1,500 Sessions Later, JBS Says EOS Isn't About the Tools - Jonathan B. Smith (EP. 013)

Jonathan B. Smith, known as JBS, was one of Gino Wickman's first clients. He met Gino at an EO event before EOS® even had a name, and that early bet turned into an Inc. 500 business and a career as an EOS® implementer with more than 1,500 sessions. JBS also spent a decade training with Chris Voss, the former lead FBI hostage negotiator behind Never Split the Difference, and co-wrote Fight Less, Win More to bring tactical empathy into the leadership room. In this conversation with Christine Watts and Kris Snyder, JBS makes the case that team health, not the tools, is 70% of what makes EOS® work. He shares how he reads a room, when he goes off-script with what he calls EOS® freestyle, and the stories behind it: the bird-catching business he helped scale from two states to fifty, the family screaming match he defused by pretending the neighbors complained, and his 93/7 rule for knowing when a session can be saved and when it can't.

Key topics:

• Why team health is 70% of making EOS® work, and the tools are the rest
• EOS® freestyle: structured flexibility, 15% out of the box and 85% facilitation
• Bringing Chris Voss's tactical empathy and hostage-negotiation skills into the session room
• The bird-catching business that scaled from two states to fifty
• Defusing a family screaming match, and the 93/7 rule for when EOS® works

About Jonathan B. Smith:
JBS is an EOS® implementer with more than 1,500 sessions and the co-author of Fight Less, Win More, a negotiation handbook built on the tactical empathy made famous by Chris Voss's Black Swan Group. He was one of Gino Wickman's earliest clients and trains leaders to handle high-stakes conversations in and out of the session room. Connect with JBS: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staycuriousjbs/

Mentioned in this episode:

• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805
• Fight Less, Win More by Jonathan B. Smith and Derek Gaunt: https://www.amazon.com/Fight-Less-Win-More-Negotiators/dp/1684016525

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Impact Moments Powered by 90. Today we're joined by JBS, Jonathan B. Smith. JBS was one of Gino Wickman's initial clients, I think his second client we talk about, and he met Dino at an EO event before EOS even had a name. So that really early bet turned into an Inc. 500 business and eventually a career as an EOS implementer. And now JBS has over 1500 sessions. He's also spent a decade training with Chris Voss, that name you might never recognize because he is the former lead FBI hostage negotiator and wrote Never Split the Difference. And now JBS has his book out, the companion book to that called Fight Less, Win More. So we talk a little bit about that, and we also get into how he applies to tactical empathy in the second room. He's got a lot of great stories about a bird catching business that went from two states to 50 states. He talked about a family screaming match in a really interesting way that he diffused that situation. So you'll really enjoy hearing from JBS. Let's get into it. Hey, welcome to Impact Moments Powered by 90. I'm Christine.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I'm Chris Snyder.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

And today we're joined by JBS.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Jonathan Smith.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

When I read your book, I realized why you go by JBS because your name is so generic and I never put that together. So I thought that was a fun little story.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

My parents were quite creative. John Smith is doesn't work all that well. Jick JLo can be J-Lo, so I'll be JBS. Perfect.

SPEAKER_05 1:37

I mean you've worked it into your personal branding effort, right? I mean, I've seen it. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

It's the only way for me to like distinguish myself with that last name Smith. Yeah. Understood. Understood.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

So you're an EOS implementer, author. Uh tell us a little bit about how you got your start, how you found out about EOS and became an implementer.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

I was Gino's second client. So I met Gino before it was called EOS. I uh he was like bouncing around an EO event trying to figure out what his next gig was after he sold his business with his dad. I was like, who's that guy with all the energy over there? I want to go talk to that guy. So he was like totally in sales mode. So we were his second client, my brother Tyler and I, and it was like $1,500 a session at the time. And we ended up in traction, ended up building, I think, 500 business. But my brother and I both built different businesses. We we sort of worked in that business and went apart. And then in 2013, my brother's like, I was in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi, and he's like, I wanted to come home. And he's like, There's all these people doing EOS, doing really well. You have everything but the network domestically. Come home and become an EOS implementer. So that's when I became an EOS implementer.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Wow. And when was that again?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

2013.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

13. Okay, nice. So what do you think is the biggest difference between how you work with clients today versus what you did when you started? Anything?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

I have 1500 sessions at this point. So just having experience. And I believe that team health is 70% of making EOS work. And so early on, I was just trying to get through like the script of how to get through the day. And now I don't worry about the script at all. And I'm like, how do I manage the humans and get team health and build a high performance team? And if we can get a high performance team, everything else falls into place.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Right. So Yeah, and you so you're an EOS implementer and you also just wrote a book. So how did you come to that? Tell us about that journey.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

So Mark O'Donnell, who's the CEO and visionary at EOS, was my client. He was my apprentice. I always have an apprentice, EOS implementer. He was my EOS partner. And he became visionary and he said to me, traction and what the heck is EOS? Sell one for one. So literally, like on a go-forward basis, they sell sort of an equal amount. So Chris Voss, who was the former lead hostage negotiator for the FBI and author of Never Split the Difference, is a client of mine. I architected that business with Chris. And I said, Chris, I want to write a missing manual for Never Split the Difference. Never split the Difference had sold, has sold five million copies today. So I said, why don't we just build another book that's adjacent to Never Split the Difference? And then Chris will hold the two books up and say, You need to sell both of these books. You need to read both of these books. Yeah. So that's how we we got to Never Split the Difference and uh Fight Less Win More. And I trained with Chris for the last 10 years because I didn't want to be on stage and not be able to use use the hostage and negotiation skills myself. So and it helps in session all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:56

That's a I mean, you I can see it right from having I just recently read your book, but uh having obviously read never split the difference and then understanding how you're trying to facilitate the moment, right, that you're in and using tools.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, and it's really calming. Like I'm just calm. I'm like you're screaming, and I'm like, okay, it's just another hostage negotiation.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

What are other things that you feel like it brings to the session room other than like level setting your energy?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Oh, just infinite confidence. That no one, no matter what happens, I can always always lean back on my training. So we don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. That's Archolocus said that. And so the whole idea is because I've trained so much, it's not that I always get it right. It's just that I have confidence that when things go sideways, and as Chris knows, things go sideways. I uh I have confidence that somehow I'll figure out how to land the point.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Well, speaking of things going sideways, we asked people to come to Impact Moments with a story, um, a moment where kind of everything changed for them. A decision was made, something happened, and then you could really see the ripple effect of what happened after that. Does anything come to mind for you from either like from you being an entrepreneur or on the EOS implementer side? That's a good story related to that.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, so one of my my first clients. So when I started in EOS, one of the deals was you had to get five clients in order to get referrals from EOS. So I had to sort of fight my way to get five clients. And then because Gino knew me, um I started getting referrals and I closed 10 deals in a row. And one of the deals was with a group down in Roanoke, Virginia, and they um catch birds at Walmart. That's what they do. Their business is literally, they solve the um nation's retailers nuisance bird problem. And I'm in the session with um I like it's almost like out of a reality TV show. And I am sitting with them and I just built their economic model on the on the wall. So not necessarily in the EOS toolbox, but I'm like, if it were me, this is how I would build the business. And I have a master's degree in accounting and lots of entrepreneurial experience. And we built this economic model. Um at that time we had two states. We have all 50 states at this point, and are the leading bird catcher in the country. I even have my own shotgun that they bought me that they engraved with uh my nickname is the herd sire down there. So they engraved it with the herd sire. So when I go there, if I want to go hunting with them, I have my own shotgun.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

So I started to chuckle because of this the way you're positioning what they do. And I'm always fascinated by these nuanced niche businesses, right? That somebody's gonna do that. And that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

It's super cool. And that the reality is I like to say that it's just a business. And like I think of a business as an assembly line. We invest money in marketing. If we have a good core process, the marketing hands off a marketing qualified lead to sales, that's a sales qualified lead. Sales closes the deal, hands it off to operations, operations goes and delivers it, hands it off to finance, they invoice it, we make some money, put it some back in the bank, and then recycle the money. I'm like, I'm like, that's no matter what they're doing, that's what the business is.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

So was you kind of doing that and building that economic model for them live in the session room? That's like very different than typical work you would do facilitating. You it seems like you were really comfortable with that, even though it was your third client.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I'm an entrepreneur. Yeah. So like I think my belief is that you should work with an EOS implementer who's an entrepreneur. Because they will understand the journey that you're walking through. I think there's a difference between an entrepreneur and a coach. That is my personal preference. I I uh and not EOS's position, it's my position. But um, we get into sessions and our job, I think, purity, purity or the way EOS should be delivered is to deliver, get the client what they want from their business and do your best to follow the EOS process. But sometimes that includes building their economic model.

SPEAKER_05 9:22

Especially if they're not going to get there. You couldn't have coached them there on a whiteboard if they don't have the background to actually derive the model.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Aaron Powell Yeah, they didn't have the background, but what they were were they were like four Eagle Scouts. So as soon as I showed them the map, they were off to the races.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

I love that analogy. Are there other moments that come to mind of like a going rogue scenario that ended up working out well?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

I call it EOS freestyle.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I like that. Okay, nice.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

And I also say that I do, I I believe in structured flexibility. So like we have to deliver 15% EOS like out of the box, and then the the rest eight the last 85% is actually facilitation. How do you get the team to do what you're trying to you want to get them to do? There are so many, so many moments in my EOS journey where one of the moments is Chris will appreciate this. I had uh two family members screaming at each other, primal scream. And um, I don't know how to stop them from doing that. So I go to the door, I open the door, and I say, The neighbors said it's really loud in here. Can you stop screaming? Well, the neighbors weren't at the door. I just made it up.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

And then I was like, Okay, so time out. We have a choice. You guys can go walk around the block and figure it out, or we can we can end this session now. Because my theory is family first. I'm not gonna destroy a family over a business. And like they fixed the family, and now the business, so the really interesting thing is the business now, we got rid of like all the bad clients. I literally wrote their 20. They were working with GCs, 20 GCs. I'm like, do you make money with them? No. Do you make money with them? No. Do you make money with them? Yes. All right, so keep the six that we make money with. And then what happened was so volumes came down, but then what happened is the people who were bidding on jobs that didn't make economic sense went out of business. And they had bonded projects. And those bonded projects then went to my client at full margin. So my client, they sent me a note. They're like, I'm coming to pick you up in the Maserati. Because the Maserati was on the on the um three-year picture. So um, yeah, that's the kind of work that we do.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

He took a picture literally with the Maserati at the store when he was getting it because he wanted me to know.

SPEAKER_05 11:57

Well, that's and I I think for those that haven't experienced it, that's the level of intimacy, the relationship that gets created by some of those moments, right? And the appreciation that happens with it as well.

unknown 12:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, and no one else is willing to have that conversation with them. Because our the beauty is that we're independent.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

And if they fire us, okay, I'm willing to take the risk. I think it's more important that you have your family than I have another session with you. And then I know it's just really counterintuitive. I know that if I enter the danger and do the work, they're more likely to have another session with me than if I, you know, try to protect amongst people.

SPEAKER_05 12:35

Yeah, that's it's been my experience as well. Like they, they're they're paying you for it. They need you to do it, right? To go into the danger. And I I do, you know, I'll reflect back that it's hard when you first get started because I just wanted to be in a session room.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Of course.

SPEAKER_05 12:49

You just want the work. It was uh it wasn't, I mean, money's nice, but it was mostly about the reps. And so you're like, what if I if I enter the danger and I don't get to keep the client, then I get less sessions right now?

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Yeah. So like having the confidence to be able to have those moments is really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

What's the timeline that that happens in? Like that intense of a moment where they're screaming at each other, like they come back the next quarter. Like, is it getting worse before it gets better in some of those scenarios?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Also, it's funny that in the book, 93% of the time we can use the hostage negotiation skills to get someone out. 7% of the time you have to use SWAT. So the joke is like it doesn't always work EOS doesn't always work.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

So like there's 7% of the time where you're like, these people are cuckoo bananas. Either I'm not capable of handling them, like, Chris, you take the client versus me, maybe he can do a better job than me. Or more often than not, the client's just cuckoo bananas and it's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_05 13:51

I think one of my leading indicators is when the you know visionary CEO can't let go and they're fighting that they're fighting any of the delegation, and that now they've got 12, 12, 13 direct reports in the room, and you're like, this is not how this works. Like you're not, you're not seeing it. And then that's the moment where, you know, you go have the I have to go have the conversation. Like we cannot have 13 direct reports in this room. It's not working.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah, I've had one time. I'm in the room and there's two people fighting with each other, and I just go, This is not gonna work. And the CEO cover says, You come with me and told the person he was fighting with that. So we went and sort of had this separate conversation. And in the conversation, he fired her on the spot in the meeting. Wow. And she left and the meeting was over.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

What did you do in that scenario?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I didn't what was I gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 14:49

It was a seven percent.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Oh, the client stayed. It was just this person got fired because they I was like, this is not gonna work. Oh how this is going. And the client just it's that day the energy was broken. There was no way to recover the energy at that point. They needed to go figure out what they needed to do, and it was just bizarre. Like they didn't tell us about that in boot camp.

SPEAKER_05 15:12

No, no. I was probably early on, my sixth, seventh client maybe, uh, we were doing an accountability chart, and you could tell that the CEO, president, and the COO did not trust each other. Again, we're three and a half hours into this accountability chart, and we can't get because they won't agree. And so I went there and I was just like, look, Tim, I'm just gonna reflect for a moment. Here's what you said, and here's what you said. I think we have a trust issue. And then paused and like, you know, do you trust him? The answer is no. I'm like, do you trust him? The answer is no, I'm like, well, then I know what we're gonna do because this doesn't work, right? Not the level that we have to get to. And so we we went ahead and kept going. I'm like, we'll come back because let's still try to make progress. I got a call from the CEO the next day. He's like, I fired him. I was like, they've been together for a long time. Right. It's like, okay, that's that's the right thing to do because we can't make forward progress.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Are there certain things like those hard moments that ha happen in in one quarter when you come back the following? Are there certain things that you do with the team in order to make sure like you can make progress in that day? Because you're only with them for that one day. It's not like you've been with them the entire time to kind of manage the situation forward.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

So there's different ways it happens. Sometimes it's like, I don't know, they they're gone three months ago and we don't have to deal with it. I've had it where someone dies on the team and you're like, okay. The most important thing before we even check in is let's take a moment and and just process that as a team. Because we were doing all this important work together and it was pretty intimate, and then that person's no longer there. So that's that happens. And sometimes it's like you just take the first hour and you go, like, okay, we can look back for the first hour, but in order to make this work, we have to look forward after the first hour. And if like usually they're done in the first hour, and if they need two hours, then you do two hours, you sort of situation drives tactics.

SPEAKER_05 17:12

I had a heart attack during a session one time. You personally Oh no, no, no, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_05 17:17

The CFO had a heart attack during the session, which threw the session off quite a bit. And it was it was an annual, so um, we had the next day to to try to fix what happened, but he he ended up okay. Wow. But it definitely threw the rhythm of of the whole thing off, and rightfully so. Uh, but it was like, okay, so we were in we were in team health at the time. So it's like, all right, I don't know if we the cause of that, but let's uh see how we can repair the day and and try to make progress even tomorrow. Things happen. I mean, it is predictable.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

I had a client, we were at a construction client at the time I was working out of his office. They were very interesting characters with like all kinds of trucks, like more trucks than I've ever seen, and machines and snowmobiles and four-wheelers, and someone in the yard was using a grinder without a guard on it, and the grinder went up his arm. So someone runs into the office and says, um, he caught his arm and it's bleeding everywhere. I get his spurting out.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

So the owner goes out, takes his belt off, and tourniquets his arm.

unknown 18:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Ambulance comes and takes a guy to the hospital. They're like, they come back like an hour later, and they're like, you know, if he didn't tourniquet his arm, he was gonna die. Wow. And I'm like, after that happened, I'm like, would you guys like to stop the day? They're like, they continued the day. Yeah. I I was like, That's wild. Oh my gosh. Like, you couldn't make the story up. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Well, I'm curious to switch gears for you to a failure moment. We like to ask our guests, like, you've kind of reflected on a lot of like the success that you've built and had, and what's a moment you look back on and say, Man, this was a really big fuck up for me. And like, here's the lessons that I learned from this moment, what I would change.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

I'll tell you one that's like really simple. I called someone's wife in the room the wrong name.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

And like she didn't have like a sense of humor.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

And so I was like, from then on, every time I have a session, I get everyone's name in the morning. I sit down for breakfast, I write it down, so that and then I try to put it in my head. Because like a lot of times if if I haven't worked with them enough, or if a new person comes on the team, I'll forget the new person's name. So I just don't want to be in a position where I I never did that again after that. I'm super embarrassed. Which it seems like a simple mistake, but it was I was not happy with myself at that point.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Have you had a moment like that before, too?

SPEAKER_05 19:54

Yeah, it was at um it was in an annual, and we had gotten to know each other really well. Like the the team and I, and I would say that we were very friendly. And so we were at dinner, and I thought we were just having fun, but I was busting chops and I shouldn't have been, and I didn't realize that I offended her, but it wasn't like sh I thought she was playing along. And there's just those lines sometimes that when you're not paying attention and you let your guard down because we're not supposed to be their friends. It's not we're not there to entertain them at dinner, right? That's and so it was just a it was a moment. I got a call from the visionary the next day was like, hey man, that wasn't that cool. And I'm like, no, you're 100% right. Like, I'll own it, I'll call her and apologize because I just thought we were all sometimes people do that, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:42

There was not the time to do it, it wasn't the place.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I'll tell you another one. The the bird guys, they're very Christian, so they don't swear. I was swearing in session, because I'm from New York. We consider that to be like it's like, you know, salt and pepper. Yeah. So the guy takes me aside, he's like, look, we don't swear in session. I'm like, oh, okay. So I stop swearing. Yeah. And then if I do swear, which I know almost never do, they mark down the session and write it on the board. So then I told them that when I'm in New York, it's sanctuary, and swearing doesn't count. So if I'm on the phone and I'm on the phone with them in New York, I tell them I'm in sanctuary, and I'm like, and by the way, I bought the house next to your house so your kids could go to sanctuary. Like so we have a whole thing that goes on with that. But you know, they were very nice about it, and it all worked out in the long run. It was just about communicating and understanding what the boundaries are.

SPEAKER_05 21:40

Yeah. Well, that's meet them more meet them where they're at moment. And that's what, you know, I still use the term sometimes. I gotta think about getting into character for the client and how how they behave, because I don't want to affect their culture. It's their culture, not mine. Sure. Right. And so how how well can I meet them where they're at and how the how they behave. I have one client who's in construction. And they dress down, especially in the summertime. So I was getting ready to walk out and my my wife's like, are you going to work? Like, yes, because that's how they're all going to look today. And that's what I'm going to do.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:12

Um, because I don't want to show up in a suit if they're going to be in flip-flops and short and a t-shirt. Like that doesn't feel quite right.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Well, it's interesting you guys have both talked about like ways that you prepare for the session, if like figuring out where they are. And I know you look at your list of words and figure out what's going to resonate with them and help move them forward. Or like you're like, I'm sitting with the names and I'm like really like thinking about this client ahead of time. Are there things that you would want leadership team members to do coming into the session to like prepare and get their mind right?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Well, I always think that they should really like it's we always do better if they think of what the rocks should be for the quarter or what are their big issues. Because to t you only you only have like a hundred pennies of energy to deal with in the day. So every penny of energy or you know, prop thought processing they'd need costs.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

So to the extent like my best team show up and they like they have rocks that are maybe built. Right. And then we polish them. Like I did. It's like, wow, that's beautiful. It is beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 23:17

And it's especially if they can take a clarity break, even revisit their VTO ahead of time such that we're not looking at it for the you know first time since we're early in the Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:27

And then and they have thoughts on it, right? So when we ask the questions about how well are this is is this activated in a VTO, someone's already started to formulate an opinion. Um, you know, the rock thing is awesome. I think department priorities, so not the visionary, not the integrator, but if the leaders can think about what their department priorities are for the next period, that should have a relationship to the rocks. But to be able to discuss that and say why they're choosing these rocks because what are my department priorities? That's at a little bit larger company most of the time. But, you know, it's just that preparation thinking it through before we're sitting there trying to use all the the rest of the pennies in the jar and get to the right answer.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Aaron Powell Do you guys like prompt your clients to do that work ahead or I mean we ask them, we ask all of them to do the same thing and some do and some don't.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:14

So typically there's a a call with the integrator, right, or visionary. Most of the time it's the integrator ahead of it. I try to do that like a week in advance so I can find out how's team health going, how how we do it on the numbers, the rock percentage. Um and then two days in advance, I send out very very much standard prep email to remind them. I don't know what the percentage is. 50% of the time they don't read the the email. They're still showing up.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

50% of the time they don't have the call. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

And that there's some that come in and they're super organized, and there's some that come in and we just wing it.

SPEAKER_05 24:45

The opportunity there is to reflect if they're not getting what they want out of the system, is to reflect back on the work that is actually being done and how it's being done.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Right.

SPEAKER_05 24:53

Because there's only so much you can get accomplished, you know, an eight-hour quarter if they're not doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

So what are you like reading, watching, or listening to to help you grow personally or professionally right now?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

I usually pick something that I'm gonna do for the year. Oh. And I pick one thing. Because I'm not that good at getting good at lots of things. So right now I ha I'm working on keynote speaking. So I just hired a keynote coach.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

And I'm just working on keynotes and storytelling. Um so less reading and more I'm an acting coach and I'm a keynote coach and I'm a story coach, and how do we go get this right? And I'm gonna go get in front of a bunch of audiences, and then I'm gonna get feedback, and 18 months from now. Um, my hope is that I'm a good substitute for Chris Voss. Because he's the best in the world at what he does, and uh the only way to do it is go trade it and you know, right?

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

But that's sort of how I am. Every year I go do something this year. Last year it was get the book done. The book needed to be five star, what was it gonna take to get the book done? We're gonna launch the book and do the the personal brand this year, but there's a team that's working on that. So my personal effort is on this keynote.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

And how do I unlock it's like voice and physicality and storytelling? It's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

I love that elevated approach of like the annual goal for myself, and then that can direct kind of the content I'm consuming and what I'm really putting my time into. I know you like the concept of the personal VTO. Yeah. It's very similar.

SPEAKER_05 26:32

And mine's mine's um, so I've been the last year or two, I've been spending time on Phil Stutz's work. And everyone has this concept of flow, so it's not unique to Phil and how he does it. But he's got this other concept about lower channel time and higher channel time. And lower channel is is where you know you're never going to find flow because it's, you know, it's your vices, you're you're spending time with your vices versus doing the things that you find energy and flow into. And so this this year my um my theme is find flow. And so when I start to journal, I I I write that at the top, and then I start to think about what am I doing, how am I being intentional. And then sometimes I just need to journal. Like like what's what's processing in order to let that that flow come.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, and one of the things that in learning the the hostage negotiation techniques or tactical empathy, I build a whole model for how do you learn these skills. Because Chris went to Quantico. I'm just a business guy who happened to want to figure out how to use these skills in a session room. So I did journal. I have a journal. There's actually a logbook in the back of the of this book, and the idea is you need to journal every single day. Only one item. So with my quick start, I'd do t eight in one day, and then I would skip for the next eight days. So you have to actually journal every single day one piece, and that actually makes a better habit.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

Do you begin or end it? Do you begin your day with the journal or end it with the journal?

SPEAKER_00 28:00

I usually begin because I get up early. Yeah, me too. And then I'm like, then I'm ready to roll by the time the the the end of the day comes, I probably like just crash.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:08

Very similar. I that's where my energy's highest and my head's clearest, right? So it's typically I'll get up and before I work out I find it better off if getting a cup of coffee, sitting down and doing it. Tell me about I I'm interested in the um the keynote. Like, is that is there a system that the coach has? Is it like just his experience or her experience?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

No, there's a whole system. Okay. And then like it all goes back to acting.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

A lot of it goes back to acting, and then some of it goes back to like marketing and advertising, like how do you structure a story? Right. And I'm like, you have poetic license. I'll tell you the stories, you go structure it so it works, and just tell me what to do and coach me, and I'll go execute it and then I'll see how it works, and then from there I'll try to make it my own. Very cool. But yeah, it's pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

Well, good. I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah, we were actually talking about the concept of a keynote earlier and how much harder it is because you are up there alone as opposed to like feeding off of like energy and questions in the room like you might get in like a webinar or smaller setting.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Very different from facilitation or workshop. And so I'm like, I don't know how to do it. When Chris learned it, he went through the National Speakers Association. They have like a course. And he was super intense about doing it. And I could I missed the course in New York, the date, so then I just hired a keynote coach.

SPEAKER_05 29:39

I like extemporaneous, I like crowd work, I like workshop. Um I respect the hell out of a performance because that takes the the time to mastery and get it there.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah, and then and then once you know how the keynote works and you watch a keynote speaker, you're like, oh, I know what that is. Yeah, like that's as opposed to um, oh, why is the person on stage so alive? And then when you talk to them when they get off the stage, you're like, that's not is that the same person? I've had that happen to me with a keynote speaker. I'm like, God, it's a totally different personality. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:12

Back to back to getting into character, right? Like that that they're getting into character for the keynote.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Well, that's all we had for you today. So thank you so much for joining. Really excited to hear about the book and how you're applying that in the session room. So thanks for all the insights.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Thanks for having me. Yeah. Certainly appreciate it. And go 90.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Thanks for watching Impact Moments Powered by 90. We'll see you next time. I always love talking with JBS, and he's always got these interesting nuggets that stick with me. He said team health is 70% of making EOS work. The tools matter, but the humans in the room matter more. And the EOS tools are really about managing that human energy. And that lines up so well with really every guest that we hear on this show. The system gives you the structure, the breakthrough really comes from the people around the table actually trusting each other to really move forward, say what needs to be said, even when it's hard. So even when people might get fired up in the middle of a meeting, EOS and an implementer and all of those things allow you to build the trust and have those conversations and actually move the business forward. So I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. If you enjoyed listening, I hope that you like, subscribe, share it with somebody that needs to hear it. And we'll see you next time.