Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 93 - Paul Nelhart

Paul Nelhart is a Founder and CEO of HX Holdings. He is a seasoned entrepreneur who has been involved with 12 business startups & specializes in driving top line growth. Paul is currently working on fostering a network within the construction sector that leverages private equity resources for growth and has a portfolio that encompasses 7 companies with over 150 employees.

Connect with Paul at the below:

https://paulnelhart.com/

https://www.instagram.com/intrinsicmindset

Duration:: 1h 1m
Broadcast on:: 02 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Paul Nellhart, businessman, podcaster, most of all, a genuine and very, very good human being. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me and our audience first and foremost, because we know that at the end of the day, time is the most valuable thing that we have. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate this. We just recently met, so this was a very quick entry point right into a podcast. As you know too, I also have my podcast and trends and mindsets, so I was very excited to have a conversation with Igor. This is, this is great. I love this. And maybe we start with just giving our audience a basic idea of who you are, everything that you do, including the podcast, and I'll let you run with that. Oh man, everything I do. It's a giant hot mess. What do you, yeah, we didn't even know where to start. Now, but I, you know, so much of my career, I've been a solar printer. I own a number of small businesses along the way. I'm currently involved with them in the private equity world into service into the set, touching into the construction industry and very fascinating tale in itself. Also, again, mentioned the fellow podcaster, so I really enjoy the communication side of that. Family Man, and overall, I, you know, independent consultants, so I do a lot of consulting with different types of levels of businesses, mostly top line front end of the companies. You know, how do we get that growth and where are the pinch points in the business and what are the strangle points. Also, you know, leadership and education and so many things are, communication, so many things are near and dear to my heart in that. But it really comes down to, there's the centric, there's two things I'll talk about really quick here. There's, there's the idea of people talking about like the one thing, you know, are being centric in what you do. And there's something because I've always touched into a number of different industries and I've even had people say like, Oh, you're all over the place. And it's funny because I never felt like it was I was, for me, it was always being very single singular mindset towards the person I'm working with or talking to the sitting on the end of the other side of the proverbial desk or the phone and really meeting and rising to being the best for that other individual or, in some cases, an entity. So the singularity cannot, doesn't always have to be a singularity, a function in your day. And this is just one of those life lessons because I don't, I think some people get really hung up on, you know, meshing down or getting too specific. But there is a sense of being of purpose and singularity of purpose for to be highly effective and all your talents will feed into that. So I didn't mean a good a lot of little preachy right out of the gate. But I think it's there's senses of self empowerment that people get lost in and they get lost in trying to be overly specific. When you can be a generalist, but you can be the best and in a singularity way. Yeah, if that makes sense. And this is one of the things that I right away, appreciate it so much about you, because believe it or not, one of the most impactful things that I always say to my wife is this phrase. Once you know the way you see it across all things. And I'm a big believer in if you can find the common patterns that it doesn't matter the industry, it doesn't matter exactly what you do. You understand how growth works, you understand how a good company operates, and you're able to apply that in every single thing that you do in your life. Some people call that being a perfectionist. Some people call that being a hard worker. I call that just understanding the process. How long into your career, because it's been such a successful one, did it take you to figure out the process and find the right one for you? About 10 minutes ago. So I it's it's always a lifetime. It's truly is it's a lifetime experience. It's always that process of improving and moving forward. I do really like I'm going to I'll get back to what you're asking, but I really like the way you put that. Can you repeat that one that you say to your wife? I like that saying once you know the way you can see it across all things. Yes, I love that because and you mentioned the word pattern. So in your career path, in your life path, the patterns and the recognitions are such an amazing and I don't want to say powerful tool because it's not necessarily tool. It's more recognition. It's having self awareness. It's heaven's field awareness. It's having the awareness around you and the mindfulness. And sometimes you just and this is where you get into quieting your mind and I don't want to go off an attention here, but and listening to the to the inner voice and slowing the inner breath and starting to see those patterns because those that's where you're going to be able to let's just call it connect the dots. And before I continue on to what your original question was, in business, in marketing and PR, what you're going to do is in human behavior, you're going to get, there's the three big things that drive like, we'll call it consumerism or just people's behaviors in general. The I, the self, the others, what is what is what are my surroundings? What are other people going to think? How am I impressing other people? Things like that. Or what I like to call is the patterns is that third one. And what are the patterns or things like accelerators, things that are going to shorten your or compress the time frames. And we're looking for patterns to or for ease of process, things to let's just face it, make our life better in our interpretive way that feed into those things. So that really ties into just kind of nails down with what you said in the seeing and recognize those. I'm going to use the word pattern again. I don't want to hang up on that word. But I think that's a very powerful, powerful method. And it's going to apply, which you said too, it'll apply across your life. You're going to get it in fitness, you'll find things in love, you'll find things in family, in work, how you approach your life in general, you're going to be able to see and observe those things, otherwise than being, you know, kind of a wandering question mark, you'll be able to be a little bit more intentional and a little bit more consistent on your approach. So where did that fall into my, in my career path? There's different seasons for different learning aspects. And I was kind of say there's this, I call it the teacher of pain. So the pain teacher comes in at different aspects of our life, maybe in our money, in our love, in our families, whatever that is, or health. And there's different times and different points where you're going to rise above and those strengths, those internal recognitions are going to, and you'll have those awarenesses, you'll have those revelations and they're going to be, it's all compounded. So as far as I'm concerned, this is the best day of my life, because I got to experience all the other ones behind me. Yeah, even though there's peaks and valleys along the way, this cumulative point, where I am right at this very second, is always going to be the greatest moment in your life. Yeah, I love that you say that because every single morning that I wake up, I tell my wife the exact same thing, I say today is going to be the best day of our lives, because first of all, you are the smartest you've ever been, as long as you have your health, and you have your family with you, that everything else is detailed. What's crazy to me is that some of these lessons that you talk about learning, I feel like I learned in a success rather than a pitfall, because to a lot of people when they're like, at the bottom, they just go like, I don't want to be here, let me find a way to move forward. And when I was having success in my finance career, and I was having success in the corporate world, in my mind, there was a piece of me that just always went, something is wrong, I should be so, so happy, I am so lucky to be in this position, but I don't feel like I am in tune with who I am as a person, and I really need to be doing something else. Have you felt that way when you were younger, and how did you go about it? What do you mean, I'm not young? I'm too young. Come on, you're so young, we'll give you like halfway. That's right, that's right. So it's interesting you said that some of the great leanings are in your success, and because through my life, we all get plagued with different things, and I've historically in my life, admittedly, you know, a lot of anxiety, a lot of pressure on myself, carried things like guilt, and just like it's not, I'm just not doing enough, I'm not feeling enough, I'm not going for it, you know, and a lot of the learning has come out of the pain, I think that for me, you know, a lot of it's the pain recognition of, and you did say it, but it's like, I have this, but I want this, and now what happens is you go along, I get this, or close to this, a version of this, like, oh man, it's not, it's, yes, I'm happy that I have this, but I want something else, and some of it is, is I'm not the same person I was back here. I'm a new person, a different person with different recognitions and different experiences, so the time I achieved this, when I thought I wanted this, I wanted this, and which ties into two, there's, there's people that look at you, and they're, you would be in that position, and they'd be so jealous, and it's all they want, and you're like, I don't know, I'm just not fulfilled, I feel like there's something more, or there's a purpose, or, and some of that is, I guess, too, is how did we make the decision, I don't want to get too lost in an esoteric path to here, but when we were back here, this is the past, when I was back here, again, different person, but what was I making that decision for, was I making it for the eye, for the other, was it trying to find the path, the ease of process, and somehow this would make my life better, you know, because I'm separating myself too, I'm saying, well, that's a better life over there, my imagined state, and in all essence is, you know, this is going to sound kind of simplistic, but if you can't be happy here, it doesn't mean you're going to be happy over here either, you know, it's, it's building and processing to that, or building and building internally, and your understanding, and, and to feel that ease of ease internally, so I think there's, you know, living exterior of yourself, you're also too, which it sounds like I'm going off a little bit, but you're placing your, you're placing your pleasure, you're placing your joy, you're placing your happiness outside of, even though you're imagining yourself in that, you're still placing it outside of you, it's not here, it's over here, so it's not the ownership, it's not the feeling of it, you're not embodying it or living it. And I'm so happy that this is the exact direction that you chose, so when I was younger, I knew that my option and my career choice of going in the finance was the shortest route that I saw going from, you know, someone who was not in a great financial situation to being rich long term, and once I started getting there, I went, oh my god, I don't care because I never really took the time to explore what happiness is, and we keep using this word, and it's so overused in everything that we do today, happy, happy, happy, but what does happiness mean to you? So, you know, I think at this stage in the game, I'll just be, it ought to be open. I just, last week was my birthday, I turned 50. Happy belated. I got the big, thank you, 50, the big 505, so version 5.0, that's, that's, that's what I get to experience. So I got to experience the 20s, the, you know, the teens, the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, and for me, it continues to get better. But it's interesting because I, I'm going to draw on what I said in the last segment there. I've been able to draw back in. I've been able to come back within. It's a, there's much of this is a journey into home, but with the new, the new person that you are, meaning the new, the previous experiences, the hurts, the pains, the joys, the highs, the lows, and drawing that bend into a sense of, yeah, a sense of wholeness of, you know, but then also being able to embody that child, that child-like exploration, that, that sense of wonder, and, and having the freedom of not having, and that's what some of it too is, too, is shedding some of the past and instead shedding some of the what that I, either the A, what I thought the world wanted of me, or what my friends and family wanted of me, or who they thought I should be, and those influences, as you get older, you're able to shed those either. Some people do it in a much younger age, so I'm not going to say it's just an old-person thing, but is you, as you go through it, you, I don't want to say you care less and less, you just have less concern about what the world, how they're going to, they're going to respond to you. It's, I'm going to show, I'm showing up more as myself every single day, and I know that when I show more as myself, I become stronger, I become, you know, just a greater sense of me, and then that gives me the fulfillment of being, I have two young boys, so I have my boys, my wife, and I get to be better for them. And then in return, I feel that an incredible gratitude that I get to experience within, you know, within that set. And then when it comes to business, in that we'll go into business for a second, too, I'm going to detract on one little short story, but it's going to, it's going to dovetail back into where we're going, is I was sitting at a table not that long ago with a bunch of people sitting around it, and somebody was talking about, they did a quote, and I can't remember the exact quote, but it was basically the sense of utilizing people's talents, and the way they took it was just using people's talents. So, and it really didn't sit well with me, and I was kind of wondering why it was stewing on, and I had a reaction at the time, and I'm like, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut, I'm not going to say anything. But what it really walked away with was there, there's a couple different things here, and I'll get to the, get to the relative, not punchline, but the point here. So, is there can be usually in business, and when people feel like they're being taken, there's your, and your purpose or your talents are being used in use for somebody else's benefit, there can be a lot of hurts and pains and things like that. When you're not as hung up on that, it doesn't, it's not going to drag you down as much, but where I'm going with this is, it's coming back to the happiness thing, and living within the power and the security of yourself. So, where the, where this story is going is, is it, I had this recognition about this person who was talking about using other people to get their, to their benefit. And I had this recognition of being, you know, I am more interested in being a titan than I am standing on the shoulders of giants, because if you're using people, you're always beholden to finding a new giant to stand on their shoulders to see above the clouds. I want to mock amongst titans, I want to be that titan, and that titan to me is that there's that relative confidence and happiness and wholeness, and I want to be with the people that are also in battering themselves and willing to learn and willing to get their hands dirty, either in the mental work, the internal, the external work, and I want to walk amongst titans. I don't want to walk on the backs of, I don't want to walk on the shoulders of giants. So, some of that, and it might sound like a detracting from your happiness question, but I think it really ties into who are we as an individual and how are we showing up to the world? How do we view ourselves and who do we intend to be tomorrow as well? And who are we surrounding ourselves and all that too? I'm going to stop there because I don't want to go out too far on it because I know that we have a lot to talk about here. And I want to echo that sentiment first and foremost, because the way that I talk about happiness is outside of this thing where you want to get in tune with exactly who you are and line up your values with what you're doing each and every day in every aspect of your life, there is also the feeling of bringing other people with you. If you're on the mountaintop by yourself, you're just going to be miserable, you're not going to be fulfilling this kind of vision of what it means to actually be happy and successful, because every single one of these visions of success in my head is always by being surrounded with like-minded people who push me to be the best version of myself. And I know that I can never do it by myself. And what's weird is some of these stories that you hear, especially on social media today, are about I'm self-made. I did that. I'm so incredible. And you always go, "Yeah, but who did you learn that from? Who helped along the way? How come you're not recognizing other people?" And I always just have this like awkward phase where I just go through, "Hey, you have to recognize that other people drive you to do that, even if you don't necessarily give them the credit that's due." And that just makes you look like a fool in the long term by going like, "Oh no, I learned it all in my head. You just have gotten the idea from somewhere else." Absolutely. And I'll touch on that too, because I think there is a pain point in- I'll stay in the business window, because that's where a lot of that stuff I think is very prevalent. There's also, there's pains of the heart and things like that too, but let's stay in the business realm. I've seen it many times. I've obviously worked with a lot of people in my time, but there's, what's interesting is there's, I hate to go here, but there are, there are different personality types. And some are what we'll call like maybe a narcissist or something like that. And the, the usury aspect of it is a fascinating one, because there's, there's a lot of energy not necessarily put upon the work. It's, it's going back to the standing on the shoulder of giants, but it's this, it's the sense of most of the energy. You're going to see it. There's two things. One is, you know, the enemy of a tyrant is humor. So if you actually have little jokes too, and somebody's not, you can tell them getting upset like a boss or something like that, there's a tyranny in them, because there's, that's just a little telltale sign. I'll just give you that little psych, psych tip there, but a couple of things that happen when people are trying to control situations. One is either, and I don't want to hardline it, but there's two big ones that I, I always tend to see. One is siloed conversations. And then the other is adding, adding additional energy to confuse the environment, to come in and solve the problem that you relatively created and look at an exalted position while you draw in all the answers from your surrounding. There is, and there's people that have a talent for this, but everybody in the surrounding does feel used and walked away. The siloed ones are, people that use siloed conversations are very interesting too, because they'll have a little conversation when one person here, a little bit here, they never quite give the whole story. So there's, that, it gets into the controls. We're either controlling it with chaos, and then we're trying to comment and temper it down and look like the hero. Or there is a sense of, if I keep everybody separated, nobody, nobody has the full line of story besides me, and I can control the environment and stuff. The menace that comes out of, out of fear is really what it is. And do I have time for one little cat on to that or? Okay. So there was, there's a Russian, I believe it was a student, I don't believe it was a professor that came up with a game, it's called Werewolf, under different versions of this. And the, in essence, the game is there's, there's a moderator, two, two people that are designated as werewolves, and there's the villagers. And the moderator, you know, the two werewolves know who they are, with each other, and so does the moderator. But, so everybody closes their eyes, the moderator taps a villager on the shoulder, the tip, the villager walks out, and, and they, you know, that's the wake up period. Okay, well, the villager got eaten, guess who the werewolf is, they determine one person, and they go systematically start eliminating people around. If, to win the game, the villagers for the villagers win the game, they have to get rid of both the werewolves, the werewolves to win the game, they only have to, they can still have just one werewolf has to survive. And the essence of it is an informed minority will always have communication superiority over an uninformed majority. So in the, as they played this game, they found that the informed minority predominantly won. So this is what happens in business a lot of times is we isolate little bits of communication. I'm not saying we as the royal we, I'm saying very specific types of purse people to control the environment will will do that. So the reason I kind of tell all this is I think it's more of an identification. I don't think many times you're not going to, if you're in a, you have in bosses or managers, and it's not that, you know, still going to change the behavior, but the identification and the recognition that it is going on is in a very empowering position to be in. And first observe, recognize, and know where you stand. And then at some point, not everybody's in the position to slowly remove themselves out of a bad work situation. But there's always a choice in life too. So I know I took that a little bit ominous at the end there. But no worries, but I hope that it gives us a perfect segue to start talking about communication. And I just want to bring back one point that you made. And that's about humor in the workplace based on today's rules based on today's general climate. It is harder than ever just to make fun of things and stay within the boundaries of what's acceptable. And what I find so interesting is the people who are the most common sensical in what I found are the people who at some point have some appreciation for standup comedy. They don't necessarily love it. They don't necessarily love every artist who does stand up comedy. But they understand that there is value in the Joker in society, making fun of something to give people the knowledge different perspective and at the same time, just talk shit. At the end of the day, it's just talking shit. Absolutely. Oh, sorry. The question I was going to ask is, what is it about today's society? Because I feel like it used to be in the hands of younger people. Like younger people were always the rebels who would just say what's on their mind. And they would drive that conversation of like, we should make fun of this. What is it about today's society that makes younger people specifically so close minded and so guarded to some of these jokes and kind of the ability to just go, hey, we live in this world where it's not white or black. It's shades of gray and almost every single thing. And you should make fun of both extremes all the time. There's just an opener for it. Yeah. So a couple of few different things to kind of go that way that I'll just touch on is, humor itself is just subverting of subverting the direction. You're just resorting expectations. I expect the conversation to go here and it goes expected to take a right turn and it goes left turn. And there's a fun with that. There's actually an deep intelligent. You find somebody that has a good humor and quick-witted. There is an intelligence to that as well too. And there is a freedom within that too. There's an expression there. And again, and I'm not talking about the dirty jokes or you know, decorating jokes. But just little subtle humors can really pull people together, can ease the tensions in the environment and kind of even mitigate some stressors or it actually even takes down authoritative dichotomies a little bit too. You know, it chinks that the armor and kind of takes, cracks the foundation of some of those authoritative, very rigid environments and makes people, there's a comfort to it. So I just want to kind of say that with humor. I feel humor is an extremely important thing. Now, there is the HR. I'll just say there's a lot of sensitivity in the world. And it's tough for me to speak specifically with, you know, just the young people in general, but some of that stuff comes down to the other. And that goes into the psychological other. What do the others think of me? And if I have, if I stand for this, what does the others think of me? I will be greater, I will be more accepted, I'll be more, I'll be in part of the tribe, you know, and even some, and I'll come back to right where I said that, but you know, there is that deep survival sense in us on a DNA level of being ostracized from a tribe. Because at one point in our existence, if you were sure, you know, if you were pushed out of the tribe, you would die on your own. So I mean, there is there is sense of community and other pleasing the other wanting the other to like us, things like that. So you have, what I've seen clearly over the past, what we've just called even four years, is is a lot of people speaking for the other, even though that it's not them, there's some righteousness and standing up. And God forbid somebody says, you know, subvert the expectation of what you're supposed to say. And the expected cadence and everything like that, it's, it's really taken a manic level. And in many cases, or think we're also seeing social media, everybody has a voice, everybody, you know, has a has an open channel. And what personally, this is my opinion, but the squeaky wheel isn't always right. Yep. And the squeaky wheel isn't always the majority. Yeah. So some of the squeaky wheels are just the loudest one. It doesn't mean that everybody thinks this. They're just the loudest one. And many times too. I'll tell you too, whenever we're talking about young and old, older generational, I'll just put myself in the old category. Come on. I'm just not going to sit there. If he is not old, you are middle ground. That's it. And it's, I'm only a third of the third over with my life, lived 150. There we go. And is, you know, I'm not going to sit there personally and correct somebody or try to argue somebody. I think there's a sense of, there's this person going off in a tangent. So what is it with the younger people? I still think it comes back to a lot of stuff is this just again, this is my opinion. This I have nothing to back it up as stats or anything. I still think it comes into a heavy concern of what others perceive, think, and those individuals wanting to, wanting to be accepted and, you know, feeling what what somebody else thinks they should say or stand up for. Now, humor itself, you know, there are some dirty jokes. There are some degradating jokes and they really take a, you know, dark humor. And, and let's face it, as humans, we all have sorts of, we, and we have close friends that we're going to take a joke further than, you know, in a trusted environment than we ever would in public, you know, that is, it's a, it's human nature. We do that because it's a connection point. It's a, there's a warmth and a love in some sense. It's not even about the words many times when people do humor. It's not even about attacking somebody. It's really about making somebody smile connect and having that heart connection because there's a laughter and an inside connection point with that person, you know, and that's what, and that's what really gets lost too, is, you know, the, the human connection versus the, the human acceptance, you know, and I think there's some gaps in there too. And I love the specific way that you talk about this. I'm a giant fan of comedy first and foremost, all types of comedy. And that's really, really important to say these days because people just put you in a bucket of you should just follow one person or like, listen to that person. I just love this idea. And that is, hey, no matter what the outcome is, no matter the pattern of words, or the laugh or not laugh that somebody gets at the end of their joke, all they were trying to do is make you laugh. They might not fully buy into them and connect with you. Yeah. And it's about the timing. It's about the craft. But at the end of the day, all they wanted to do was make you laugh. Sometimes there was a misfire and you need that misfire to understand what is funny and what is not. And sometimes it just takes you in the bad direction. Yeah. Let's, I will say too, there is a, when it comes to comedy, there are technical comedians. And if you ever see them, it's really interesting in an interview, they're not actually that funny. So it's a very technical delivered, contrived, but their delivery is impeccable. They understand timing, they understand storytelling. Their comedians are really one of the best storytellers because of their timing, because of the cadence. And they understand when to heighten their voice. And they're, yeah, they're incredible communicators in that sense. And I don't want to get off on storytelling, but storytelling is such a powerful connection point for human beings. It's required in our DNA for the parables, the analogies, the metaphors. And I think in humor is a great way to drive that. And also, it's a great memory anchor to work in humor and environment. And both of those things, for whatever reason, I feel like the younger generation with just use of technology, it's somewhat on just a different trajectory of not being as developed and being as good of communicators, as good of storytellers, and just have this ability to speak about themselves and how they think about ideas, knowing that ideas are not something that you fully attach yourself to. Following the scientific method, at the end of the day, if you have a thought pattern about something, then you get new data that proves it wrong, you should have the ability to say, "Hey, I thought this was right for that reason, and now I let it go because I came into new data." As a good communicator, how do you find this ability to go, "Hey, specifically in the business world, does a consultant today?" "Hey, you might think that this thing that you're doing for the business is great, but I have data to prove that just because you've been doing it this way for a long time doesn't necessarily prove it's right, and here is a better way to implement strategy." Communication in general, it's interesting, I'm going to touch on a couple things. One is data. Data objective, subjective, there are perceptions of data. When you get into business and you're talking about spreadsheets and people want to really flatten, they want to make the world flat and they want to fit it on a nice chart and it has to do this, but there's different ways to look at data. There's things like, of course, there's top line revenue, dollars, gross dollars, x millions of dollars, but then there's quantitative ways to look at it of things like, and industries have different things, so I'll rattle off a couple of different things. There's quantity, like, "Okay, this is a 10 million dollar company, but they sold one contract," but here's a company that sold 100,000 contracts to make 10 million. There's different ways, and I think sometimes this would get into where maybe we'll go, maybe we won't, but machine thinking, so that gets into your left brain, right brain. There's creative, and there's cognitive. It's the perception of that. I've spent a lot of time in the observational method of data and what is it, how does it really translate? Because data in the sense of, now, one of the groups I'm with is in the service industry tied to the construction world. There's people being routed, there's technicians being routed, so there's how many visits, how many revisits, how many, there's a lot of different things that feed into this, and that's why I say, "Is this a one-for-one big thing?" Then there's the value of a transaction, and what does it take to get one transaction. I'm going to stop there because I don't want to get lost in that, but I think it's important when it comes to data. There's a lot of feed points that data can drive. Coming back to communication, because this will tie into a segment of what you asked. Basically, you're saying to somebody, "You felt this way, you thought this way, you still think this way, and this is your opinion, but you're wrong." And you have to communicate it. It's a communicate then. In a productive way. In a productive way, exactly. One of the things, too, is I want to work in with groups, and we'll call it on different levels of the org chart. Let's just pretend for a second, and we'll dial it in. Somebody in a lower end of the org chart is talking to a boss, and this boss is a heightened state of energy. Basically, they're just being a jerk. In these positions, we'll call it on this lower level of the org chart. A lot of advice I've given people, too, is in the communication process. First, things come always down to recognition, awareness, and where are you, where are they. There's three big things I'd say. There's many things of communication, but there's three things that you can quickly dial in. One is, are we talking about the 10,000, 32,000 foot view, or are we looking underneath the bus right now? Are we on the ground zero? Are we talking about the wide-angle view? Are we talking about the other is, are we talking at this as a logical cognitive? Is this a data one, two, three, or is this the creative strategic thinking? Is it tactical or strategic? The other one is the time dilation. Are we talking, is this a past, present, future? If you can dial in these three things right here of where are we at on the focal point, where are we at on the strategic or the tactical, and where are we at on the time dilation? Because you might find that somebody is talking about the wide picture, dah, dah, dah, dah, and then you're like, oh, okay, we're talking about the wide picture. And then all of a sudden they're talking about the specific, you know, and they're jumping around. So one of the things I've done, like I said, is I always kind of help people with some of this stuff with his first kind of identify where were we at, and it's okay to tell people how we ask them straight up. You know, Igor, are we talking about the big picture? Are we talking about specifically this one thing right now, this one transaction, or is it, and it's okay to ask somebody that because it helps them dial in. And in adversely to is I might be all over the chart, and they're all over the chart. We're not going to come together at all no matter what you do. So first, I'll stop there, but first kind of help to dial in to see where they're at, and then maybe help them dial in with some questions. And now we're on the same page, then approach it. So, and then you can go into your your questions, and you can find out subjectively, objectively, how do you view this? And if the view is a little bit different, that's really, I'll be honest with you, it's, it's, that's one really strong method that I have used to change the direction, you can't come in and say, Igor, you're absolutely wrong about all this. Yeah. You're gonna go, but what do you mean, I'm wrong about everything in my life, or I'm wrong about this one thing right here, what do we, where are we at? So the communication, I hope that's a little bit helpful with dialing in. Yeah. And I appreciate this specific way that you talk about this as getting on the same page, because the way that I find the best communication to always be employed is specifically that. So you go, hey, let's first get on the same page. What is your goal? Your goal is to make the company as good as possible. What is my goal? To come in and help you make the company as good as possible. Hey, our goals are aligned, we're on the same team. Once you're able to establish that, from there, the communication becomes easy. It's, hey, I challenge you, because my view is different than yours. But hey, we're still moving in the same direction, we have the same goal in mind. I also find that to obviously translate to every relationship, every friendship that you have in your life, where you go, hey, I'm this common sense person who has a logical approach to stuff. One plus one is two, and here is how we think about it. And when I think about why communication is so broken today and why you have, I mean, people on just polar opposites, it feels like on every single issue, whether it's politics, whether it's COVID, whether it's current stance on medicine, it just feels like people are not agreeing on the middle ground of, hey, first and foremost, we want most people to be healthy. First and foremost, we want people to be good communicators. First and foremost, we want to develop a civilization and a system where most people are happy and fulfilling their life. How did we just start moving in this direction where people have a natural tendency to want to fight each other online rather than get together and become friends and move in the same direction? Yeah, huge, huge question. And I think too, some of it is diced down into where you started that conversation with the communication is kind of coming together. I think some people's, some of it is not everybody's goals are on the surface. It's not that people are conniving, but I don't even know if everybody recognizes their own goals. I think people get fixed and bear with me to do this is like we're talking about trying to get it dialed in, but you might find that people's goals are not necessarily what they're talking about. It's like getting about this. Everybody's been in fight with, I mean, to some degree, a lover in a relationship. You're very heated and they're talking about something a long time ago. You're talking about something, maybe it's a long time ago, maybe it's tomorrow, maybe it's in the future, and there's that. But not everybody's in the same page first, but I'd say too, in business, specifically, not everybody's goals are always about the outcome of the business. Some of it is just those individual goals are just, I just want more money. I just want to, I want a new title. I want new benefits. I want this. So how do I get there is, oh, well, I've got to speak the talk of the masses. The masses want, we want increased sales, we want this. So my goal is not the increased sales of the beneficial, like we're talked about. It's not the benefit of the company necessarily. It's the benefit of me, but I'm going to use the words or I'm going to get passionate about the words that I think they don't really care about this, but I'm going to go forward with it. And I think when you get into it, I don't really want to get into politics at all. I'm not, that's a whole other thing. You know, no, I mean, we can, but I don't really have a big opinion. I don't really follow. It's funny, but I don't even really, I sit in the same camp of, hey, I just sit in the middle making fun of how crazy both sides are and both camps are people just kind of go mad about it. I will come back to where we left off, but I'm going to say one crazy thing that might get me canceled in the world, but I don't really believe in the religion of politics. I think it's, there's different religions have different goal sets and it's the politics is about the justification. It's how do we justify it? How do we tell it? How do we, so it's, it's this self justifying thing on both sides and everybody feels just as passionate about the opposite side. So, you know, I don't really, it's just in, in some cases, it's another form of organized religion. I echo that. I echo every bit about it. Yeah. So, so going back to, you know, how do we cure the world through communication and how do we come together? I think there is a sense of, I'm going to go, I'm going to go really out. And I think their self awareness and understanding human beings and understanding the depth of trying to see and having enough intuition and sight and Clara clairvoyance and not, not in a sense of a woo woo thing, but all your sensory is to really try to understand and hear what it is in that other person's shoes. What is their real goal? They're not going to, many times they don't say it, you know, is it how do you get there? You know, is, is us here, us talking, I'm not picking on you, I'm just going to make something up. You know, us talking, if, if your goal was to be, and I know we talked before, and I'll just tell your audience, it's not, but to be the next Tony Robbins or something like that, you know, then your goal really isn't to sit here and find out what the best, you know, what, what sandwich I like at the, you know, at the deli or something, your goal is to be the next, next this, you know, so you're putting in your time with, you know, with me, so there's things that you're not as engaged in your things. And now that's not you, I'm just picking on you, you are very engaged with this conversation and you're very, you want to hear people's stories. So I'll just, I'll give that back to you, but using that as an example, identifying when seeing people are checked out, people are not engaged, people are on the conversation. They're not going to, and a lot of times they just, I don't want to say they don't care, they don't, they're not as engaged as you think they are. They don't care as much about you as they think they do, or you think they do, sorry. And in that process, you might be offended because you're not getting your point across, and you're not, but they're gone, they're completely in a different conversation. So it's not taking yourself so seriously, and I'm kind of jumping around, but I'm not, is because you know, you picked a big subject, there's really truly a lot of elements to, you know, healing the world. I think, you know, I'm going to keep coming back to having those human connections and really being engaged in conversation with, with one another, which ties in, it dovetails into what we're doing right now on a podcast, I have a podcast, you have a podcast, you know, we talked about it, you know, it briefly, but we're trying to have human connections, and we're just going with it. Both of us have a similar, you know, outlook on this as we shared, is that seeing where it goes, because that I, this is something I always say, if I have a thousand conversations, beautiful things are going to come from that, they're not all going to be pretty, they're not all going to be, you know, amazing conversations. But I know that there's going to be direct and indirect. And I know that I'm going to connect with those human beings and being have an experience and have a similarity with them. Even if I don't fully agree with everything that they do, those connection points, I'm not going to sit there. And so I saw, I saw a short clip of Igor's Instagram, and he said something flippant, I'm never going to watch that guy again. You know, I'm going to judge you on your whole life in a very small, you know, in a very small capacity. Who am I to do that? You know, so yeah. And I value so much about the two different things that you talked about. First and foremost, I found the exact same thing. Sometimes the people who you think and more than anything wish cared for you as much as you care for them. Just don't necessarily feel about you the same way because their communication and their goals are not aligned with where you see yourself going or the exact things that you're trying to accomplish. And at the end of the day, the good people in your life are the ones who are able to separate kind of that from the person. You can go, Hey, the person is still a good person. They are just working to this goal. And you have to accept them for the exact human being that they are. Know what that friendship is and just move on with your life. And the second thing that I think is so valuable about what you talked about is podcasting. I talk about this as a specific way of having an engaged conversation where you just get to learn who the other person is. And at the same time, get your ideas challenged because every single conversation that you walk into, you no matter how much you like a different person, no matter how much you appreciate all of their work, whenever they start talking about their process, whenever they start talking about some of the things that they found, there is something that you will always disagree with. There might be a better way. And the cool thing that I always find is, Hey, I've always thought my way is the best way. I can see now that in that specific arena, like maybe I'm just out of touch and there may be an easier way to do that. And the value of that engagement and the value of listening to other people, I just go like I have this conversation with my wife a lot. I go babes at the end of the day, like smart people are rubbing off on me. So I'm leaving the conversation being just half a percent better. And if I can just do that 100 times, 1000 times, 10,000 times, all I'm doing is just building this person who is open minded, who is open to new experiences, and who understands that the world is not as clear as right and wrong, but has a lot of kind of grays in between that are worth talking about. Absolutely. Yeah, that's beautiful. Have you fully agree? Have you found the same things with your podcast? And what are some of the goals that you are trying to achieve that are in the back of your mind? Because I feel like as people who are successful, you always put the most amount of pressure on yourself. And whether it's subconscious goals, whether it's just some type of number goal, we just always have goals. And it's hard to separate what you're doing and the quality of what you do with the reward that doesn't always come right away. Absolutely. Yeah. And that podcast, the reward that doesn't always come, I've kind of said like sometimes you're playing into an empty room. Like I always picture this guitarist on a bar stool, just kind of playing there and nobody's in the bar listening. And you just got to keep showing up. You know, that's I kind of always have that vision and stuff. And eventually the room gets full. But you know, so again, that podcasting to your point and the goals, there's a few different things I'll touch on. One is goals with it. And let me do let me do this. It was another thing because I was tick me a second to remember it. But it was basically nobody can be tough around ourselves. You know, like nobody can be actually I'll be honest, nobody can be more cruel to me than me. Like nobody you could there's nothing you could say to me that, you know, is meaner than something I don't I haven't already said to myself. So we all draw in especially people that are driven we drive ourselves we push we want the best we and with specifically with this communication method and this platform of podcasting it is interesting and to touch on I really the conversational aspect of it is great because it's a very present thing. My phone is silenced. I, you know, I clicked out of my email so I don't hear the ding ding ding in life. It's not like we don't get that as much anymore at least in my life. I don't. Yeah. Where I really get to connect with a human being and a very focused amount of time where you shut the world out and you get it in small snippets. But I'll be honest. Usually there's there's a text message. There's a there's a call. There's a meeting coming up and I have to drive here and it's just always something something something something. So I have found a real powerful strength in for me in this experience talking to people even just that even being able to dial in and co-create an hour or whatever that is 45 minutes with some with another human being. I'll be honest with you. There's like I'm almost addicted to. I have such a blast with it at this point. Of course I was nervous in the beginning. Of course I thought what are people gonna think they're gonna you know I'm gonna look stupid or I'm not gonna you know and I got to a point where I'm just like sometimes I might say something really genius and sometimes I might say something really stupid but somewhere in the middle I'm having a good time and I'm moving the needle forward. I like how you said half a percent better a percent better and there are things that I agree you're not going to have the same perspective as people even if it's that I disagree with them or not to scream I can agree with them but still have a slightly different perspective on it and knowing that somebody else has a very similar that's awesome because it stops me for a second and I go, "Yeah, you're right. There is another way to kind of look at this. I might even still think the same thing at the end of the day." So I wanted to kind of say that. No goals. Goals are a very interesting thing because we in this society need money and I'm just going to joke for a second. Fame and fortune and millions of followers and all these things and you have to ROI and you have to niche down and you have to have to have to have to. And you listen to all these YouTube, so when you start with YouTubing, if somebody's going to let's kind of talk to that person who's maybe starting out. And when you start, you're like, "All right, I'm going to watch a bunch of YouTube videos about what to do." Some of them are very similar words. Maybe it's equipment. Maybe it's niche down. Maybe it's searching keywords and then talking about that. And it's like on and on and on. And after a while, you're like, "I don't know what to think anymore. I'm not even thinking for myself." So you get on and you're like, "I've got all these great ideas and I've got so much to see in the world." And you get on and you're like, "I don't know what..." And then you have guests on too that might not be, they're highly intelligent, beautiful human beings, but maybe they're not speakers. Maybe they're not geared for this. Or maybe they have an agenda. Maybe they're just there to peddle their stuff and sell their things. So they're not really in the conversation. They're thinking about what their customers want, or this is some type of infomercial for them and stuff like that. So there's different aspects of it. So I do want to go into the goal sets. When I really kind of got, I was into it and I was off of it and I'm back into it now, but when I've got back in, I was like, "I got to figure out what's an ROI. How do you make money in this?" Because I wanted to self-sustain and pay for itself and all these different things. And I tore myself up and I actually to the point where I was like, "I wasn't even recording." I turned around and I'm like, "Oh my God, I haven't even recorded with anybody in like three weeks. What am I doing? Just stop." And then I just stopped myself and I'm like, "Wait a second. Do you like this? Yeah, I do like this. Do you have fun? Yes, I do have fun." Okay, maybe that's all it is right now. And something's going to come out of it. But we all want those. We all, not we all. I shouldn't speak for anybody. I would love a nice big following. That would be great because you know what that does? It gives me the market validation to go to another level to to invite some like, we'll call them high level guest and and have those, you know, and start creating that so that it does self-sustain and you get the invites and you get the other things. Now, I do want to, can I bring up what we talked about prior to the conversation about a little pay to play? Yeah, we can talk about it. Let's just make sure we don't use any names. No, absolutely not. So there's the side of this, this industry. So I do come back from the marketing world originally and I owned a small agency a number of years ago and there is the idea of marketing PR and it is a business, you know, publishers. It's it's a business agencies, booking agencies, you know, so when you see people like New York time and I'm not I'm not knocking anybody. There's there's authentic people that have organically achieved very, very high level. So this isn't a catch-all. This is what it does happen that there are a lot of people out there also trying to self-sustain their media, their outputs, their audiences. And there is a pay to play aspect of this environment, we'll say, if that's a fair way to intro it. And there'll be big names that have big followings and you and maybe you do, there are some pre-qualifiers or precursors that they do much to achieve and but you still pay to be on their channel or their podcast or maybe co-write a book or an article or, you know, there's some different in a run through quickly. There's some different companies that I talked to from marketing perspective. There was like a booking agency for podcasts and they're like, we'll book you on 30 podcasts or 40 podcasts or whatever it is. And it's a 15 grand, you know, so they're the booking agency. And it really was. It was like, whoa, okay, you know, that's it's interesting. If it was another one, it was like, it was about speaking in TEDx talks and, you know, we'll get you here and there and that's 16 grand. And you know, and those are real numbers. And then we'll talk to another group and be like, okay, well, it's a $5,000 entry and another $5,000 to do this. And it, you know, usually, and then there was another one that was a co-authoring type of situation and assigning and, you know, and a kind of a guarantee that there's New York, it's just time to seller, you know, aspects of it. And that was 10 grand, you know, so there is a sense of, there's a side of this industry, which I'll tie you to an earlier conversation in a second where I'm going with this, that you pay to play. But if you do, I believe there's a return. I personally haven't explored any of those to that extent. But there is an aspect of which I wanted to kind of tie back was, well, let me keep going. I was going to say was, if you, well, I was going to say your goals, what are your goals, you know, like if your goal is strictly to do that and just get to a heightened state of, I need a million followers because my real goal is this, I want to be able to leverage it, I want to be able to go on, maybe I want to sell the channel, maybe I want to have these other ideas. And then that is your goal. I'm not going to knock anybody, you know, if that's your goal, then, and you need to accelerate this to do that. If you're in a position to pay to play, then play to play, do it, you know, get on there and get and do those. I think there's the other aspect of like what we talked about is really having a human connection and organic. I think there's probably a way to do both. I'm still at a phase where I'm still learning that process. So that makes two of that. Let me let me let me turn the camera and I mean, on the mic back to you on, what are your thoughts on kind of that arena? Because you've been doing the podcasting for a while, you've done quite a few of these, even even with dozens and dozens, I think you're approaching about 100 episodes. If I'm a mistake, that's right. And I think it's very, very interesting the opportunities that come your way first and foremost, because a lot of these things that you think are so like once in a lifetime or so extraordinary, you find out that people are just people with deep pockets just pay to have these opportunities come to them. Yeah, yeah, they do. Yeah, I've had a lot of services who have called me with kind of the same opportunities of, you know, doing TEDx talks and I just want, oh my God, this is so exciting. Should I be saying yes? And then as I take two steps back, I go hold on, like, what is the real goal here? And if the real goal here is someone is trying to make me a sale or like someone is trying to sell me something that I might not be fully interested in. I think that's where you're at the crossroads of, I just want to do the things that I value the most. And yeah, the way that I've always talked about this platform is something that we built together to give people an awesome opportunity to come and share their stories. And that does not often mean that I have to go out there and do things that will just lend me on a list somewhere. So at the end of the day, I've just always thought about it as hey, maybe this is a great opportunity, but it's just not the right time. It's nice to know that they are out there. And if the right time comes, it's nice to know that you have context to reach out to to have the ability to do this. And I think too, there's a there's you, you didn't say it exactly, but what I was feeling was there's an instinct to it. You really kind of know what a deep level. There's always a desire. Absolutely. Do I want to be on the stage with somebody famous or just on their podcast? Absolutely. That sounds awesome. I mean, for sure, that sounds like a great time. But there's a really an instinct. It's kind of like, what's the is the monetary cost? Or is it? And I don't want to get lost in kind of the algorithms and things like that too, is what's the value of that? Is that I threw out the $10,000 marker? Is that value worth this one episode or this one article or things like that? And I'm going to sit here and say it's probably not, but maybe to somebody it is. So I mean, I'm not going to sway anybody's opinion or their path. There's a well known I think it's a thousand. I think it's kind of a thousand true fans. It's an article written by Kevin Kelly. And it's it's a very good article. It's not that long of a read. And it is about really, can you know, having your kind of or South Gordon talks about your tribe? You don't it's it's not about. I mean, here, again, somebody else might have a different goal. For me personally, it's not about collecting a million people that the algorithm has swept me by. That's cool. And I, you know, as my stuff grows and I'm consistent and I'm out there and I, you know, stay on my course, you know, when that stuff happens, super cool. Absolutely. Totally going to have fun with it. But you don't actually need that. I think I'm in and we're kind of talking to that person that, you know, that maybe is starting a podcast or you've been doing it for a little bit. I don't I just I think what I want to say to people is you don't don't get hung up on trying to overachieve yourself with that. You know, don't get because you might get burnt out from it. You know, so you you really a good following a good community, people that you're going to connect with on subject matter. You know, that's that's it. And so yeah, I don't I'll end that one. You know, I'll stop the conversation. Oh, that's the conversation, but I'll stop there with that. I love that one just because, you know, I was going to ask you for, hey, what's the advice that you would give to a new podcaster? And I feel like we're both at the same point where we just go, hey, the one biggest piece that I found to be the most beneficial, the greatest value to me is when rather than overthinking exactly what we're doing, it's hey, we just have to be consistent about getting the thing done. And at the end of the day, the details will take care of itself. Either it resonates or hey, what you're saying just doesn't have a big enough audience or people don't fully agree with you. And you just have to accept it for exactly what it is. Yeah, yeah. And the resonance will be there. I really do. I think that's, you know, that'll that'll come in time. And the audience and, you know, the connection point, you know, so yeah, and I don't want to, you know, there's there's you get in the groups and you compose and it really is there is a lot of energy and effort that it takes, you know, to to to grow a podcast channel just in general. So I love that. And I think that is the perfect message to end with. Hey, consistency is the name of the game. And I'm so, so excited. Based on your track record, based on who you are as a person and based on the goals that you have in place, which is just to have these insightful conversations that people appreciate and have an opportunity to learn from, I have no doubt that the platform will keep growing. And I'm so, so excited to see exactly where it goes. I love it. And yours too, man. I look forward to it. You're, you're crushing it. You're doing great. And the volume and the consistency is definitely there. So I, I do, I do appreciate what you're doing. Paul, I cannot wait until the next time we get to hit another one of these. Thank you so, so much for sharing your valuable time with me and our audience. Absolutely. Thank you.