Leading Projects with Purpose with Daniel Hemhauser | #LeadWithLegacy | Episode 31

What separates good project leaders from great ones?

In Episode 31 of the Lead with Legacy™ Podcast, Amanda Chambers and Sloane Lott welcome project management leader, coach, and founder of The PM Playbook, Daniel Hemhauser, for a conversation about leadership, communication, project delivery, and building trust within teams.

Drawing from decades of experience leading complex initiatives and mentoring project professionals around the world, Daniel shares practical insights on active listening, servant leadership, navigating difficult projects, empowering teams, and creating organizational cultures built on trust rather than control.

Whether you lead projects, organizations, ministries, or people, this conversation offers practical leadership lessons that extend far beyond project management.

🔔 Subscribe for leadership insights, honest conversations, and practical wisdom you can apply immediately.

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🔗Connect with Daniel Hemhauser:

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielhemhauser/

Learn more at:
https://www.thepmplaybook.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Lead with Legacy, the official podcast of IOL Global. Here we will explore leadership that outlives titles and trends. Through conversations with faith-based and marketplace leaders, we will discuss integrity, conviction, and purpose. To learn more about us, visit us at iOLglobal.com. Hello, welcome back to Lead with Legacy Podcast. I am so incredibly excited and honored to have Mr. Daniel Hemhauser here today. And we're going to talk a little bit about who you are and what you do. We also have Sloane Law, my director of operations. Literally the machine behind all we do. And so so grateful for her and to have her here. So I'm going to flip the script a little bit. I'm going to start out. First of all, Daniel is basically a celebrity. And so I'm really excited. You have I checked this morning. I know you saw me check. On LinkedIn, it tells you who looks at your profile. So I know you saw that I did. I had to see because I knew it was a lot, but I didn't know how many. You have 93,543 followers. That's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's very strange because again, I I'm not that important of a person. And uh it's just amazing that when you, I guess like try to speak the truth to your own like what you see and and your experience and try to share it with others for the benefit of them, not for yourself. It seems to be taking it's taking its own strange trick down the lane. And uh yeah. So I wake up every morning, I see those numbers, and I'm quite shocked that uh that's more than enough to fill out two two football stadiums in the U.S. So pretty amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah. So I mean I fully expect to at least get one of those to to convert over with not to leave you, of course. No, I'm joking.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

No, that's why I love talking to you guys so much because we we are so aligned, like a thousand percent on everything with all the how what we believe, how we're trying to help people. That's one of the reasons why the the two of you, especially, like I hold you both dear to my heart.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Thank you. Yeah, same. And we've had several conversations together offline. Uh, we do, we have a lot in common um as far as project management in general, um, but a lot in common, just values, friendship, camaraderie, collaboration, uh, helping people out, um, you know, sending people this way or that way to get the help that they need. And that's one of the things that I've just really, really admire about you. Um, it's been an honor to get you to know you and your team. We had um Mark Headquist, we had him on. And that was, gosh, we had him on early on. It's been a long time.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

So yeah, Mark is such a great human being, let alone person, just a great human being, like a really, really good guy.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

We've been anxiously awaiting getting you on. We actually had you scheduled and there were some issues, and we had to reschedule. And and so, yeah, we've been counting down the days. We're really, really excited.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Okay, it was same.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Yeah, so you um I'm gonna go back to you. It was fun because we we kind of we we don't make a script, but we we send our our guests questions and things like that. But then I did log on to your LinkedIn today and I saw your post. So I'm gonna actually read it because it's hilarious. Daniel said, I have 49 years of experience in project management and I'm 51 years old. I've been managing projects since the womb. Uh, it said that my kindergarten chore list inspired the first version of the PIMBok. Uh I learned early that scope creep starts when a simple clean your room turns into and the garage while you're at it. Uh, my first resource allocation challenge, negotiating snack trades at lunch to optimize cookie intake. And every time I close my eyes, I see a mental gant chart that's tracking milestones like first steps, first words, first successfully delegated household chore. So yeah, I love it. It's hilarious. That was a great post. And I think it's probably pretty true, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Um, you are definitely, it definitely is to a degree. And like I try to, I used to do it all the time, but now I I probably I try to do it like once a week at least, like something that's not so like the end of the world, right? Or or reality, just something a little fun.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah, absolutely. I love your posts. I I love going back and forth with you. One of the things that's a lot of fun about your posts is you will actually interact with people and and come back and have good conversation back and forth, which is a lot of fun. I have several people on LinkedIn that that I have the honor to do that with. So we're all big LinkedIn fans. Um, we're old and we're in the business world. So that's what we do. Um we start to do it.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

I feel like that's our combined virtual office between a group of about 500 of us. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's right. Yeah. Um, but what an amazing place because we get to connect with people that we wouldn't otherwise know and connect. So I want you to take a minute, tell us who you are, where are you at. Um what is it that you do? Because you will tell people better than I will.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

Sure. So, of course, my name is Daniel Hanauser. I'm a project manager slash project leader. I've been doing that for about 20 years. So I've been primarily working in IT for about 26 years, started office in network engineer, fellow into project management, like a lot of project managers, and just been loving it ever since. I feel like it's in my DNA, very much aligned with that post. It it's a little witty, but I feel like this is what I was born to do. And uh, you know, over the last year, year and a half, uh I've got, you know, an opportunity to kind of share that with the the rest of the world. And in my a little attempt to to try to, you know, put a mark on the profession and really try to elevate the conversations around project management and help as many people as possible. Something I've always done. Me and my wife are involved in every kind of community thing that you could go uh that you could imagine. And uh I just, you know, once I got laid off and I was kind of trying to figure out what my next steps were, this gave me a place to really, again, meet people like you, uh, work with other project managers, stay connected to the profession in the industry, but really uh find a path forward to help as as many people as possible, right? It's a global platform with a billion plus people on it, and uh, it's created something that I can never imagine. I've always wanted to write, teach, coach, mentor, all those things. And this this allows me, thankfully, to do that. And uh yeah, it's a it's been a fun journey. Um, I'm working at uh own my own business um called the PM Playbook, and pretty much in a nutshell, it's um you know just a community where anyone could come, regardless of you know where you are, how much money you make, you know, where you are in your journey, and just really connect with other people on the same path. There's no it's a free community. There are some paid portions of it, but it's very minimal. Uh we want to keep 95% of the platform always free. Again, I believe deep in my heart that regardless of where you're from and and what country that you live in, you should have access to the same tools, tips, materials that everyone else has. So yeah, we're we're we're building slowly but surely, and uh it's been quite a journey. It's not what I envisioned two years ago, it's not what I envisioned 20 years ago, but it's certainly uh I feel like a a path that destiny has has put me on. And again, I got get to meet people like you, which yeah has been life-changing. Literally, like I know people use that term, but it's actually changed my life. And uh yeah, it's gonna be a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

I wouldn't say that I was gonna be doing this either, but here we are. And I think we've talked a little bit about that too offline. And so yeah, I there there's a there's a way he has like, hey, this is really what I want you to do.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

Yes. Nah, let's go left now.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, and the PM playbook is great. Uh we're gonna put the link to that at the bottom of this video. I encourage everyone to go check that out. I I chuckle a little bit because you say that you have, you know, you still have a lot of growth to get like you're doing it, Daniel. You're already there.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, and you're incredible. And so where you're up north. I can't remember where.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Yeah, I live um live and work out of the I live and work out of New Jersey, but I primarily have serviced the New York, New Jersey area for my entire career. But yeah, I live right down in this the center of New Jersey.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Wow. You're I I guess I didn't remember. I knew it was up north somewhere. Um, Matt Zimbruski, we had on here, and he is like up in, was he, Philadelphia or something like up?

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Oh yeah, 40 minutes from a house. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

For people like us, that's just up there.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Yeah, exactly. Just up there.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Just up there in that area. Yeah, so that's interesting. That's great. All right. Well, so uh Sloan and I are very, very like I said, we have been anticipating this conversation, and so I am going to let her kind of take over and ask some questions, and then we'll just kind of free flow back and forth and and and see what happens. So take it away, Sloan.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Absolutely. Mr. Daniel, you've led large portfolios across hundreds of initiatives. And as today's post shared with us, you know, since kindergarten, you've been you've been working these deals. So when you enter a complex delivery environment, what do you assess first?

SPEAKER_03 8:37

That's a good question. The first thing I take a look at is not the project plan, right? You would think, oh, let me jump on a project plan. Like I don't even take a I don't care about that, right? I want to the first thing I ordinarily do is talk to my team or or the people that I I'm presented with as this is my team or at least my key stakeholders. And I'm trying to really kind of see where they are, right? What what's going on, see you know what the the the political aspects of it are, how the decisions are are being made. And again, I'm not even talking to the sponsor or or the people that actually control the project. I want to make sure I'm really truly understanding what's really going on. So then me and my team could put a battle plan together to fix that. In the last 10 or so years of my career, so about half my career, I I've primarily been working in organizations where I'm brought in after a project has either blown up or it's just got kind of gone off the rails or is about to go off the rails. And yeah, so again, I you would expect, let me see the project plan, let me see what's going on. I that that we could worry about that stuff later. Again, ordinarily I want to see how my the team is doing. I want to speak to the key stakeholders and again really understand the decision-making process, the politics, the trust that's been built or destroyed, the capacity of the team. Are are we missing anything? And really just try to, you know, spend about a week or so doing those things before I even look at any documentation. Because that that's to look at that in my inbox at any time, right? I want to see what's going on on the ground. And ordinarily, nine times out of ten, that leads me to exactly where I want to be. And of course, it enables us to pretty quickly usually put a good game plan together to present to the sponsors and your leadership, whoever the case may be.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

And it's necessary, right, to hear what's going on, listen to what's going on. You just can't jump onto those dashboards and say, here's how we do it now. You know, and this is this is you've got to figure out the culture. What is the motivation? How are we communicating with people? I don't know if you've gotten a chance yet to read Dr. LaFrance's newest book.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

I'm halfway through. I'm halfway through it. Yeah, he sent it to me.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, listening for value, it's great. And you know, these leaders that we're blessed to follow and work alongside, you see them doing that. They're listening, they're getting to the root cause first, and then they're moving forward. And I think you look at the people that have the most success, you have a lot of success. This is how you do it. You've proven that listening and getting to know people matters.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Oh, I couldn't agree. Any you've been doing project manager long enough, you realize there's 30 different versions of a project going on at any time. And I want to find the real one first, right? I don't want to uh, you know, look at all the dashboards, but but I couldn't agree more. Active, like my mentees and my coaching clients, the thing I cannot stress enough to them is active listening. And I say this all the time, and people kind of look at me funny. I say, listen with your eyes, not with just your ears, right? Especially if if you have an opportunity to meet someone in person or work with the team in person because people will tell you they'll tell you they might not be even saying the words, but if you listen close enough with a humble heart and you're really trying to be empathetic and understand them, they're gonna tell you what you need to hear. Uh and of course, that ordinarily enables trust and great relationships pretty quickly and it creates psychological safety a lot faster than a lot of other ways.

unknown 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, I agree, and I think it's important too, um, not just for the leaders, but the team members to to have open, yeah, open ears and open hearts to one, to share, right? And two, to listen to the feedback that comes and and understand that it's it's not a critical feedback. It's here's how we're going to help the team, here's how we're gonna help you, here's how we're gonna help the project.

unknown 12:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

And take it, you know, it in stride and and implement the things that we're we're giving you so that you can have a more successful team and a more successful project. And and also kind of, you know, unfortunately, sometimes when you go in, I'm sure you're having to weed out some of the net, you know, the negative influences that are going on that aren't helping the project. And either, you know, sometimes we have we have team members as unfortunate as that they're just a really, really negative part of the project, and they can either correct, which is what we hope, or they can go off of the project.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

Yes. And it has at least one. At least one. Always. There's always very degrees sometimes. Hopefully it's not to that one degree, but right, yeah. And again, that w with the some of the things that that I said I do first. I'm one of the things I'm trying to do is identify if there are any people like that and if they are who they are, so that we could try to, you know, devise plans, you know, go around that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

A lot of times too, there's there's like a core reason behind why they are the way that they are, or why they, you know, they might be sabotaging a project because, you know, they were promised 50 things down the road, it never happened, and they're they're carrying a load that they can't, you know, really carry. And so getting behind that and figuring it out and finding their motivation and finding that's it, you know, finding their motivation. Giving them the coaching, yeah, to to help and to get through it. And so it's not, you know, it's not, oh, we want to come in and we want to get rid of everybody. I don't think anybody has has that goal. Uh, it's hey, how can we make this better? Um, how can we make you better? How can we, you know, listen better and and focus better and get things done.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

So very a lot of times when I get to the root cause, it 90% of the time, it has nothing to do with what we're working on. It could be exactly, you know, they're they're an IT person and they're they didn't get the raise they were promised. But very much like you said, it has nothing to do with the project, but then they bring that stuff into the project and it affects us. So no, actively listening is the key at with uh you know, with an empathetic ear, of course. Uh because people just want to be heard at the end of the day. And it they might just want to yell at you for a half hour and you know, shake hands and go on the project and they feel better, you feel better, and now they're being constructive to the project.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

So yeah, that's very, very good uh advice for leaders, too, is you need to allow your team to say what they need to say sometimes. It may not be easy to hear, they might tell you, look, you're failing in this in this part. But that's how we learn and grow, right? As a team, as individuals, um, is sometimes we have to hear some of that feedback. Hopefully it's as kind as possible.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Exactly. Keep her professional, of course. But no, uh, and I I've had a few of those myself, and uh that has kind of led me to to where I am today. But but certainly when I give it, I I I do it exactly like you just uh explained. You just gotta you gotta make sure that you're taking care, like I have kids, so like I I try to kind of weave that mentality into not that I'm treating people like kids, but just you know, keep them care kick gloves. They're they're adults, they're professionals. Uh we're not we're not as on the school yard. Like we have to uh uh uh accomplish something collectively. And uh again, you just kind of you know find what they need and and make sure that you know you you you at least attempt to get it, even if you can't try to help them out, maybe put them on a different path, get them some coaching training, whatever the case may be. But ordinarily people are are pretty good at the end of the day, at least I found.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. And I think too, a lot I I in in my what I have found is a lot of times when you have negativity or you have issues or you have somebody who is having a hard time, there there's usually like you said, something behind that. There's something so much more to that. You know, you just don't a lot of times we don't know. And and a lot of times we're so busy or we're we have so many deadlines to face. Yes, um, that we're not thinking about like, oh, so and so's mom is having a problem or husband or wife or whatever, or their kid is you know, struggling. And and those things, it's as much as as much as culture wants to say, hey, you need to come into the office without that stuff, it's impossible. And I think impossible.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

We're human beings.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah. When we're more attuned to that and more empathetic to that, I think there's a happy medium, right? Like I want to, with our team, like I want to know, hey, if you're struggling, I need to know that you're struggling. I want to, I want to be able to help you as best that I can. But also it allows me to know, like, I can't put as much on you right now because you already have a lot on you. Um, and so the expectations can be a little bit different. They can be shifted. We can shift some things to other people. And then, you know, we when hopefully those things are resolved in the personal life and we can come back and we can say, okay, now we can you can have some additional duties or whatever. But it's that empathy with our team and knowing, and I think to team members as well, it's important that you communicate those things. I I don't think you have to come pour your whole life out, but if you have, you know, if you have something serious going on, you should probably say because people are going to know that something's wrong regardless, because you're not yourself or whatever is going on.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

So yeah, you're a rock star every day for three years and all of a sudden you're not showing up to work anymore. Something's going wrong.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Something's wrong.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

Yeah, something's wrong. You need to have a talk.

unknown 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

What was that, Sloan? The benefit of the doubt goes the long goes a long way, absolutely. Sending grace to people. I I love there, I I follow Jefferson Fisher online and he says, you know, yeah, and he goes, and he says, you know, give the benefit of the doubt. Somebody drives past you really fast and they honk, you go, maybe they're going to the hospital. Right. You know, maybe, maybe they are having an emergency. And so when people come at you, you know, and you're like, oh, that's a little aggressive, you know, maybe something happened this morning that was really terrible. You know, or maybe there is more to this story, and I'm gonna get to the bottom of it by listening with with my ears and my eyes, as you do.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Yeah, I thought I love it. Um that's the kind of stuff I do in the car. My wife goes crazy. I'm like, maybe that guy had a bad morning, his kids, whatever it is. But uh and and I just in the last year or so realized that I do that in my personal and professional life. And it wasn't until the last year when all this LinkedIn stopped, that I'm really starting to to to at 51 years really seeing who I am as a person and how I affect the world around me, both positively and negatively. So it's been quite a journey.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, as we develop those habits, that's like the well, maybe you know, you are quicker to to give the benefit of the doubt than to assume. And so that's something we have to to practice daily. That's what sticks.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Two, when you've been through some of those hard things, it's easier for sure on the back end to go up. Like like you said, like somebody driving down the road really fast or something. Like I've been that person before, with you know, with my mom in the car and and then in an emergency and there was no other choice, and that's what we had to do. And so um, I think when you've walked through some of those things, when you've had some challenges in your life that that are extraordinary, then you tend to be to you learn more empathy for other people. Like, hey, is there something going on? Is do you need help with something? Can I step up to the plate for you? On an interesting side note, so I I found out last night, this is weird. Did you know, like in the 1900s, like 47 was like the cap age, like that's pretty much where people passed away.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

That's so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

So we're killing it over here.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

We're killing it, right? We're we're like, you know, superhuman over here.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

I'm like, wow, I'm doing great.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

That's so it's so crazy to hear that. Like, that wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of life, right? Of the grand scheme of the world and the universe. Not it was like yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

And that's like natural, like that's not some catastrophic event or something. That was like your median, like you weren't that's so crazy. 47 was that was about as good as you were gonna get. And I'm like, oh, I turned 47 this year, and I'm like, wow, that like puts things that's perspective, right? And then we get Absolutely, absolutely at a meeting last night. Um, we went to a beekeepers meeting, very interesting. And the gentleman that was teaching or was heading it up, he was, I think he said 83. Didn't look, I mean, he's like looking better than me. And I'm like, dang, I gotta get my life together. Like, what is going on? And he said, he said his doctor said he's fit as a fiddle and he's good to go as long as he keeps on going.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, yeah. So just be nice and drink water. I think that's really what it boils down to.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

And maybe have a lot of honey because he has like a whole honey is access to a lot of bees. No, that's awesome. And again, you people overcomp people just overcomplicate everything. Just like take care of yourself. Don't go crazy on anything, and you should be decent, right? Unless you have some underlying.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

We would hope so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

All right, Sloan, what do you have for us next? All right. Daniel, you said you have run to projects that most people avoid, and we have. We we we know that's the truth. What makes a project truly difficult and what allows a leader to step in when others hesitate?

SPEAKER_03 20:57

What makes it difficult again, it doesn't have to be a massive multi-billion dollar project, it could be a $50,000 project, but to a small startup company, that's make or break for them, right? So I would kind of put that in the high stakes category where you know it if the project is high stakes and has a lot of visibility, especially to potential clients or clients and or senior stakeholders. Another one would probably be, you know, uh um a massive or small project, but mostly massive, that just is a major transformation program that just has like no clarity. Like, what are we doing? Like the the transformation that just never ends, right? It's always in transformation mode. Something like that. That seems to be my last five or six transformation modes. Uh one where ordinarily in a project you have like one sponsor. It could have maybe two or three. I've I've had successful projects of that, but it projects that have feel like everyone's a sponsor, right? Or there's multiple senior level stakeholders that everyone presumes that those people are in charge when sometimes none of them are in charge. It's someone completely different, or that they have no responsibility, but because they might get. Control key aspects of a team or a project or a budget or whatever the case may be. They might have some kind of either inherent or or indirect power. Those are probably the the the three, just like the the politics and the culture. And of all the the last 10 or so years, the all the the major transformations or projects have come into fix or or realign are been fit into one of those three or four buckets. And none of them, again, some of them were were really little tiny ones, like $20,000, some of them were in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't think the money part of it or the the spend aspect has anything to do with, but the complexity of the people, like who's in charge, right? Like who's aligning this project? Like who, you know, uh why do we have 90 different teams having meetings all the time? Like who's actually leading this? And most of the projects that were blowing up are about to explore like no one could tell me who was actually in charge. Yes, there was a sponsor, I had his or her name on a document, right? But they didn't they didn't do anything. They were never around, like that, you know, there was plenty of meets to the wrong people. So trying to realign that kind of goes back to the first question you asked me, like try trying to figure that stuff out first, right? But at least in my own personal experience, this might not be for everyone, but it it ordinarily fits into three or four of those buckets. Again, putting the size aside, the complexity is always the people. It's always the people for me. Um, I post about on LinkedIn all the time, right? We can have all the projects in GRAN, all the different tools and stuff, but at the end of the day, people deliver projects and people lead projects. So um, when you when you put pro people and human beings with all those different personal, professional experiences and and challenges going on in their lives, anything could happen. The more people, the the the more craziness that could happen.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Absolutely, a hundred percent. And I'm I'm gonna go out in a very unpopular project management um pedestal here and tell you I do not like meetings. I am not a meeting thing and the same page. Oh my gosh, like the meeting after meeting after meeting, and I'm like, we're not meeting, somebody is just going on about whatever they need to go on about, and we could do that in a different arena. You know, let's go have coffee and talk about the problem, but we don't need me in a meeting in a meeting.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Exactly. Listen, unless we're we're going, you know, I'll put I'll put the kickoff meeting aside. Like that's the kickoff's the kickoff, right? So putting putting that meeting aside. Every other meeting I have, a bet a decision better come out of the other side of it. Or I'm not having that meeting. Yeah, I don't need a status meeting, I don't need all these other things. Like I could send you an email, I could you know, make a KPI, I could put in an endurance.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

None of that stuff is you know, maybe a steering meeting or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Well, and maybe some of that came out of the which I'm a huge fan of Scrum. Don't get me wrong. I'm a I'm a Scrum fan. I'm an act of the fan.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

I think that's kind of where it came out for me, too.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

But yeah, I think that's where it came from. It's like, oh, we can have a meeting and a meeting, and we're gonna let's have a meeting about the meeting, and then let's see.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

A meeting about the meeting about the meeting. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

And it's like I I was I was in a situation a couple years ago.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

So crazy.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Or maybe even sooner, where it was like there's a meeting and a meeting and a meeting. And I was like, finally, I was like, listen, I don't mind to do whatever you guys need to do. I'll I'll be there, whatever you need me to do. But when do you want me to work?

SPEAKER_03 25:05

Exactly. When do you want me to actually work?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I can't work if I'm in 12 meetings a week because you're breaking up my my thought process, my mental clarity.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Yes, then you need notes and you have to follow up, and then there are those 40 hours right out the door.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

And and again, like you said, like what decision is being made in this meeting? Are we just coming in now? Granted, I agree with you. Kickoff meetings and there are some motivational things, team building, yeah, for sure. Things like that. I think that there are there's a time and a place, but I do think that if you look back and again, not knocking scrum, but I think that kind of derived, I think we got in this project management culture of that, and it derived up of oh, we got to have a meeting and a meeting and a meeting. And I so for those listening, um, and this really isn't a project management podcast, but you're you're very deep in project management, and we are connected with a lot of project management professionals. Um, and so for those of you listening that are leaders, back off the meetings, we don't like them. Right terrible. And we're not a con you need to let us work, let us get to work and do our work. Because yeah, I mean, we need time to think and be you cannot be creative or focus or get anything done if every hour and a half or two hours you gotta be on another meeting because you then you have prep time for that meeting.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

You have prepping, documentation. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah, and you're just shoving something in your mouth to eat for lunch, and this is not a healthy thing.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

Walking down the hallway, eating a sandwich. Yeah, like that's that's not a way to live. That's that's why project success rates don't get any better because of a lot of the culture I, you know, that happened with organizations. But yeah, like for me, kickoff meeting, end meeting, and maybe a few in between, unless there's a need, you know, I'm not talking about my team meetings or my one-on-ones, the ones that make sure my team is good throughout the entirety of the project, and maybe some internal, maybe some client, yeah, some vendor ones. But man, I try to limit my meetings to one or two a week, unless it's absolutely necessary. And if it is, there must be decisions that come out of the ocean. Not let's check on with Bob, let's check on that. No, no. They have to be done now, or don't come to this meeting. We'll we'll we'll cancel and reschedule.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, again, that's probably a pretty unpopular. I don't know, maybe it's more popular than we think. And I and I think.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Well, we didn't I find it out, it's actually a little bit more popular than I thought it was. I thought it was a little kind of unpopular. No, most people, I mean, it's pretty exhausting. Yeah, it is exhausting. Like I I know, like even if you read the pen bot and all these books, like there's so many great things in there, but it it makes it feel like that you're you should be in meetings all day. And I I think we we've done it as a profession so much that I'm I'm always in this chicken or egg. Like, why do so many executives think that we're admins and and meeting makers? But then we we do the meeting making. So is it like us that caused that friction or is it the culture? Or is it like I I feel like I'm on this journey to figure out, you know, which which side is kind of the cause of it, or which came first.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Which came first, right? Was it us that did this? And if so, like let's that's why I'm at work on LinkedIn, you know, all the time. Like, uh, yeah, like we we gotta do better as if we want to be treated differently as a profession, we have to act differently. Yes, we we don't have any control, we all know that, but uh we could do our part. We can certainly change the hearts and minds of people if we show them there's a better way to do it. Doesn't work in every instance, but I found most places where I've attempted to do that, the reception usually was pretty good, not all the time, but usually pretty good. And the culture did wind up changing.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Um also may it's become it was really a popular opinion. Now I think it's becoming less less popular, but I'm a I'm a huge fan, huge proponent of remote work too. I like in-person work. Sloan and I get to work together and I love it. I didn't think I would, um, but I love it. It's it's a lot of fun. I had I had worked by myself for a very, very, very long time. And and when she came on, she I was like, you can work at your house, you can work at my house, you can work wherever you want to go or whatever you want to do. And she really likes coming here, and I really like having her here. It's a unique opportunity. And so it works really well with us. But what where I was going with that is there is something too, and and this is for leaders out there, there's something too if you're remote, if your team is remote, to literally just wearing something comfy, throwing your hair up, sitting that not your hair, but my hair, you know, and just sit, you know, sitting down and focusing and doing your work and getting it done. And there's not this expectation. I think, and I'm not not trying to be sexist either way, but I think for women too, it is a lot of work to get up and get ready and to do all those things so that you can be on a camera. The amount of uh time that is spent to do all that, I could have got 20 things done by now.

SPEAKER_03 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

But but I have to be on five meetings, so I gotta get up and fix my hair and do my makeup and you know what I mean. Um so there's something to be said. And so what I would say to the leaders out there, if you have remote teams, is you know, allow them a day or two a week just to, you know, leave them alone, let them do their work. Like if you have people that you can't leave alone to do their do their work, you don't need those people. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Either you or they gotta go. Right. Because something's up.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Something's gotta happen because it's yeah, if you have people on your team that that you can't just let them sit and do their work or or however they need to do it, then then y'all have a bad dynamic and something's wrong.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Exactly. And oddly enough, the I made a post, but while I hate to keep bringing up LinkedIn, it's like in my DNA now. I know it's of all the posts I've made ever, the one that has done the most is a post about this thing exactly you're talking about 57,000 likes, got me 20,000 followers in a day and a half. Wow. It continued to blow up, it was being reposted every second and a half.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

But holy moly, did I see that? I'm gonna have to go look for that post.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

It was about pretty much the same thing. It started off like um, you know, I don't care where you work, I don't care if you start at six, nine, ten o'clock, I don't care if you if your kids got, I don't care. Just I I hired you because you're an adult. If you got a problem, let me know. You don't gotta check in with me all the time. And uh just at the end, it gave like three or four little blurbs about how to be a very much like what you said, Amanda, just how to be a good project uh or a team member, not scolding someone, just hey, I don't care what's going on, just do these four things. Be, you know, if you say something, do something, have your work done when you said it's gonna be done or when it's due. Other than that, I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yeah, I'm gonna let Sloan chime in on that because when she started working for me, she came from from government work. It's she she would like to tag me on every email. I'm like, Sloan, I don't need to know.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Stop. So it is it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

That's what it does. That's what it does.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

You know, I'm like, I went to the bathroom three times today and I talked to these eight people and and I CC on her on every email, you know, and so now about every two weeks, she goes, anything on your list I can help you with?

SPEAKER_02 31:41

That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

So when I realized she does trust me, and she said, if I didn't trust you, you wouldn't be here. That's the core of it. That's a huge responsibility, but that's a great privilege too. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

You now I love how you said that, Sloan. It's a I'm gonna have to put that in a post. That was really good. I like how you said that. That was really, really good. It is a responsibility. Oh my gosh, she is so awesome. Yeah, no, that it is a responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Yeah, I I think the same thing. So we have another team member, Amy, who works, she does work remote. And like the same thing with her. At first, she was like sending me all these updates, and I'm like, hey, I really appreciate it, and I'm really glad to know that you're doing what you're doing, but I trust you. I and I'm gonna, I mean, hopefully I'm seeing a result, right? And she does, she's good about once a week because we don't really talk a lot.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

About once a week, she'll send me, hey, this is what I do this week. And I'm like, thank you for letting me know.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

Or let me know if you need something. You need us. Right. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

That's what I tell her. If you need me, you tell me. Like ring a bell, tell me you need me. I'm here. Um, I will, I will absolutely be at your side. But yeah, that's that's been a it's been a really what I would call a beautiful dance with my team. It's just like learning that and giving them the opportunity to have to do what they need to do. I they're brilliant in their exactly. Exactly. That's why you hired them.

SPEAKER_03 32:59

Hopefully, I'm around people that are all smarter than me.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Exactly. That is the goal.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

Doing their thing, right? Doing their their their thing that that that they're good at. That that's the reason why you're hired them. But I couldn't give more. And I worked my first 20 years of my career, literally eight hours a day every day in the office in New York City. It wasn't until COVID, I was fervently against remote work. COVID happened, boom, light switch went off. We're all working from home. And now I I don't know if if I could actually ever go back into an office, if I ever did, uh, five days a week. And even managing a remote team, it takes, you know, what you could be the best video in the world, but it if you don't know how to truly manage a remote team and check in with them and make sure they're good and they're okay, like there's so many variables to that, but it's been an exciting time that I couldn't give you more. Like everyone has a life at the end of the day. If you're doing your job and you know, no one's complaining about you, and we're checking in once in a while, and you let me know what's going on. Power more power too.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

I mean, there there is uh scientific research on this too, is like if you allow your teams to have more autonomy, even like even with Sung coming in, I I'll tell her, like, we'll do a calendar meeting the month before I'm like, hey, what days do you want off? It's her choice, it's her life. This is her life. You know, I'm grateful to have her, and I yes, I'm employing her, and yes, we have things that we have to do and goals we have to meet, but it's her life. So you you let me know. Now, granted, if it got excessive with an employee or something like that, that would be different. We would we'd have to have a talk. Um, but I think that's like you were saying, like the post that you made, that's when when we find mature people, intelligent people, smart people, we have to give them the availability one to have a life. Two, I mean, there are things that need to be done, but I know this for a fact, I am more productive myself when I am able to, you know, go out to the pool at two o'clock or something and and take a break and and breathe and get away like that.

SPEAKER_03 34:49

Get up and walk around the house for a minute. Like what whatever it is, yeah, just like having that freedom, uh it just does something to me mentally that makes me feel like I want to accomplish five times as much as I would in the office today. And I don't gotta spend four hours on a train.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

And I don't have 25 meetings this week.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Yeah, 25 meetings, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

It's crazy, but no, I I I'm a fervent believer in at least three days a week, uh, if you can. Every environment doesn't support that. So you gotta be in the office, but I remember who we were talking to the other day.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

We were talking about like, oh, I was talking uh on a on another uh recording I was doing with Natalie uh Berkeuskin as she does the project management life, which is more about Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

I was gonna say the name starts, yes, Natalie, Natalie, yes. Oh, I love her. She's so sweet. She's incredible. I'm sorry. She's so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

She's been on our podcast, and I've done several other recordings and stuff with her, and she did a webinar and stuff in them. Yeah, she I have taken a lot of a lot away from her her information as well. So shout out to her, like shameless shout out in the middle. It wasn't my it wasn't my goal, but she is really great. One thing I like about all of the people that we have been connected with is we're all just so good to just like, hey, this is who you need, or that's who you need, and yes, go talk to Daniel, or you know, check this out or check that out. Is like we have a really, really good community. There's not we're not playing any this is the favorite game, or don't because we all have different talents. What I offer is not what you offer, Daniel, and and so on and so forth, or what Natalie offers them. And so it's a really amazing community that we have. Sloan, I think we took you completely off a course, so you can just pick whatever you want and we'll go with that.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

It is fine. Just yeah, just make one up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Yeah. Let's get let's get some some free expert tips here from Mr. Daniel for a leader stepping into a stalled or chaotic project right now, where should they begin? I feel like I know your answer, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

I got it, got my first answer off the top of my head would probably be, you know, right away, very similar to the first answer I gave you is uh talking to people. If it was like stalled and I needed to do something immediately right now, I might grab some documentation. Uh but ordinarily I'd want to talk to if I had a list, the the key stakeholders, a sponsor, and maybe my team, uh, and then try to go from there. If I was like gun to my head, gotta gotta figure it out real quick. Uh, but yeah, again, to me, I don't I don't care what's going on at the end of the day, I want to talk to my people, even if it's a small subset of them to really see what's going on. And of course, if it was a project that there wasn't a previous project manager or third party consultant or someone else who's working on this project, I'd want to bend their ear a little bit. I might not be getting the right perspective, but at least I I see from their side a lot of times what went wrong or or what was causing some of the problems, combine that with the the other stakeholder conversations. And ordinarily I I get to exactly where I should be to start planning the next steps to either realign, stop the project sometimes, set it to maybe next year, um, or you know, again, sometimes you just gotta let a project go. Prepare for those conversations, which are not easy to have.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We call those high courage conversations.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

Yeah, those are those are high courage conversations. The first time I ever walked into a CEO of a Fortune 500 company told him that we should stop the project. The look on his face stopped my heart almost. I was only maybe four years as a project manager, and I thought I was being fired immediately, and we wound up actually having a really good conversation for probably about four hours. It it was a very it it changed the way I thought about executives for sure. But I haven't met many like him since. Uh most of them are just kind of for you out their office. But yeah, it it at the end of the day, you just gotta figure out what you need to do, and the people are ordinarily will will tell you in directly or indirectly, in one way or another. And then again, once you have all your your ducks in a row, the right people, the right conversations, put all that stuff together, you can start planning anything you need.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Yeah, and giving people, I think Sloan, you touched on this earlier, like giving people the grace uh to like hear them out and like, hey, just tell me how it is. And here's another thing that I see too. Um, I was talking to one of our clients about this yesterday. I think that we see a lot of projects fail because we rush them. If there's this huge like rush, rush, rush, I want to get it done. I want the product, especially if there's a product.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Yeah, especially if there's a product, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

The product to market, I want it out there, I want it done now. Well, we can put the product out there, right? But if it's not done, if it's not good, it's not gonna do well. And then you're gonna be disappointed. And I have seen this in my career over and over and over again so many times. Like there is a process, let's follow the process, let's do it right, let's make sure that we're crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's and making sure that when we put this out, when someone gets this in their hand, whether or we're on their screen or whatever like that. That it's done and it's ready. And I think a lot of projects really, really fail after they're quote unquote done because it never was done to begin with.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

Exactly. Yeah, like and if years a big target date, or or you know, if your uh your competitors are about to put something out, like Apple or SandSlack, people just go to the extreme to cut things short for no reason, then they put out these MVPs that are garbage. Then their net promoter scores go down, they they take a hit in the market. And you know, maybe if you took another month to plan, like I I constantly tell my coaching clients and mentees like projects fail in the beginning, not hit the end. They fail before the first conversation happens for the project. Maybe not the the pre-con uh project conversations, but yeah, no, I agree. That's where it fails in those conversations. That's why I'm a firm advocate of having a PM, maybe not in the first thought conversation, but the first actual conversation where we start to put a business case together, see if it's uh uh viable.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah, and a and and really to allow and to embrace different people's perspectives, yeah, um, different people's ideas, because what I may think is right may not be right in this particular situation. And and that's why we rely on our teams. I rely on my team so much to tell me, hey, this is um we were so when I hired on Amy um to to pull us out of a mess of video editing and stuff, she is amazing. And no, no one else can have her.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

You know, she she like all of a sudden one day she sends us this whole I don't what do we call it? So I don't even know what we call it.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Like she she called it it was a workflow tracker. She just boom created.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

We didn't even know we needed it, but it's so beautiful, and she did such a good job with it, and now it just keeps us all on track. We go right here, we do this, we give her what she needs, she gives us what we need, and it was brilliant. And I was like, wow, I would have never even thought about that. And I'm like, I'm so grateful because it I'm so busy, like quote unquote busy doing all these other things that my brain does not have time to even think about that.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

All I can do is you're too busy in the weeds, you can't, you don't have time to step back. You most of the time you need someone to come in and say, Hey, there's an easier or better way to do this. Have you tried this? And all of a sudden you realize, where's this been my entire life? Like, this is such a great addition to my life.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

And she did it flawlessly and she runs it. And there were no hiccups, no problems. And I get excited to open that dashboard because I'm like, it's gonna work. What I'm looking for is going to be there, and I'm gonna have an answer immediately. I don't have to text, call, set up a meeting, nothing.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

That's so awesome. See, that's a great use of a tool or platform or whatever the case may be. Your team wants to use it because it's useful to them personally and for the team and for the company, and it helps you make it align and monitor progress. Most of the time, that's not what's done in project.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

This is true. And when I tell you, like it never even crossed my mind because when we brought her on, I was drowning in it. I was just drowning. There was just too much coming at me, and and and that's good, right? But at the same time, it was just it was just too much. I couldn't, I was working too many hours. I was oh I am much more productive when I can just focus on what I need to be doing. And and I I cannot tell you how grateful I am for myself.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

Oh my god, kudos, Amy. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah, I am very thankful for Amy because Amanda had asked me, Do you want to edit videos? And I was like, No, no, I don't. And she said, No. She said, then you need to start praying for the person that's so funny to edit the videos.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

And so that's what happens. That's what happens.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

We never say Amy's last name. We don't people we don't want people to be able to find her. No, you can't find you cannot take our Amy. No. Oh, you know, that's an alien. We don't know. She cannot say our Amy. She's the best.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

Oh my god, that's so funny. Yeah, it's amazing when when people are put into your life like that and you don't even realize you need them, or you did. No, what's it? And they make your life so much better.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

What's even more funny about it is so we were we were all in a Bible study together. And so on Tuesday mornings we were going to this Bible study, and Sloan and I were there, and I was t I was telling her, I was like lamenting a little bit, and I was like, it was kind of in our in-between time, and I was like, I just don't know what we're gonna do. Like, I can't do this anymore. I'm like literally drowning. And I was like, we really have to pray about. you know, the next person that God's gonna bring us. And um Amy was there, she's like, now ladies, you know, talking about work while you're here. And she was joking around. She's so cute. And um then later she texts me, she's like, hey, what is it that you're needing? Like maybe I can help you.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

And I was like, that's so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

No, I'm like, God is so good. He's so good. And he just right on time. And she was already there, you know, he just he opened that door. And so yeah, my ladies are amazing.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

If you get enough stories like that, it just gives you hope for yourself. Like it might not be the same exact situation, but something like that and that those things are possible and they do really happen. Yeah. You want to have a winning lottery ticket. It's not that crazy. It's it's something as simple as this, which for you is a lottery ticket winning.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Yeah. Oh that's awesome. Oh that's so awesome.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

But I I think to to add to that too, that's what's so important. I know I'm being a dead horse, but like when when you get those people, let them work. Let them do what what God has designed them and put them in front of you to do. Yeah. And I I'm I'm just I I'm grateful beyond belief. I cannot tell you enough how grateful I am. So well Daniel I want to be respectful of your time. So this particular podcast I don't know if you've had a chance because I know you are very busy with your 95,000 followers if you've had a chance to listen but on this podcast we ask the same two questions to everybody. And so I'm gonna let Sloan ask the first one and then I'll ask the last one.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Daniel name a leader you admire and briefly share how they've influenced you.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

Probably John Maxwell I mean I could name a thousand of them right but I've he was the he authored the first like management leadership book I I ever wrote or sorry ever read, right? And uh I pretty much been a sucker for his stuff since and uh you know between his his LinkedIn stuff and all the different things he's doing and uh some of the the even the courses I I've taken he he has really set the stage for me in how leadership not only is but could be if the right environment is created and also knowing that you have the opportunity or the obligation to help create that environment because it affects so many people around you and if you could pull that off you leave a legacy not only for yourself not oh Daniel's the greatest thing ever happened. No because then those people then do the same thing at the next company they go to and the next company and then it goes down and down and down. And hopefully by being that leader and also at the same time trying to elevate others to become leaders as well you just leave a a legacy you don't need to hoop rock for but that just touches so many people's lives and if I could just do that a little bit while I'm on this planet I'll consider myself a a lottery winner.

SPEAKER_01 46:47

He answered the the first and the second question all the way look at that that's a good that's a good project manager right there. Right very little very efficient question to have a meeting it's just done what's the second question I'm gonna ask it uh but I want I want to touch on I I'm a huge John Maxwell fan too I've read many of his books um he's he is wonderful we've had other discussions a while back I was like I told Sonic set because you know uh and I'm sure it's his team because you know he has a lot of people as well but again LinkedIn will tell you when people are like looking at your profile and stuff and so John Maxwell was looking at my profile and liking on my stuff and commenting on that makes you feel right I know I was like wow it's kind of like when Daniel comments on your stuff you're like it's a celebrity I got so many comedy ones our notes are full of screenshots of LinkedIn sending back I have so many I have to I was like I'm like a child like my wife she's like who the hell is that like yeah absolutely look who looked at my profile today.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

My God that's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

So for those of you not on LinkedIn you don't know about that. You don't know that you get to see you have to pay you have to pay for premium to be able to have that feature but it is kind of fun. I kind of chuckle at it and and so what I one of the things that I do on on my LinkedIn platform is I try very hard to do either a motivational quote or a challenging quote or something like that every day. And just to get people's thoughts going about a certain topic or whatever. And so a lot of times you'll see John Maxwell quotes on mine because he has so much to offer us as so much so much. And so you'll you'll see a lot of those if you follow me on LinkedIn you'll see a lot of that and and those are very intentional. I don't just I do create some of the graphics with AI and I saw the other day that now LinkedIn is now notifying everyone of an AI graphic. Yeah so but we're very open about that we do use AI but I I'm very intentional about the quotes that I choose. I actually really do review every single one of them look at every single one and think about okay what what do I want to say in this what is the the message that I want to get across in this and it's kind of a it I don't know I started it a long time ago it's been a long time I'd have to go back and look but I started doing that a long time ago and it used I was just doing like one here and there and then I got so much great feedback from it people like oh I love that you do I love opening up and seeing you know whatever quote you put so now it's a it's a lot of fun and I really uh I put a a lot of intention into it and I I pray about what I'm posting um and I hope that it motivates me and it's not always gushy and like hey you're the best it's sometimes it's really challenging and makes you think about hey you know maybe I need to life isn't always sunshine as much as we we would wish it was. Right. It's just not all right so the last question you did kind of answer but I'm gonna let you expound on it a little bit. When you think about your legacy as a leader what lasting impact do you hope that it has on other people I guess kind of did answer I guess a little bit in in my last question in the last answer to my question.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

But yeah just I don't want my legacy to be really about me. I want it to be about the people that I'm like touching around my my of course my wife and my children of course but the people around me that I've touched personally and professionally I want them to like just be the best version of themselves. I feel like I've if I had a little tiny part in that even if it was a smile opening the door for someone whatever it was if if I just had that little piece of that in them that legacy it is oh I'll take me to the grave for sure. It has nothing to money or fame or any of that stuff. Like I just want them to be the best version of themselves. So then of course so hopefully someone else sees that and wants it for themselves. And then that goes on and on and on that would be a legacy and put me in the grave after that one that that'd be amazing. Hopefully not too soon.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Not too soon not too soon.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Hopefully not for now we're now we're in 2026 not 1900 so we can last to be longer last a little bit longer but we're hitting our stride at 47 that's what we're doing right I feel like I'm although I'm 51 I feel like I'm just like kind of coming into my own which sounds crazy.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

I know so I remember very vividly I don't know why but I remember very vividly my mother was working at Mount Perrin Church of God um in Marietta Georgia. She was the pastor secretary there and I remember standing in her office now that you're gonna laugh at this do you remember when we used to print and it had like the little um little holes and it would just like and you would print a banner.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 51:18

And it was like all in one thing with a good and so we printed her a happy birthday banner and we put it behind her desk. There's pictures of her and it was her 40th birthday and I remember oh my gosh my mother's so no right like that's it. I was like that's it she's so old and I look at the pictures of her now it like because I have those of of that birthday and I'm like she was just getting started you know and I'm like 40 is like I have had better life quality better fun more you know just all all around yeah more intelligent thought processes I think at 40 than I ever did. I did not really like my 30s 30s were 30 was difficult for me. I know it's not for everybody but yeah if I look back you know like I wouldn't well I'm not gonna say I wouldn't change anything but maybe a few things there are a few things I would probably change but I I have really learned in my 40s to just kind of embrace where I am and just really kind of love um this Sloan's younger than us so she hasn't gotten there yet she's she's just a baby. Looking forward to it looking forward to it. But it is it's a there's a bit of a freedom to that but I I it's funny because I remember I mean just standing there looking at my mom thinking that's it.

SPEAKER_03 52:34

It's so crazy right I was having a conversation with my oldest daughter the other day she's 25 and I remember when I was like 12 and looking at a 25 year old like they were so like oh get away from me old and then now I'm 51 I'm like oh my God but I feel like I'm 18.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

I mean I don't move like I'm 18 and I don't well that it takes me a while to get out of bed in the morning but I feel like I'm just be really honest and transparent that your body does not work no no no everything hurts. Sometimes it's like a hundred year old yeah yeah but Sona gives you something to look forward to I that's one of the things I love about having her here too is because she brings a perspective to me that I I you know it's that's so awesome.

SPEAKER_03 53:15

Yeah we lose a little bit of that and so and she's just brilliant and she knows things that I don't know she's like you she'll say words I don't know and I'm like what it's so nice to have like people like people that I know that I might they complain about younger people and I can kind of see to some of that but I like having an intergenerational because I have lots of stuff to give they also have lots of stuff to give absolutely they're faster they're on their phones like they could tell me stuff I didn't even know existed and all that like if we work together imagine what we could accomplish I agree I agree wholeheartedly yeah absolutely and I think we have a unique opportunity we can mentor younger people too and train them on things that we know and give them an opportunity to to be in um you know in the corporate world yeah with a with a leg up with the like kind of a multi-generational approach of hey you know things that I don't know and I know things that you don't know let's come together and and like share those ideas and really make something great.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Well Daniel I am so grateful to have you on here I know we waited a long time always enjoy conversations with you it's a lot of fun. I know Sloan does too um we're both connected with you and so um thanks for being on with us Sloan thank you for your time today too absolutely um for I I I I I do not drag her to these but I I did we do have a lot of fun with them. So she doesn't get to be on everyone and so when she's not on I'm kind of I'm like nice nice well I'm glad you're on yeah yeah I'm glad thank you but thank you thank you both yeah and so we're gonna put all your contact information um best place to get you is LinkedIn right and then the PM playbook yep and so go sign up for that and go connect on LinkedIn um with Daniel uh he's incredible his team's incredible and just an honor to have you on thank you I appreciate it same same