[MUSIC PLAYING] What you doing, man? No, I was fixing my shirt. [LAUGHTER] We're recording again, just so you know. This is unleashing leadership, but it's a bit of myself, though. I'm Travis Maas, CEO of C Planning Group. And my co-host here who's fixing their shirt, or doing whatever you're doing, this is Dave Nerdy, chief operating officer of C Planning Group. And this is a podcast where we talk about what we do every day. We're going to C Planning Group, leading people, helping people get inspired to develop personally, professionally, and building a better business for our clients, for our employees, for our communities. And we get inspirations from good books. And the book that we're working on right now billed by Tony Fidal, and our takeaway for the day is really a tie-in to what we talked about a couple days ago. And it is if you are not solving a real problem, you cannot start a revolution. Now remember, a few days ago, we actually talked about finding a business to join that is making a revolution and challenging the best quote. So today, we're going to talk about maybe some of the rules about what a revolution actually is. Because we can maybe left that a little bit vague. Because it's like, well, everybody thinks they're starting a revolution. It's like, well, back to our dogmatic term. If you're dogmatic and you're thinking-- of course, you think you're starting a revolution, because you don't know everybody else around you is already trying to address that problem in 20 different ways. So anyway, we're going to have some fun with this. It's going to tie together some stuff that we've done in the past, maybe complete some thoughts, or maybe qualify what a revolution actually is. But before we do it, as always, do us a favor. Like and subscribe to us wherever you are listening or watching. And if you do, I'll stop doing this part of the intro. If we get enough license subscriptions and thumbs up in five stars, I'll just get into the material faster. We won't have to do this part. You know what I'm saying? Our sponsor today is the planning group. Phil and the producer here, he's actually we're Dave and I spend all day, every day working. Sometimes all night, sometimes on the weekends. A wealth management firm to help people overcome the challenges that are keeping them from personal fulfillment. And you can find out more at seedpg.com. So that would be seedpgasinplanninggroup.com. All right, Dave, real problems and revolutions. Ever get somebody who thinks they're real righteous and they're solving the world's problems and you look at it, you go, that ain't even a freaking problem. You make that shit up. - Yeah, I think it happens a lot. - We had a happen one time with flip flops. I've seen it with flip flops before. - That's an interesting one. - I don't know, you, I don't even think you're with us when the flip flop revenue. - No, I've heard about it, but yeah, I made a policy. I was like, no more flip flops in the office because you know, we only have like at the time, I think there was nine or 10 employees and all I hear all day are flip flops going through the office. - That sound, right? - And you know, we thought people dress fairly business, no suits, you know, I mean, it's fairly business casual. But the women, you know, they have footwear and their footwear is pretty diverse. Well, sandals and flip flops at that point in my life, I thought they were the same things and they all kind of smack on your heel when you're walking. So you're sitting there, you're trying to concentrate and any female is walking by like, smack, smack, smack, smack. So I make a rule and I go, no sandals in the office anymore. Holy, how we had immunity. Apparently the women went, all four of them went and got a petition signed and were like, you can't outlaw sandals and women need to be able to wear open toe shoes and blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I'm talking about like flip flops. I don't want to hear it. They're like, those are flip flops, they're not sandal. Like it was a whole big thing. But what struck me more was the organization of the women to compliment the man that we allow them to wear flip flops because it just wasn't fair. It's like, you know, if you're going to use your political capital in some way, you should have asked for something better than wearing flip flops. 'Cause now I don't want to hear it, I'm annoyed. Fine, you can wear your sandals, don't wear flip flops. Don't bug me again for at least a couple of months with anything that you want. - Yeah. - 'Cause it's annoying. Sorry, I derailed there. - I don't know where to go from there. - Okay, so what were we talking about? Okay, yeah, so fake problems, people got problems and they make it everybody else's problems. I know we're talking about revolution, right? We're talking about the business has got to solve a revolution, you know, it has to be fighting for, try to make a revolution, right? But the problem is, is when is that revolution in my mind, when is that revolution actually fake? When is it not a real issue? But they're trying to take a non-issue and turn it into a real issue so that they can say they have something to fight for. - Well, it's got to be the impact of the revolution, right? Like we have to talk about what it defines a revolution, I guess. - There you go, what defines a revolution? - I asked you first. - Don't academic me. Don't ask me a question to answer your question. What do you feel solved? - Defines a revolution. - Yeah. Well, I think it's-- - Wait, you're trying to get out of this. Okay, you know what, if we don't know what we're talking about, if we don't know how to define this, we're gonna go to the quotes. We're gonna do revolution quotes. What is a revolution? - There you go. - I think a revolution, you ever have like a rebellious person, you ever have somebody who just fights for the sake of fighting, right? - That's not a revolution. - Well, revolution is number one needs some of that. It needs a component of-- - All right, so it needs some fight. - It needs some fight. - Good. - The second thing is, I think it needs to be transformative. - Mm-hmm. - Now, you can have a fight to transform anything you want. The other port of this quote, though, that we're talking about here, is-- - Like they're talking to a real problem, right? The real part. - Yeah, how do you, like, what is the real problem? And so we were talking about in the last episode, you know, customers need to see you actually solve a real problem. - Mm-hmm. - So, you can, and this goes back even into your thing, you could think, like, I have a problem, right? Like, I want to wear flip-flops. - Mm-hmm. - Somebody trying to put food on the table for their kids. Do they care if you're happy about whether or not you wear flip-flops? So if your revolution is, women should be able to wear flip-flops whenever they want. - Nobody gives a damn. That's like, it's like not going anywhere. So you can build a whole company around that, but it's not going anywhere, right? Like, it's got to be a real legit problem to solve. - Mm-hmm. - Right? - What makes a legit? - Yeah, so with the NAS, he's talking about, look, in the book, you know, Tony... - That's the reason. - He's trading the NAS, and he's like, a plug, or a HVAC guy comes in and works on your unit, and then you're forced to buy a really expensive wall unit to a thermostat to put on there. And they charge you this incredible markup, and you have to pay them because you don't know how to set that stuff up. And it's not a smart system meaning it costs you, you know, lots of money. It's kind of cumbersome and clunky. I think they've become smarter, but they're certainly still cumbersome and clunky. - Well, who likes to do those schedule? Like, to set the schedule, no one wants to do that. - So you've got like, and you can't, it's not like you're going to access it from your phone or anything, right? You've got to go up to it and play with it and figure out to get to all the screens, pushing the up and down button, and then the enter button, stuff like that. So you solve what a lot of people, I need to be able to put a thermostat on the wall myself, do it cheaply and easily, and have it be functional and something that I'd like to engage with. If you've ever seen a nest on the wall, you like to go up there and kind of touch it, and you get to wake up and turn the knob a little bit and like, how do you play with this thing? Or check it out on your phone? What's the temperature of my house right now? Can I turn it on or up and down? And then they were talking about like the screwdriver, right? So they got to the point where it's like, okay, it takes an extra 30 minutes or something like that to install this thing on the wall because, not because it's hard, but because people don't have the tools, which sounds fascinating to a lot of people. Like, what do you mean you don't have a screwdriver, but in a lot of houses that if they do have a screwdriver, they don't know what junk door it's in, right? So put the screwdriver in the box. So now you have a revolution. All the tools that you need to solve the problem that needs to be solved. A real problem, a real pain point for people. You know, versus just picking some type of issue and jumping on it and, you know, let's fight for the sake of fighting. It's like, save the fight for something that you can actually really make an impact on. Yeah. And so like if you're defining that, the NUS is a great example because look at the broadness of it, right? The impact. Pretty much every house has some sort of temperature control. Is it easy for me to buy into it and with the typical P-person C value in it? Yeah. Like what's the benefit? So you talk about, okay, when I'm not home, I could just go around my phone and say, I'm not home right now. I'm pumping it up. You know, we're in the summer now, right? Summer months. I'm going to put the temperature way up because nobody's home. Why am I cool in the house for nobody? Or let's say that you have, we're in New York. A lot of people snowbird in Florida. You're in Florida. You're checking the temperature of your house, making sure pipes aren't frozen, trying to keep heat going. You can set the temperature. You're going to be coming home a week early, you're going to turn the heat up, that type of thing. Or energy saving for those that are energy conscious, you know what I mean? You could set the pattern so it kicks on, kicks off, you know, like at night, automatically having it cool down or something like that. There's a lot of value to that. I think in New York there was a time there where you would get a credit, your utility company for installing them. Yep. So you could actually, you know, benefit from having this cooler looking more effective thermostat in your house. So when you look at saying, okay, like I can say we're starting a revolution at seed in the way that we approach financial planning or investing. But are we? We think we are, but what is the change that we're bringing to a client that is truly unique and changing the way that they look at that particular space all together? And how much are people lining up the buy into that? That's, you know, that's the real revolution. And you see this, you know, companies with great ideas that never really get off the ground. Like, we're going to have a revolution. Well, your revolution was for something nobody wanted a revolution for. Right. Yeah. They didn't actually need any. And you couldn't convince them either. You know what I mean? Like nast, who knew that they needed a revolution for nast until they showed them. And then I was like, yeah, no, I, I want that. Right. You know, nast thermostat or not thermostats, um, the, uh, the fire alarms. Yeah. We put those in our house because we were tired of the fire alarm battery dying all the time and going off and just beeping all the time and we couldn't control that. So we put nast fire alarms in our, like the fire alarm in your kitchen that goes off and you got to get a chair and poke the button with those, you can just hit a thing on your phone and turn it off. Yeah. Right. And it doesn't matter where you are, you get an alert and all that kind of stuff. Like that's revolutionary. We want that. It's easier. It solves a problem. I don't have to be annoyed and get on a chair anymore. Yeah. And they hook up. Right. Like we have, we have the thermostat. We have the smoke alarms. We have the cameras. Right. Like outside the house and the, like the kids room when they're a little right, like you open up the app. You got your whole dashboard, make sure those kids don't get away, punch each other out. Yeah. That's how we got the video of the, yeah, that was from that. We had a, we had a video camera in the basement. Nobody knows what the video is. Dave's kids had, um, though everybody and on the secret, yeah, they had a Hulk and Iron man like seeing gloves, right? Like how over they when they did this, they were a little, they were like maybe like four or three and a half and two or something like that. And the video go viral? Yeah. It was like nine million, 10 million views, I think. It was a self TKO one, one time or punch. The other, the other one just clocks them with like, you know, a Hulk like punching bag glove or something. Yeah. And he just flattens them. Yep. And the kid doesn't even cry. This laid there. And the other one ran away and yelled, got you. Got you. But see, so the value there for me was I knew something. Something happened in the basement. Yep. So I opened up the nest app with the camera and said, this is amazing. It paid for itself right there. Well, so what does that do? That solves a lot of problems for a lot of parents. Yeah. When I was a kid, my parents just yelled down the stairs. What are you doing down there? What was that bang? Nope. Right. Now you just look at the app and boom, there you go. So if you're going to make a revolution, if you're going to try to make a revolution, if you think you're making a revolution, you better do something that I actually, people go, man, that'll change my life. I want that. (upbeat music)
