Celebrating 500 Episodes - Action Catalyst Host Roundtable

Celebrating 500 episodes, Southwestern Family of Companies welcomes you to the Action Catalyst.

To the Action Catalyst.

To the Action Catalyst.

The Action Catalyst.

Oh, good.

Dan Moore.

His voice is just like a fireside chat, you know.

Hey guys, Adam, how you doing, sir?

I'm doing well.

Good to see you as well.

Stephanie, how you doing?

Hey, Dan.

I'm so great.

How are you?

Really fine.

Thank you.

Yeah, Adam.

Hey, Stephanie.

I guess I'll kick it off then.

Yeah, I think that'll be great.

When I was asked to take over the podcast, I remember thinking of myself.

I heard about podcasts.

What the heck are they?

I actually had no idea.

I'd never listened to one.

I'd never participated in one.

I know what they were.

And so, fortunately, some of them come.

So, let's walk you through the steps here.

And she came over and set me up in a little conference room.

A microphone.

Got things started.

It was very scary at first.

I didn't know what to ask people.

I was intimidated, even get the right kind of guests on the show.

But basically, I settled into a pattern of the same five basic questions for people.

Which made it fun week after week to get a different people react to those same five questions.

I guess one of the first ones I did was with a guy named Freddie Revelle,

who used to be an earth-winded firefighter.

The keyboard for his earth-winded fires composer.

Great guy.

We had the best conversation I felt like I was with them making music.

It was that closer connection.

When to play it back.

The whole thing was not recorded.

Oh, no.

I rescheduled with him.

And it was a very similar content.

Neither one was felt the same vibe, though.

So, that's like a major glitch.

Like, oh, I'm done.

A guy that got a chance to experience this thing.

But it was still a great experience.

Almost every day, I remember some of the lessons, though.

Ellen Petri Leance, who was one of my early guests.

And she was one of the first employees at Apple.

She was an early employee at Google as well.

And I made a comment about mindset.

So, let's talk about mindset for a minute.

Introduce with the concept.

First of all, you have brain set, mindset, and skill set.

I think about that frequently.

I put it in my book.

In fact, the exception of important concept.

We can make a decision or a goal of that mindset.

But unless we change our brain set.

We're going to lapse back.

We're going to fall back.

Always into old patterns of behavior.

Brain set is always designed to preserve the status quo.

So, what you have to do is focus on skill set,

which is the things that you can control and do repetitively.

Events you can hit your brain set.

Okay, I'm a different person now.

And then the mindset actually kicks into works.

It kicks into works.

It's just a really cool concept to learn about.

I guess my last one that I remember frequently.

I said to the thoughts of people, Andy Andrews.

And Andy said a lot of really profound things.

But I remember saying, hmm, you're talking about forgiveness.

Forgiveness really is a gift, isn't it, Andy?

You feel really good when somebody forgives you.

So, that's not what I'm talking about, then.

Forgiveness is a gift to the giver.

Not to the receiver.

When you forgive someone, you receive the gift.

You're lighting that burden of resentment and anger.

That's really powerful.

Remember, forgiveness is a gift to the giver.

I think about that frequently.

In my style, I get really involved in the conversation.

And I might even say that I hope my selfishness about the interview benefits everybody.

My selfishness is that I want to learn as much as I can from someone in the 45 minutes,

or 30 minutes, or whatever that I have with them.

And so, to be fair, I think I look a little bit coming into the interview and think,

what are the challenges that I'm having in my current role?

Or what are the challenges in growing a business that I'm seeing or that my clients are seeing?

And I go, I wonder if this person's got perspective on some of these problems

with their background and their experience.

And I, in particular, are very recent interview, which might be why it's top of mind.

But we had an interview checker onion from any time fitness years ago, any time fitness.

And then recently this year, they acquired orange theory.

They have, I think, bar.

I think now they have 8 million members across all their different platforms and franchises they own.

And when I talk to check, he recommended that, instead of doing a part two with him,

that I interviews his co-founder, Dave Mortensen.

And Dave was just a real gem to interview.

And a few things that I just loved in that conversation is how Chuck

and Dave worked the business from ground zero to 8 million members together.

And they've stayed co-founders.

I mean, it's not so common to get along so well strategically with someone that's here equal

and grow a business.

And we talked about how that was managed.

And one of the valuable things, as you said, no matter how much one of us might have miscalculated,

we'd get to a point of agreeing that we would go that direction.

And if it was a miscalculation, if we made a mistake, then there was no looking back

and pointing fingers and saying, told you so.

It was always, we got rid of her.

He goes with each other and we just moved forward in the business.

And I really liked that anecdote.

And the other was, I think, really pertinent right now in business,

but also even in our political climate, he wasn't referencing that,

but he said living in the gray.

He said, both personally and professionally, it's seldom as a black and white.

And he said that usually no good answer is completely black or white.

And so being able to live in a little bit of the unknown in the gray and that scientific method

usually suggests that if you're too confident that something's right, it probably is wrong.

So that would be my interview of choice at the moment.

Okay, so may I say a couple of things in addition to that, too, please?

First of all, after hearing Dan and Adam, I totally understand why I am now on this podcast

and that is to completely dumb it down for the readers who may not be quite as sophisticated in thought or action.

So I appreciate that. I'm glad I could be here for the more common folks.

So thank you.

My style, I think, is a little bit different candidly before every interview.

I'm usually scrambling like, I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't know anything about this,

but what gets me every single time I hang up, I'm just fascinated.

There has been some that have been tough, especially if someone's not used to talking about themselves.

You know, it's so interesting to me I was saying about this.

I just think there are just such extraordinary people in the world.

And yet if you really sit down and talk to anyone, you will find that everyone is extraordinary.

And that's probably a little bit of my approach because I can get super intimidated by accomplishments and achievements.

I mean, honestly, most days the week, I'm just trying to get through the day.

I've been around the table when the kids need to eat and function at a basic level.

And when I get on with these folks that have just done incredible things and they're so willing to share,

when you just keep pulling at their strings, they are ordinary in a very extraordinary way.

And I think it gives me a tremendous amount of hope.

So I would say my style, shocking, is not a superstructure to organize,

but rather people fascinate me. They just do.

So I want to get past all the accomplishments and achievements and just try to reveal the human.

Because selfishly for me, that's the really inspiring and motivating part that gives me a smidge of hope.

That's correct.

You're too humble, Stephanie. You know that.

You pride on nothing. You're just too humble.

Sure. That's never been something I've been accused of.

So nope.

Thank you, though.

The other thing too, to me, this is funny.

Literally, I think I black out during the recording sessions,

because I can't remember anyone I've talked to, not at all.

I know I'm fully engaged. Obviously, I'm there.

I don't drink beforehand. So I shouldn't be blacked out.

However, what I do think is really neat is in my day to day,

whether it's leading the team or doing my own day to day job or with my kids or whatever the case may be,

I do find myself quoting folks.

And it's in those moments that I remember the interviews and I remember the folks and I remember the council and the advice.

So this has been probably one of the absolute best gifts in my career the last five years for sure.

Because again, obviously I black out during the recording.

I could never go and listen to my own voice ever again.

I do read the transcripts, but I skin what I'm saying and get to what they say.

But the influx of wisdom that I've had.

Thank you very much for letting me be a part of this.

I think what Stephanie said, I use it all the time with my wife where I say,

you know, the founder of Wikipedia said, I need to rest more.

So I'm going to go to about eight o'clock tonight, honey.

It's just, you know, and the credibility, it gives you to just, you know, I think in all series,

that's something that Stephanie said that I think is true of all three of us.

And probably the vast majority of our guests that we've had on the podcast is that insatiable curiosity.

It's the superpower of so many people have built extraordinary things because to do it,

it's just to be insatiably curious.

And, you know, I think what Stephanie said about just loving being in the moment with folks,

it's because you are curious about how people work and how they operate.

And that's why we have front facing people oriented jobs outside of the action call is probably too.

But I think it's been such a rewarding thing to see this through line across all these successful people

that curiosity is very much that, you know, they love asking questions and understanding what makes things work,

what make people work.

And whenever there's a problem, they just ask more questions.

I think it's probably typical of all three of us.

We're probably better listeners than we are.

We can all pontificate if we want to.

But some podcasts hosts will interview somebody and then they'll take it as excuses to express their own opinion for the next 45 minutes.

And I felt like there's more important to hear from our guests.

So it just somehow, I guess three of us all have a comment is learning from them was the key thing for me.

Difference maker.

Yeah. I mean, both on a personal level.

And then I think potentially as well for Southwestern consulting and the family of companies,

the opportunity to have deeper relationships with some of our guests, you know, after speaking with Chuck and Dave

and being so, you know, really blown away with how well Dave interviewed.

I had chatted with him afterwards and say, I'd love to, I'd love to spend some time and get together and, you know,

see if there's anything there for a partnership because I just want to be around folks like this.

And we're basically getting dinner together.

So I think there's the opportunity to develop deeper relationships with some of the guests that we have an opportunity to interview is really a big part of it for me.

It's pretty special.

So you think you'd be a discount of my words to make a ship would you?

I'll throw it out.

Thinking about the impact that it has on the family of companies, 500 depths, I blew my mind when I saw that.

Just amazing. And the reach that's hit all these countries, the downloads every month blown me away.

For our company, I think it's vastly important for credibility.

It speaks to our mission every guest we have.

Most we have all speak to our mission.

And that's really important, I think.

We always are striving for credibility in any way, shape, or form of finding.

And I think for the whole company, it just establishes us as a real player.

It's great.

There's been three significant times in my life where my faith in humanity has really been I'm not going to say restored because I never really lost it.

But I think my faith in humanity has really been accentuated.

The first time was selling books and really meeting people where they were at and really understanding and recognizing that people really are good.

And they really do want to look out and care for others if given the opportunity.

The second time was during my divorce and really tough time, but just the support I got from friends, family, co-workers, just completely blown away, completely blown away.

And then I would say this podcast because the guests are so anxious and willing to share what they've learned.

There's a mentality of abundance.

I haven't interviewed with one single person that had any reticence to sharing what they learned, who they were, how they got there, what they wish they had done different pitfalls.

And to me, that mentality, why we may be competitive, no one has to lose for someone else to win.

And I've really seen that in our guests and it just brought back just how wonderful humans really are regardless of success or failures or whatever the case may be.

Personally, for me, that has been huge and it brings me back to the first one, which was a big attraction to being with Southwestern family companies all these years is what they alluded to part of our mission statement as we build people and people build companies.

And there is no better reflection this day and age than getting folks on board with our podcast to talk about how they become better people to build better companies.

And again, it's just a huge exclamation mark to people really are incredible if you let them be.

So I know of some of that's a little bit cheesy and a little bit personal, but I think when you get like-minded folks together, it is incredible what we can build.

So being like-minded folks, we had a lead retreat last year for Southwestern Consulting and we had two action catalyst guests that came in different capacities. Well, I guess technically three.

So just being able to include some of these relationships and guests and some of our events has been really great.

And with one more quote, a president Harvard, one time I asked years ago, how did Harvard get the reputation for being such a storehouse of knowledge?

He thought for a moment said, hmm, maybe because the freshman brings so much in and the senior takes a little out.

Well, we might have brought a little bit in, but we sure got a lot out of this podcast.

Absolutely.

It's definitely out of thank you both. Great to be here. Thank you guys.

Yep.

Likewise.

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