Average Leaders Have Ideas, Great Leaders Execute

Most leaders and entrepreneurs don’t struggle with ideas. They struggle with execution.

In this episode, we break down the hidden addiction many business owners have — the dopamine hit of new ideas. The excitement of starting something new. The rush of vision casting. The energy of brainstorming.

But here’s the truth: ideas don’t build businesses. Execution does.

Success isn’t found in 100 half-finished concepts. It’s built through mastering the boring basics — consistency, systems, follow-through, and disciplined implementation.

If you’re constantly starting but rarely finishing…

If you’re chasing the next big thing instead of scaling what already works…

If your team is exhausted from pivot after pivot…

This episode will challenge you.

Because real leadership isn’t about creativity alone — it’s about turning vision into results.

Execution is the competitive advantage. And the leaders who win are the ones who finish.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

All right, and welcome back to the Second Mile Leadership Podcast. We are your hosts, Jason and Isaiah. And today we're going to talk about a topic that I believe permeates so many different businesses. And I think it's one thing that really separates the greats from the wannabes. It's the it's the differentiator between the people who are actual business people and the people who are just playing business or want to pretend like they're business people or pretend like they're entrepreneurs. And that is the ability to execute on ideas. And I firmly believe that the uh the major differentiator between the really successful and the unsuccessful, a lot of times it's not ideas. Some of the people we see that are wildly successful don't have the best ideas all the time. What they have is a relentless pursuit of the execution of those ideas. Now look at guys like Jeff Bezos, right? Amazon is online shopping. Now, granted, he might be one of the first ones that thought about compiling all those products into one site. I still don't look at that idea and think it's just this amazingly innovative idea. But he, and if you read read his book or listen to things he says, he just focused and executed relentlessly on the idea and went through many seasons where he could have quit, he could have stopped, he could have given up, thrown in the towel, gone to do something else, but he stuck with it, did the boring part of the business, which we're gonna dive into pretty heavily in this episode, with amazing consistency to end up where he is today. Now, we're not all gonna end up as multi- you know, hundred billionaires, but at the same time, whatever level of success we want to achieve in life will oftentimes, and this this is every area of our life, come down to how well we execute, not you know, how you know many hundreds of ideas we can have that we half-assed execute on. So with that being the premise and the idea as a um, what are your initial thoughts when you know you hear this topic and and how you uh have observed this phenomenon in business?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah. Uh I I as always, there's so much that goes into every single topic that we talk about. Where my fun where my mind first goes to um is that the boring stuff in business, it just sucks. Like there's no way around it. Like sometimes it just sucks. There's nothing fun about crunching numbers. For some people there are, and you're if you're listening to this, you're a psycho. And like the the boring stuff sucks. It it's just reality. The the the sooner that you take that in, um, I I think the sooner that that your business can really take off. What I mean by the boring stuff is the looking through your P ⁇ L, um having the the really, really small things dialed in, um, executing every single system. And some of that can be fun as well. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that all of that is boring. Um, but the most successful companies in the world, as we stand today, do the boring things damn well. They do them damn well. They make sure that every single aspect of their business is running extremely efficiently. Um, they create systems if there's not. Um in the restaurant world, there's a there's a thing called a H A C C or sorry, H A A C P plan. Um and basically it's just like, hey, this bad thing happened. How do we correct that? Um, and then how do we make sure it doesn't happen again? Um that process in general is not riveting, but it does change results for the long term.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah, and I think with with business, you talk about you know crunching numbers or look at PLs or or or staying on top of the reports and and the numbers of the business. Well, you know, you're not saying that's always boring. I think what's boring and what's not boring is individually dependent. Some people are going to find those things boring, some people won't. But what we find is uh, and this is this phenomenon is really uh seen in the entrepreneurial world, but if you enjoy the task, you're okay doing it consistently. If you don't, that's when you find it boring, and those are the things that that people don't want to do consistently. And here's the mindset of entrepreneur, and I've been one for 25 years, so I've been around hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, is entrepreneurs are idea guys. We we we uh I tell my team all the time, I'll get a hundred ideas and three or four of them will be good. Well, that means ninety-six, ninety-seven are not good. But if you're not careful, that uh idea mind, right? Wanting to innovate, wanting to to do things differently, or or sometimes what you perceive as better can be addictive. And you get a dopamine hit from new ideas, and you get no dopamine from relentlessly drilling down and and performing the boring tasks. So, of course, the way our minds are designed, we're gonna skew towards the dopamine, and this dopamine hit is even more prevalent or or even in bigger doses in entrepreneurs and those types of minds. So what brings a lot of businesses down oftentimes is not the things that we think it is. It's the inability or reluctance to do the boring stuff every single day. Show up every day, spend time building and developing your team, show up every day executing the same marketing plan maybe you've been executing for a while, show up every day and look at all the reports and the numbers, you know, look at your budget. You know, you know, we talk about a lot of businesses die by death of a thousand cuts because we have too many small expenses. Well, you know, really pulling out the magnifying glass and looking at those and making cuts where you can. When I when when people think about entrepreneurship, those aren't the things they think about. They think about making money and being, you know, uh having all this attention or or people you know looking up to you or maybe being some sort of a leader or having your your business be f locally famous or whatever. We think about these things that aren't really entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs show up every day and do the things I just said relentlessly. They fine-tune their sales process. They don't overhaul it, they fine-tune it. They pick apart every little piece of the sales process, figure out where it's failing, where it's not, and they fine-tune it. That's not exciting, it's boring. And it doesn't move the meter maybe a a thousand yards down the field, but it but it does move it some. And they fine-tune their marketing, they fine-tune their team, and they think about different ways to develop their team, and they think about where they can cut cost and where they should add expense. They think about these things that that that's not what people think about when they imagine what the life of an entrepreneur is like, but that is the life of a successful entrepreneur. And I think until businesses understand that and get that and are willing for the boring on a consistent basis, they're going to continue continue to struggle because I'd rather have one or two ideas or one or two systems that I drill down and perform at a high level 100% of the time than 75 ideas that I do half-assed.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Totally agree with that. Totally agree with that. And I think so many people today struggle with the like the actual execution of things. So in my beginning spiel, I don't love to do those things. Now I'm relatively good at them, so I so I will, but also like it's not fun for me. Like what? So I think um like crunching numbers and looking at Excel sheets and um going through a P ⁇ L or whatever it is. Like that's i i it's it's doable, but it's not something that I enjoy doing every single day. I really enjoy talking to people and engaging with people and and leaning people in that aspect. So my mind naturally will shift to doing those things day in, day out. And I have to correct myself as I'm trying to run a business and be like, okay, I I I I have to do these things as well. Um, I think a lot of people get caught up in doing what they want to do instead of what they need to do. I think that that's where the the true delineation between intention and execution lies. I think a lot of people's intent is good. Hey, I care for my people, I want to help. Um for me, it's I I really want to grow and develop them. Um, but then the other side of that is okay, well, how do I make sure that they have a job? We we we have to sell things and we have to to be profitable. Um so we have to do the number side of things. Um and that didn't come very naturally to me. Like I'll be honest, that that that part is something that I've had to work on. Um, but I would say that on the back end of things, if your team members, your employees, whoever it is, hear you coming up with all these great ideas and you kind of live in idea land over here, and they never see you execute something, or whenever y'all get something started, you only get to 50% completion, they will always doubt if you can actually get over that hump and get to where you'll want to go as a business.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, I think when you say that, we talk about leadership and running businesses a lot on this podcast, and a lot of the things that we talk about and try to warn against or mistakes that we have made. And I can be very guilty of what Isaiah just said. I can be guilty of it's not even like new ideas for me. It's it can be that sometimes, but my where where I fall short oftentimes is is there's a thousand things we need to do, and I'll dive into one and then allow myself to have shiny object syndrome and be pulled to another because in my mind they're both dire. Right now at Chick-fil-A, we talked about in in prior podcasts, we're trying to get a third location, and that is an unbelievably tough undertaking, especially to go from where we were to where we need to be is a is a big jump, a big leap forward. And there's a lot of things that have to get better in the business. Now, we we run a pretty damn good business, don't get me wrong, but you know, being really good and being elite are are light years apart, and there's a lot of things we need to up level, so it's easy to find myself pulling a hundred different directions because so many things need attention. And Isaiah and I were just talking the other day about the fact that we need to make a triage list here pretty soon because what we're trying to accomplish at Chick-fil-A, there's a time limit on it, right? When when they come and make that decision about uh giving a a a third store to us or s or you know giving the store to somebody else, we don't know exactly when they're coming, but we knew do know it's probably in the next calendar year. Well, now we have a deadline, and uh the things we have to do to become elite take a long time to do. So and they have to that the we have to implement new things, new systems, new new new ways of executing, by the way, and we have to make them cultural and we have to do that long enough that the the numbers follow and the results follow for a lengthy enough period of time that we have a track record and that's what we have to show. Well, there's so we talked about making a triage list of all right, we got to get this done first before we jump to the next thing. Because I know I'm guilty of it. Uh I'm sure Isaiah's done the same in in the past as well. And if we're not careful, we will we'll just jump thing to thing to thing and never fully execute, and then you will. You'll lose the buy-in of your team, you'll lose the trust, you'll lose the faith, and all those things that are so crucial for a leader.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Totally agree. And I I like speak candidly on here, we uh we like we should have made this list uh a minute ago too. We we should we should have like our priorities listed out um in in terms of and uh I think this is always the best way to actually make that list is what moves the meter the most first and then you go through out there. What what's the most pressing thing and then you know, two through however many you have after that. Um and I think the this the shiny object syndrome is so real um because I I think more and more like modern day we are we are going to be attracted to those things um because that is how everything is wired nowadays. So when we like see something that needs to be fixed, like I'll I'll struggle with this in in my home life or or at work as well, is I will attach myself to that thing and lose track of what I was doing before because I see that one thing that needs to be accomplished. And me wanting to accomplish the thing is not that's not a bad intention. I I want to help out, I want to serve my people, I want to love my people, but every single time I say yes to something, I also say no to everything else. There's an opportunity cost to every single thing, whether in business, whether in home life, whether in friendships, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Well, and then what ends up happening is is you have a bunch of half-completed projects or half-completed jobs, and none of that moves the meter forward. In fact, it can it can hold you back and pull you back. And we talk about that leaders have to have to great dis have to have great discernment, they have to be great decision makers. Well, one of the ways we have to execute and show that is by having the the requisite level of discernment to decide what is urgent and what's not. You know, there's that whole quadrant of of you know what's urgent, what's not urgent, um, what can be delegated and what needs to be done by you and all those things that that a lot of people say they utilize. I don't I don't know how much they actually utilize those things, but they say they do. And uh Probably not. Yeah. There's a lot of theory out there that people don't execute on. But hey, that would be another one of the boring things that maybe we should do.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

That would be another one.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah. So um, but at the same time, you know, so that's why we feel like as business owners or leaders, we're always being pulled in a hundred different directions, because we're allowing ourselves to be. And instead of just focusing on the things that need to be done now to move the business forward, and you know, if the question is, well, how do we figure out what that is? Well, that's part of the job of a business owner and a leader. And if you don't know, then maybe there's someone in your life you could ask, or maybe you need a coach in your life or something like that. But another thing we talk about in in the in leadership is, and I think this is a major point that that I want to emphasize here. We talk about influence, and we talk about the fact that leadership is influence. So is it better for me to have people around me do what I need them to do because I told them to, or is it better for them to do it because they want to do it? Because they believe in the cause, they believe in me, or they believe in the other leaders and and and they want to do that. They want to to get the job done at a high level because of those reasons, because they want to, and it's their buy-in. Okay, that's influence. So what is the purpose of influence? Well, the purpose of influence is exactly what we're talking about today is to achieve execution. So we build influence so that our team will execute. We don't build influence so that we're liked. We don't build it so that we feel good about ourselves, we don't do that so we can call ourselves a leader. We do that so the team executes at a high level, and they do it without having to be micromanaged, which is not a great way to quote unquote lead, and it's not a very effective way in the long term. So when we talk about building influence, the whole reason we're building it is for execution so that everyone shows up every day and performs at a high level so we can get the job done. And then it's our job as leaders to guide them on what things they're supposed to be executing on. And 99 times out of 100 is the basics, right? It is, you know, making sure we're fine-tuning our product, making sure we're fine-tuning our team, making sure we're developing our team, making sure that we have scoreboards and and metrics and dashboards and things like that and reports that we can look at the numbers and be on top of our numbers. Um it's it's it's fine-tuning and tweaking our sales processes, fine-tuning and tweaking our marketing. That's what that's what business is at its essence. And and then, you know, I guess one thing we'd add on there too, that some business owners do and some outsource is managing the finances, more the accounting side of things. So if you, I mean, what in that, unless you there might be somebody listening who loves one or two of those things, but as a business owner, as a leader, you've got to do all those things. Or even if you're outsourcing those things to other people, you have to still lead those things at a high level. So that's what a leader does. That's what a business owner is supposed to do. And if you have a team around you and you're not a solopreneur, you're an entrepreneur, or you or uh you lead a bigger team, is your team showing up every day, executing at a high level, because they want to, because they believe in the mission, and when they execute, are they executing on the right things? And if you have all those things lined up, you've got a pretty damn good business. And I would submit that there's a lot of businesses out there who don't have all those things lined up.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah, I uh I zoned out for a second while you were talking there, because I don't really like to hear what you have to say. That's fair. I think it's completely useless.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I think most of the audience did as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

But my Yeah, yeah. So they were really just waiting for this moment. Uh, wait for Isaiah to speak again.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Someone told me, yeah, they mute my part and turn it up for your part.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

I don't know what that means, but yeah, that that may have been me. But uh got it. Yeah. Yeah. But continue, yes. Uh but my gears were turning, and I think most leaders fall into two categories when it comes to intention and execution. I think there's one subset of leaders that um heavily emphasizes execution. Um, hey, I'm going to be authoritarian and now I lead and I'm going to make sure that everything gets done and it's that all we do all the boring stuff extremely well, and they struggle with the intention part. And I think there's a subset of leaders who um are really, really good about the intention part and struggle with the execution part. I think it's incredibly like beneficial to you as a leader to know which one you fall into. Um Jason, I think I already know the answer to this question, but what would you say mine is between those two?

SPEAKER_01 17:20

I'm sorry, I zoned out for a second. What is the question? I'm just kidding. Um I muted you. Um so I'm just gonna guess what your question was. Uh you mean between your intention and your execution, like which one do you do a better job of having the good intention or having high-level execution? Correct. Well, you know, I I would give two separate answers to that. Let's do a everyone makes fun of me at my house because I'm a big one-to-10 guy, one to ten scale guy. I use it quite a bit. I used to use it in my sales process. So just quick little side note. It's so helpful. It is. I when I used to do sales, you know, one of as I get towards the close, you know, I would ask on a scale of one to ten, how committed are you to the goals that we discussed today? And if they gave me anything lower than a nine or a ten, I would do a takeaway, right? Which is, well, I don't think this is the right fit for you. We want to work with nines and tens, blah, blah. It's a psychological sales process. But I think that's where my addiction to to one to ten scale came in. But so uh if I were were to one to ten scale it, I would say professionally and privately, your intentions are probably nine and a half to tens. And I think you have very, very good intentions. I would say privately, your execution is probably a nine and a half or a ten in your personal life. Um I would say when I met you, and I keep saying I met you two and a half years ago, I met you before that, but when I started working with you two and a half years ago, I would say your execution at work was probably When you went on our first date. We did, yes. It was beautiful. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

It was a good time.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Uh you I would give you a five or six out of ten two and a half years ago on execution. And I think part of that was not your fault. I do think the um you were thrown into a a really tough situation, which we won't get into in this episode, but you were thrown into a I don't know how m many people would execute under that, but I still think there was there was things you could have executed better. Now I'd say at work, I'd give you an eight, eight and a half at work right now with still some room to grow.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah, I appreciate that, brother. I appreciate that. Um this is the point where you asked the question back to me. Well, I thought you were. No, that was no.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Hey Jason, you're an idiot. That was stupid. I disagree. Or hey, Jason, you're the smartest man alive. You're so brilliant, you know, everything you say is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Which is I don't want to add on to this the the time of this podcast, so everything you said is perfect. That's exactly as usual. Yes, yes. Yeah. No, I I totally agree. I think I I struggled with that. Um and it it was coming from a place of partially me not having the resources and be and being able to, because I didn't I just didn't have the knowledge on how to. Um and then two, I I would I would say that my intentions were good, but uh also they weren't always necessarily oriented in the right fashion. Um so it was like, hey, this is my the intention is helpful short term, but long term we also gotta make sure that the business runs well and that we are profitable and that we can continue to do these things. So no, I totally agree with your assessment.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Love it. Love it. Um okay, so yeah, let's turn turn the tables.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

You want me to go personally and professionally? Well yeah. Give it to me. Yeah, I think it's a well, I guess it doesn't really matter. I think it's a three in every single one.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Um, which is what it was not too long ago.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

So that is. Progress, baby. That was two and a half years ago, we were at a one. So not bad. Not right.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Right, which means in ten years I'll be like an eight or nine.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. It's impressive at sixty years ago. I would it is. It is. Um I would say probably almost exactly what you said, I would I would flip the the personally and then professionally. I think the execution professionally is extremely high. Um minus the like us prioritizing things and going through that, which you and I have already talked about. But the profession or the personally side, um, I think the intention is absolutely there. I think you do a a I would I would genuinely say a 10 out of 10 with that because I know you so well. Um and then I would say the the execution-wise somewhere around uh yeah, an eight and a half.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah. And that personally, yeah, that depends what you're talking about personally. That might even be a a little bit too generous of a score because there's parts of my personal life, like being a father and a husband, I think that I'd probably a nine and a half. As far as my effort and my dedication to it and and and how much time I put into it. I think the um where I give myself a lower score would be as we talked about lap's episode fitness, of course. And I have a very strong faith. I have a very strong connection with God. I don't think I spend enough time with God. So in my faith element, I still think there's areas I could execute at a higher level. Um and then and then lastly, so we talked about the five F's, right? Faith, family, fitness, finances, and uh friendships. And I think even that friendships one, I have friends that I don't reach out to like I should, I don't spend enough time with. So there's definitely things in that area that I struggle. But let me tell you, and and I I'm always very welcome to To talk about my struggles and where I I fall short because I coach leadership, I teach leadership, I think I understand it at a very high level, but it doesn't mean I always execute it at a high level. And like everybody else, I have weaknesses and I have spots where I need to improve and get better. But for me, it's like um and this this is this is a a great conversation about execution at every area of your life. For me, it's uh when I fall in love with something I'm doing, it tends to dominate my mind. So I'm in love with what I do for a living right now. I'm in love with the Chick-fil-A part of my job. I'm in love with the Black Wolf leadership coaching. I love it so much, it consumes me. So I want to get better. I read an unbelievable number of books and and I listen to podcasts relentlessly and and my whole social media feed. If you go on my phone, I do this in coaching a lot. I'll just pull up my Instagram and just let the person have my phone and scroll. And it's leadership, leadership, business, business, leadership. Leadership, business, leadership. So it it it so what it does is it dominates my life, and I have enough understanding and and grasp on it to not let it bleed into the most important things in my life, such as my wife and my kids. Um, but it does bleed into what should be even more important is my faith a little bit, but it definitely bleeds into my fitness and the time I spend with friends. So if for me, my growth opportunity there is how do I learn how to manage and navigate all of that? And when I coach it to people, it's never like how am I gonna be a 10 out of 10 in all those. I don't think that's possible. But can I get things moving in the positive direction in all of those? And some are gonna be slower than others because there's a there's the Rob Peter to pay Paul thing because you're gonna take from one thing to give to another. I'm not a believer in balance. I think that we should do an episode on that one day. It'd be a great episode because balance is bull crap. Um, you know, you're gonna be out of balance your whole life, it's just what you're out of balance doing. And right now I'm out of balance geared towards business, and not because I have to, because I absolutely freaking love what I do. So so yeah, my execution personally has got to get better. Um and and that's something that I'm actively thinking through right now. And um, it's very nice to have somebody to hold me accountable like Isaiah. I really need it. So yeah, that was pretty solid too.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah, appreciate that. Um thinking through a little bit more, like bringing it back to just intention and execution. Um, I think there's two ways that you can increase the execution part if that's something that you struggle with. Um and I I think you really have to ask yourself this question first. And most people listening to this podcast, I'm I'm going to assume that you want to grow because you are listening to a leadership podcast. You're taking time out of your day to listen to this.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

So, before you continue, that those that don't know Isaiah, I would I would beg you to listen because when it comes to coaching this particular topic, he's maybe the best I've ever been around at it. So, those who are new to the podcast, if you're just finding the podcast, this is his wheelhouse, so I guarantee you what he's about to spit is gold.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

I appreciate that, Glaze, brother.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Absolutely. Anytime.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

But no, thank you. I appreciate it. Um I think the there there's if you want to grow yourself, I think that you would want to up level the execution. I think there's also a certain subset of people who want to delegate the execution. So, hey, I'm gonna be the C level, I'm gonna be the idea guy over here, I'm going to be the visionary and create and do all that. And like that is absolutely needed in businesses. There's nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Yeah, that's that's a real legitimate leadership style.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

It is, it is 100%. And that that's n like genuinely nothing wrong with that. But then you're gonna have to have an execution person. You will. Whether that's an assistant, whether that is someone that does your admin stuff, whether that is someone that that that's your numbers guy and he and he executes on everything for you, you will have to have that. Like that is that is completely fine if that's the road that that you want to go down. I'm gonna speak more so to the people that want to be a complete person in every single aspect when it comes to business and profession or personally and professionally, um, because I think that it's it's what we're called to do. I think that that's what God would want us to do. Um, I think there's a lot of scripture that points to that. And I I believe that there's a lot of fulfillment that comes from that as well. Um, so there's an extremely popular book um called Atomic Habits, but I'll try to sum it up here in in just a couple minutes. But essentially it runs through the idea of, hey, we do small habits consistently and we do them at a very, very atomic level. Um, we continue to stack those habits. Um, we we continue to grow ourselves, we stack, hey, I suck at being hydrated, I drink water. Um next, like in a couple weeks, okay, I suck at going to the gym. I I eventually work through that. Now I'm drinking water and going to the gym. Beautiful. That's that's that's great. Or in business, it could be, hey, I I suck at holding people accountable. Okay, so we are we're gonna work on that piece first. And then while we're holding people accountable, we're also gonna make sure that we are developing them. So we're doing two things now extremely successfully. We start it with one one thing and we start it at extremely micro level.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Um Would you real quick before you move before you move on, would you call that like a keystone habit? Like do you when you coach people, do you do you start them with one keystone habit that m then once they get that going in their life, that becomes a jumping off point of new habits? Is that the way you coach it? 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

I think you have to do it that way, or else I don't think that you'll have buy buy-in from any single person. Um because that that literally goes back to the topic today. Um you have to execute in one area first, um, and then we can kind of build off of that. So that is literal execution in practice, is is you creating a Keystone habit, you being damn good at it, um, and then you holding that and holding it like well, and then adding another habit on top of it. Uh, but one of the other ideas from the book is that there is friction in every single area of our lives. Um so there are things that we are naturally inclined to do, there are things that we are not inclined to do for the things that you may not be inclined to do. So for me, it's it's going through the P ⁇ L, it's going through the numbers, it's it's looking at the Excel sheets, it's it's all those things. Um if I push through that friction for a period of time, and then I'm able to up level those skills, and I I get better at doing those things, I will be more likely to do those things in the future. The business will be more successful short-term and long term. Um, and it changes the entire trajectory of the business. Um and it starts with you doing one extremely small thing, and then you building upon that, and then watching that thing then take off exponentially. But I promise you, there's one area in business, and no one likes to admit this, but there is, there's one area of your business where you are actively avoiding, or maybe you're not prioritizing, and it's just because it's something that you don't know how to do or you don't want to do. Um, oftentimes people struggle because they don't have the necessary knowledge or resources to actually go do something. Um, so Jason, I'm actually gonna I'm uh I'm gonna use an example, um, I'll leave the name out, but uh, there was a um a person at work that I was developing, and he got a ticket, and like he literally did not know how to pay it. Um and he didn't want to pay it because paying tickets sucks. And it wasn't for anything bad, it was just a dumb mistake. Um and so he let that ticket sit for approximately two months, and we're getting close to like when this, like when the payment's actually due and all that good stuff. And then so I broke that down. I'm like, so why did you not pay the ticket? Like, you know you need to do it. There's no way of you avoiding that. The consequences if you don't pay it are pretty severe, so like we need to pay the ticket. Um and eventually he pays it, but it took that conversation to get him there because there was so much friction in the area. It's something he's never done before, so he would have to go online, search how to do it, figure out all the stuff, and it's also something that he did not want to do, reasonably so.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

And I'll give away the name. It was Isaiah.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yes, it was me. And I was this was in a meeting with myself that I figured this out.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

He does a lot, and we all find it really weird.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah. But hey, I paid the ticket, so that helped the business, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yep, yeah, hundred percent. Man, you're good at this stuff. Yeah. Hey man, you you just hyped me up. But anyway, continue. But that, like like pushing through the difficult thing and then also learning how to do it makes you more of a complete man. And it makes you more of a complete leader as well. Um so I heavily encourage someone to figure out what that area is for you, because I guarantee you there's one. Attack it and attack it with some ferocity, and then execute on that damn thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Aaron Powell Yeah, and I think that's one of the the this is not uh an execution point I'm making here, but it they're they're definitely uh related, and that is that's one of the best ways to build slash hurt confidence, right? That's you know you hear this thrown around a lot, but man, is it true that that your ability to keep the promises you make to yourself will have a big impact on how confident you feel and how confident you are a as a human, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:45

So anytime you I'll answer it's it's everything. Yeah. Yeah. It is everything. It is 100% when it comes to confidence. And when it comes to self-worth, that that's more so given from God. But for for confidence, it's you holding yourself accountable to what you said that you would do or or or what you wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Right, because your brain keeps score and it knows when you do and do not execute. And the and when you uh every time you don't execute, it keeps score. And every time you do execute, it keeps score. So if you want the score to be tilted in the right direction, make sure you're executing at a much higher clip than you're not executing. And I think that that that is, you know, when I coach confidence, I know Isaiah is the same, it's a big topic that I coach and him as well, because it is the it is the precursor to being great at so many things. It's really weird. It's kind of like that, you know, the chicken or the egg thing. Does confidence come before greatness or greatness before confidence? And there's a lot of intertwinings in that that we could break down in another episode, but at the same time, your ability to keep the promises you make to yourself and execute will dictate the level of confidence that you have. Because every time you fail to do so, the brain knows. And then you'll question yourself, you'll start to lose belief in yourself, and that will then feed into other areas where you'll stop executing. So uh before we wrap up this episode, I want to you know pull it back to to the business world for one second, and and I want to touch on okay, there's two main reasons that we'll talk about execution, and and uh uh well, there's three reasons, but I've already touched on one of why leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs, people like that, why they don't execute at the level they should. Because I think if I pulled anybody in a room right now and said, hey, should you execute at a high level, any of those kind of people, they would all say yes. They would agree with the the concept and the notion. But one of the reasons is is is there's a an addictive quality to new ideas and that dopamine hit that comes from that. I think that a lot of times in business, business is hard, so we fail, or we we're not uh performing, or the business isn't performing to the level we want it to, so we abandoned the fundamentals because we we make a panic move, right? We gotta go find something new. I need a new product line or or or a new uh revenue stream or a new marketing idea, or new like we want new, new, new, because we we think new is the thing that's going to fix it. So that's the second reason they they fail to do so. And the third is is a lot of times it's ego. And people believe that that ideas are what make them look good or what make them look smart, right? You go into any meeting, and there's gonna be a lot of times just subconscious beliefs that if I have these great ideas, everyone is gonna say, hey, look how smart I am. I don't I'm not saying everybody falls in this category, but there's a subset of people that do that they like the ego stroke that comes with having new ideas. And the reality is new ideas aren't what make you smart. Execution is what makes you effective. And being smart is an irrelevant metric. Effective is what we're looking for, and execution is what actually makes you effective. So as a business person, as a leader listener to this, I would I would invite you to to look back and say, okay, where am I not executing at the level that I should? Why am I not executing? Was it a panic move because we're not doing well? Was it because I just am addicted to the idea of having new ideas? Or is it because I think that new ideas make me look good? And this is where having the humility, you know, a little bit um oxymoronic there, I guess, but having the humility to admit those things and having the self-awareness to admit it uh comes in. Uh I say I'll get your thoughts on that, then we'll close out with some some things you can do to be better at execution.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Yeah, I think the the I'll just label the um metaphorical guy here, the new idea guy. I think the new idea guy um can almost be manipulative sometimes because it's like, hey, I I have this brand new thing, I'm I'm gonna roll it out, it's gonna be great, or I'm gonna change everything. And then we get down like a month or two later, we for like people are starting to forget about the thing. Um, it doesn't actually happen, there's no benefits from it. And then all of this all of a sudden when things are starting to look bleak, the new idea guy comes back and he has a new idea. And then we all like jump on chip with that, and like, let's go. And then you just kind of continue in this cycle, but it's really just your your tires kicking in the sand. You're you're not actually moving at all. You were just staying in in the same spot consistently. And uh, it's it's fun to have new ideas and it it's always like it's it's I think it's always exciting whether you are that guy or not that guy when you do come up with something. But I would just challenge you to make sure that there's actually a benefit to those ideas. Because without that, there's truly no reason for the idea. Um, the only reason that you would form something or or enact a new system process, whatever it is, um, is to achieve a result. Um so check yourself, make sure that that you are actually getting the results. And then I would, I would, I mean, you can if it's a quantifiable result, look at those numbers. If it's something that's not quantifiable, then I'm always gonna advocate that you ask your team what those things are and and help them hold you accountable to that new idea.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yeah, I like that last thing you said because we talk about leaders, you know. I'm gonna tell you right now, there there is a place for new good ideas, obviously in business. We need we need those. This isn't the absence of new ideas. This is understanding when a new idea is needed and not needed versus what execution is needed. And if you think, well, how am I supposed to know that? Well, welcome to development, right? You want to be a great business owner, learn those things, figure out how to be good at that kind of discernment and that kind of decision making. And if you don't know how, surround yourself with people who do know how. Um but at the at the end of the day, executors will trample over idea guys every single time. So every every mama's basement entrepreneur has ideas, but not everybody executes those ideas. And that's what really separates the ones who stay in mom's basement and the ones who go thrive in the world. So with that being said, Is there some bad width living in mom's basement? For you, it's not. For you it works out, it seems to work out pretty well.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah. You seem a little judgmental, so I was just wondering.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

A little. A little. However, at 26 years old with a wife and a kid, I just think it's time. And that's what this whole podcast was aiming towards was getting you out of mom's basement.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Gotcha. I mean, she has AC, like it's a it's a nice there's a nice bed down there.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

I know it's rent-free. She makes all your meals for you, she does your laundry. It's a good deal.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

I'm not saying it's a hell of a deal.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

But I'm offering the idea that maybe your confidence will grow a little bit if you went out and did this on your own. Just a thought.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Hmm. Okay. And I I will take that as a thought.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

No, you no, you won't.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

We'll put on the board.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Your board of ideas that's already massive. Yeah. Yep. Now for those who don't know Isaiah, obviously he does not live at home with his mama. Um, but however, I want to do I do want to talk about a couple things that that you can leave with and take away with you today to be better at execution. Um and and a saying that I heard one time is is the relentless execution of unsexy fundamentals done longer than seems reasonable. That's really what it is. So it is the relentless execution of unsexy slash boring fundamentals, and you do those longer than seems reasonable. And that is what the greats do. And I would ask you, anybody who's listening, are you doing that? Right. And and and I I don't ask that question judgmentally, because I've been guilty of it. So it's something that I think that if we're not careful, if we don't have the awareness around, we will all fall victim to. So are you doing the the fundamentals? Are we bailing on ideas too soon? Are we panicking? Are we making bad decisions? And I wrote down three questions you can ask yourself to decide if this is something you suffer from, or if there's a better way for you to do it. And number one is uh before a new idea is allowed, a leader needs to ask how we fully executed the last one. Is the thing we were working on complete? Is it time? Now, the caveat to this is there is and this comes back to discernment and this comes back to decision making, right? Those are some of the gray areas that are really challenging. And this is why not everyone's a great business owner and why not everybody's a great leader. But there is times when we have an idea that we have kind of beaten to death and it's just not working, and we have to have the wisdom to know when to cut the cord on that. But broadly generally speaking, have you fully executed the last idea? Number two, is the is the thing that you're working on actually broken, or are you just bored? Are you tired of working on this thing? And I see this a lot with with marketing and things like that. We kind of, you know, uh we want to find the new flashy thing because maybe what was working is boring to us and we want, you know, to to alter things or change things. Well, maybe it's not necessary, but maybe it is, but again, we have to have the discernment. And then lastly is are we escaping discomfort or are we solving a real problem? So a lot of times if we have an area the business isn't doing the business that isn't doing well, or an area we haven't paid enough attention to, you know, we we convince ourselves that it's okay to leave this over here. And one of the ways we convince ourselves is by just telling ourselves we're not good at it, so I'm not going to focus on that, and I'll go focus on the new idea or the big uh thing that I'm good at. And what ends up happening is the foundation of the business starts to crack because you're not focusing on the things that you need to. So have you fully executed the last idea? Is the thing that that you're moving away from actually broken? Are you just boring? And are you escaping discomfort or are you actually solving a real problem? And uh put yourself through that that those list of questions. And again, there's a thousand ways to attack this. I'm just trying to give you a couple to chew on to take away with you. And the last one is this, and I and then I'll let Isaiah close this out. The last one would be something I work with him on, I work with a lot of clients on, is time blocking, right? And we talk about the the five Fs and we talk about uh you know executing in your business. A lot of times that comes down, especially for the leader, especially for a CEO type, especially for any C-suite type, or especially for uh uh a business owner, entrepreneur, is time blocking is such a valuable thing to do because it assigns the time to do the thing instead of leaving it up to your own discretion when life is usually pretty damn chaotic. So if we wait to the end of the day and we'll or we'll fit a workout in when we have a minute, we're never gonna fit it in. Right? If we are going to develop our team, when we find a free minute, we're never gonna find that free minute. If we're gonna read the reports and get be on top of our numbers when we find a, you know, the the space in our week to get it done, then we're never gonna get it done. But if we have assigned times in our week to get these things done, we have a much higher likelihood of getting them done. So, you know, for a Monday morning, you might time block 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. is reading reports from the last week and and you know, maybe put some buffer in there, but 10.30 to noon, I'm gonna do one-on-ones with my team. And, you know, um maybe from 12 to 1, I'm gonna eat lunch and go to the gym. Again, making these things up, you've got to uh figure out how to how to do it best for yourself. And then one of the pushbacks I get on this is well, maybe things are too unpredictable, or what happens if I don't get the thing done? And that's when you schedule in buffer time. So maybe Tuesday from 8 a.m. to noon is buffer time, and that's the time you go back and and finish the things maybe you ran out of time to complete. But again, this is a a methodology that's easier to coach uh in more uh in-depth when when and not at the end of a podcast episode, but you could probably Google it, use Chat GPT or something to figure out how to time block effectively. And if you start to put these things into practice, ask yourself the right questions, understand the importance of execution, and time block your days, you will be a much higher level executor and you will not fall into the trap of just being an ideas guy, and then your success will will mirror that in profound ways.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Completely echo all that. Time blocking is huge and it has absolutely transformed my life. I think you and I could probably do an entire episode um on how to actually do them. Yeah. Um, and then like the effects of it as well. I think that that that may be worthwhile. But one thing I'll I'll leave, and this is for the people that have the intention but struggle with the execution. Um, and this is one system that you could implement that you will have to execute. So we always have to like at some point you will have to execute one system, you will have to hold the line on it. So if you struggle with the execution part of everything, I would encourage you to start with an AAR, which is an after action report. But hey, we set that we were gonna do this system on February 1st, and we want to go and see how this works until February 28th. Okay, on February 28th, we should have a form, you can do a Google forum, you can do whatever you want to, that asks like a few simple questions. One could literally be, did the system work? Two, could literally be are there any measurable or quantifiable results that we can point back to to say that the system worked. Um, and three, you can make it any number of things that hold you accountable to making sure that that system process, whatever it is, actually worked. Um, but you do actually have to do that. That system in itself for it to work. Um, so I'd just heavily advocate you have to start with execution somewhere. Pick a spot, go. I think that's a great place to start.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

I love it. And just remember, you cannot out-idea your way from being a high-level executor, right? You it's like that you can't out exercise a bad diet, you can't out-idea bad execution. So just remember that and and then try to put some of the things into practice that we discussed today, and uh let us know how it goes, and we'll wrap it up there. And as always, we appreciate you listening. And if you are so inclined, please leave us a review, let us know how we are doing. And um also if you guys need more help with this and you want to reach out for coaching, uh, you can reach out to me, jason at jasengoggins.com. That's G-O-G-G-A-N-S. And Isaiah, where can they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

It's gonna be bronze serpentleadership.com.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Perfect. Love it. And yeah, if you want to go to my website, it's blackwolfleadership.com. So if you need help, further help, you can always reach out to us. We're happy to do so. And until then, we will talk to you guys next week.