Seven figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO.
Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast experience as your host, John Kitchens.
Get ready to think bigger and transform your business into
a path to lasting freedom.
All right.
So, man, I'm, I'm really excited.
You know, obviously I can geek out on this one all day long.
Joel can as well.
And you know, we're, we're, we're continuing our, um, deep dive
into, um, kind of the, the new.
Overhauled agent to CEO process.
Joel, I don't know what we wanna kind of, kind of call it the, the new
naming conventions and, and really more context to, um, the recipe, if you will,
for the whole agent to CEO concept.
And, um, I'm really excited as we've been going through this process and
the work kind of forced on kind of the naming conventions and revamping and, um.
Obviously had a lot of help with ai.
Um, and I actually, you know, Renee, I actually used Hui, the actual Hui
Learning Management to go through this.
So I had, you know, the real estate reference with it and how powerful,
um, Eric and his team have Spark Pad to be able to really work through this.
And as we were going through.
It was, it was also pushing back on me as I was pushing back on
it, which was really, really cool.
Right.
It wasn't trying to gaslight or, or really, you know, oh, you're
the greatest thing ever, right?
It was like, no, it's this way and it needs to be this way.
I was like, well, I, is it, is that a right name?
Do we need, does it need to change the order?
It's like, no, this is the right order and here's why.
And it was just, you know, I was second guessing, but it was really pushing me,
which was, which was really, really cool.
So, you know, we're, we're gonna cover, you know, part three as the.
Part one, we, we really dove into the clarity compass.
Um, really talked about from A to B where you're at.
We we to also talked about the clarity compass diagnostic to really be thinking
about, you know, you know, um, all progress begins with telling the truth.
Being able to, to start and be able to go.
Um, I think it was really cool, Renee, you know, you're, you in the room with, um.
Senior and Junior and Laura, um, at Affinity to kind of hear it live,
walking through it in the room.
And you know, Joel, when I tell you everybody in the room was on the edge of
their seat engaged and heads nodding, and I really took 'em through Clarity Compass.
Charting the course.
And then we touched a little bit on this, and part two obviously for
you guys listening in, is charting the course, which is the vision.
And I think Joel, I sent you the vision framework, um, exercise that it, it
really breaks down and it is awesome.
Like it is the best.
I mean, it's better than going through be 2.0 trying to figure out.
It was really, really good.
So that was awesome happening.
And then obviously part three here.
Is the CE o's operating system.
We're gonna get into critical thinking, some, some frameworks and things
to think about and, and remember, everything that we go through here
builds off of, of the next thing.
Builds off of one thing, builds off the next.
So right write things, right order the combination to unlock and you gotta go.
In, in this order to be able to, to unlock it.
Um, next week we actually, um, are gonna, you know, continue this series, but
next week because of Thanksgiving, we're going to do this on Tuesday evening.
Um, so we'll be five eastern, four central, with a hard stop.
We'll stop again.
Um, at, at the top of the hour.
We're gonna take a break.
The week, the first week of December, and then we'll come back for week
two and week 3rd of December to hit, um, the final two, the final two
pieces to the agent, to CEO process.
So next week we'll hit the profit engine.
The second week of December, we'll talk about the execution roadmap, and
then, um, to bring it all together will be the leadership flywheel.
So really excited to, to continue these conversations.
So Joel, anything that you want to add before we, we kind of start walking
through, um, the CEO operating system.
Yeah,
not really.
I think maybe we need to come up with a name for it.
Maybe not.
I just, the way I look at this is, this is like your, this is
like your final version, you know, the original version of this.
You guys built a, a bunch of you guys built together over years and now, okay,
it's been 10 years probably, right?
Since the first version of Agent to CEO and now it's, that's 10 more years
of you running this stuff through, you know, seven and eight figure businesses.
Figuring out new tools that you like better than old tools, making tweaks.
I just feel like this is, I feel like this is, is coach's version, which has
just, you know, been like the next level of pressure tested in real businesses.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, so I, that's, I really, I really like it.
I'm, I'm just pumped about the whole thing.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
I appreciate you saying that, and, uh, you, you are all right.
It was about.
About 10 years ago, kind of really thinking through this.
And then, uh, we brought it to life.
We did our first event.
Renee was there in 2019 in Frisco.
Um, and actually we were, where were we at?
Were we at the shops?
Yeah, we were at the shops.
We were in the amphitheater room at the shops, uh, shops
legacy there at the Marriott.
So we were in, um, in Plano.
The very first event, and we were so excited about it.
It was something that we were gonna do every year.
Obviously COVID hit in 20, so we did it digitally.
So we did it, you know, recorded, we had the studio access, so we did it in
there, which was, which was fantastic.
Um, and then, um, obviously we, we've been in Cleveland in 22, 24 and 25, and
then we're looking to expand it, um, you know, hopefully out on the East coast.
Out on the west coast up in Canada, and then in the year in Dallas.
So, um, kind of looking at 26 of, of doing this four, four times live.
So, um, really, really excited for, for this and into, into the future.
So let's jump in.
Um, want to kind of get into this one.
This one's a little bit.
Headier, if you will, kind of get into the thinking component side of things,
because once we kind of have the compass of, of clarity of where we're at and
where we want to go, we've charted the course, we know the vision, right?
That's the soul of your business.
Um, is, is the vision, is is the heartbeat and the soul.
Now we gotta get into the, you know, kind of really.
The linchpin of the whole process.
And it's the mental upgrade that makes this transition
from agent to CEO possible.
'cause that's what it is, right?
And every time you talk about anybody where, where they kind of
started always starts with mindset.
And this is the upgrade to the operating system of stop thinking like a dang
agent in the transaction treadmill.
Think about a business owner, A CEO.
That has, you know, a, a a different way that you look at the business, you
look at lifetime value and, and the way you think, um, and the decisions.
And, and that's the thing that has to change.
So really the, you know, the main core concept around this operating
system is the intentional, and I love that word, intentional
shift from being a reactive agent.
That's deal driven mindset.
Now becomes the CEO proactive systems driven approach framework
for identifying the few critical constraints that limit growth and
apply focused energy to solve them.
The operating system is designed to create maximum leverage.
Turning you from the pri, the business's primary doer into the
primary thinker and strategist and, you know, knowing, you know, our
backstory, the fundamental first change.
First change was strategy.
Once we learned to be more strategic.
And have a process to, to, to create space, to think through.
This is why Renee, we create a kitchen table, right?
Because I know small business owners, real estate agents, we all
have the best intent, but we don't carve out the time to step away.
To go through this process and, and so that's where this shift starts to happen.
When we look at kind of the key activities, this is where we install three
core apps of the new operating system.
Number one, this is based everything.
Once I've learned this concept, I just can't think about it any other
way, and it's the constraint finder.
So this is, this is primary and for us, we've, from a theory of constraints.
We install the machine mindset, right?
This is my, we, I, I operate on it.
My team operates on it.
They have to fill out the dang report every stinking week, the end of the week
report, and it's all around the machine mindset, which teaches you to see your
business not as a series of unrelated tasks, but as a single interconnected
system using theory of constraints, right?
The discipline process of defying one bottleneck.
And be it lead generation.
Consistent lead generation, right?
That's, that's the big word.
Consistent lead generation, consistent sales and consistent results, right?
If you wanted to group it into three big buckets, and we talk, you know, traffic,
conversion, fulfillment, retention, but if you just wanna say, okay, we don't even
have an opportunity to re, I can't even retain you if I can't even get you so.
Consistent and, and I want everybody to be to, to understand that, right?
Consistent, not random, consistent leads, consistent sales and consistent results.
There was something, um, Joel, I was listening to, to yesterday,
um, that was really, really good.
Um, and
if you don't have consistent leads, um, or consistent sales.
You're going to suffer from cash flow issues and low revenue, duh.
Right.
So being able to to know, man, my cash flow's off, man, my revenue's low.
Well, you probably don't have consistent leads and you probably
don't have consistent sales.
There's our bottleneck.
But which one do we focus on?
We can't get sales without leads, so you probably need to tackle the leads first.
Right?
How do I create more demand?
And, um, and so really trying to be honest, right?
All progress begins with telling the truth, being truly honest.
What, what's holding you back from that profit engine that
we'll talk about next week?
The second app is the decision filter.
This is what?
Like we hammered on this in Cleveland last week, Joel, when we were talking
about really charting the course and building the vision is, is really
building decision making filters.
Core values, shoulds and should nots, right?
Non-negotiables.
Does this align to my purpose?
Is this moving us closer to the big, hairy, audacious goal that we have?
Is this moving us to the destination that's in the compass, right?
We're moving away from where we are and moving to where we want to go.
And once the constraint is identified, the decision making filter is,
is, is kind of the guide, right?
That, that.
Forces us to look beyond the immediate fix and evaluate the long term.
Second order consequences, the ripple effect, right?
If I say yes to this, what, what does that mean?
What, what's the ripple effect?
Um, the second order consequence of every potential solution.
So really ensuring that the changes that we're making are strategic and
sustainable, preventing us from creating new problems elsewhere in the system.
The one thing we know, we kick Kirby's butt out of, out of leads.
He's gonna be sitting in sales.
Right.
We kick him outta sales.
He's gonna go right over into fulfillment.
He, his big butt's gonna be somewhere.
So, um, I think just knowing constraint finder, decision filter.
And then the last is the leverage engine, right?
This replaces the traditional to-do list.
Um, and it really, from a ruthless focus, 'cause I think that's where we
need to, to, to really ruthlessly focus.
Sometimes it's easier to eliminate than it is to try to force to focus.
But where are we giving 80 plus percent of your energy, which is the
most important thing to protect your energy and resources towards solving
the single constraint you identified?
Um, you know, really the engine of execution.
That ensures we're always working on the one thing that will deliver the
greatest possible result for the business.
So those are the three key activities when it really breaks down to the, um,
operating system, the CEO operating system and, you know, kind of give
the, the elevator pitch of it.
It's just the upgrade from agent to architect.
Um, powerful framework.
Install a system mindset to identify and solve the biggest bottleneck,
holding your business back, creating maximum growth with the minimum effort.
So, Joel, I wanna pause right there.
Um, we can kind of touch on some of the, the benefits and then step into the, um,
kind of the, the toolkit if you will.
Um, that will kind of walk through a couple exercises that will be
be really helpful in this process.
Love it.
I just wanna highlight the, the importance of, I mean, every step, but, but the
decision filters and I specifically had a conversation recently, uh.
Uh, with a, a leader within an organization that I'm working
with who s said something along the lines of like, I just always
seem to like do the wrong thing.
Um, and so we're like, okay, let's unpack that a little bit.
Like, w why, um, what's going on here?
And so we just, we, we spent a lot of time talking about decisions and
now, you know, how can you get better at making decisions and what are
some things you could think through?
So we talked about values, we talked about.
Um, you know, how, how to use that as a filter, your, your principles, staying
in alignment, that kind of stuff.
But, but then we got, kind of got into the weeds from a business perspective
of, um, you know, some of the other filters we can have in the business.
So, you know, is this gonna make an, you know, an impact or what kind of impact is
this decision gonna make on the business?
Do we have the capabilities to do this decision that we're talking about?
Or do we not have the capabilities?
Are we gonna have to go.
Find the capabilities from a skill or a budget or, you
know, just a time perspective.
So, yeah, I, I just, I think it, I think it really still gets back to,
to critical thinking and mm-hmm.
And what you've been pounding on this year, which is so good of
like, get, getting some dedicated time to think about things.
Yeah.
If you're making bad decisions, one thing that you can do for sure is
slow down and really think about it.
Second order.
Second order effects, like you said, second order consequences.
That's huge.
What, what might happen if we do this?
Entrepreneurs are notorious for ignoring second order effects.
Operations.
People like myself are notorious for overthinking the second order effects.
Um, but definitely, you know, slow down and think, put that time in the calendar.
So I, I think it again, so, so much alignment here for what
you've been teaching this year.
Yeah, and I think, you know, the, the, the definition of decision framework
that I've, I've latched onto, um, I'm not saying it's right or wrong,
but it's just kind of, you know.
The process that I go through is like, okay, what do all the words mean?
Right?
I wanna make sure we're speaking the same language, right?
You, you may have a slang for a certain certain thing.
We could be saying the same thing, but the words, or we're saying the same words,
but they have different meaning to you than they do to me, so I wanna make sure.
We're, we're all on the same page with, with the same words.
Then I want to know what the math is, right?
What's the data?
Like, what's, what's the math here?
Right?
Because business is just math.
So what, what is the math here in this?
What's the ROI?
What's the return like?
Like.
Really like get, get the math out on the table.
And then third is that, is the, is is the ripple effect.
If I say yes to this, what's, what's the, what's the consequence, good or bad?
Like what's the ripple effect if we say yes to this?
And you know, I think a lot of people, one, don't even have
a process to make decisions.
Don't have filters in place.
That's why their decisions per is off.
And that's what I love about AI because the word that you and I
have been screaming is speed, right?
Speed, speed, speed.
And so how can we, how can we speed up, how can we go faster?
And, and so, um, you know, obviously having filters and framework.
But also utilizing AI in a way that's gonna allow you to accelerate, you know,
that process and, and those steps, I think is, is super, super important.
But I love it.
The reason that we feel stuck, right?
The reason sometimes we feel stuck is that we're, we're trying to fix
a dozen problems all at once, right?
But the truth is, our businesses only have one true constraint at a time.
Truly one, right?
Like for me, like, damn, I mean, I ain't making sales, but you know
what it is, it ain't, it ain't sales.
It's, I ain't got enough consistent leads, so how do I fix that problem?
Right?
Which is, you know, what we've been talking about trying to solve,
thinking about all the time and, and, and our number one priority and what
we're working on is to solve that.
And so when you, when you work at one at a time, and, and listen, our,
we are head of company, our job.
Is to find it and fix it.
That is our job.
Our job is to it, right?
You look at from a leadership standpoint, lead by example, have have a big,
crazy, um, scary, audacious vision.
Articulate that vision, build the team, remove bottlenecks, provide resources.
Our job is to identify and remove bottlenecks.
That is our job.
So this in this system, right?
The CEO operating system installs that mindset.
And we, we learned to see the business as a machine and pinpoint the single
bottleneck, limiting our growth, and apply a framework for making decisions
and focusing not only your time, but your team's time and energy to solve it.
And this is how you stop plugging leaks and, and really re-engineer
your business for predictable growth.
So the, the benefits.
Find the real bottleneck.
Stop wasting time on minor issues and learn the discipline process of
identifying the single constraint that's truly holding you back.
And listen, remember, Herbie will move.
You'll solve this and you'll go to another thing.
You'll solve this.
You'll go to another thing.
And it's easy in real estate, right?
It's like, you know, I need demand.
I don't have any leads.
Well, if I give you a thousand motivated seller leads, now
you don't have a lead problem.
You have a conversion problem.
Then it's like, okay, well I got through all of those, but now I have a hundred.
People.
I have a hundred motivated sellers that want me to get their home on the market.
They actually want it sold before Christmas.
Now you have a fulfillment problem.
Yeah.
So that's that.
I mean, I love that illustration 'cause it's super simple,
especially in real estate.
You're like, oh, okay, I got it.
Now I know what you're talking about.
Yeah.
So find the real bottleneck.
Stop wasting energy on minor issues.
Um, it it, it's the other thing too, Joel, right?
Like I, I love the above the water, and you might be the one that told me this.
Above the waterline, below the waterline, right?
Like no agents are notorious for trying to fix and pretty up things
above the waterline instead of addressing the holes below the
waterline, meaning what sinks ships.
When they take on water, that's what sinks ships.
So being able to, to identify that, I, I, I've always, I think I, I'm almost
positive you're the one that told me that.
And it's just one of those things where like my, I, I am
like, that's where my mind goes.
I'm like, man, is this above or below?
And, and knowing where to, to give that, that, that energy.
Second benefit, create maximum leverage.
Apply a focus system, directs all your resources to one activity,
unlock the next level of growth.
Three, solve problems permanently.
Um, you know, that decision making filter to ensure solutions are
sustainable and preventing the same issues from popping up again.
So the step for this, uh, the tool to use this is gonna kind of be
kind of the operating toolkit.
So.
Think about it, move from firefighter to architect.
Uh, skills that made you a great agent are now the bottleneck
holding your business back.
How true is that?
Hey, before we move on, every great business strategy
starts with one question.
What's really holding us back?
If you're not sure how to answer that, take five minutes and complete
the growth score assessment.
It gives you insight into the eight areas that drive growth.
And we'll show you exactly where to focus to increase revenue, improve
operations, and grow with confidence.
Go to my growth score.com and take the assessment now, now back to the show.
And so we are paid to solve problems.
Think about that, right?
In the, you know, you solve a problem.
That's, that's where money exchanges hands, you can solve small problems
or you can solve big problems.
You solve big problems equal big paychecks.
So we are in the business to solve problems, um, but as head of company, it's
not about being the best problem solver.
We're also.
Best business builder.
That's what we're trying to do, build the biggest, best business
suited for our goals, right?
So like Renee has freedom, aspirations, freedom goals, and
she designs and builds her business to provide the resources to go
achieve her freedom.
For her and her family.
And, and so her best use of time is building the right business that's gonna
produce the outcome for her to go achieve her financial goals, freedom goals.
So this toolkit is, is, is really designed to be the operating
system that shifts from reacting to a problem, to architecting the
system to prevent them, right?
So like for us, have fought it for five, six years.
Of not having a webinar.
As we know, a webinar is, is one of the best problem solving systems
to overcome high ticket sales.
Why have we fought it for so long?
Because it takes work to install this system and it's hard.
It ain't easy.
And so, um.
Just buckling down and, and, and architecting a system that's
gonna solve that problem of consistent lead flow from now on.
Um, so part one is gonna be the constraint finder.
This is identifying the real bottleneck.
Um, so every business, no matter how complex, has one single constraint.
That dictates the, the pace of its growth.
Our job is to find it, the exercise, kind of give an x-ray vision to
seeing the business as a machine and pinpoint the one gear that that.
Is grinding.
So map your process.
Um, what are, what are the stages, right?
Those of you that have been to kt, you have unique process.
So what I love about where we've come, come full circle
with, with building this out.
Uh, Renee, you'll, you'll remember this Joel.
So remember, in unique process, there has to be a commitment and a deliverable
to move from one stage to the next.
Okay, so like in, in this process compass, now you have a diagnostic.
I know where you're at, where you want to go.
That's the de deliverable.
You're finishing it.
You have a commitment, you signed off on it.
This is, you're, you're committing to, committing to that vision, right?
The deliverable is actually creating the vision where, where's the commitment?
I'm committed to this goal.
Right?
Then moving into this process, so what is your core process
that you take clients through?
Right.
A lead is generated, A lead is nurtured.
Um, a conversation is had, appointment is set, appointment
is met, a value is articulated.
They agree to, to move forward.
We position the, the home, if it's a listing to attract the offers
buyer, we find them the ideal home, saving them the get 'em in the best
terms, best, best situation that moves them to the closing table.
That then turns 'em into a raving fan that is a promoter for our business.
Right?
So you map, you map that process out.
So you have like a, you have the conveyor belt, and what is
a metric that defines success?
In each of the path, right?
It's like, man, you know, my, if I can get my cost per lead here, right?
If I can, if I can, you know, uh, my nurture touches, how
many touches do I need to have?
We know statistically it's what, 7, 8 15, however many touches.
So we gotta a metric on each stage that's being able to go through it and you're
like, man, you know, I need to talk to, I need to talk to 15 people, right?
I, you know, Buffini client saying, you know, I was like, how
many touches do you need to have?
To get a referral.
She goes, well, statistically it's a hundred touches.
I said, well, what did touches mean?
So this is what touches mean.
So our metric is we need to have a hundred touches.
Then we're gonna get three referrals.
Well, how many referrals do you need for a closing?
Well, we need five referrals.
Oh.
So we need 166 touches to equal a client.
So we know each of these stages.
Now we have metrics to kind of see where things are are at.
Right.
Those are the assumptions that we have that work through.
Being able to have a metric that defines success in each of those stages.
And now you know that, that we have, that we can look at the conveyor
belt, we can look at this map and go, where do things get stuck?
Like, where are things getting stuck?
Like, where's the hangup?
Where's Herbie?
Where does, where does the warp pile up?
Um, which stage requires the most of your personal intervention?
Or you have to step in and be hero, which we know hero
doesn't scale to keep it moving.
You're like, ah dang.
You know, I gotta go in here.
I can fix it and gain it to the next stage.
But that doesn't fix the system, right?
Because it's dependent upon you to play hero ball.
So then you can ask yourself, okay, if I could wave the magic wand and fix
one number on that map to double your net profit, which one would that be?
They're like, Hmm, well what if I could get my 166 touches down
to under a hundred to equal, then how do I improve my touches?
So just things like that, right?
Where, where you start to think is the thing that's slowing you down the most.
That if you could fix that, that would, that would double the output.
Um, what is the, what is, what are the things that your
team complains about the most?
Right.
This is often a symptom of the real constraint.
What do, what do, what are the team bellyache about?
Hmm.
Remember, you know, sometimes team feedback is not always valid yet.
It is always valid because if you look at, from a bus standpoint, this is, this
is the analogy that I always, I always try to say, say you're driving the bus.
You have a vantage point through the windshield, the rear view
mirror, the side windows.
You can look over your shoulder, look over your shoulder, but the person
that's six rows back on the right has a different vantage point than you do.
So their viewpoint, their experience is very valid because they're coming
from a different angle than you are.
So always taking in kind of, kind of their feedback, their
complaints, what they're saying.
Sometimes it's like you just need to be educated and not understanding what you're
not on the same page, but sometimes.
You know what we reveal, we can heal.
We all have blind spots.
So, you know, always taking into consideration and getting team feedback
on a quarterly basis at a minimum is, is, is really, really, really important.
I, I would say too, Joel, if you're moving fast, I would try to get
feedback from the team every 30 days.
If you're really moving fast, if you're breaking a lot of things
and you're going through a lot of turbulent times, is getting,
getting as much feedback as you can.
Yeah, I think so too.
I think that's smart.
So, um, Joel, anything you wanna add there as we're talking kind of the kind of, you
know, the diagnostic of the bottleneck?
Yeah.
I think if, if you're really struggling to identify the constraint, identify
the bottleneck, and you can't find it anywhere, it's almost always
something you're doing or not doing.
So if it, if it, if you can't find it out there, it's almost
always a leadership thing.
Um, you haven't set the goals big enough, and so everything seems to be okay.
Um, things are coming through you and slowing down because you're
the bottleneck in the decisions or the approvals or whatever it is.
Mm-hmm.
So, um, so if you, if you can't find out, it's like, it's like
that old, uh, from, from that movie rounders, that poker movie.
If you can't spot the sucker, you know, then you're the sucker.
You're the sucker.
Like, if you can't, if you can't find the bottleneck, then you're the bottleneck
and you need to figure out what, what you're doing to slow things down.
Yeah, that's good.
That's a good, good reminder.
Really, really good reminder.
Um, you know, part two of this is the, is the second order thinking is the de,
you know, the decision filter, right?
That's why we like to start with the goal long-term goal.
Cast the vision with the values and the purpose and the BHAG, because
those are really, really, really good decision making filters.
And as as simple as it, is it moving me closer to my freedom
or is it moving me further away?
You know, remember a firefighter solves the immediate problem.
Um, when you come from an architect and you're designing, you're always
taking in long-term, long-term consequences for the decision.
And so when you, when you look at this.
It forces us to see the future ripple effects of our, of our actions.
So we solve problems without creating new ones.
'cause sometimes we're notorious for that.
Um, and I think people that, that can't align with.
Um, I, so I'll go back to predictable success, Joel, and you have
visionary operators, synergist and processor, and it takes all four.
Yet a lot of people that, that get things done, operate at a
high level, but they leave a away, they, they destroy everything.
And you, you ask 'em, it's like, dude, how did you do that?
Like, I have no idea.
I just did it.
And, and so that's, that's not taking into consideration the
ripple effect of our decisions.
You're getting the deal done, but you could've.
Caused more chaos than, than good at, at, you know, really running through that.
So I think, you know, maybe a, a good exercise would be
a consequence map, right?
So what is the primary constraint that we just identified and what
is one major potential solution?
But what would be the consequences of that?
What is the constraint?
What is the proposed solution?
The first order of consequence is the immediate result.
You know what will happen right away if we do this?
The second order of consequence, the ripple effect is what are the likely
positive side effects of this solution in three to six months, what are the likely
negative side effects or new problems?
This might, this might create, will it strain another part of the system?
Will it increase costs?
Will it require new skills we don't have?
Right?
So even go back to a thousand motivated seller leads.
You got a hundred now, and I bet you don't have any time to nurture the other 900.
So how much money did you just potentially, how many millions did you
just potentially leave on the table?
You got a hundred, how many of those hundred can you actually
do a really good job at?
Fulfilling, right?
Well, I can't do it on my own.
I gotta go get these other people and.
You'll start throwing money away just to solve that problem, right?
You would bring agency in, hire people that you shouldn't, 'cause you're
hiring out of pain instead of gain.
You're not strategically hiring, you're just throwing people at the
problem and you're overpaying them.
Hey, yeah, I'll give you 70%.
Just just do it.
Just get it done.
Right?
Make this pain go away.
So I think that's kind of a still a good example of, of possible
ripple effects of bad decisions that can create more problems.
Um.
Moving into the, the, the future and the, and the last part would then be okay, make
the decision and then refine it, right?
Is the solution still the right one?
Knowing the potential negative consequences, how can we
refine the solution now to mitigate those future problems?
So when you look at first and second order thinking and making decisions
like Joel, where, you know, what do you, how do you think about it?
How do you look at it?
You know, kind of, you know, evaluating, um, the, the situation.
Uh, I'm gonna give you a, an unsatisfactory answer based on
all the many mistakes and bad decisions I've made in my career.
And that answer is where I focus now is, is spending more time and
energy on the autopsies than I do obsessing about the decision itself.
So I wanna make the decision faster.
It's almost always better to make it faster.
Um, pay attention to what's happening.
Course correct if you can, of course.
But then, okay, things went good.
Why'd they go?
Good things went bad.
Why'd they go bad?
And I'm a, I'm a much better decision maker when I, when I, when I'm doing
the autopsies, as opposed to, and I'm not saying we don't think about
the second order effects, right?
But, but it's easy to get stuck there trying to predict the future,
and we can't predict the future.
So we make the best decision we can with the information we have available.
And, and then we make the decision and then, you know, we live
with it and we've all made bad decisions that turned out great.
We've all made great decisions that turned out bad, right?
So mm-hmm.
So you just can't get stuck there.
Um, so ma, make the best decision you can with the information you have right now.
And then, and then take a look at what happened with it.
Could you have made a better decision or not?
And if the answer is, I made a good decision and it still turned out bad, then
you, then you move on to the next one.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, and, and, and you know, sometimes, you know, things, climate
conditions out of your control.
Um, I think that's the, the other, I think sometimes when you learn,
especially on the construction side of things, you're like, ah, I need
to have a little buffer in here.
I need to have a contingency factor, right?
So what is, what is my contingency percentage?
What, what, where, where's my, you know, my slippage, where's my, oh snap.
I got that wrong, but I'm not hurt because I, I, I buffered
it in, and, you know, PBD has.
Has a a, a great thought on this.
He's like, listen man, the only way to, the only way to deal is to deal with a
crisis is to prepare for a crisis, right?
Like, if you don't have that, and that's kind of in the swat, right?
What is the threat that you have to kind of think about?
Right?
You know, ours was always.
Especially in Lawton, ours was, okay, what if, what if Fort Seal comes down?
Base realignment doesn't go in our favor.
What happens when they lock down and say, oh no, no residential, off-base housing.
Right?
What if, right.
We would run through those scenarios and most of the, most of the time the
answer was, well, we'll just move.
So, um.
But, but we would think about it, right?
We would think about, you know, that and, and part of the, you know, if that ripple
effect something out of our control, how would we, how would we deal with it?
So being able to, to have the space to have those exercise and
SWAT was, you know, for us was the exercise that, that helped us
get to that, to get to that point.
But I love what you're saying.
Uh, I guess like, based upon what, you know, don't get hung up.
Make the best decision you can as fast as you can, but just.
Do a really good job at the autopsy, the after after action,
you know, of what happened.
And then what adjustments do you need to make.
Um, that's so good, right?
Even going on a listing appointment, evaluate the appointment after,
where did I, where did I do well, what did I suck out?
What do I need to improve?
And then you make those tweaks, you know, continue as you continue to move forward.
Yeah, and that's what one of the reasons I, I like the decision
making filter so much is.
Like it, it gives you a process to make better decisions, but you have to make,
it forces you to make the decision, right?
Like the last, the last step in the filter is not continue thinking about it, right?
It's make a decision.
Um, another mental model that's been super valuable for me lately.
Another one I picked up from, uh, from Bezos is, uh, what, one
way, one way or two way doors.
Have you heard this one?
No.
So a, a one way, a one way door decision is one that you can't easily take back.
Um, a two-way door is one that if you make this decision and you don't like
the outcome, you can go back real quick.
So if we launch, we launch a new marketing campaign and we don't like it, well, we
can stop doing that marketing campaign.
That's a, that's a two-way door.
And sure, we lost some money and some time and all that.
That's not an existential threat to the business.
If we decide to, you know, uh, fire this person or make a dramatic change
to strategy, like there are, there are things that are one-way doors.
You can't easily walk that back.
And so if it's a two-way door, like make the decision really
quickly and then, and then fix it.
Iterate it, refine it.
If it's a, if it's a one way, a one-way door, a one-way decision.
You know, be careful, think it through.
Gather as much data as you can, you know, make that slowly and carefully.
Don't make that decision until you have to make that decision.
Two-way door decisions.
Make that decision as quickly as you can.
Hmm.
That's so good.
It's so good.
It's all those little mental models and those little frameworks that, you
know, can, you can latch onto real quick to, to navigate and move through.
Um, part three is the leverage engine, right?
So this is like applying the dis disproportionate force, um, if you will.
And this is there I, I'll give some examples where
this really kicked in for us.
Stop creating the endless to-do list and treating the $10 tasks with the
same importance as a $10,000 task.
Right.
I think you know the, it's the triage.
It's the triage effect.
It's like why are you stepping over people that are bleeding out in your emergency
room to go talk to the guy on the back?
The back chair, uh, that just has a, has a cough, right?
Because it's easier to deal with the guy that just has the cough and
then getting all bloody and dealing with the person that's bleeding out.
But we do it all the time, right?
We step over, we step over all of these, these bigger, you know, tasks to go
solve the, the less important easy task.
So from a leverage engine, it's really.
Focusing 80% or more of your time and your team's time and energy on the
single action that will, that will most effectively solve the primary constraint.
So run.
Run the 30 day cycles on this, right?
You don't have to run a full quarter priority.
This is next 30 days, right?
Next 30 days we're solving this.
So it's not a project plan, it's just a sprint.
And sometimes you might have to say, Hey, listen, we don't got, we have
to solve this in the next five days.
And then you can start applying other mental models, right?
Gun against head.
If I had to get it done, how would I do it?
And, and I think, you know, really within this step of the process,
the mental models, the critical thinking, but having the guidelines
and framework, but to me it's also constantly becoming a student of it.
Charlie Munger, right?
You know, Bezos, um.
You know, there's so many that you can, you know, to really dive into and pull
little, little decision making, mental model, uh, frameworks to really, you know,
help that we're creating the probability to stack the odds in our favor.
To me, that's all we're trying to do.
We're just trying to increase the odds in our favor of success.
It's the inevitability thinking.
What do the conditions have to look like for success to become in inevitable and.
Really take that constraint.
Right?
And this is our 30 day sprint.
This is our 10 day sprint.
This is our 15 day sprint.
Whatever it is, what is the single most important measurable outcome
we can achieve in the next X number of day timeframe to make a
significant dent in this constraint?
Right.
Hey man, our appointment to.
Conversion rate is like subpar.
You know, we typically operate at, at x we're down here.
How do we go from here to here in this timeframe?
Okay, well, what are the levers we need to pull for that to be true?
What are the two, three highest lever actions that
will drive this sprint forward?
And then at that point, it it, it really comes down to true accountability.
Who's doing the thing by when and how am I gonna know you got it done?
That's where you know, it, it, it really has to work into that.
Joel, I know you're fantastic at this.
So when you start looking at assigning, you know, the actions, like what
is the, what is the framework?
And I, and I love that, right?
The growth, it's the growth statement.
We're, we're gonna increase this.
Think from X to X by when, and here's who's responsible for doing it.
How do you go about, how do you manage it?
How do you stay on top of it to ensure that it happens?
Yeah.
You, you, you really hit it.
You hit the, the, the number one thing where people fail with this
again, is how am I gonna know it's done or, or what it, what does it
mean to be done in this situation?
So yeah, we have.
You know, we might have a result that we can put into a number, and that's
gonna be the, you know, the most important part about hitting that goal.
But there's gonna be things that need to be true in order to hit that number and
things that need to continue to happen.
So what is, what, you know, what needs to, to maintain and we can manage that.
So implement it, and then we manage what we implemented.
Um, and then man, so many things that, that we talk about, like this is a, this
is a, uh, it's another skill to develop.
How much are we capable of getting done in a week?
Um, who can handle what, how fast can we move?
There's just things and so again, the answer is, it's, the answer is speed.
Just start doing it and figure it out, uh, what you're capable of.
The first time you set a weekly sprint or what can we get done the next five days?
You might be totally wrong and that's okay.
And it's like, gosh, we really.
We really got that wrong about what we're actually capable of, you
know, to getting done in a week.
And that goes both ways.
Sometimes we're like, Hey, we crushed everything by Tuesday.
And we're like, oh gosh, we're, we're capable of a lot more.
Um, so the, the number one thing is, is just to, to start doing it because
you get better at evaluating what your, what your organization is capable of.
The more you, you do it, pay attention to it, track it, of course.
Um, I try to keep as much as possible the, the component parts of something.
People with their kind of in their zone of genius or their core competencies.
Um, otherwise things get really confusing and, and, and slow down.
Um, but yeah, again, the, the best piece of advice is, is start doing it
and, and pay attention to the results.
And, and you get better at figuring out, you know, what you're capable of.
And then now as a leader, you're, you know, we're talking about the
whole CEO architect mindset shift.
You're looking for ways you can help people get unstuck.
You can remove obstacles.
Mm-hmm.
You can, you know, fix little bottlenecks as they pop up.
Um.
And then that, and then it's a routine.
There's a rhythm here.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, man, I love it.
And especially, you know, you get your team and you get your people around you,
you know, thinking the same way, you know, they're, they're seeing, you know,
constraints from their, from their vantage point and bringing ideas and solutions
and, and challenging and pushing back.
So really creating that culture.
That, um, that kind of thinks and problem solves in this way.
And I still think Scrum is, um, you know, probably one of the best
processes to, to navigate through these bottlenecks like this.
And, um, what's, uh, the, I mean the book is Scrum.
Uh, Jeff can't even think of his last name.
It's a red book.
But, um, you know, just being able to incorporate that and, um, you know, one
of the parts in Scrum is where are you hung up, where's, where are you stuck?
And, you know, how do we remove you to get from, you know, unstuck to done?
And I think it's, uh, good, good to have this.
So, Joel, I mean that's, that's the, uh, the operating system and
the things to think about and the three key main points and exercises,
uh, process to work through it.
So, um, any, any final thoughts, Renee, any questions, anything?
Um, kind of on this, on this part of the process,
I. Oh man, I think you nailed it.
All good in the hood.
Well, fantastic.
Well, I appreciate you guys.
Um, we'll continue part.
Moving on to part four, the profit engine and, uh, the profit engine, uh, blueprint.
Awesome.
Thanks guys.
Thanks for tuning in.
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