Gamify Business Tavern Tales- Chip Scholz- The Forcing Cut

Most creative entrepreneurs know the feeling. You push harder. You take on more. You underprice to get the work, overdeliver to keep it, and tell yourself it's just paying dues. You force the cut.

On a lathe, forcing the cut destroys the piece. The wood splinters. The bowl cracks. Patient work ruined in a moment of impatience.

Chip Scholz learned this lesson twice — once in the woodshop, and once when a stroke stopped him cold and forced him to rebuild everything from scratch.

In this episode of Gamify Business Tavern Tales, Chip shares what nearly thirty years of executive coaching, a life-changing health crisis, and a woodturning practice taught him about building something that actually lasts. The answer isn't more hustle. It's learning when not to force the cut — on the lathe, in business, and in yourself.

If you've been grinding harder and getting further from where you want to be, this conversation is the reset you didn't know you needed.

🍺 CONNECT WITH CHIP:

https://www.ScholzAndAssociates.com
https://a.co/d/09sLyfNS (Small Decisions, Big Shifts book on Amazon)

🎮 CONNECT WITH GAMIFY BUSINESS:

Website: https://gamifybusiness.com

Take the Quiz: https://gamifybusiness.com/quiz

Book a Call: https://oncehub.com/GamifyBusiness60MinCall
📚 PAUL'S BOOKS:

The Creative Player's Handbook to Business- https://gamifybusiness.com/handbook

The Creative Player's Workbook- https://gamifybusiness.com/workbook

The Game Master's Guide to Business- https://gamifybusiness.com/game-masters-guide

Quit Selling Your Shit!- https://gamifybusiness.com/quit-selling

The Bard's Guide to Storycraft- https://gamifybusiness.com/storycraft
Business is an adventure. Don't be an NPC.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome, fellow adventurer, to Gamify Business Tavern Tales, a place to discover the roads less traveled on your creative journey. Welcome back to the Tavern, fellow adventurers. I'm Paul Pape, your barkeep and game master. So tonight we have a craftsman at the tavern, and I mean that literally. He turns bowls on a lathe. But what he learned at that lathe saved his life and transformed his business. So let me tell you about the forcing cut. This trap doesn't look dangerous. It looks like ambition, like hustle, like paying your dues. It whispers that the answer to every problem is more, more hours, more clients, more pressure, more speed, push harder, force the results. You'll rest when you've made it. But on a lathe, forcing the cut destroys the piece. The wood splinters, the bull can crack. Patient work ruined by a moment of impatience. Chip Joles learned that lesson the hard way, not just on the lathe, but in his own body. You see, he was a successful executive coach, moving fast, traveling constantly, ignoring physical limits, and then a stroke stopped him cold. That interruption became an unexpected gift. It forced Chip to rebuild everything his health, his practice, his definition of success, one small decision at a time. He went from underpricing and over-delivering, from chasing someone else's definition of success to building something sustainable, something he could stay in for the long haul. So today, after nearly 30 years working with leaders and organizations, Chip has coaches and writes with a different measure of success, purpose over profit, sustainability over speed, and work that honors both results and the people responsible for them. His book, Small Decisions, Big Shifts, captures what he learned about navigating life on your own terms. But what makes Chip's story perfect for this tavern is the wood turning. Because the lathe taught him something most business advice never will. You can't rush the cut. You can't force the grain. And if you push too hard, you ruin the piece, yourself included. Chip, welcome to the tavern. So what did the lathe teach you that business school never could?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

You know, it's interesting you say that because uh um today the uh um the new book came out and it's called Um Every Dog Has Its Day, Reflections on Life, Love, and the Lathe. And that's exactly what I talk about about talking uh about, you know, when you're forcing the cut, when you have not taken the time to sharpen, and I'm talking about sharpen your mind, sharpen the tool, sharpen everything. Uh, when you when you've taken that when you haven't taken the time, it's gonna hurt you. It's going to cause some stress, it's gonna cause some pain, and uh um, and it just leads to bad results.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Absolutely. Absolutely. So you've talked about underpricing, over-delivering, and telling yourself it was just paying dues. So before the stroke, what did the forcing cut actually look like in your life and business? What were you pushing past that you should have been paying attention to?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Well, let me give you a little bit more background. Um, so I I got laid off of uh a pretty good job in in May of '98, and uh, we decided to move cross-country, move from LA to uh um to North Carolina, and I opened a business because I would have wanted I always wanted to hang my own shingle, and uh um I didn't really quite know what that meant, but I know I didn't want to work for anybody else at that time. And uh um, you know, the first five years were tough. The first five years were uh if you call it paying your dues. I mean, it was doing mostly um local work, and uh um when when you have when you're not charging enough, you get the kind of clients that are attracted to you not charging much. You know, it's it's like if if you're if you're selling a drink for a buck versus selling a drink for God, you've been to uh bars lately and and a good drink will cost you 20, 25 bucks. Uh, but when you're charging a buck, you're gonna get a certain kind of clientele. And uh, and so uh that was the world I was living in. And uh and along the way, um I found a uh an organization called the International Warehouse Logistics Association, uh, a uh group of people that owned logistics companies around the country, and that took me nationwide, and that really propelled me forward. Um the good news is that uh um I had somebody who is extremely supportive of me, a guy named Joel Anderson, who was the executive director at the time. And he asked me to go along with him at a lot of regional meetings, and and so that led to a lot of travel. You know, one one particular week, I was in Newark on uh on Monday, um Atlanta on Tuesday, Dallas on on Wednesday, and LA on Friday, and then uh back home on Saturday. And and by the way, all the uh all the flights were late except for the one coming back on on Saturday. And uh um, and you know, I I was just I I was running and gunning, running as hard as I could. Um I I wasn't getting much sleep. I I was yeah, I'd let my physicality get completely out of control, and uh, and I had the stroke, and and um, you know, it caused you to retool, it caused you to want to do everything better. Uh you know, one one of the things that came out of the stroke was you know, I wanted to be healthy, and and I had to define what healthy was, and uh um and once I defined what healthy was, that's um you know, that's where I went. Um and so so I I think to get back to the premise of your original question, it it it just caused it caused a shift in a whole lot of things. And by the way, um one of those things was um uh was finding the lathe. My wife bought me a lathe for uh for Christmas, the year following the stroke, and I just took to it.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Excellent, excellent. So a stroke is about as dramatic of a stop sign as the universe can send somebody. So when you were in recovery, forced to be still, what started to become clear about how you'd been working? What did you see that you couldn't see while you were moving so fast?

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Sleeping five hours a night and uh and thinking that was normal, um not taking care of myself, not not eating right, not uh well I I was I was exercising a little, but uh but just you know, I I I didn't pay attention to anything but getting the work done. And uh you know, I was uh I was billing in the seven figures, but uh um you know it was it was killing me. So uh um you know that's that's that's how I had to get under control.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Absolutely absolutely. So now you're a wood turner and you've drawn a direct parallel between the lathe and leadership, which I love. It causes, or you need patience, humility, and learning when not to force the cut. But for creative entrepreneurs who are grinding, hustling, pushing harder every single day, what does the lathe teach about building something that lasts?

SPEAKER_02 7:46

My uh my dad gave me a postcard years and years ago. Um, yeah, I think I was eight or ten years old when he gave me the postcard. And it was called the water cure. And basically said, you know, stick your hand in a bucket of water, flush it around as much as you want, take it out and look for the hole that's left. And I don't know if he was teaching me a lesson about humility or if he was, you know, he was trying to keep a I I really wasn't a gifted athlete, and I certainly wasn't a great student. And so um, you know, I don't know if he was trying to keep me humble that way, but he gave that to me, and and years later I found it. And uh um and and it came at a perfect time in my business where I was really performing like crazy, but not getting much meaning out of it, and and it caused me to rethink, you know, look, if if I wasn't gonna be remembered, if if people took the uh hand out of the water and look for the hole that that uh was there, and that's how much I'm gonna be missed. Okay, so what is it that I can give of value that will make people's lives get better? And and that doesn't matter whether it's uh um turning wood or it's uh it's coaching or or any of the other things I do. Um I just want people's lives to get better. I mean, one of the things that I do with um wood turning is I've been wood turning long enough that I'm teaching wood turning now, and I do wood turning 101, which is taking a bunch of noobs and walking them through and telling them what the parts of a lathe are, and talk about basic safety and talk about basic cuts and that kind of thing. And uh um and that just you know, that's some of the things that that fulfill me because it's not really important that they remember who I am. Although I do remember one of my very first teachers, and I talk to him every once in a while. But but it's more important that they take that love for the craft forward. And that that's the way I feel about everything I do.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I think that's actually a brilliant analogy there. And uh, I play a very similar role in this. And people ask me, you know, they're like, oh, you go and you do the coaching or you do the the workshops and stuff, and it's like you you're there to to lead. I'm like, I'm not there to lead. I'm there to be the old man in the cave that kind of hinds you a sword and says it's dangerous outside, take this. You want to be the person who gives the advice, but have them do the work because they're gonna grow so much more if you don't tell them what to do, if you give them the tools and have them be able to make those decisions. And I think that's really awesome that you came to that as well.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Let me ask you a question. Sure. In your mind, what does relevance mean?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Okay, so in terms of like your life having relevance, it's yeah, it's about for me, I think that relevance means leaving leaving the world just a little bit better than when you when you got there. It's being able to say something or do something that has resonance through humanity for the right reasons, hopefully. You know, so for me that's what that's what the answer is. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah, you know, relevance to me is not knowing who the latest TikToker is, but uh um it's to it's to think and and to be able to write and to be able to communicate some of the things that are are important to other people so so that they can take uh what I've got to offer and and make it hum. You know, because the one thing you learn about coaching, and and the one thing you learn about wood turning, wood turning is a pretty solitary profession. I mean, there's not a lot of of you can't it's not a group sport. It's not, you know, it's you and the lathe and a chisel, and that's pretty much it. And even if you're giving a demonstration, you know, part of what you've got to do is get out of your head and in into the world, which is really difficult for a lot of people, and that's why they don't do demonstrations. But uh it's it's you know, it's the same kind of thing. It's it's um it's how do you translate what is in your head to be able to help people, and and that's what relevance is all about, is is I don't want to be again, I don't want to be known for knowing the latest TikToker. I I could care less. I I know who Taylor Swift is. Okay, you can't can't avoid the Swifties, but uh um but I'm not I'm not uh I mean you know I know who Billy Eilish is, but I don't care.

unknown 12:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

You know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

It's I mean it's it's fair. And and I think I think there's some there's some depth to that as well, because the stuff that that you're talking about, the is it's vapid. I think vapid is the right word. It's it's but it has no presence, has no permanence to it. Right. And I think that what you're talking about is leaving the world with some permanence, uh even though we are not permanent people.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah, yeah. I recently one of the politicians said uh um the current president is temporary. Well, we're all temporary, you know. That's uh um every dog has his day. The the reason I wrote that is because I've said that for many years. When I when I meet somebody or I hear of a politician that is just a jerk, and and I know that every dog has his day. So it's it's kind of it's kind of a two-in-one. Um, every dog has his day. Well, everybody has their 15 minutes of fame, according to Andy Warhol, right? And and so you know, that may be 15 minutes or maybe 15 years, but everybody's got their time of of uh relevance, if you will. You know, because because we're all gonna die, we're all gonna be dust. And so, and so, you know, I don't say that to be morbid, I say that to be humbling, I say that to be grounding.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Well, there's well, there's without the without impending death, there's no meaning. Like they ask everybody's what's the meaning of life? And the meaning of life is death. Like, you gotta make with what the time, you know, gotta make use of with the time that you have here. So that's the meaning right there. It's like, so do with it as you will, because there's not unfortunately like a game, there's not a leveled redo, you know, you get the one life and that's it. So yeah, absolutely. Make the best of the situation that you have and you know, uh attack it with gusto. I love it. Like the cash line for this whole thing is you know, life is an adventure. Don't be an NPC, you know, don't be a non-playable character, be the hero of your own adventure. So you wrote a book and it's called Small Decisions, Big Shifts. You also have a second book that just came out. So most entrepreneurs are looking for the big move instead of the small one, the breakthrough, the pivot, the one thing that changes everything. But you're suggesting it's actually the small, quiet decisions that compound. So, what does that look like in practice? What small decisions made the biggest difference in your rebuild?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Um purpose was one, and call it vision, if you will, with uh um, you know, with corporate America, but uh um uh having a having a solid purpose, and I'm not talking about like uh, you know, I'm going to uh um go off with the uh the gurus in India and learn to learn my purpose. Oh, spiritual leader, please tell me my purpose. I don't mean by that. Um I I've got a pretty simple purpose. It's I live to develop people, and uh, and the reason is that uh um it's people, not just others, because you can't give what you don't have, so I've got to be the best I can be to help others develop themselves. Doesn't matter whether it's wood turning or or coaching or or any other part of life. I want people to be the best they can possibly be, and uh and I want to help them be the best they can possibly be by being the best I can possibly be. So so per that's that's first. Second of all is having a clear set of core values. You know, what are the lines you're not going to cross? Um one of uh one of my current clients um and uh in a favorite company of mine, um their core values are team, excellence, service, and trust. And it's not just words on a wall, it's not just a um, you know, a catch line. Um they live it. And uh, and so you know, everything they do is is teamwork. They're a construction company, and and so they're a design-build construction company, so it's even more of a of a team. Um, everything they do is with excellence, they take the time to to um define it and uh um service, it's service to others, and and trust is uh trust is the key word. Um, and we talk a lot about trust. Um, I I coach a number of people over there, and I I run a uh um a training program, a leadership program, and uh and we talk a lot about trust. So, so core values are extremely important. You know, one of mine is continuous learning, and uh um, and so it's it's constantly reading and and writing and you know getting better at your craft or whatever that craft is. So I those are some of the small decisions. I mean, they they may feel small at the time, uh, they're big when when it uh when it works, uh but most businesses don't go out and hire a hundred people right away. No, you know, unless they want to burn through a lot of VC cash, uh and and that's great. If if they've got you know 22 22 million dollars to to open a business, I mean I think that's great. Um but usually it's like you hire two or you hire five and you learn and then it grows a little bit more, and it grows a little bit more. It's the small decisions you make every day that that says, okay, how am I living my purpose? And am I am I living the values that I've set forward?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, I think that's great. I think a lot of people don't recognize that when you're building a foundation for a company or for even your own self, that the foundation is not one slab. It's made up of millions and millions and millions of smaller pieces put together, but assembled firmly, and the construction is solid that allows you to build everything on top of it. And I think that we lose that. We think that, oh, the foundation is just this one thing that I gotta get out of the way. And it's like, no, no, no, the foundation is all of these little things. And it's it's been your journey up until this point, but it's also the things that make you who you are and what you want to project out towards other people. And I think once we understand that the foundation can't be built immediately and that it's made up of a lot of little things, but and if they're all in place together, that it makes a very secure, firm foundation, then you can build pretty much anything on top of it.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Think about it this way um sand is used in concrete, right? Okay. Where does sand come from?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Sand comes from the desert.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

It comes from actually, most sand comes from coral, but you know Yeah, most sand comes from coral that has disintegrated, which means that it's a bunch of small things, but it's making big stuff. So, you know. So, you know, hey, uh that's a that's an interesting analogy, but uh um, but it really is. Um small decisions, you you don't make big decisions every day. No, you know, no, you make the small decisions that that lead you where you are where you're going.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

And I think there's a lot of it, and I think if if you're very comfortable with your core values, you know what you're after, you know your purpose, then all those tiny little decisions don't even feel like decisions throughout the day because you're comfortable with who you are and how you're going to approach things. And so you don't recognize that they're making all of these micro decisions. But when you take a step back, when you look at things through the lens of time, then you actually be able, you can see how all of those decisions created the thing that you're after.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

I'm reading a book right now called From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks. And uh I don't know if you had a chance to read it, but it's an interesting book, especially as we age. And he he brings up a point about defenselessness versus defensiveness. And and how defensiveness is is not very attractive. In fact, it's it's pretty off-putting. And and how defenselessness, and he gives several examples, um, Paul, as uh um as he was being persecuted in in later life, um, even though he had built a church that uh that could withstand the the tests of time, um he was still he was still defenseless. And the writing of that time was, hey, look, um, I didn't do all this. So think about what that is, and think about how many times in your life you have felt like an imposter. I mean imposter syndrome is a thing, but you feel like an impostor. And think about all the bad the not good things that come out of being an impostor. Because if you're an impostor and you're having to justify your existence, you spend so much of your time on a defensive posture. And defensiveness is not pretty. Right. Yet yet the things that are most endearing, um, there's a uh a new um documentary on Paul McCartney out, and uh um and so many things that make Paul McCartney attractive is that he's defenseless. You know, that he did some really incredible things, but he was pretty humble about it. And and coming out of the relationship with John, um John Lennon, um, you know, it crushed him, but it didn't allow him to define it. And so he had to rebuild all that stuff and came from a place of defenselessness. And I I think people find him extremely attractive, um, love his music and and that kind of thing to. this day. So there there are lots of of examples of this. I mean when I first got into business and when I was first a manager, I was a manager at 25 years old. You know, what the hell was I doing there? I I just you know there's no no reason for me to be there. Well, you know, some bad things come out of it because you're always defensive.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Right. Yeah that's true.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

So you talk about purpose over profit, sustainability over speed. But for creative entrepreneurs who feel the pressure to hustle, who are told that rest is laziness and slowing down means falling behind. How do you build a sustainable practice without feeling like you're losing the race?

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Yeah that's a great one. Well and and wood turning teaches it a lot about that because when you sharpen your tools it feels like stepping away. It feels like it's because you know I I've got my uh my grinder set up fairly close to um the lathe but you're you're working on a piece in front of you and then all of a sudden you have to pull away and stop and go grind and then come back. And it may only take you know a minute or two at the most it doesn't take very long. But but what happens is all of a sudden the cuts are easy. All of a sudden the results so there's this thing in wood turning called tear out um and it's it's caused it you know if I if I get technical for a second um and you probably know this but uh um a tree is a bundle of straws and when you're when you're turning a bowl the bundle of straws is on its side on its side on its side and so you're you're turning end grain and side grain end grain and side grain. Well the end grain when you're turning it if you don't make a really good cut it pulls fibers out of those straws and you get you get not a very good result you get tear out and with with a with a tool that is not sharp you're more likely to get tear out and if you're if you have bad technique and all that kind of stuff but you're more like likely to get tear out then you are if you step away take the time to sharpen and then walk back in and make the cut it's it's just that easy and and it's the same thing it's the same thing with what we do. I wasn't always a reader and it I wasn't always a reader of business books. I like to read but uh um when all of a sudden you start to read all kinds of business books and and uh um self-development books and things like that um you know it changes you it changes your mind and you may feel like you're stepping away but it makes you a lot more effective when you do walk back into the cut.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

I think there's something about about education that we could because we're forced into education as children. Like and some of us take to it some of us don't but I think that that being required to do education hurts us to want to pursue education later on in life because we have associated it with tests or with things being difficult or with having to you know be forced into this thing. Whereas if people would continue education throughout their life one their life would be a lot easier because you would be a sharper and so you'd be able to cut through the material of life a lot easier. But then we would also you you would it builds um retrospect for yourself and the things that you've gone through. Like the only way that we can really like move forward is if we learn more and then we can make like educated like like visions or views of of the things that we've gone through. And so I I I'm remiss like I talk to a lot of education places because of this this platform that I have and a lot of them are just it's all about tests and results. It's about regurgitation and test taking it's not about actually learning anything and it stresses the kids out and it stresses the adults out as well so later on in life they feel like they're you know having to learn something it's it's more of a burden as opposed to something that would be beneficial for them. But you're saying it is actually beneficial.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah I heard a stat the other day that um 57% of college grads never read another book from cover to cover in their lives.

unknown 26:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Crazy right so so here's part of part of the premise of uh of small decisions is that we don't spend enough time on learning to lead ourselves we we read all kinds of books about leading others but we don't learn about leading ourselves so that's really what the book is about and there is another premise too when people become leaders and not just doers but leaders they don't consider leadership to be a profession. So I work with a lot of engineers architects professionals that still see themselves in that way when they get promoted when they get promoted more than once and and now especially the second promotion where they're where they're leading other leaders um sounds like you have a friend she is insistent yes my dad is just circling my feet it's time for it's time for dinner it's time for dinner I apologize for that no that's that's okay that's that's endearing um so leaders just don't take the time to learn to be great leaders and and that's part of that continue education is is like look man you're not you're not an engineer anymore nobody gives a darn if you know how to compute the tensile strength of a of a uh of of a tilt wall I mean nobody cares what they care about is do you care about me do you care about my care and feeding and are we doing some cool things together that's what they really care about.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah to know I have a friend of mine who got just he just he was a in the trenches engineer building and manipulating all this for this business and that he was actually the reason this business even branched into this so he was the the spark that started this whole thing and then they eventually moved him out into a leadership position and he is having the most difficult time separating himself from that. He wants to go back in there he wants to be in the trenches and then he wants to give the advice as though he still worked there but the problem that he's running into is nobody works like he works. And he can lead them but then people are they they've told him you're intimidating because you know everything that we're doing and all this and I'm like it it all comes back to what you were talking about about being educated on how to lead as opposed to how to do your job really well and then expecting people to kind of live up to that example or to do things the way that you used to do that. You've got to be able to separate yourself far enough away to be able to let them have the onus of their job and to own you know own part of that and make it their make it theirs as long as the deliverables are where they need to be and I think that's a hard that's the hard switch that a lot of them have.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yeah yeah and you know in in talking about defensiveness one of the things that get in the way of leadership particularly is the need to be the smartest person in the room. Yeah and if I'm the smartest person in the room then I'm probably in the wrong room because I need other people you know the the one the one stat that that kind of blows me away here is that um the rate of human knowledge is doubling every two years. That means if you start a technical degree in two years it's completely obsolete. Everything you've learned for the last two years is garbage. Yeah so so as a leader can I know everything no no and and I shouldn't have to that's what I've got people for so it used to be you know back in the 50s and 60s and 70s and even some of the 80s and even today there's a lot of people that feel this way um people feel like the boss has to be the smartest person in the room and it doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

I was reading a a really nice one it was um I think it was Clint Eastwood they said uh when he gives notes when he's in an indirect he he he speaks last and he doesn't sit at the heads of the table he sits on the sides but he always goes last because he knows if he says something first he's just surrounded by yes men. But if he goes last then all the ideas go out there. He still gets to make the decision. He's still the boss but he still gives everybody the opportunity to say what they and you know not all ideas are great ideas we know this but to be able to shut that all down just by speaking first is really interesting. So to be able to take that moment to step back and say I don't need to be the smartest person. Let's see what else what it see what other genius is in this room.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

And if one of those ideas is great wonderful you know maybe that's something he didn't think of but he always gets down to he does have the final say but he is always open to hearing other people uh other people's ideas which I think is really well and and that kind of goes to the uh um the thought about servant leadership and uh um you know I I really like servant leadership um some of the best companies that I work with are are servant leadership led um companies it it doesn't mean that uh um you know the the basic where it came from is uh is the study of the Bible and and the story of Jesus but uh um you know some of the uh um some of the modern interpretations one of the one of my favorite um definitions of servant leadership is the um the discipline of inviting a cooperative response and you can either invite a cooperative response or you can invite a resistant response so which do you think works better you know am I am I inviting resistance yeah well well see that's why uh that's why you're doing what you're doing right no wait a second no that's not it but uh but you know we you want to invite cooperation and and not resistance it's it's uh um the the example that I love to give is the guy that's standing at the um ticket counter of the airline screaming at the gate agent yeah are they inviting resistance or are they inviting cooperation no they're inviting resistance so the only person that can help you is standing there and you're absolutely tearing them apart well what sense does that make you know and and at that point what what you've done is you consider that person to be an object and they're no longer a person and of course you know when when person is an object you can scream at them you can yell them you can call them names um you know it's like the driver that cuts you off in traffic um you certainly make some hand gestures that are probably not uh not too kind and you know because they're objects they're not persons they're not you know they're not Paul they're not chip they're they're a they're a blob that uh they cut you off in traffic so um you know that's that's the one thing that that really defines servant leadership to me is is the ability to invite cooperation that's that's a really great perspective and I hope our listeners are really truly paying attention to this because it's uh it's about sidestepping your ego and allowing other people to actually have have something to say and I'm like we're not all machines we're not all blobs we're living breathing people and we all have things to think about and like the example with Clint Eastwood it's there are sometimes the quietest people in the room have the have the best perspective but they never get the opportunity to speak because they're quiet they don't want to step on toes or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

So I think that's really it's really smart.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Yeah well I do a um I do an exercise with groups in fact last week I was in Oklahoma City doing it and uh um it asks about eight or ten questions and questions like you know what creeps you out what makes you you know what are what are you afraid of um where were you born uh you know what were your siblings what was your most difficult challenge as a child and I love that exercise because I learned so much about people um I I learn I learned that people are really open and especially in the groups that I'm working in um people are really open and and don't mind telling you their story but you can ask two people that grew up in the same house and they had slightly different experiences and that's that's to me the takeaway is that I don't care if you grew up in the same block or if you went to the same high school or you know you were you were uh um twin sons of different mothers or or whatever you know we all have different experiences and we all we all um see the world in different ways and we all experience the world in different ways and so you know you never know what somebody's going through you know the person who cut you off may be trying to get to the hospital because he's he's uh he or she is is uh um is pregnant and are you know are delivering a child um or have a have a parent that's sick or a kid that's sick or or whatever so you never know what people are dealing with.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Absolutely absolutely no hundred percent of course some of the things jerks but well there's that we we don't like to talk about that aspect of it I mean there's always going to be a percentage right yeah absolutely that's right that's right so so one of the things that you said about wood turning is that you have to respect the material including yourself.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

So for creatives who've been treating themselves like an infinite resource grinding until there's nothing left what does it actually look like to start respecting yourself as the material you're working with isn't it amazing that songwriters have a lifespan and I'm talking I'm not talking about a physical lifespan but um you know they write for five years ten years twenty years I mean the Beatles were were only around for 10 years that's it we we we forget that but they were only a group for 10 years um john mayor talked about this um recently you know he's he's coasting into his 50s and uh um and he still feels like he has something to say but some of those things that he's he's wanting to say are coming a little bit harder. And um and and so you know you think about we go from fluid intelligence or liquid intelligence when we're younger where things just flow to when we get older it's more about what we can recall and uh and our our ability to put things together from things that we've known in the past and be able to to uh um use it from there. Um I I I think one of one of my favorite sayings is tag T A G treat everyone with respect assume positive intent and grant grace and so what I'd what I'd say to the creatives is the same thing that I tell myself is is grant grace. You know you're gonna make mistakes that's okay you know not every painting you paint is going to be uh um a multi-million dollar um seller not every song that you write is gonna be a Grammy winner um probably not because you know you're not that popular um even though it's really a good song but but not every not every show that you do is going to be a winner.

unknown 38:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

You know not every bowl that I make I mean these are some really pretty ones but they're full of mistakes and uh um and there are a lot of so we we call them funnels and that's where you go through the bottom of a bowl. So in in effect you've created a funnel. You create a lot of funnels. You know in in fact I I talk about this in uh in one of the books is uh um one of the one of the I was giving a demonstration and it was uh when I was first involved in in the wood turning club and uh um I went through the side of the bowl and all of a sudden I'm standing with a hoop and a and a base and that's it.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Well you can either take that and say oh damn it and throw it on the uh burn pile or you can say okay what am I going to do with it you know um and actually one of the uh one of the members of the club took both pieces home worked on it added some resin and made a really nice project out of it I think that's pretty cool one of my favorite episodes of the joy of painting with Bob Ross because you know he paints the same picture three times for every single episode and I remember he had a palette knife and he was going to do something and he it fell out of his hands and it skittered across the dead center the darkest color across the middle of the canvas. And at that moment it would it could have been an oh crap what am I supposed to do type of thing he he just ran with it. He's like okay when life gives you something and he turned it into a beautiful tree made it the focal point and he just course corrected because you know you could have he could have gotten upset trashed the canvas and started the whole episode again but instead he's like no let's just roll with it and see where it goes and he still was able to create something beautiful out of it even if it wasn't his original intention.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

Yeah yeah you know I I always enjoy seeing um especially I I love music and I I love seeing artists in their second or third career in their second or third comeback because um I and I was watching something the other night on uh Crosby Souls National Young and uh um just watching how Steven in his later years approached his songs um Clapton is another great one you know where where you listen to the recorded version of a song and and all of a sudden you know then you hear them live and oh my god it's just it's it's cool and it's not that there's a different arrangement maybe there is but uh um you know you listen to the acoustic version of a uh of an electric song um it's it's so it's so much better it's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

There's a so I don't know if you're familiar with Trent Reznor Nine Inch Nails if you're a music person but I very yes very aggressive industrial music. And there was an article I was reading few years back and he said you know my audience wants me to be the head like a hole kind of guy. But I'm a multimillionaire now. I don't have the same issues that I had when I was 20 years old working as a janitor in a in a place you know it's like I can't rage against the machine I'm now the machine you know so they're up there with cardigans playing their songs but you're like this is not the nine inch nails that I grew up with in the 90s but that's just that's how life is you know you you graduate out of these things yeah every everybody was uh everybody's gonna be uh everybody wondered if um Adele was gonna be so good now that she was happy right same thing with Taylor Swift all of her great songs are about breaking up with somebody and now she's getting married and she seems happy it's like what's the next song I know what the heck all right so we're gonna wrap this up. Chip if there's people out there who wanted to get in contact you read your books or learn more where can they find you?

SPEAKER_02 41:44

They can find me at shoalsandassociates.com S C H O L Z and Associatesallspelled out dot com and um a kind of an Easter egg there is uh um if you go there and you click on the books tab and there's a tab that's what's chip reading there's about 140 books that um I've read I've reviewed um you know maybe you'll agree with views reviews or nothing but if you're looking for your next good read you can you can go there. Next good business read although there are a couple of fun ones in there. And uh um and then you know the the books are on Amazon and uh I'm a couple of audiobook platforms Spotify and that kind of thing. So excellent excellent um that's really smart.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

I like that uh what am I reading? I I'm an avid reader myself like I was just my wife was just laughing at me at the amount of books that I still collect and read. So uh I think it's actually really brilliant because I often get asked that question you know what are you reading? So I think that's that's um I'm gonna I'm gonna borrow that one from you.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Well please do please do I you know and then and I'd love to have you share that part of your website with me because I I would love to add it in. You know I have not um I have not put all the books I read I I like um there there's a book that that I wrote or I read recently um called ingrained by Callum Robinson and uh ingrained is he's a craftsman he's a Scottish craftsman and I I just I I loved the book because he talks about uh um wood as dead slices of vegetative matter and I I just love that that uh phrasing and and uh you know so I haven't put books like that on the uh on the website but I probably should that it'd be it'd be interesting and and it just goes to show that even as you know you've been in a 30 year career here the the fact that you're still reading means that you still have the drive to want to learn and then that is always going to reflect so even if you were the musician who is in their third revision or you know third tour that they're going on on this if they're not if they stopped trying to learn anything else stop trying to play instruments better stop learning how to write lyrics stop going outside being you know enriched in life then their music would stay the same.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

But the fact that you are educating yourself and growing constantly means that even somebody who used to work with you 30 years ago would come to find and wanted to work with you now would find a completely different chip and find somebody who's got a lot more depth to them. So I think it's it's important for all of our listeners here to understand that reading isn't just for fun and it should be fun to a degree because if you hate it you're never going to learn anything from it. But it also be an opportunity even if it's fiction or nonfiction to be able to go and broaden your horizons and learn more so that you can approach life and all of its problems with uh a different perspective. Excellent. So that fellow adventurers is what it sounds like when a craftsman shares the wisdom of the lathe I want to thank Chip for pulling up a chair tonight and telling a story that does not get told enough what happens when you push too hard force the cut and nearly lose everything. And what you learn when you're forced to rebuild one small decision at a time. So here's what I want you to take from tonight. The forcing cut is real and most of us are making it without even realizing it we call it hustle we call it dedication we call it paying our dues but on the lathe forcing ruins the peace and in business it can ruin you. Sustainability isn't a weakness patience isn't falling behind and respecting the material including yourself isn't self-indulgence. It's the only way to build something that lasts so if Chip's story resonated with you check out his book Small Decisions, Big Shifts I'll have the link for that in the show notes as well as Every Dog has its day which is now out. So uh and in that book he goes deeper into what woodworking taught him about recovery, creativity and meaning so until next time remember business is an adventure don't be an NPC thanks Jim