in the Lives of Other People. And I think that's the season that I'm in as well, which is to say that I. I want to be transformatively influential, I should say, in the lives of other people around me. I. And I didn't feel that way when I was in my 30s and 40s, but I certainly feel that way now. So I'm. I'm kind of with you on that.

Steve Graves:

Yeah, I, you know, and I, I, Yeah, I know. I know you. I know you could use all those terms. I know you could. You could talk on all those terms because I know they're relevant to you, who you are and where your own season is. But, like, to your point, you know, just take. Take your one word of transformative leadership. You know, I'm not saying that nobody in their 30s thinks about it, and that would be unfair and certainly totally blind and arrogant on my part, because that's just not true. But you don't think about it, you know, think about the age miles and address thing again, you know, you don't think about transformative leadership then, like, you think about it now, you know, in my season, you know, or yours. And so I love that. That language and that clarity for. For this season of life.

Walt Rakowich:

So I have one more question for you, and I ask everybody of this before we wrap up. The question is, what single purpose are you most passionate about pursuing? And perhaps you've answered that. I don't know, but I'm. But I am curious.

Steve Graves:

Yeah.

Walt Rakowich:

What purpose are you. Are you. Are you kind of passionate about living today?

Steve Graves:

About. Yeah. Well, you know, that. Again, a really good question, a hard question for a guy like me. Really, really hard. Because I am a generalist. I do live life as a portfolio leader, to your point earlier, and I just got a lot of things going on, but probably, you know, I think the book I just wrote on student stewardship, and then I'm writing a book right now on aging with, with, with joy, grace and purpose and just about finished with it. And I, I think, I think the big thing for me is the 6.0 season. I'm really trying to, you know, I'm trying to do, I'm trying to do what it is I said I really wanted to try to do. Not just, not just, you know, put it on the wall somewhere, but then live a life that's completely over here, completely different. Like, I'm really trying to transfer and I'm trying to really harvest and I'm trying to, you know, trying to live a satisfied, fulfilled life, you know, with, with what's in front of me and what I have. And so I, if, if you just push me hard and, and had I had to answer, I'd say I'm really, I'm really trying to lock in and, and, and live out the stuff that I've identified in the 6.0 season for my life today.

Walt Rakowich:

You know, that's kind of where I, that's beautiful. Well, Steve, I can just tell you that I'm really thankful that you joined me today on this episode of off the Rack. Really grateful to you and again, I just like to tell you how much I enjoy talking to you and I love where your heart is and just thanks. What can I say? Great.

Steve Graves:

Let me be here. And I, I, I, I, I enjoyed it actually equally as much. I always love meeting, meeting people that I can learn some stuff from. And you know, your spirit and heart kind of reflects. I, I know, I know what it looks like to have worked with you and for you, you know, as an employee. So thanks for the CEO demonstration that you've been making all your life. So. Yeah. And appreciate you letting me be with you.

Walt Rakowich:

Great to have you on, Steve. And I will remember direction, set speed, set risk, set resources, and set culture. Probably the most difficult thing for most of us.

Steve Graves:

Yeah. Thanks for letting me join you.

Walt Rakowich:

You bet. And I'd like to thank everybody also who tuned in today. You can always find more insights from our guests in the Off the Rak plus newsletter. Follow Off the Rak on your podcast. Your favorite platform. Leave Leave a review. Share this episode with somebody in need it, you know. And until next time, I encourage all of you to be human with one another, most importantly, and find a way to have a positive influence on somebody around you each and every day. Thank you, everybody.