Adam Outland
Appearances
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Priit Martin, Episode 465
It's about making sure your personal improvement is trending upward, even if it's very slightly over time. As long as you're making small but consistent improvements in whatever you're doing year after year, you are a success. For more on Preet's story and some of these principles, check out the full interview, Action Catalyst, episode 465 with Preet Martin.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Priit Martin, Episode 465
Preet learned during his days selling books door to door that the process wasn't complex by any means, but it also wasn't easy. It's a grind and it takes determination and perseverance to make it work. Those aren't complicated skills, but they can be difficult without the right mindset. Number two, success boils down to the basics.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Priit Martin, Episode 465
Welcome back, Action Catalyst listeners. This is another Overtime with Outland. Today we'll be discussing episode 465 with Preet Martin, president of Southwestern Ventures, part of the Southwestern family of companies. A few concepts that we pulled from Preet's interview that would be useful for our listeners. Number one is that simple doesn't always mean easy.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Priit Martin, Episode 465
In sales especially, Preet says people tend to think it's something fancy that makes them successful. A particular joke, a nice suit, a quirky habit, but it's not. It's the boring mundane basics like showing up day after day, doing the things even when you don't feel like it. And above all, having the patience to learn instead of throwing in the towel.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Priit Martin, Episode 465
Number three, new and different isn't always effective. This goes back again to Preet's book Selling Days when he had the benefit of learning from a system of selling that had been in use for over 100 years. There was a plan, there was a manual, and it worked. Preet says people often get wrapped up in wanting to reinvent the wheel just because it looks cooler or sounds different.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Priit Martin, Episode 465
And yes, there are situations where you need to adapt or change things, but you don't need to start from scratch just for the sake of being new. Take what's already tried and true and then build on it. Number four, success is a trend. It's not about hitting a specific dollar mark or a house with a certain square footage.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Luis Baez, Episode 459
If you're already within a larger company, use those companies' resources like legal, marketing, IT, and other assets as a safety net to work on the thing that in the future can launch you as an entrepreneur. Start that journey now while you have the support systems already in place on someone else's investment.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Luis Baez, Episode 459
Welcome Action Catalyst listeners to Over Time with Outland. Here we'll be reviewing episode 459 with Luis Baez. In our interview, there were three big takeaways that I want to share with you. Number one. Entrepreneurship can be a great way to get your feet under you as an entrepreneur.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Luis Baez, Episode 459
Luis and I also talk about the differences in how you show up in social media and different platforms. A key thing to keep in mind if you're promoting yourself or your business on social is the exact same customers can behave very differently depending on the platform where you're reaching them.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Luis Baez, Episode 459
On LinkedIn, for example, you need to be more professional and you need to be sharing information that adds value or educates. Instagram, by contrast, is more like a virtual water cooler. This is where you can be a bit more playful and fun and prospects can establish a stronger connection to your brand and your vibe rather than just what you can provide them.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Luis Baez, Episode 459
One of the things I really appreciated about Luis and his approach is something similar we've heard from so many other entrepreneurs and success stories is that progress is key over perfection. Accept that things are going to be messy. Accept that things aren't going to be exactly as you planned, but get started. Take the first step and keep taking steps.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Luis Baez, Episode 459
As Luis says it, get started and put lipstick on it later. It's more important to be making progress and moving in the right direction than for everything to be perfect right away. To get the rest of the episode, check out episode 459 with Luis Baez.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Chris Hunter, Episode 462
And Chris believed the biggest selling points were that it was delicious and plant-based. But really, it was the ready-to-drink part that customers cared most about. So they branched out from selling and offering refrigerated products into offering shelf-stable drinks and powdered mixes. By understanding what their customers valued most in their product, they were able to expand.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Chris Hunter, Episode 462
For the full interview and more, check out Action Catalyst episode 462 with Chris Hunter.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Chris Hunter, Episode 462
Welcome back Action Catalyst listeners. This is Overtime with Outland. Today we'll be tackling episode 462 with Chris Hunter, founder of 4Loco, Koya, and Not Your Father's Root Beer. Four principles that came out of this interview that I thought would be valuable here in our Overtime episode. Number one, when going into business, always understand your exit at the beginning.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Chris Hunter, Episode 462
When Chris and his partner started 4Loco, they made most decisions as simple majority rules. And since they were all friends, they all assumed that most of them would be in agreement. But time changes, businesses change, and people change. And they found out that having such a loose business arrangement was setting them up for disaster.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Chris Hunter, Episode 462
So as Stephen Covey always said, begin with the end in mind with business partnerships. Number two, there is no cookie cutter boilerplate job description for a founder or CEO. When Chris was younger, he always thought the role of the founder meant one set thing, but each person brings a different set of skills to the table and can make better or worse use of their time in different ways.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Chris Hunter, Episode 462
But Chris, it's not day-to-day operations. It's forming new partnerships and relationships, which brings us to point number three. In sales, there are hunters and there are gatherers. Hunters love to go out and create new relationships, strike new deals, explore new territory. Gatherers like to optimize relationships they already have, increase efficiencies, and work with what they've got.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Chris Hunter, Episode 462
Chris sees himself as a hunter, and the fact that it's also his last name is not lost on him. Finally, Chris says it's important to zero in on the true value of your product. What about your product do people really want? Chris's latest company, Koya, offers delicious, refrigerated, ready-to-drink, plant-based protein.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: John Miles, Episode 467
Lastly, John brings up the idea that the perfect recipe for greatness has two ingredients, constant learning and a bias toward deliberate action. When you combine those things, choosing growth time and time again, while also constantly taking action that go in concert with that growth, that's when things really start to happen.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: John Miles, Episode 467
John says that most people think in order to achieve monumental things, it comes down to grandiose moments. But that's not really how things work. It's constant forward motion, building upon short-term ambitions towards long-term aspirations. For the full interview and more, check out Action Catalyst episode 467 with John Miles.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: John Miles, Episode 467
As a young athlete, John used to have a huge issue psyching himself out before track and field meets to the point where he'd get sick. That changed when, like many great athletes, he learned to treat every practice like a real race and every day like a game day. When you fully devote yourself all the time, the anxiety melts away.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: John Miles, Episode 467
Hello, Action Catalyst listeners. This is Adam Outland, and this is another episode of Overtime with Outland. This Overtime focuses on episode 467 with author, entrepreneur, and podcast host, John Miles. We learned a few different things from our interview with John Miles. The first of which is that there's no such thing as a practice mentality.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: John Miles, Episode 467
It's something John has continued to carry over into his professional life. John also brings up the idea of being a gardener leader. Just as a gardener needs to be there to plant the seeds and give nourishment, sitting over the plants day and night staring at them isn't going to make them grow any better or faster. Leaders need to have this philosophy of being eyes on but hands off.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: John Miles, Episode 467
The third point was to stop living like a pinball. You may have heard the phrase living life on autopilot, but John thinks that's the wrong analogy. When you're on autopilot, we're typically doing the same thing, but it's generally still taking us into a positive direction. He says the better metaphor for how so many of us are living our lives is as a pinball.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: John Miles, Episode 467
letting the world around us influence everything we do. Just as we get distracted in a game of pinball by the noises and the lights, in our lives we're distracted by social media, naysayers, and others. We're not intentional about learning how to play the game instead of it playing us. You can make the choice to live intentionally, or you can choose to continue to live like a pinball.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
And then that person got complacent and somebody else said, I'm going to change things and give another way to satisfy that need. Commerce begins and competition follows. Change itself isn't necessarily good or bad. It's only the response to change that separates winners from losers. Finally, James shared a very simple system for how he decides where to funnel his time. It's two basic questions.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
where am I going to either learn the most or contribute the most? Is it something I will learn from or something where my specific experience and talents can really make a big impact, maybe more than any other individual could in the same position? That's the criteria. Bonus points if it's also something fun. So for this and more, please listen to episode 471 It's really an amazing episode.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
Whenever you get a chance to hear someone that's been in a leadership role or two Titanic companies during periods of incredible change, there's a tremendous amount that we get to learn. So for more, episode 471 with James Keys.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
This is supposedly a quote by Einstein, which James loves. And he explains how innovation arises from curiosity and from applying actual fun to some kind of hard discipline. For example, playing music is a really heavy use of mathematics. He says it's important to try everything, even if you just dabble in it. Why just look at art? Why not practice it?
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
Hello, Action Catalyst listeners. Welcome to Overtime with Outland. This is for episode 471 with author and former CEO of Blockbuster Inc. and 7-Eleven, James Keyes. We had some great takeaways from this episode. And here are just a few of the nuggets that we extracted from him in the interview. Number one, creativity is intelligence having fun.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
And then the next time you go to a museum, after you've played around with mixing colors or painting or sculpting, you'll look at a great masterpiece and you'll have such a deeper appreciation for it. This can be applied to anything. Number two, CEO stands for change equals opportunity. I love this point that he made that the role of a CEO is to deal with change, good or bad,
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
and to confidently make decisions around that change and have the clarity to break complex things into really simple terms and communicate it. Those are the three gifts, change, confidence, and clarity that James says anyone can use to find their own personal or professional success. Point number three, speaking of change, James says leadership is all about change.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: James Keyes, Episode 471
Constant, inevitable, lifelong change. Constantly changing as a leader, being able to adapt to different circumstances, different times, different styles, different people. He says that change is at the very root of all commerce, all business. How does any business begin? Someone needed something and someone satisfied that need and got paid for it.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Bill Rancic, Episode 460
And Bill says Elon Musk is doing the same thing today with his companies. A solution versus a fix to a problem. The words may sound similar, but the difference is huge. And for the full interview, check out Action Catalyst episode 460 with Bill Rancic.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Bill Rancic, Episode 460
Number one, you don't learn much from success. Like so many other entrepreneurs, Bill believes in failure and being comfortable with it. He especially believes that the effect social media is having on our younger generations, where all they see is the success and the victory, and no one shares the struggle and the failure, is creating unrealistic ideas of how the world works.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Bill Rancic, Episode 460
Action Catalyst listeners, welcome back to Overtime with Outland. This is going to be for episode 460 with entrepreneur and television personality, Bill Rancic. In this episode, we learned a handful of things from someone that's been really successful in career, business, and show business. And we peeled back the layers to figure three things that would be really beneficial for our listeners here.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Bill Rancic, Episode 460
And it's possibly hindering the development of young entrepreneurs. He says that making a mistake isn't failure. Making the same mistake twice is. Number two, as a leader, treat yourself like the conductor of an orchestra. The conductor doesn't play an instrument himself. He doesn't do all the work himself.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Bill Rancic, Episode 460
He hires the very best people and then knows how to get the best out of each of them individually, as well as together as a team. Be a conductor. Set the tempo for your team and help them get the most out of themselves for the business. Number three, have a mindset of creating solutions more so than fixing problems. That might sound like the same thing, but it isn't.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Bill Rancic, Episode 460
There's always going to be problems. Even the things designed to fix problems could one day develop problems themselves. Make your goal with the service you provide or product you create about creating a solution, maybe even anticipating a solution someone didn't even know they wanted or needed. Apple was famous for doing this with its products.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
The world's deep needs are infinite. There will never stop being needs all over the globe. But if you start with your deep joy, your passion, you'll always be on the right path. Number four, create an expert team rather than just a team of experts. They're not the same thing.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
People who work seamlessly across boundaries who understand what the goal is and have the ability to trust each other to come up with the ideas. He cites the Kansas City Chiefs as his prime example. He said, or how to cover against other players. And every single member is involved. That's an expert team taking, as Tom calls it, creative chemistry.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
For these tips and so, so much more, check out the interview in Action Catalyst episode 468 with Dr. Tom Mayer. Honestly, this is one of my favorite interviews. I enjoyed it so much and I got so much from my conversation with him. So I'd really encourage you to listen to episode 468, Dr. Tom Mayer.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
Number one, when it comes to building your team, put relationships over resumes. When Tom was hired as the medical director for the NFL Players Association, it wasn't because his resume rose to the top of the stack. He had a personal relationship with the executive director of the association.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
Listeners, welcome back to the Action Catalyst. This is Overtime with Outland. And today we're going to be talking about episode 468 with author, physician, and medical director for the NFL Players Association, Dr. Tom Mayer. In this episode, we reap the benefit of a lot of Tom's experience, which is quite extensive. And from that experience, we gathered a lot of great insights.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
He'd seen him in the other leadership situations before and knew he had what it took to meet the demands of the job. It wasn't a matter of having a longer list of credentials. It was honestly a matter of trust and confidence. Tom never forgot that a relationship is always more powerful than even the best resume. Number two, work on sucking down versus sucking up.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
Tom saw this firsthand when he responded to the attack on the Pentagon in 9-11. Generals and other high-powered figures were all over the scene, but those weren't the people getting their hands dirty, sorting through the rubble, helping the wounded. Tom knew that to get things done, it's not about sucking up to those with the big titles.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Dr. Thom Mayer, Episode 468
It's about sucking down to the ones who are doing the day-to-day tasks. He calls these people the we suite. And he says that's who we should be giving attention to, not necessarily the C-suite. Number three, Tom says that your purpose is found where your deep joy intersects with the world's deepest needs. But the order is important. You have to start with your deep joy, not the world's needs.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Ron Alford, Episode 463
If you grip sand too tightly in your hand, it tends to slip through your fingers. If you cradle it, it's the only way to actually hold it all. People and ideas are the same way. Only worrying about controlling what you can really control. Maybe we think something is really important in a given moment, but hold it loosely and don't get too obsessed with an idea. Number two, be like Switzerland.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Ron Alford, Episode 463
Welcome back, Action Catalyst listeners. This is Overtime with Outland, and today we'll be talking about episode 463 with Ron Alford, Senior Partner and VP of Recruiting, Executive Coach, and Speaker at Southwestern Consulting. In Ron's episode, we tackle a few anecdotes that were really powerful for me that I want to share with you. Number one, Ron chooses to hold things loosely.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Ron Alford, Episode 463
Neutrality in the moment is fine. Ron says on certain issues, he has absolute principles and convictions he'd die for. But a lot of things are worth letting go. The ego often makes us think we have to be right, which means others have to be wrong. And someone just as wise across the aisle is saying the same thing about you. But oftentimes there can be truth on both sides. So listen first.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Ron Alford, Episode 463
Don't be quick to judge or quick to speak, but slower to ask questions and try to understand. Point number three, Ron discusses diving into the data, but trusting your gut. Data, trends, analytics are all very important and a good start for decision-making, but the pendulum could swing both ways.
The Action Catalyst
Overtime with Outland: Ron Alford, Episode 463
You could dig your grave with the amount of data there is to sift through and analyze and interpret that data and unpack it incorrectly. You could be paralyzed by it. So in the end, you still need to trust your gut. And as Ron says, trust your heart. For more on this interview, check out Action Catalyst episode 463 with Ron Alford.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Yeah, really well said. You know, one question that's somewhat related to this is you had a name change from E1 to Southwestern Ventures. What spurred that and what's the significance in changing that name?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Welcome, Action Catalyst listeners. Today, we have Preet Martin. Preet now serves as the president of Southwestern Ventures, formerly E1 Ventures, founded as part of the Southwestern family of companies to create career and entrepreneurial opportunities for young people across Europe. Preet, welcome to the show.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
I love it. Kind of the vision that there's more scale than what the initial name implied.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Embrace that. Yeah, I love it. Well, just as we tie up here, we always like to do a little lightning round of questions. Just very quick answers, but interesting things for our listeners to hear. Sure. All right. What's the one habit or practice that saves you the most time each day?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Good way to start your day and get your head on right before you tackle all the things that maybe you can't control. What about success? What does success mean to you today?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
It's making the little progress. That's great. And then any book or podcast you've listened to recently that stuck with you?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Besides the Action Catalyst. I mean, I know that's your number, but besides that one.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. That's great. This has been a great episode. Thanks for sharing some of your wisdom with us, your journey and what's happening at Southwestern Ventures. I appreciate your time.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
We want at least a couple of embarrassing stories from your youth.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
This is your host, Adam Outland. And outside of this podcast, I'm also the leader for a division of our company, Southwestern Consulting, and our division is the Southwestern Student Coaching Program. And that division, we started back in 2020 because the desire we had was to take all these skills that we've equipped executives with for
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Over a decade, I've coached executives and managers and sales professionals on the skills, the habits, the motivation, and the systems to be successful in their job and in life.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
And what we realized from working with 30, 40, 50 year olds was if we could have gotten to them when they were in ninth grade, in middle school, in high school, and equipped them with the same things we're teaching them now, the ripple effects would be huge.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
And so back in 2020, we decided to formulate a coaching program for youth, equipping youth with the same types of skill development that we typically work on with adults. We just apply it to their world.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
And what that looks like is teaching them the study skills, the communication skills that they can use every day in the classroom and outside the classroom, coaching them on the mindset and the motivation of someone who's a top performer. And what does that mean? It means helping a young teenager create and craft a vision for themselves. Because without a vision, we perish.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
But with a vision, we can be equipped with the motivation to dig into our study habits. We can see the connection between our future and the excellence that we have to form in run. And we also work on the emotional intelligence.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
It's how we balance our emotions and manage those emotions when they come up in a way that allows us to communicate effectively with others and to communicate with ourselves. It's about equipping young people with self-talk. That means equipping them with the language that they can use to better direct their thoughts and their mind to accomplish their goals and their aims.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Yeah, perfect. So give me a little bit of your story. How did you find the role and position that you're in today with Southwestern Ventures?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
And lastly, we equip them with the systems. That means for us, the tools, the time management, and the organization strategies are to not just work hard in life, but to work smart. And when we combine all these different areas that we work with our teens on, what we find is that they form the habits early in life that allows them to achieve their goals later in life and even right now.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
And so our passion is to equip as many young people across this world as we can. And we're doing pretty good so far. We've got teens in seven different countries who have been through our coaching program to date. We've worked with over 400 teens, and we would love to be able to serve you as well. Here's how it works. If you want to investigate coaching, we start with a parent consultation.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
That's a free call to discuss your students' particular needs and our program details. We work with Olympic athletes all the way down to teens that are just struggling to motivate themselves to do the daily work necessary in their class. So wherever your teen is, we'll meet them where they are and get them to the next level. And that starts with a parent consultation with you.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
A student planning session, that's the next step. If we agree that the value that coaching can bring matches your team, then we will move to a student planning session. It's basically a free one-on-one coaching session with your team. And that is designed to support them, but it's also designed to ask a lot of questions to help explore whether or not they want to be coached.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Because at the end of the day, they ultimately have to be the one that pulls the trigger. And then after your student planning session, We get them paired with the right coach for them. We have an amazing staff of coaches from ex-division one athletes, people who've come from the Ivy League system.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
We have coaches who have come from entrepreneurial backgrounds and acting backgrounds, so we can pair them with the right fit for them. And then once they partner with their coach, they'll benefit from two coaching sessions a month to really zone in on their personal growth and their skill development.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
So if you're ready to give your student the tools they need to be successful, click the link in the show notes. for more information and to make sure you can schedule your free parent consultation today.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
You got paused for a second. How did you make money playing video games?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Well, anytime if you're still in school, that's amazing.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
So you knew maybe being a financial advisor was not your path? Not in the past, yeah.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Any nosebleeds the first time you sold books?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Wow. That's fantastic. That also does positive things for your confidence in this arena of sales and working with people, right?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
So then jump to Southwestern Ventures. When did that transition happen between selling books and this initiative?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
And for our listeners, I guess, some perspective is in 2020 when COVID hit, one of the challenges for your organization, continuing to lead students from Europe coming to the States to sell, that became a much more difficult proposition.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Talk about taking lemons and turning them into lemonade.
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Absolutely. So how do we define Southwestern Ventures today? It's a combination of a number of businesses in and of itself. Is that correct?
The Action Catalyst
Venturing Boldly, with Priit Martin (Sales, Estonia, Entrepreneurship, Careers)
Stig Brodersen And Preet, for you, what are the muscles that you get to exercise as president of Southwestern Ventures? What are the new muscles?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Literally some life-changing moments during that time for you, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I guess one of the more recent ventures was not your father's root beer.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
That's so interesting. It's like your beverages reflect your state in life. Like you see high energy, like go get it in the beginning. And then it's more like this calm, healthy.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
I love that you found and gravitated towards things that reflected that for you, right? That you pursued products that you were passionate about. First, just a quick lightning round. Sure. One thing that I always wanted to know from guests is what's one piece of advice you're really glad you didn't listen to?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
I can't imagine. We're going to talk about your whole successful commercial enterprises. But I'm always kind of curious. Usually... You know, high school or even a young recent graduate isn't necessarily thinking like, man, I'm going to start all these amazing beverage companies. I got to know what were you on the track to do or what were you thinking you were going to do?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Love that. One of the things that I think is a lot of our listeners wonder is when you're dealing with a large organization, a large team, and you're responsible for leading it, time is one of the most scarce resources that you have. Yeah. What's one habit or practice that you feel saves you the most time each day?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Yeah. At the very beginning of this podcast, you said, as a young man, success meant to you making as much money as possible. That's a paradox phrase, but you said money was number one. Define what success means to you now and how you know when you've achieved it.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Two last quick questions. One, morning routine. What does it look like in the morning if you have your ideal routine?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
I'm going to rephrase this question I typically ask for you. Typically, I might ask you, what advice would you give a 21-year-old version of yourself? But I'm going to change it and say, what's the piece of advice or the value you really hope to instill in your kids?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Yeah. It's so interesting that so many people misidentify failure and mistakes, right? Like they think failure is this horrible thing that they should avoid at all costs. And from experience interviewing all of these brilliant people like yourself, you've built multiple successful enterprises. Failure is something to almost, you have to embrace failure.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Life is happening for you. I really like that one. I'm going to take that with me. Chris, this has been a fantastic interview. I know you just mentioned and published this book, Blackout Punch, an entrepreneur's journey from chaos to clarity, which I think will be great for so many of our listeners because that's the journey many of them are on.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
So thanks for giving us some of your wisdom here today and some anecdotes for our folks to take home with them. Yeah, it was fun. Thanks for having me on.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
This is your host, Adam Outland. And outside of this podcast, I'm also the leader for a division of our company, Southwestern Consulting, and our division is the Southwestern Student Coaching Program. And that division, we started back in 2020 because the desire we had was to take all these skills that we've equipped executives with for
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Over a decade, I've coached executives and managers and sales professionals on the skills, the habits, the motivation, and the systems to be successful in their job and in life.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
And what we realized from working with 30, 40, 50 year olds was if we could have gotten to them when they were in ninth grade, in middle school, in high school, and equipped them with the same things we're teaching them now, the ripple effects would be huge. And so back in 2020, we decided to formulate a coaching program for youth
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
equipping youth with the same types of skill development that we typically work on with adults. We just apply it to their world. And what that looks like is teaching them the study skills, the communication skills that they can use every day in the classroom and outside the classroom, coaching them on the mindset and the motivation of someone who's a top performer And what does that mean?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
It means helping a young teenager create and craft a vision for themselves. Because without a vision, we perish. But with a vision, we can be equipped with the motivation to dig into our study habits. We can see the connection between our future and the excellence that we have to form our habits now to be successful in the long run. And we also work on the emotional intelligence.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
It's how we balance our emotions and manage those emotions when they come up in a way that allows us to communicate effectively with others and to communicate with ourselves. It's about equipping young people with self-talk. That means equipping them with the language that they can use to better direct their thoughts and their mind to accomplish their goals and their aims.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
And lastly, we equip them with the systems. That means for us, the tools, the time management, and the organization strategies are to not just work hard in life, but to work smart. And when we combine all these different areas that we work with our teens on, what we find is that they form the habits early in life that allows them to achieve their goals later in life and even right now.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
And so our passion is to equip as many young people across this world as we can. And we're doing pretty good so far. We've got teens in seven different countries who have been through our coaching program to date. We've worked with over 400 teens, and we would love to be able to serve you as well. Here's how it works. If you want to investigate coaching, we start with a parent consultation.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
That's a free call to discuss your students' particular needs and our program details. We work with Olympic athletes all the way down to teens that are just struggling to motivate themselves to do the daily work necessary in their class. So wherever your teen is, we'll meet them where they are and get them to the next level. And that starts with a parent consultation with you.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
A student planning session, that's the next step. If we agree that the value that coaching can bring matches your team, then we will move to a student planning session. It's basically a free one-on-one coaching session with your team. And that is designed to support them, but it's also designed to ask a lot of questions to help explore whether or not they want to be coached.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Because at the end of the day, they ultimately have to be the one that pulls the trigger. And then after your student planning session, we get them paired with the right coach for them. We have an amazing staff of coaches from ex-Division I athletes, people who've come from the Ivy League system.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
We have coaches who have come from entrepreneurial backgrounds and acting backgrounds, so we can pair them with the right fit for them. And then once they partner with their coach, they'll benefit from two coaching sessions a month to really zone in on their personal growth and their skill development.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
So if you're ready to give your student the tools they need to be successful, click the link in the show notes for more information and to make sure you can schedule your free parent consultation today.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
I got to pay the bills. That's amazing. And so was that then the person that you ended up with in terms of working on this, on For Loco or-
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
What are some of the walls and challenges that you didn't expect in growing this thing?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Today's guest is Chris Hunter, the founder of several successful beverage brands, including 4Loco and Not Your Father's Root Beer. His new memoir, Blackout Punch, An Entrepreneur's Journey from Chaos to Clarity, tells the story. How are you?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
We're talking you're growing to $10 million, $50 million, $100 million in revenue. Different challenges at different points, right? Can you give a few examples of what was challenging about getting to $10 million versus what it was like going to $100 million?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Yeah, so you're hailing from Miami right now, but where did you grow up?
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
Selling is just an external thing, right? Finding partnerships and selling and bringing in business is super important, but sales is a skill in general about communication. And you end up in leadership, finding yourself selling the vision to your people or selling lots of things internally to get it done.
The Action Catalyst
Blackout Punch, with Chris Hunter (Entrepreneurship, Food and Beverage, Business, Leadership)
And I'm kind of curious, I mean, one thing that popped out to me was the government regulations and a little battle that you had to kind of jump back into what you faced when you were faced with some of the government agencies trying to keep Four Local legal, right? How did your communication skills, how was that relevant in that issue?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Yeah, I think that's really well said. You know, I think almost every successful person that we've had on this podcast has pulled some of their lessons, not from success, but actually from failure and shortcoming. A lot of our listeners, it's really easy to just superimpose on you that, okay, John was always this amazing guy. He did everything right. And life was just this perfect uphill chart.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
What were some of the bumps in your road and where did some of these lessons come in that you learned not from succeeding but from falling short?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
When you wrote Passion Struck, I was advised once upon a time that if you write a book, you try not to write it for everyone. You try to write it for maybe one person that you really have in mind. Who did you write Passion Struck for in a way?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Yeah, I love that. Just to tie up, one thing that we always do with our guests is a quick lightning round. These are just short responses, but give some insight for our listeners. And so if you don't mind, for you, what's one of your favorite quotes that you tend to reference most?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
So good. In relation to that and some of the things that you said, what's one thing that you own that you should probably throw out?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Oh, love that. Yeah, we accumulate so much over life and thinking it makes us bigger, but then it actually just adds a lot of stress in many cases and more things to manage, right? I always like to say I'd prefer to be friends with a guy that has a boat than have one. Yep. I love this. Thank you so much.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
This has been a really enlightening episode just because of your history being so unique in your pathway and some of the lessons and frankly, some of the lessons you learned not just from your own life, but from some of the people you've interviewed.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
John, thanks for your time so much today. Great interview.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
This is your host, Adam Outland. And outside of this podcast, I'm also the leader for a division of our company, Southwestern Consulting, and our division is the Southwestern Student Coaching Program. And that division, we started back in 2020 because the desire we had was to take all these skills that we've equipped executives with for
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Over a decade, I've coached executives and managers and sales professionals on the skills, the habits, the motivation, and the systems to be successful in their job and in life.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
And what we realized from working with 30, 40, 50 year olds was if we could have gotten to them when they were in ninth grade, in middle school, in high school, and equipped them with the same things we're teaching them now, the ripple effects would be huge. And so back in 2020, we decided to formulate a coaching program for youth
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
equipping youth with the same types of skill development that we typically work on with adults. We just apply it to their world. And what that looks like is teaching them the study skills, the communication skills that they can use every day in the classroom and outside the classroom, coaching them on the mindset and the motivation of someone who's a top performer And what does that mean?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
It means helping a young teenager create and craft a vision for themselves. Because without a vision, we perish. But with a vision, we can be equipped with the motivation to dig into our study habits. We can see the connection between our future and the excellence that we have to form in our habits now to be successful in the long run. And we also work on the emotional intelligence.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
It's how we balance our emotions and manage those emotions when they come up in a way that allows us to communicate effectively with others and to communicate with ourselves. It's about equipping young people with self-talk. That means equipping them with the language that they can use to better direct their thoughts and their mind to accomplish their goals and their aims.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
And lastly, we equip them with the systems. That means for us, the tools, the time management, and the organization strategies are to not just work hard in life, but to work smart. And when we combine all these different areas that we work with our teens on, what we find is that they form the habits early in life that allows them to achieve their goals later in life and even right now.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
And so our passion is to equip as many young people across this world as we can. And we're doing pretty good so far. We've got teens in seven different countries who have been through our coaching program to date. We've worked with over 400 teens, and we would love to be able to serve you as well. Here's how it works. If you want to investigate coaching, we start with a parent consultation.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
That's a free call to discuss your students' particular needs and our program details. We work with Olympic athletes all the way down to teens that are just struggling to motivate themselves to do the daily work necessary in their class. So wherever your teen is, we'll meet them where they are and get them to the next level. And that starts with a parent consultation with you.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
A student planning session, that's the next step. If we agree that the value that coaching can bring matches your team, then we will move to a student planning session. It's basically a free one-on-one coaching session with your team. And that is designed to support them, but it's also designed to ask a lot of questions to help explore whether or not they want to be coached.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Because at the end of the day, they ultimately have to be the one that pulls the trigger. And then after your student planning session, we get them paired with the right coach for them. We have an amazing staff of coaches from ex-division one athletes, people who've come from the Ivy League system.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
We have coaches who have come from entrepreneurial backgrounds and acting backgrounds, so we can pair them with the right fit for them. And then once they partner with their coach, they'll benefit from two coaching sessions a month to really zone in on their personal growth and their skill development.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
So if you're ready to give your student the tools they need to be successful, click the link in the show notes for more information, and to make sure you can schedule your free parent consultation today.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
And in reflection, did you feel like that path was the right one?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
I think each phase of our life, we pull and extract different lessons that we end up being able to leverage later on. And I could assume some of the lessons that you might have learned at the Naval Academy where I think you were also an athlete as well.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Yeah. What are some of the lessons you pulled from that earlier formative experience that you were able to leverage in your professional and consulting career?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
So you're out of the Naval Academy and take this kind of windy road that gets you to consulting and then from consulting into senior executive roles with fairly large companies.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Yeah. One of the things that you write about is the need for curiosity. There's some points that you make about both the need for curiosity and the bias to action. So where did this evolve for you on a personal level? And then how have you explored this over the course of your career?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Today's guest is John Miles, a former naval officer, an author, entrepreneur, Fortune 50 senior executive, and award-winning podcast host who has established himself as an expert in behavioral change and leadership.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
His book, Passion Struck, along with the podcast and radio show of the same name, have earned praise from many, including some past Action Catalyst guests, such as Matt Higgins, Mark Devine, and Marshall Goldsmith. So John, good to meet you. You too, Adam.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
it's hard to maintain a bias for action culturally in companies at scale, right? Is there anything that you could share where companies have worked around that to create a better platform for allowing bias for action?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
You know, one of the things that I do like talking to our guests about, and I kind of probably wanted to open with you some, is focusing a lot on the journey. You know, most of our guests didn't necessarily have a master plan from the age of 10 on being where they are today. It's evolved over time.
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
Do you feel that's a universal?
The Action Catalyst
Passion Struck, with John Miles (Leadership, Self Improvement, Business, Mindset)
What was the evolution that you went through, different iterations that you were considering doing along the way?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
So what path were you thinking you were on and then what changed? Yeah.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
You know, I think one other tactical thing I wanted to ask before we do like kind of a quick lightning round of questions. I thought this was a lightning round. The question I had was about time, where to invest it when there's so many areas, places, people asking for it. Anything that you'd share on that that's been a good process or system for you about how you funnel your time and leadership?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Yeah, that's fair. And looking at all the hobbies that you've developed, do you feel that to some degree having some of these things that are more artistic or creative in nature were supportive of your business?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
It takes that curiosity. I love it. So just for some quick responses to a few of these questions, we looked at what you just said, culture, places. Just right now, what's the culture, country that you're most fascinated in and want to travel to? Yeah.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty good. Because you've composed, I just wanted to ask you this question. What are you listening to right now?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Yeah. Piece of advice that you're really glad that you ignored. So thinking back at your whole business career, was there a time where someone tried to give you some advice and you willfully ignored it to a better benefit?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
In a lot of conversations with a variety of people who've had a variety of different successes in their career, there's something that I always want to help our listeners define for who we're interviewing. That's what success actually means to you and how you know when you've achieved it.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
And... Coming back to this, which is your book, oftentimes when you're offering a book, some of the advice people tend to give you is don't write it for everyone. Write it with someone in mind. Who are you writing for?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
This probably syncs right up for someone when they read the book. But the last question I'd ask would be, if you could summarize the advice you would give that 21-year-old version of yourself, knowing everything you know now, what would that be? Yeah, to use knowledge to eliminate fear. Wow. Yeah, that's really nice.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Jim, thanks for sharing some of this knowledge with us. For folks who want to kind of follow your journey and continued exploration of things, and then also your book, where can they go to learn more about you?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Wonderful. Yeah, I really appreciate the words of wisdom and thanks for sharing with our audience today. Happy to join you. This has been fun.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
This is your host, Adam Outland. And outside of this podcast, I'm also the leader for a division of our company, Southwestern Consulting, and our division is the Southwestern Student Coaching Program. And that division, we started back in 2020 because the desire we had was to take all these skills that we've equipped executives with for
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Over a decade, I've coached executives and managers and sales professionals on the skills, the habits, the motivation, and the systems to be successful in their job and in life.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
And what we realized from working with 30, 40, 50 year olds was if we could have gotten to them when they were in ninth grade, in middle school, in high school, and equipped them with the same things we're teaching them now, the ripple effects would be huge.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
And so back in 2020, we decided to formulate a coaching program for youth, equipping youth with the same types of skill development that we typically work on with adults. We just apply it to their world.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
And what that looks like is teaching them the study skills, the communication skills that they can use every day in the classroom and outside the classroom, coaching them on the mindset and the motivation of someone who's a top performer. And what does that mean? It means helping a young teenager create and craft a vision for themselves. Because without a vision, we perish.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
But with a vision, we can be equipped with the motivation to dig into our study habits. We can see the connection between our future and the excellence that we have to form in our habits now to be successful in the long run. And we also work on the emotional intelligence.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
It's how we balance our emotions and manage those emotions when they come up in a way that allows us to communicate effectively with others and to communicate with ourselves. It's about equipping young people with self-talk. That means equipping them with the language that they can use to better direct their thoughts and their mind to accomplish their goals and their aims.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
And lastly, we equip them with the systems. That means for us, the tools, the time management and the organization strategies to not just work hard in life, but to work smart. And when we combine all these different areas that we work with our teens on, what we find is that they form the habits early in life that allows them to achieve their goals later in life and even right now.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
And so our passion is to equip as many young people across this world as we can. And we're doing pretty good so far. We've got teens in seven different countries who have been through our coaching program to date. We've worked with over 400 teens, and we would love to be able to serve you as well. Here's how it works. If you want to investigate coaching, we start with a parent consultation.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
That's a free call to discuss your students' particular needs and our program details. We work with Olympic athletes all the way down to teens that are just struggling to motivate themselves to do the daily work necessary in their class. So wherever your teen is, we'll meet them where they are and get them to the next level. And that starts with a parent consultation with you.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
A student planning session, that's the next step. If we agree that the value that coaching can bring matches your team, then we will move to a student planning session. It's basically a free one-on-one coaching session with your team. And that is designed to support them, but it's also designed to ask a lot of questions to help explore whether or not they want to be coached.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Because at the end of the day, they ultimately have to be the one that pulls the trigger. And then after your student planning session, we get them paired with the right coach for them. We have an amazing staff of coaches from ex-division one athletes, people who've come from the Ivy League system.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
We have coaches who have come from entrepreneurial backgrounds and acting backgrounds, so we can pair them with the right fit for them. And then once they partner with their coach, they'll benefit from two coaching sessions a month to really zone in on their personal growth and their skill development.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
So if you're ready to give your student the tools they need to be successful, click the link in the show notes, for more information, and to make sure you can schedule your free parent consultation today.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
The town survived. No one died. Exactly. Exactly.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
But, you know, it's a good early lesson that failure is going to be a part of the journey. But it's a part of the journey. I have a quote from Nelson Mandela that I use all the time. I never lose. I win or I learn. Yeah, the town survived. No one died in that explosion. Exactly. And I learned I was not cut out to be a rocket scientist.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Maybe not, but you found a way to reconnect with some of that passion, right? 40 years as a pilot.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's beyond cool. You know, you've had such a story career between your time as a CEO, you know, at 7-Eleven, Blockbuster, and we'll get into a lot of that. But I thought something that really drew me was actually all of your, I think it almost goes beyond to say hobbies, but I mean, you composed and co-wrote a song that was...
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
So composing, flying, sculpting, painting, to me that's reflective of someone who is innately curious.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
On the business side of things, taking on the role of president and CEO of a tremendously large organization, I can only imagine comes with a certain amount of stress and pressure. What were some of the things that you felt were most preparational in taking on this role? What were some of the key things or events that you felt equipped you to lead so many people?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Today's guest is James Keyes, a longtime business leader currently serving as the chairman of Key Development LLC. His career has included serving as CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, Blockbuster Incorporated and 7-Eleven, His new book, Education is Freedom, The Future is in Your Hands, highlights his passion for lifelong learning and is out now. James, thanks for joining us. Sure, yeah.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
No, that's fabulous. Yeah, I love that. You came into Blockbuster during a tough time. I wanted to know, and maybe Blockbuster is the right place to ask this question, but you hit a wall.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Yeah. Wow. So this is something I've thought about over the last just few days thinking about this interview was a reluctance of leaders to be honest with their CEO. But I'm kind of curious how you dealt with maybe some of those challenges or how you generated a culture in the leadership teams that you formed where you got reality.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Oh no. Okay. It's a nice part about Adam. At least nobody calls you like ad. Yeah. You can't reduce it any further. Yeah. You know, I'm always curious what someone thought was going to be their life path in their early days. And then what some of the twists and turns were that caused it to be quite different than maybe what they expected.
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Sure. Jim, was there anything you did in particular with your leaders to make them feel they could approach you about challenges?
The Action Catalyst
Education is Freedom, with James Keyes (Learning, Business, Leadership, Change)
Yeah.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
You know, I think you really do exemplify what you write about. There are not many people who are able to show up at home and at work and live out things as much as you do. And you've done a really good job being a living example. Just for our back end of time, I wanted to do a little lightning round of questions for you. This is kind of a fun question I ask a lot of folks we interview.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Who is a person you always wanted to meet but never have?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
That's a really good one. The balance of humility and prayer with aggression that's appropriate. Exactly. Yeah. What's something significant, I guess, that you've actually changed your mind about recently that you've had a change of mind about?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Thank you for having me, Adam. But in all honesty, one of the things that I've always respected about you and how you've lived your life outside of business is, I guess, first and foremost, how you run. My first experience learning about you, I remember, was when you talked about how you just run 35 miles one year for every year you've been alive because it was your 35th birthday.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
So you embrace the moniker Switzerland.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
What's the best piece of advice that you ignored intentionally? Like, and you're glad you did. The one piece of advice that maybe you've received that you didn't take.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Really true. The pendulum swings sometimes, like in the tech sector, it swings all the way over to data-driven decision-making. But you could dig your grave with the amount of data there is to sift through and analyze. And data at the same time ends up just being numbers. We know that tells a good portion of the story, but you can wrongly interpret data and unpack it incorrectly.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
What's your current morning routine?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Nope, that's perfect. And stretching, I think, is a big thing that I'm missing.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Have you ever hired like a trainer or a coach of some kind, like business or physical related to like prepare for something?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
I was both amazed and thought you were a masochist at the same time. But then when you unpacked, you know, why you did it, what it meant to you, I thought that was really cool. But talk to me about when did running start for you?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Probably a good analogy for business coaching, too, is that so many people gravitate towards coaching or help when it's already not necessarily too late, but the problems already become so painful that they're scrambling for a need. There's probably a lot of value to preventative maintenance in every area of your life, right? Do you really want marital counseling when it's really, really needed?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Or do you want to get ahead of that, right? I mean, there's a lot of examples here.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Yeah, that's really cool. This has been a really insightful and energizing interview. There's been a lot of really great anecdotes and stories, things that I hadn't heard before. And I think our listeners are going to love hearing this, reading your book. And so on that last point, where can people find Redefining Possible?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Coaching, training, speaking, Ron does it all. You can find more info on those same places for that as well, right?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Yeah, you got it, Ron.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
This is your host, Adam Outland, and outside of this podcast, I'm also the leader for a division of our company, Southwestern Consulting, and our division is the Southwestern Student Coaching Program. And that division, we started back in 2020 because the desire we had was to take all these skills that we've equipped executives with for
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Over a decade, I've coached executives and managers and sales professionals on the skills, the habits, the motivation, and the systems to be successful in their job and in life.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
And what we realized from working with 30, 40, 50 year olds was if we could have gotten to them when they were in ninth grade, in middle school, in high school, and equipped them with the same things we're teaching them now, the ripple effects would be huge. And so back in 2020, we decided to formulate a coaching program for youth
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
equipping youth with the same types of skill development that we typically work on with adults. We just apply it to their world. And what that looks like is teaching them the study skills, the communication skills that they can use every day in the classroom and outside the classroom, coaching them on the mindset and the motivation of someone who's a top performer. And what does that mean?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
It means helping a young teenager create and craft a vision for themselves. Because without a vision, we perish. But with a vision, we can be equipped with the motivation to dig into our study habits. We can see the connection between our future and the excellence that we have to form in our habits now to be successful in the long run. And we also work on the emotional intelligence.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
It's how we balance our emotions and manage those emotions when they come up in a way that allows us to communicate effectively with others and to communicate with ourselves. It's about equipping young people with self-talk. That means equipping them with the language that they can use to better direct their thoughts and their mind to accomplish their goals and their aims.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
And lastly, we equip them with the systems. That means for us, the tools, the time management and the organization strategies to not just work hard in life, but to work smart. And when we combine all these different areas that we work with our teens on, what we find is that they form the habits early in life that allows them to achieve their goals later in life and even right now.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
And so our passion is to equip as many young people across this world as we can. And we're doing pretty good so far. We've got teens in seven different countries who have been through our coaching program to date, We've worked with over 400 teens, and we would love to be able to serve you as well. Here's how it works. If you want to investigate coaching, we start with a parent consultation.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
That's a free call to discuss your students' particular needs and our program details. We work with Olympic athletes all the way down to teens that are just struggling to motivate themselves to do the daily work necessary in their class. So wherever your teen is, we'll meet them where they are and get them to the next level. And that starts with a parent consultation with you.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
A student planning session, that's the next step. If we agree that the value that coaching can bring matches your team, then we will move to a student planning session. It's basically a free one-on-one coaching session with your team. And that is designed to support them, but it's also designed to ask a lot of questions to help explore whether or not they want to be coached.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Because at the end of the day, they ultimately have to be the one that pulls the trigger. And then after your student planning session, we get them paired with the right coach for them. We have an amazing staff of coaches from ex-division one athletes, people who've come from the Ivy League system.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
We have coaches who have come from entrepreneurial backgrounds and acting backgrounds, so we can pair them with the right fit for them. And then once they partner with their coach, they'll benefit from two coaching sessions a month to really zone in on their personal growth and their skill development.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
So if you're ready to give your student the tools they need to be successful, click the link in the show notes for more information and to make sure you can schedule your free parent consultation today.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Where do you feel like how the psychology of how you do what you do? Because for listeners that don't know, how long is a typical ultra?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Yeah. I've noticed, I think that's a common trait in a lot of people who've found business success, is that a number of them, not all, but a number of them found their ability to manage controllable actions on a physical level.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Arnold Schwarzenegger going into the gym and knowing all the reps and see the results from the reps he put in, you control your body and the results are an extension of that.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
In prior interviews, we focused on some of your earlier life and how you built into Southwestern Consulting and the impact that you've had there.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
I'm wondering, I guess, more recently through COVID and in these last few years, what are some lessons that you've taken back and thought about the work that you wrote in Redefining Possible and new applications, new inspirations that you've had just over the last three or four years?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
I've always seen you as a long-term thinker, but when you said recently there's been a reflection on legacy, go into that a little bit more. How have you kind of reset legacy for yourself? How have you started to reassess or refresh legacy and what's important to you?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Yeah. And I think you have this ability to hold things loosely. Maybe you even said this analogy years ago, and I probably heard it from you, but if you grip sand too tightly in your hand, it slips through your fingers. If you cradle it, it's the only way to hold that. I think that might've been you.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
But I hear that almost in that story where it almost like that early reminds you to hold some of the things that maybe we think are important and hold it loosely instead, because it's not as important as that perspective.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Exactly. Yeah. Control what you can and don't try and control things that you can't. I love that. Another question would be of some of the principles that you bring up redefining possible. What's another one, I guess, that you're really have been focused on here over the last year or two.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of focus, writing a book takes a lot of focus. I mean, to get your ideas on paper and not even second guess yourself, it's really difficult. And so maybe there's a couple of questions around just writing and putting these ideas on paper. What was the best way for you to focus on writing that book?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Well, I always get in a place where I question whether I'll still think what I'm putting down is important five or six years later. You now have this perspective. I guess coming back and adding some highlights to the book, when you wrote it, I guess, how did you know that this was going to be something that you'd read again five years later and go, oh, yes, I still believe these things.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
It's still important to me. Yeah.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Welcome back to the Action Catalyst. Today, we are joined by Ron Alford, a senior partner, VP of a free executive coach and speaker at Southwestern Consulting. It's awesome to have you back on the podcast. You've been on this before. I am excited to formally interview you because you're trapped and I could ask you all the embarrassing things publicly that I've always wanted to ask.
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
A hundred percent. Yeah. I love that. You know, there are a lot of listeners that probably haven't had a chance to pick up the book yet. I know you said you wrote it with even your own kids in mind, like would they be proud of you? But in the world of business and the people that are listening in here, who did you write this book for?
The Action Catalyst
Possibility, Redefined, with Ron Alford (Leadership, Vision, Confidence, Focus, Running)
Like who are the people that are going to pick this up, read it and go, gosh, that's exactly what I needed.