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Episode 26: Knowledge + Understanding + Implementation = Mastery with Mark Stanley
357 Plays7 years ago
Entrepreneurs tend to run on creativity and adrenaline. Setting up processes and systems? That’s boring stuff. But that’s the stuff that turns a great idea, all that creativity, and adrenaline, into a thriving business.
Our guest on this episode knows a lot about all of these components. Mark Stanley has started multiple businesses and is a coach and consultant helping entrepreneurs with exactly these issues – creating scalable and repeatable processes – and IMPLEMENTING them into your business. He’s made a huge difference for Uncommon Wealth Partners, so we had to have him share his wisdom!
Mark is the founder of the WHY! Company – a business consultancy that helps business leaders clarify, simplify and achieve their vision. He is a successful business leader who has consulted with over 100 companies, sits on a number of advisory boards and owns a few businesses. Mark is a sought-after and trusted advisor who believes that you must create value before you expect anything in return.
Mark has worked with many different types of organizations in just about every industry. He is an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) implementer, using this and other tools to help companies grow and thrive. In all of his work, he has found a few universal truths across all organizations that involve people and processes.
Mark believes that learning is the fountain of youth that keeps you inspired and motivated to do something great each day. Mark spends about 10 days a year in seminars learning from the best-of-the-best. He earned a BBA in Finance with Honors, from the University of Iowa, and an MBA from Drake University.
what you will learn in this episode:- How the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) works
- Overcoming confirmation bias in conflicts at work
- Creating scalable and repeatable processes
- Unlocking potential by creating systems that match your vision and grow your business
- Why the pursuit of mastery is so necessary for success
- How to learn and grow when things go wrong
- Using EOS principles at home to get more unified and have less friction around collective goals
- How to create a life of freedom in time, money, and relationships
- Getting out of the prison of “I should” or “I shouldn’t”
- Setting family goals as well as business goals
Recommended
Transcript
The Uncommon Life Dream
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit.
Podcast Introduction
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Hello and welcome to the show. This is the Uncommon Life Project and I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. And I'm Brian Dewhurst. Clarice, thank you so much for that amazing intro. Hello, Clarice.
00:00:45
Speaker
Thank you for that intro.
Guest Introduction: Mark Stanley
00:00:46
Speaker
You always do a great job. We have an amazing show for you today, but before we get into it, we just wanted to talk a little bit about us. We are two of the craziest, most different uncommon advisors that you'll be around. We are with the Uncommon Wealth Partners, and we really do like to help people get into their sweet spot, what they're gifted at, what they're passionate about, and we don't really talk too much about age or when you want to do that, because we feel like you should do that right away.
00:01:11
Speaker
So, that interests you. Please reach out to us. We would love to hear from you. We'd love to see if we can get you kind of on this uncommon path where you're chasing after what you're passionate about. So, we have an amazing show for you today. You'll understand why we wanted this guest. Brian, go ahead and give him the intro and the bio, and then we'll go from there.
00:01:33
Speaker
So yeah, we have Mark Stanley, founder of The Y Company, a business consultancy that helps business leaders clarify, simplify, and achieve their vision. You can tell why we like him. He is a successful business leader who has consulted with over 100 companies, sits on a number of advisory boards, and owns a few businesses. Mark is a sought-after and trusted advisor who believes that he must, and you must, create value before you expect anything in return. Mark is a certified EOS implementer.
00:02:00
Speaker
In all of his work, he has found a few universal truths across all organizations that involve people and processes. Mark believes that learning is the fountain of youth that keeps you inspired and motivated to do something great each day. He earned his BBA in finance with honors from the University of Iowa. Yes, he is a Hawkeye and an MBA from Drake University. When Mark isn't working, he is spending time with his wife, Mary Ellen, and his children and friends. He enjoys traveling, pairing cheese with wine, and playing golf. Enjoy the show, everyone.
00:02:29
Speaker
Well, welcome to the show, Mark Stanley.
Mark's Journey to Happiness
00:02:32
Speaker
Thanks guys. Thanks for having me today. Yeah, we're excited to get you on recording. This has been a relationship that Brian and I have had for years and he's kind of been the secret sauce or the glue that holds Brian and I together when we're talking about goals and aspirations, the inner secrets, the inner secrets of uncommon wealth partners, everyone.
00:02:55
Speaker
So thank you for being here. Like we said, I want to jump right into it and ask you, have you always been this happy and have you always loved what you have done in your career, in your life? Oh, that's a great question. You know, I can't always say that it's been the best, you know, as you go through life and go through business, there's certainly some ups and downs and all of it.
Understanding EOS for Businesses
00:03:15
Speaker
And I would say though, that over the last few years, I've been more systematic about doing more of the things that make me happy and letting go of some of those things that
00:03:25
Speaker
that take happiness away. And with that, you become more, I think it was more gratitude in life, more thankfulness in life, and just intentional about the things and the ways that you're spending time.
00:03:42
Speaker
You know, the EOS process is something that was revolutionary to Brian and I when we first heard of it. I'd like you to walk our listeners through the EOS process, kind of give us the elevator speech, the high-level overview of what this is and why is it so important to business owners and entrepreneurs.
00:04:01
Speaker
Yeah, so EOS stands for the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And what it does is it provides a system for entrepreneurial business owners, particularly, to clarify, simplify, and achieve their vision. Otherwise, you want to help them get more of what they want out of the business.
00:04:16
Speaker
When they get more of what they want out of the business, they're actually freer with their time and they're more intentional with the things they do in the business and they set it up to have it be working for them instead of them working for their business. I say it's simple, but it's not easy. It comes down to really, the model has six components that every business has to address. The first component is vision. That's just getting crystal clear of where you're going and how you're going to get there.
00:04:43
Speaker
And then all businesses as they grow they add more people so want to make sure that as the business grows we get the right people in the right seats that's the second component so hundred percent there looks like there's ten people hundred people thousand people there the right people in the right seats.
00:05:02
Speaker
Then the third component is the data component. What that really does is make the business very objective. So there's a weekly scorecard that gives you a pulse of how the business is operating. But what we do want to do is take, is to support the opinions we bring in business every day with facts and data. We just make better decisions. We're better able to predict where we're going.
00:05:20
Speaker
And that supports the vision as well. So when the vision is in place, the right people right see we've got the data there, given us the pulse of how the business is operating, what happens is the business becomes very lucid, very clear, very transparent. That goes, takes us to the fourth component, which is the issues component. What happens in issues is, you know, the joke is there's 128 known issues in business, but most of those issues are coming from
00:05:43
Speaker
not having the right people, or not having them in the right seat, or not being clear on the vision, or not having data help us make decisions that we're arguing based on somebody's opinion of what should be happening. And so with those things being clear, the issues that becomes very small, those 128 issues start to melt away to those things that you really need to work on to transform the business and get it on the rate of growth that you're looking to get it on. And great businesses are built on great processes.
00:06:13
Speaker
The process is the fifth component. What process helps you do is make the business more efficient, effective, scalable, ultimately more profitable. So we get it down to the handful of core processes that make that business really operate systematically and consistently.
00:06:29
Speaker
Entrepreneurs actually love process, contrary to belief. So entrepreneurs figure out that, hey, this worked well, let's keep doing it that way. Or they say, this didn't work well, we can't do it that way anymore. All we do is take what works well for the entrepreneur and the business owner, and then break it down step by step by step so it's repeatable.
00:06:50
Speaker
So that's the fifth component. The sixth component is, you know, we have this great vision, we have to get it down to the ground. And so the sixth component is traction. So the joke is,
00:07:01
Speaker
Vision without traction is merely hallucinations. We've got to get it to the ground. There's two parts of that. It's living in a 90-day world is one part of that. If we take a tenured target of where we're going, we break it down into a three-year picture of where it looks like three years from now, down to the one year, then we break it down even further to the 90-minute or to the 90 days. Every 90 days, we reset priorities. We pop up from the business.
00:07:30
Speaker
We look out over the hood for the next 90 days, year three year. And then from that, we set rocks. And those are just merely priorities for the next 90 days. Now that's 13 Mondays and they go really fast. They do. Trust me on that. And then with that, we have to keep all of this tied together really well. And there's a thing called a level 10 meeting. It's a weekly meeting. Keeps your business. It's the pulse of the business. Keeps the most important. It's the most important.
00:07:59
Speaker
So, going back, right? So, if you've got the vision clear, you've got the right people, the right seats, you've got the data, helping you be an objective in the business, you're solving, finding ways to solve issues that are preventing you from getting where you want to go in the business. You put the good process discipline in place and then you're keeping it all wild together with 90-day priorities and a pulse once a week, the business operates better. Sure. More efficiently. Yeah, more efficiently. And we don't think of it like,
00:08:28
Speaker
We don't want the entrepreneur to work for the EOS system. The EOS system needs to work for the entrepreneur. All it does is a system or process that helps you get more of what you want out of the business at the end of the day. Sure. Now, is this your proprietary strategy? This is not mine. As much as I'd like to lay claim to it.
00:08:48
Speaker
A guy named Geno Wickman started building this system many years ago, and he wrote a book called Traction in 2007.
Business Growth and Challenges
00:08:57
Speaker
I got involved in 2009, and I'm what they call an EOS implementer. But in the book Traction, he lays out each component of the model, and it's really the how-to book. From that, there's been additional books put to the library, but Traction is kind of that. It's kind of that.
00:09:17
Speaker
So you've been doing this out of the great depression that I, I kind of know, you know, nine that the media doesn't want to call it, but that's what a greater recession, lesser depression. Yeah. So you, you work with a lot of prominent businesses in the, in the Midwest. Talk to us about, um, what you're seeing in business, what you're excited about. Um, maybe like a higher level, just the general economy.
00:09:42
Speaker
Well, generally, everybody I've been working with in the last three to five years, their business continues to get bigger and better and stronger every year. The good fortune is we haven't had anybody going backwards. What I'm finding right now is things are so tight from a people standpoint that actually what's constraining most businesses is they can't find the people they need to do the work.
00:10:06
Speaker
And so I think of the for me and I'm no macro economist, but it's kind of it seems like it's leveling off or hitting the ceiling or not because there is a demand or desire. It's just there are people constrained, right? They can. And so what that's forcing is them to look businesses I'm working with to look at automation or technology or other ways to be more efficient, more efficient without necessarily having to have people. Sure.
00:10:35
Speaker
and i hear it all the time what are people doing to get people sure right i think you know for philip and i this process has been really cathartic humbling it's scary um you know it but it's been yeah it's been powerful and i think you know you're probably like a borderline counselor in a lot of ways
00:10:55
Speaker
And so what do you see aside from people like that's holding back most companies? Just avoiding the tough conversations? Good question.
00:11:08
Speaker
Well, more of the emotional stuff, right? Oh, you know, if I were to boil it away, EOS at its heart is three things. It's vision, traction, and healthy. And healthy is where that ugly stuff lives, that we need to solve. And so people, you know, people have worked together for a while, they've had the battles, there's some things that are
00:11:31
Speaker
There that under the service that they don't want to dress again because it just creates arguments So we want to try to do is bring that stuff to light and solve it you know one time told the story of The villagers in Latin America were getting sick and on a mission trip They said well, it's coming from the water the water sitting on the jungle floor and it's not getting sunlight So it's impure there's viruses
00:11:57
Speaker
So the simplest way to get water pure is to put it in big glass jars on top of the homes where the house is for the sunlight to hit it. And then what happens is the sunlight purifies the water.
00:12:10
Speaker
And so similarly, like EOS is it starts to take, there's a lot of murky stuff. There's a lot of viruses living on that jungle floor. So what we try to do is bring all that stuff into the light. So EOS has a, on the team help part of that, there's a nice job of shining light in those dark virus infested corners of the business and brings it to life. Now that's scary. People, you know, they have to have courage to address that.
00:12:38
Speaker
So, you know, what I do works best for people that are open, honest, and vulnerable, right? I simple where I call it a coachable, you know?
00:12:47
Speaker
And I kind of know right away if a business owner is humble enough, right? They're not able to admit their mistakes or they think everything's working perfectly. They have rose-colored glasses on all the time. Well, it isn't always working well in the business. And so we have to bring that stuff to life. A lot of those things are relationships and things that have happened in the past that are carried forward.
00:13:16
Speaker
you know, we tend to live.
00:13:18
Speaker
in three time zones, right? We live in the past. We're blocked by things that didn't work well. We've tried that before and it didn't work. Or we were blocked by those arguments or those relationships that have been damaged in the past that affect how we're in today. So that's one time zone of the past. The other time zone we live in is the future. The future is what we want to do and those visions and those things that we want to try to do in our lives. And the third time zone we live in is the present.
00:13:48
Speaker
So a lot of times the past history with relationships and people and things we've done before actually block our future. Interesting. Yup. Yup.
Advice for Entrepreneurs
00:13:59
Speaker
So we have to take our time zone, the only time zone we're living in is the present. We have to let go some of that stuff we've had, we've had in the past, those bad experiences, let them go so we can realize more of the future that we want. Yeah. Like we are our worst enemies. We're always in our own way. And sometimes it takes somebody to help point that out in a living way.
00:14:24
Speaker
Okay, let's I'm going into it Give us the worst like the ugliest story about Bringing out some fun goal in the jungle if you say story. Well, there there are many You don't have to point it out, but I do if you have one top your head I would love I think our listeners would love it too. Well, you know, I was working with a group and It was really
00:14:50
Speaker
So I go day by day and so I work with the client for the whole day. So we start at 8, we end up about 4.30.
00:14:57
Speaker
And I was with this client one day and I knew that there was something really stinky going on. Cause one of the things we do is a check-in and the check-in is, you know, uh, your best one person, one professional, what's the, what's, uh, what are your, let's give us an update of what's working and not working in the business. And then what are your expectations for the day? And so I know I get a really good sense of the temperature of the business when we do that check-in.
00:15:25
Speaker
And there's two folks that really aren't talking to each other. And I'm like, okay, listen, there's something really stinky in the air.
00:15:38
Speaker
We've got to clear the air before we can go anywhere. Because if we don't clear this air, this thing is going to be 10 times worse. So let's go there. I'm trained in the EOS method to enter the danger.
00:16:01
Speaker
And it isn't always fun, but at the end we get a good result. And so I usually get a good result, not always. In this case, you know, we, we, we kind of had it out, you know, the two people had it out in the room and, uh, you know, there's.
00:16:16
Speaker
What I find is sometimes, you know, the absence of information, we fill in the blanks with misinformation or the worst case of what's happening, right? And so we don't put it in with, you know, your mother used to say, when you get home late, why thought you're upside down in the ditch? Like, no, mom, I just had the, I lost track of time, you know, at the party, but it's all okay. So we fill in the blank with the worst case scenario. So this, and we make a lot of assumptions.
00:16:44
Speaker
about
Balancing Work and Personal Life
00:16:45
Speaker
how people are feeling or what their perception is. And so what I try to do is tease out those things that we're feeling and perceiving. And so that's what we're doing in this group. It ended up coming down to there was a misunderstanding of something, an event that occurred
00:17:02
Speaker
many months ago that had been festering and so since that that event many weeks I don't remember what it is exactly but from that time you know everything supported the negative yes right so that person's a jerk and so everything that happened in the previous
00:17:22
Speaker
It's like all that big conspiracy reinforcing what their perception was is this person was a jerk. Yes, right. And so, you know, we tend to, it's called the confirmation bias. We only see the things that confirm what we believe. And so when we get right down to it, it's like, well, geez, I had
00:17:44
Speaker
I really didn't know that that's the way you thought about that, you know? And, oh, well, yeah, that's how I was proceeding. Well, I can see now that's why you're feeling that why this came out this way. We communicated. Now we communicate. This people just don't communicate well. Yeah. So what was the ugly? Did they hit each other? What are we at? Well, I said, if it gets too bad, we have to take this outside, right? But I was laying down beds on the over-under. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got bluffed by that.
00:18:14
Speaker
Now, you know, it's just people trying to get along. Now, I have to have two people that are willing to solve it. Totally. They're coachable. Yeah, they're coachable. Because if you're, if you're, if you're, you know, we try to take some of the emotion out of it and just go back to it. But obviously, emotions play into it. So instead of going to that specific example, has there anybody ever cried
00:18:36
Speaker
Well, we have, we cry every session. Well, not every session, but every, so this is, um, yeah. And the annual session where we really focused on team health. So it goes quarter, quarter, quarter annual. And that annual session, uh, three to four hours of that is really focused on team health. And we always have tears, always. It's not an annual unless there's tears, because we really try to bring that out with people. And, you know, all along the way,
00:19:05
Speaker
You know, in the weekly meeting, in the quarterly meeting, the annual meeting, there's always a time in there built in for team health. It's give us your one best personal, one best professional, like for the week or for the 90 days. In the annual though, we get into, we do a thing called personal histories.
00:19:25
Speaker
and it's like first name, full name, then where did you grow up, how many siblings, what was your best job, your worst job, right? What was your biggest challenge growing up? And that's usually where we get the tears, right? Because people are in it, they're breaking down a little bit. And so interesting thing about vulnerability
00:19:53
Speaker
is that the more vulnerable you are, the closer people it allows people to be close to you if you're not vulnerable people tend to shy away from you so it isn't weak, vulnerability is not weakness, vulnerability is strength.
00:20:10
Speaker
because it draws people towards you. There's a community closer. Yeah, so when there's a person who breaks down, he moved 19 times in 18 years. So it came down to hometown
00:20:29
Speaker
I can't answer that. We moved 19 times. The biggest challenge growing up was that people in the room didn't know that. When they knew that, it answers a lot of questions. It answers a lot of questions, right? But it would break down. You know, you have things where you find out some things about people that they're willing to share in their life.
00:20:51
Speaker
Whoa, yeah, but it does make a ton of sense.
Value Creation and Mastery
00:20:57
Speaker
But when people are in their most vulnerable state, again, it draws people closer to them because they want to help and they want to care for that person. So it's not weakness, it's strength.
00:21:09
Speaker
So we get a lot of people that, you know, we kind of talk about the Jumanji drum beat inside and people going from working a job or, you know, trying to get an idea off the ground and kind of flipping over from maybe an employee to an entrepreneur. What are some of the, what are some of the advice you'd give somebody just starting out who's probably not
00:21:32
Speaker
maybe ready to be a client of yours. But getting on that path of checking in the quarterly rocks, getting a system to manage their business when you're really trying to just transition an idea or passion, I think a lot of entrepreneurs get lost in that excitement of setting up those patterns of success.
00:21:52
Speaker
for when it gets rocky because you're going to hit rocks multiple times owning a business. And so I think it's like, what advice would you give the people just starting out to get that traction more upfront and, and you know, seeking wisdom, I guess, from more seasoned people. Cause that was something certainly that Philip and I have gone through. So.
00:22:12
Speaker
Well, you know, entrepreneurs by nature are creative and they have courage. And so the combination of creativity and courage get them into positions where it can be scary and ugly. And so, you know, I, I, I think that
00:22:33
Speaker
The most important thing is that magic occurs when you take the entrepreneurial spirit and you call it the process, the process discipline. So the entrepreneurial spirit with the process discipline. So what I would say is if you want to scale and grow,
00:22:50
Speaker
you get a good foundation of taking the dream and then putting it into a process so that it's repeatable so if you have a lawn mowing business right how do i how do i quote service you know invoice and customer care right it's so
00:23:07
Speaker
then whether i'm doing that one time ten times a hundred times in the season how do i do that so i can repeat it so that i can hand that off to somebody else and they can do it when successful and we grow and they had it off to the way that successful you know as layers of layers come in scale scale scale scale so i would think that i would.
00:23:31
Speaker
Build every business so that it's scalable from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Right away. Right away. Yes. You don't have to make all of the moves. You just have to say, what's the best way for me to grow? So strategy is really, if I think about it, it's just how you're going to grow and make money, but also how are you going to scale the business? Yes.
00:23:54
Speaker
And many people leave out that third how to scale the business. And they jump into business and all they do is focus in the business and they never focus on the business. Yeah, they don't focus on the business to figure out how to scale it. They're constantly in that job. That's a great point
Learning from Business Failures
00:24:12
Speaker
because you have to, in my mind, you treat it as a business from the beginning and how you're going to grow and get there.
00:24:19
Speaker
Whether you ever get beyond two or three or four people, you have to think that way. You have to think it as a business. I think it comes back to, I don't know, I always come back to that book, Cashflow Quadrant. It's probably one of the most seminal books in business. For sure. But it doesn't really help you actually do it, other than have the problem. But just that, you know, we get into a business and we're self-employed, we really just created a job for us, and then how do we
00:24:46
Speaker
Transition to owning a business where it runs without us being there, you know, that's the million dollar question. That's what Kiyosaki said, you know, you don't have a business until you can leave for six months and come back and have it be better off than it was when you left. So you've got to have that. That's a business. Otherwise you're self-employed.
00:25:05
Speaker
When people make really good living being self-employed, that's fine. But I always like to think of it if you're going to start it out as how do you create a business out of it that you can eventually walk away. That gives you freedom ultimately. And if we're all going to just be really vulnerable here, that's what Brian and I are at.
00:25:21
Speaker
We are in a job, we love it, but at the end of the day, it's not that scalable. And so, again, that's the stuff that we talk about with Mark. And from an outsider perspective, be able to shoot wisdom and knowledge into where we're at and kind of give us ideas. So, I mean, it's been insurmountable. And the fact that he's, yep, thank you.
00:25:44
Speaker
Me and my words. Built like Scubine words. I really do. But it's been really helpful for Brian and I. So Mark. That's the magic. You have a life outside of being a coach. You like that life. So I think you've helped us.
The Power of Vulnerability
00:26:00
Speaker
highlight how you use your own process to design your own life. And that's a big portion of what the podcast is about. I was like, I love business. I know you love business. But we also like being away from our business. So can you kind of talk to our listeners about how you've eaten your own cooking, so to speak, and how you've designed your life and your business to support life outside of EOS with your family?
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah, so thank you for that. I would go back to the four cash flow quadrants, and I would say that EOS is I'm self-employed, right? So it's just me and an assistant, Michelle, and she tries to keep me in my sweet spot in the sessions, and I offload a lot of stuff to her on the day-to-day stuff. But really, at the end of the day,
00:26:46
Speaker
I'm that's me as self-employed. So then it's always that's the way that's designed but then you know, I have another business that I use That I use the EOS processing that we're growing and developing that works without me So I do have a partnership in a business that does that and then on the fourth quadrant You're having your money work for you. So I try to take some of that EOS money into you know, the fourth quadrant and you basically take some of that
00:27:15
Speaker
So,
Applying EOS in Family Life
00:27:16
Speaker
how I'm designing it is, EOS over the course, I'll always do what I'm doing. So, I'm doing that forever. Because you love it. Because I love it. Right. I love it and live it. And so, passionate about that. I gotta take this cash flow and figure out how to get more residual income. And so, that's what the real estate investments do.
00:27:37
Speaker
and then make some long-term investments. But that's just the financial part, right? That's the easy, that's just math. The other part of what EOS allows me to do or how I set up the life is I could put it down into three buckets of days. And so there are free days, there are session days where I'm getting paid, and there's buffer days, which are things I'm doing in the business, but not necessarily getting paid for. So the way I set up is I get paid day by day.
00:28:07
Speaker
So I carve out about 120 days a year. I basically think about it as a third of third of third. So third of my days are session days, a third of my days are free days, and a third of my days are buffer days.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I use the buffer to run some of the other businesses and use some of the buffer days to help me get more EOS days. But the most important of those days is the things I block first are the free days, right? And I'm very disciplined about that. It's free days, then session days, and then buffer days.
00:28:41
Speaker
So I'm out on the calendar for me about nine months to a year, and I'm blocking out time for time off. A free day is no phone calls, no emails, free with family, friends. We like to travel, so we travel a lot on those free days. Weekends are free days, so we shut the weekends off. There's no email, phone calls, no business done on the weekends.
00:29:04
Speaker
And then I block it within the week that way, too. So I take it macro in the year and then block it down. So as it's designed today, Monday morning is kind of set up for the week. Monday afternoon, I'm making calls and making contacts with clients. I take Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as session days. Friday morning, kind of clean up for the week, whatever needs to be done. And Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday off. And then repeat. In there are a week.
00:29:30
Speaker
You know week 10 days two weeks off at a time to really unplug but in the weekly that's how it's worked Yeah, cuz I mean if you think about 120 free days and you're counting weekends is free days. Yeah, right? So there's really only 20 days
00:29:45
Speaker
Right? That are free. I get a few more than that. Okay. Actually, I'm just saying it like a third, a third, a third. Just for a simple math. I'm like more like 143 days. Okay. Yeah. But if we can get that, if you can have half your year in free days and then 25% of time be session days and 25% of time. You're working pretty efficient. And what I like about that, what I heard is play with the end in mind and like make sure you don't sacrifice your time
00:30:12
Speaker
I think a lot of business owners and federal entrepreneurs won't sacrifice. That's me in a nutshell. If there's anybody to sacrifice, it's going to be me. I'll figure out everybody else. That's where the system, the EOS system and the way it's designed has given me a lot of personal freedom.
00:30:30
Speaker
Because there's not a lot of prep time, so I've had two sessions this week. So the prep time for each session is I make a contact with the client, talk to them for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, go in in the session, make sure we're squared away. Second thing we do is before the session they send me their stuff, I spend 15 to 20 minutes reviewing it. We do the full session day. It's scripted on how we get through the day.
00:30:55
Speaker
At the end of the day, I button it up with the debrief. I hand it off to Michelle. She types it up. I send it over with any next steps. Then I'm on to the next one. In terms of the day, 8 to 4.30 with about an hour buffer time. Then it's the next session. Tears. Tears. Tears. I keep really good notes during the session. I do a debrief, but it's all scripted.
00:31:22
Speaker
So I walk in knowing people are surprised. How do you remember that? Well, it's just a review of the notes again. And I like business. So a good part of that is I get to see a lot of different types of business and the issues are all the same. So you find a solution in one industry.
00:31:42
Speaker
that works in a totally different industry, you just tweak it a little bit. So I get the benefit of being able to pollinate a lot of good practices out there for one business. In that experience, you can see how valuable that is. That's why people are clamoring to get you in front of them to be able to organize and put a process together.
Empowering Personal Responsibility
00:32:01
Speaker
It's fun. I'm passionate about it. But again, get the work done, clock out, go home, eat dinner with my family.
00:32:08
Speaker
Well, I think it's interesting, too, because we meet a lot of people that are ready to, like, how fast can I retire? I can't do this forever. I don't want to do this another.
00:32:18
Speaker
And like with you, you're saying, I want, I couldn't imagine not doing this. And so I think better and better. I'm never not doing this. Right. Okay. And you're hitting your, you're in your stride, I would say. And, and now you can just, I want to increase my days off for my free days and I'm going to ratchet down my session days. I don't want to work at 125 days a year. I roll that down, you know, five years, I'm down to a hundred days. Five years after that, maybe I'm down to 80 days.
00:32:48
Speaker
And then maybe I'd do only 50 days at some point. Let's talk about pricing for the EOS and Mark Stanley and how that's evolved to where you're at today. Because as you're getting experience, so is your pricing going up. Like let's talk through that. Because I think I got that look that was awesome. Yeah. But it's hard to raise your prices as an entrepreneur and as a business owner. And I think you probably see it more.
00:33:16
Speaker
With your position, but yeah, I think it's a great question of like I think as entrepreneurs you want to give it away because you don't have that confidence of like I just started doing
Closing Remarks & Contact Information
00:33:25
Speaker
this What is it really worth and then as you mature in your craft? Yeah, so I think the first way to kind of approach that part of the conversation to say like for me I always want to create an extreme amount of value and
00:33:40
Speaker
first and foremost. And so, you know, I believe that if you, you don't deserve to get anything unless you're creating value for others. So we start with that kind of principle.
00:33:51
Speaker
So then, how do you assess value? And the EOS process itself, it's scripted. So you can buy the book for $15, and you can implement it yourself. And people do that, and they're successful at that. You could go online and for something like $395 a month, you can subscribe to Basecamp, and it gives you the videos and materials and helps you be a better self-implementer. And you can do that, and people are successful at that.
00:34:20
Speaker
Or you can hire an implementer. And an implementer is someone that can come in and kind of coach you through the process. And there's EOS implementers, there's professional implementers, and then there's certified implementers. And the certified implementers, which I am one of, I think, 60 at this time, roughly, there's 190 professional and 60 certified.
00:34:44
Speaker
What a certified does is every 90 days I go to Detroit with my peer group and I work with Gino in the EOS worldwide team, Michael Payton and others.
00:34:59
Speaker
Learn and in the ten years. I've been doing it. I've gone to Detroit 36 out of 40 opportunities I've missed a couple for things that were in conflict for the day But I go to those to learn when I learn I pull out you know 15 to 20 pages 15 to 20 pages and notes so I'm I'm
00:35:20
Speaker
I want to be a master at the craft. And so being a master means it's discipline, it's learning, it's trying, it's- Failing. Failing, right? Yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
the desire to be as pure as you can in the process because when you're a peer, the process works better. I'm getting a long way around to your answer your question, but I want to tell you what's the, so, so all of that helps me create more value for entrepreneurs in the business. So when I've done that, um,
00:36:00
Speaker
The fee works, it's guaranteed. So you go day by day. So there's no long-term contracts in it, but each day is guaranteed. So at the end of the day, if you weren't completely satisfied, you don't pay. And I mean by pay, at the end of the day, you get a check, right? If the client's completely satisfied. So that takes complexity out of the accounting too.
00:36:21
Speaker
because there's no receivables. It's like, so far, we've had some sessions that didn't go so well, but I've never not got paid. I've done about 550 sessions at this point. I'm on the track to be by middle of next year, it'll be well over 600. With that comes the trade. It ends up being 6,000 per day for the work.
00:36:51
Speaker
But if we look at it, we're working with a client five days a year. So it's $30,000 for the system that comes with the coach. Now, if we take that $30,000 as an investment for the business, there's lots of things they're spending $30,000 on. But we want this $30,000 to benefit
00:37:10
Speaker
the organization, well beyond that. And if we're not getting 10 times that investment in real financial benefit, then I don't feel good about it. So I know that EOS create the system with a coach and a willing client.
00:37:30
Speaker
can create value far beyond the investment. So I don't think about it more as a $30,000 investment for the year for this entrepreneurial company.
00:37:43
Speaker
And there's different rates of growth that kind of get thrown around. But I would hope for a minimum of 15% rate of growth on revenue with that investment. It's not that EOS creates that for the company. It helps the entrepreneur and their leadership team unlock the true potential of their business.
00:38:09
Speaker
Because what's the power, what's the power of gaining all of your leadership team 100% on the same page with your vision of where you're going and unify? How much of a potential do you unlock? That so goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the organization. You know, a $3 million business that grows by 15%, that's $450K, 30 grand a year, well worth it. And what we do is unlock not so much the revenue growth but also the profitability because
00:38:40
Speaker
more profitable. So I like the bottom line of that. But I would be disappointed if you didn't get bottom line 10 times the investment and I'm disappointed. That's good. I think two things you keyed on there that we've been keyed on is, one, the word master. I think we're all going for that and nobody talks about it. I think a lot of the stuff you're seeing online
00:39:02
Speaker
in that, like the online education space is just exploding. It's all really, when you boil it down, people are trying to pursue mastery. And I think this is interesting, a mentor of mine, he showed me this from one of his mentors. And this guy had 20 different coaches in his life. And this guy was 67 years old. And he had a piano coach, a language coach, all these things that he wanted to do and be good at.
00:39:29
Speaker
And I think it's interesting because as we grow up, you know, we as parents, you know, Pope and I have three kids each. It's like, oh, you know, you need a coach in this or you should take lessons. And then when we get through college, it's like all of that stops. No, you don't need a marriage coach. I don't need a business coach. I don't need a,
00:39:47
Speaker
You know, and that mastery pursuit really stops aggressively for most people. And so I've noticed a difference for Phil, but I, you know, using you as our coach and not having you as our coach, you spend night and day and it's like, Oh my gosh, I wish we would have started this, you know, sooner. And I'm sure you get that a lot. That's part of that. Uh, you know, being open, honest and vulnerable again, being coachable, right? So, so, uh, when the, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
00:40:17
Speaker
For me, mastery is the combination of knowledge and understanding plus implementation equals mastery. Understanding is only one piece of it. I've got to do something with it. I've got to implement or execute. Then I get mastery.
00:40:34
Speaker
And mastery is not, you know, I watch some entrepreneurs kind of jump in and jump out, jump in and jump out on different things and nothing seems to be working. Well, you're just not sticking with it long enough. So mastery takes a certain amount of discipline to pull off. To get through. And pull off and it's a little bit over a long period of time is the route of the master, typically. I can get a little bit of a bump, but if I don't
00:41:02
Speaker
for a short period of time, but if I don't stay on it, it fades away. And so, but you can't be a master in all things. You really have to kind of pick the things that you're passionate about, the things that, you know, I think Jim Collins had where, what are you passionate about? What can it be best that the world is doing? And then what's your economic engine and all that? And the confluence of all those things are the things that you should be powerful, right? That's your unique ability. That's the gift you should be giving to the world. Yeah, that's good.
00:41:31
Speaker
Let's talk about vulnerability and failures. Let's talk about some of those in your life. And what have you learned through those? How did you get through those? Just talk a little bit about that. Well, you know, I'd like to say everything has gone well, but it hasn't.
00:41:47
Speaker
The failures are humbling because sometimes you walk in and you think you've got an answer or the secret sauce and you go about working and you realize, and I have a ton of respect for entrepreneurs because I've owned businesses, sold businesses, closed businesses, and they haven't all gone really well. But I've learned more from the failings that have been humbling than the successes.
00:42:11
Speaker
And I think part of what the failing is is, you know, when you're an entrepreneur business owner, I used to walk into a business that I, that I owned and, you know, there's 50 cars in the parking lot. I took that as great responsibility that, you know, we have to make and sell product into the market so we can pay people so they can support their families. And, you know, we're paying for a lot of groceries, you know, and there's a lot of responsibility for this. So I never took that really lightly. Um,
00:42:41
Speaker
And so I think that it is, when things are going well,
00:42:51
Speaker
you get emboldened, you know, and you think nothing can go wrong. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden it doesn't go so well and you're humble. It's like, okay. So what it's done for me is I went through a period of time a few years ago where I had a business that wasn't going well. And I had to make the decision to close it because I was working in a different, in my consulting coaching practice and I was actually putting money into the other business.
00:43:20
Speaker
I got to the point where this is crazy. I have 12 people over here and I'm just one over here and I have to make money to put in this business over here with the 12 people. So I challenge them. I'm like, what do we got to do over here? Because you're in the business every day to grow and make this business.
00:43:38
Speaker
you know, successful, right? Because right now it's not very successful. And I can't keep putting money in this thing has to be standalone. And they ended up having making the tough decision to close it and didn't like it. I wasn't happy about it. I went through a depression. Sure. I wouldn't have called it that at the time, but I ended up with it. I ended up finding a coach for me.
00:44:03
Speaker
And i said okay get me out of the ditch right help and it was a really good experience and from that i really got center you know i get more.
00:44:16
Speaker
discipline, more intentional about the things I'm doing at the end of the day. But I also came out of it more, hopefully more gracious and more thankful for the things that, so Thanksgiving's coming up, right? So I always try to make a list of the things I'm really thankful about, but I also make a list of things that I was, that I'm thankful for about that could have happened that didn't. Things that could have went wrong, that didn't go wrong.
00:44:45
Speaker
And so the coach helped me get to a better place. Out of that, I put together a sheet. And the sheet, I keep it with me everywhere I go. It's like, what are my core values? What am I standing for? What are my passions? And that's helped me every time I start getting away from that page, it starts to wobble a little bit. If I stay kind of true to what's on that page, it stays centered.
00:45:14
Speaker
so that's been really helpful. For sure. It took me about a year to get out of that funk. When you're laying in bed and you're thinking, should I get up today? I think that's one of the biggest things. Don't we learn more in failures? There's something about it that
00:45:39
Speaker
What you learn is is about what you are as the person at the end of the day What's your metal? What do you stand for because it's easy to? It's easy when things are going well to say here's what I stand for. Yeah, it gets really tested When you're under pressure, I call it the Cam Newton effect remember when he was in the Super Bowl and he was like before the Super Bowl Superman
00:46:03
Speaker
He's amazing. He's amazing. I'm going to take this thing to win." And when they lost, it was like the receivers didn't catch it, the blockers didn't block it. And it was like, okay, you saw your true character because true character, I think, comes out the point when people are challenged or when it's not going their way.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah it's powerful we talk about you know wealth transfer to the next generation one of the things that we talk about with our clients is the good and bad experiences if you could. If you could somehow communicate that to the next generation and transfer that kind of wealth that you're in the trials.
00:46:39
Speaker
Holy cow, what a powerful investment you can give to the next generation. So wisdom is, experience is what you gain from your own failure. Wisdom is learning from others.
00:46:55
Speaker
I like that idea of wealth, so the wealth isn't as much as it is with a dollar sign as it is with the experience. I don't read the paper a lot, but my dad loves to show me the cartoons when I go home. I think about the cartoon that I would draw, we see this all the time, it's like a grandma sitting at the kitchen table,
00:47:23
Speaker
looking at her bank statement CD that's paying her 1%. And then having the grandchild on her cell phone in the living room, not talking and looking at her credit card statement that says 24% interest. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that of like, you know, we have the lowest interest rate environment we've ever had. People are dying to get money. Families aren't talking about these lessons or principles anymore. And this next generation is mired
00:47:52
Speaker
And I think the biggest epidemic we're gonna face very quickly we're already in it is the student loan debt is already over like 1.4 trillion dollars and already 30% delinquent so and not really backed by an asset if you think about it and so Anyways, I think there's a lot of wisdom in that I think that's where Philip and I get excited and some of the things that you've taught us that you not only do business owners, but I
00:48:18
Speaker
you're doing your family of of having these family discussions and what do we really want our lives to be like and how are we going to get there together um and then how are we going to organize our assets and resources to that end and so yeah so let me talk about that a little bit come on
00:48:34
Speaker
So, I'm excited. I've been in the EOS process since 2009. And, you know, I've known about this. So, in the business part of that, there's eight questions you answer. And we talk about being on the same page. It's called a Vision Traction Organizer in Business. But they have also had a personal one, right? So, EOS is mostly tied to business, but this personal one's been sitting out there. And I've printed it a couple of times over the last 9, 10 years. And I look at it and say, I should probably do something with that.
00:49:04
Speaker
So in June, we sat down, Marilyn and I, and we said, listen, let's start filling this out. Now, we were in Napa filling it out. So it wasn't like, you know, we were in the boardroom. Yeah, we weren't in the boardroom. We had a good view and some wine and we started filling this out, but it was really good. And we set our priorities. And the conversation, you know, in a personal situation,
00:49:31
Speaker
You can't make it a business conversation so i started out by saying listen. What do we want out of our lives right so let's try to get some of that stuff down and be really intentional about those things and we all have things in our mind you know that hey i wanna.
00:49:47
Speaker
I want to go to Africa, right? And go on a safari. So we have those things and those dreams. And so the best way in my mind to be, to get that stuff done is to be very intentional. Intentional means writing it down and then going for it. So goals and rocks to get you there. So we started the process. I don't know that this works for everybody. It's working really well for us. And then we just brought our 12 year old into it.
00:50:17
Speaker
So he's got rocks priorities. We have a scorecard. We have a level 10 meeting. Can we just go back there? You have your 12 year old doing it. And it's loose. It's not. It's loose, right? But it's a huge win. I don't agree. It's a huge win. So he's got a first time ever. He's got a couple of rocks in scorecard.
00:50:37
Speaker
And we have a scorecard of things we want to do, things we keep a child on a weekly basis. And we put it around financial, emotional, and mental health, or things that are on the scorecard. So this is new. We're building on it a little bit over time. So we had an issue come up the other day.
00:50:59
Speaker
No way. Yeah, so it's like, my son, he's like, hey, Dad, I've got an issue for the issues. It's perfect. So we've got to wait till Sunday for our level 10 meeting, but we'll make sure we bring it up almost. And he brings it up. And I knew what the issue was. His mother knew what the issue was. And so his mother was prepared for, he wanted to make a trip for school.
00:51:24
Speaker
And it's a trip to go to London in Paris and then home. And it's only 12, right? By the time the trip happens, it's 13. Obviously, there's some concerns from parents on, you know, will it go well as a tour? What happens if it goes wrong?
00:51:41
Speaker
His mother had a list of six or seven things. Ethan had, so for every one of the things that his mother had, he made an excellent argument. He was pretty good until the last one. His mother said, I want you to be 14 or 15 and make a trip like that. He said, there's nothing I can do. I'm only going to be 13. I can't get two more years older in one year.
00:52:10
Speaker
But then we agreed to support the trip. And that's a good way to kind of work through that because he was good at answering the questions and the answers and the issues. He's purposeful and intentional. He's purposeful and intentional about it. And so I think that he's learning a lot out of that.
00:52:32
Speaker
And I think it's interesting, you started the whole EOS process in 2009, but just in 2018, you got this personal one. I wish I would have started it sooner, for sure. We would have been further along. And I've got no good reason. Well, we did try to do it a couple of years ago and kind of craft core values. That work helped us kind of two years later.
00:53:00
Speaker
I don't know. It just happens. It happens the way that it happens. But my advice would be started that sooner rather than later. And I share this with people. You know what their initial reaction is?
00:53:11
Speaker
I can never do that. Wow. I could never do that. That's crazy. Why are you, why are you doing that at home? You know, I can't you just unplug and be at home. I'm like, well, hold on a minute. Right. It isn't about unplugging. It's, uh, it's just life. Right. We're working, you know, uh, we're playing, we're family, you know, but it's just, it's just towards something we're working towards something intentional about it. Right. So let's just put this, let's just put this energy down on paper.
00:53:40
Speaker
We're doing it anyway. Let's just put it on paper.
00:53:43
Speaker
and kind of agree on where we want to be or how we want to go about things. I got to tell you, in the last six months, since we did the first one, we've accelerated the rate at which we're getting things done with less friction and more alignment and less friction. So not only are we getting more of what we want to get done better and faster,
00:54:11
Speaker
but we're doing it with less friction. You're unified, right? Yeah. Everybody would want that. Yeah. Cause we've made progress in the past, right? As a family, but not
00:54:26
Speaker
Not at the rate and with more friction. Yeah. Sure. Well, I think too, I think there's a huge topic. So you shared the template with us. I actually took Megan through it on her honeymoon with wine and Santa Fe. Yeah. And so we established a baseline and I'm like super excited about it. And, um, I think when you study like, uh,
00:54:53
Speaker
you know, I would say like the Jewish culture and two, 3000 years ago. And you look at history, the family was very well connected around the business and the source of income. You know, there really wasn't this whole external economy. Like we know it to be now and that really started with the industrialized age and really took the males out of the home. And now it's taken the females predominantly out of the home. And so I think we've lost track of this art
00:55:22
Speaker
Family and communicating and these principles and wisdom and how do we pass these things down how do we communicate about the things that we want how do we communicate about the things that make us different within our own family right and so i'm super excited about you showing us your. Your family lesson.
00:55:40
Speaker
And we're working on some things to bring that more to our clients as well and so i think there's a lot more to come on this topic. I can really do feel like we take people on a family level and start dissecting your core values.
00:55:55
Speaker
What are you guys going after? What are your goals? What can we start doing now? And we put the control back into the client's hands versus other advisors who are like, yeah, just give me your money and I'll give you, well, we'll meet back in 60, you know, when you're 60 and I'll tell you if you can retire or not. It's totally counterintuitive. That's right. Let's try like about what you guys are doing differently. It's more holistic.
00:56:19
Speaker
Yes, there's a wealth and freedom component, but if you think about, you know, there's different freedoms. There's freedom of money, there's freedom of time, how you said there's freedom of relationship of who I want to spend my time with. If we can carve it out more as, you know,
00:56:40
Speaker
Freedom means I'm not having to work as hard for it. I'm free to make some choices. And I think sometimes we don't believe, some people get trapped and believe they don't have choices.
00:56:56
Speaker
I think that's a choice as well. We all have choices. You can keep that power away from somebody as a choice. Absolutely. Now with the choice comes responsibility as well. But I just don't block yourself. Get out of your own way.
00:57:18
Speaker
We kind of did a lot more of what you want and it's like you're in a jail cell that you put yourself in But you don't realize you're holding the key you've got to let yourself out. Yeah, the keys in the door You're gonna have to be cracked open. Yeah, it's dark. It's gonna be awkward but yeah, and it's different way to your point earlier just shedding light on things and You know, that's obviously a biblical principle too. So there's a while back about the prison of the shits and
00:57:46
Speaker
And the should is, and we live in the prison of the shoulds. The shoulds are only in the mind, they're not in reality. But we, it's a little part of it. Or we should have done that better. Or we shouldn't have done that. And it's really that, or that past, you know, that time zone called the past, pulled you back. Because one of the most powerful principles, stop saying should, or shouldn't. I should do this, I shouldn't have done that. Either go do it.
00:58:15
Speaker
Yeah, I am doing this. Let's stop beating yourself up. We have all these shoulds are bags that weigh us down. Drop them because it's not reality. Totally. The should is the prison is the imprisonment.
00:58:31
Speaker
I think that's where our listeners start. Like we always try to like circle around with how do you apply what we just talked about? And I think that's where you start. Start taking responsibility and control of things in your life. If you don't like them, then understand that you're putting yourself there. And what are you going to do to start working out of that?
00:58:49
Speaker
And once you start that, I'm telling you, it's a switch in your head where you feel not as bad being there, right? And even in some clients that are working really hard and they hate their job, when they start having a passion outside of that and they see how that job is funding that passion, it's not that bad anymore. So it's just a perception change. So I think that's where you start. How do they contact you, Mark, or like how do they reach out to you or learn more about you?
00:59:15
Speaker
Great question. So we have a website called y.com. That's W-H-Y-C-O-N-P-A-N-Y dot com. So it's ycompany.com. And reach me at mstanley at ycompany.com. So mstanley at the same dot com. Or reach me through Brian and Philip. That's right. All right. Thank you so much, Mark, for your time today. Thanks, guys. A wealth of information and wisdom. And can't wait to see what we've got in store for you soon.
00:59:46
Speaker
That's all for this episode of the Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.