The Small Business Safari

Conquering Small Business: Decision-Making Tools, Leadership Insights, and Generational Adventures

• Chris Lalomia, Alan Wyatt, Ian Hay • Season 4 • Episode 158

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Ready to conquer the wild terrain of small business ownership? Ian Hay joins us in this episode of Small Business Safari promises to arm you with critical decision-making tools and the concept of a "not-do list" to keep distractions at bay. We Emphasize the necessity of preparedness, organization, and relentless hard work. Dive into personal anecdotes and practical advice designed to help you stay focused and climb the ladder to success.

Ian Hay, an executive business coach with a robust background in government and disaster preparedness, shares his wealth of knowledge on the importance of education, strategic planning, and the power of leveraging connections. Our discussion touches on the influence of social circles, the significance of strong leadership, and the timeless wisdom of Winston Churchill's quotes. Ian's experience in American politics and high-level security offers a riveting perspective on leadership during challenging times, making this segment a masterclass in business coaching and entrepreneurial spirit.

Ian Hay:

The big key we do. What do we do? We help people and organizations make decisions faster. One of the fastest ways you can do that. What's on your not-do list? What are you not going to do?

Chris Lalomia:

Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Safari can get you to the mountain top. Alan, we got to get going again because I'm all about preparedness. I don't know about you, but I like to plan.

Alan Wyatt:

You're like a Boy Scout.

Chris Lalomia:

You know what?

Alan Wyatt:

Always be prepared. It's my motto. Chris, why are you so organized and so proactive? Why are you so?

Chris Lalomia:

I mean my God, you just make time slow down, just being around you, or I go by the seat of my flipping ass. There we go baby on fire always because we got to keep rocking every single day. I know you guys are in your truck. You're probably driving around. You've probably seen what's going on. Go out there, man, you're probably sweating. If you're here in the southeast, you've probably been sweating for like forever. And they keep talking about global warming and I keep saying no, no, no, not happening. As I sit here just sweating balls off. I mean I'm in, I'm in seriously swamp ass, not in the podcast, but I'm just like out there in the business doing the thing you know I'm saying get a river a lot of flowing down the crack.

Alan Wyatt:

It's bad, it's bad.

Chris Lalomia:

But you know, what we do is we try to cool it all back down.

Alan Wyatt:

That's what is that what we're?

Chris Lalomia:

doing. No, uh, we're bringing the heat up. Man, because you want to make something happen, you gotta have a little swamp ass, you gotta make it happen. That's what I think. Sometimes people don't realize that every once in a while you gotta sweat it out a little bit. Make something happen. Business is not easy, man. That's the problem, everything's. Hey, I got a great idea. I'm gonna be an influencer, or you know what? I just saw this guy. He's making a million dollars. I'm going to do the same thing, and I'm going to, because he's killing it. And guess what? Everybody, they ain't killing it, they are not killing it.

Chris Lalomia:

I just got in talking to two of my interns this summer here in Atlanta. They are the. That's what I do. I get cheap labor and I beat the living hell out of them.

Chris Lalomia:

I use my damn adult, and you think I don't have one. I have a damn adult. He does have a damn adult, I do. And I swung it at him today. I let him know use. I said so. I brought him in. I said all right, guys, here's what you got to do.

Chris Lalomia:

Um, don't start a business, number one, no kidding. I said if you want to start a business, be smart, use people that will willing to give you information right, and so the thing I was telling them is I did on LinkedIn. Now you're 20 years old, you're in college, you guys are going to finish your four year degrees. Here's what I told them and don't tell their parents. I'm like I don't care if you finish school. In fact, if you want to quit, do it. But you better have a really good damn idea about what you want to do and make it happen. You better have a business plan. You better know your shit. You better get it all figured out and you can do that. Or you can sit there and finish your last year in college.

Chris Lalomia:

Get your degree. You got the piece of paper. It's in your pocket great way to go. And the whole time you're doing it, you're thinking about these things because when you're in college, the you're the average of the five people you meet. Check this out, jim rohn said it you're the average of the five people you meet. I said so. He can be your fraternity buddy you love partying with him. He can be your football buddy, because you love watching football with him. Or he can be the guy who's at the library making things happen. Or he can be the guy who is thinking man. I think I got a great idea for a business. I'm thinking about putting this business plan together.

Alan Wyatt:

Maybe I should work with this dude. What do you think of that? I think you're so excited. I'm trying to figure out. Why is it because of our guest? I?

Chris Lalomia:

am because I'm like, well, I'm probably hasn't taken his pills like he should. I mean I'm off the ad, yeah, yeah, what do I get? What do I take? I can't remember. It's so bad. I am uh adderall, that's what it is. No, actually I'm not even on it. I should be you don't have time to say add it's just, I can't, I just do ad, I should, I should. I've moved it down. So no, I'm excited because we have a great guest, a guy who has folks, we have a guest in studio.

Alan Wyatt:

What, yeah, we do. Oh, did I? I didn't bring him up today? No, you didn't, I know, and he's one of these guys. We should probably say what he does first, because we're going to get into the backstory, which looks epic the, the.

Chris Lalomia:

The backstory is beyond epic. Everybody hold on. You're in a car, you're driving you're walking.

Alan Wyatt:

I have a feeling sometimes our listeners are like where are they going? Where are they going, yeah, so we should probably tell them all right.

Chris Lalomia:

So the end is he's an executive business coach, but he's not exactly like the others, because I'll tell you why. This guy has seen shit, this guy has done shit and he brought a backpack of liquor oh, by that too. But no, he also. We're going to talk security clearance, shit. We're going to talk about high level stuff. We're going to talk about disaster preparedness. We're going to talk about how in the hell did you actually start a business and start a foundation in the most bureaucratic thing in the possible world and that's the american politics in the system? I am so shocked this guy came out of there, because when I met the guy and then he told me his background, I'm like no, that's impossible, there's no way you worked in american. Uh, so he. So he is right here we could should we introduce him.

Chris Lalomia:

Let's do it. I, ian Hay, is in the house. Baby Ian Hay, I love his email.

Alan Wyatt:

I love talking to him. You will never get the same introduction again.

Chris Lalomia:

You will never get that one, Ian. Welcome to the show, baby.

Ian Hay:

It is delightful to be here. You are correct. I will never get an introduction like that, and this is now why I understand they call it the adventure team. Well, at the adventure team.

Alan Wyatt:

Well, and you see what my role is, I got to just bring Chris down, because sometimes he's just going off like a Roman camp.

Ian Hay:

And yet he really said probably the most important thing that we'll get to, at least in the beginning, which is certain. Look, I'm trying to be polite man.

Chris Lalomia:

Give me a break here. He invited me. Can you suck up to the host a little bit?

Ian Hay:

Give me a little suck up, hey, okay, this is a no suck up environment. Here we go, um, no, uh. Sir winston churchill said you know, do what you like, but like what you do, and that is the number one quote I say to people when I'm doing career coaching. We're not going to talk about that yet. However, that is a big quote do what you like, but like what you do. And so if you're following your passion, then magic things happen and you're actually able to create an organization that interfaces with government and private sector. And that's what we're here to talk about right.

Alan Wyatt:

Yeah, not everything that come out of that man's mouth just become gold. Churchill, oh my God, I know you just read Churchill quotes all day long.

Chris Lalomia:

I love his Churchill. You know I don't. I don't hate in, I hate. I don't hate action, I hate inaction. He says something like that and I put that in my book. Of course I quoted a lot better because I can't remember it or at the top of my head, but I love that because you're right, this dude and he, he took a country that was absolutely in total tatters, getting hammered from all sides, and brought them together, galvanized them and made it happen.

Alan Wyatt:

I mean, there's a leader you're gonna follow and then after the war, he didn't get re-elected. Did you know that? Yeah, isn't that amazing, right? Well, because my favorite one now he's got very pithy ones, but it wasn't.

Ian Hay:

It wasn't he who the woman said you're drunk lady aster, do you want me to do it or you're welcome? No, you please take it. So, uh, quotes have always been a big deal for me and churchill the tops, and absolutely same political environment, right, that environment which was anti-war, blah, blah, blah. Then goes on and they win the war and they save the world, right. Of course other people get into stuff. The us comes in and finish that. We help, but man, did they hold them off for a?

Ian Hay:

long time and that's my point is that I'm a dual hatter. You know, my parents are both from britain. I was born in boston, cradle of liberty. So back to the quote which is famous. So, lady, lady, aster, uh, there were two of them. One is winston, I care not for your politics, oh, or your mustache. And he says well, frankly, dear, you won't come into contact with either, oh my God, thank God he did.

Chris Lalomia:

Now he could do an English accent.

Ian Hay:

Hold on, Hold on. We're not done oh let's keep going. The second one which you may have been referring to, which is Winston. If I were your wife, I would put poison in your tea, he says.

Alan Wyatt:

My dear, if you were your wife, I would put poison in your tea. He says my dear, if you were my wife, I would drink it. That is not the quote.

Chris Lalomia:

Oh, that's great. Are you really going to correct the English Just because you're English? He's first generation.

Alan Wyatt:

I'm loving it. No, there was somebody and it was probably the same person who said you're drunk, Go ahead, Take it, because you got the accent I don't believe that that's true, you don't think it's church I think it is, it's irish, I don't think, I don't, can't remember.

Ian Hay:

If it's james joyce, we should probably quickly google it.

Alan Wyatt:

But uh, because this is gonna go to 15 story, because I didn't, because it's wrong. We are intergalactic, but I think you go with drunk I, yes, I am, but tomorrow morning I'll be sober and you'll still be ugly 100%.

Chris Lalomia:

That's the line. That's the quote. Can I hear it in an English accent Please?

Ian Hay:

What's the opener? Something like you're drunk, well, madam, I may be. However, in the morning I'll be sober. You're ugly, however, in the morning I may be, however, in the morning I'll be sober, you're ugly. However, in the morning I'll be sober and you'll still be ugly.

Chris Lalomia:

Beautiful. You two are cracking me up. All right, guys. We're here to learn, we're here to love. We're here to have some fun while we're doing this, right? So Ian Hay in the house talking about some great stuff. Let's get into this stuff. So today he's an executive business coach, helping people in small business, but also medium business, and so we're not going to talk about his security clearance we're gonna go back and we're not going to talk about his grandfather accepting the surrender of a u-boat.

Alan Wyatt:

German u-boat commander here, no, from a plane I'm sorry guys, that's going to be the next episode.

Chris Lalomia:

Nice tease, hey, who's on the radio? Here, bro, it's called a radio tease.

Alan Wyatt:

A radio tease, you are out of control. Radio trying to bring it down. You know I'm, it's a way on the plane all right, here we go all right, you know what you're like a helicopter.

Ian Hay:

You lost a rotor, you're just spinning no, no, no, we're not doing that, that. That that's not good. He just basically is he's tapping off the deck.

Chris Lalomia:

All right, we're coming in the air and go and go baby, let's go around.

Chris Lalomia:

I feel like I'm a touch and go guy. I'm a touch and go, let's do that. Can we continue? All right, ladies, let's keep going. All right, ian Hay in the house. So Ian has an incredible background. So, ian, first generation British, born here, as you said, to cradle liberty. You're very proud of your boston heritage. Um, unfortunately I hate all of your sports teams, but we'll continue later. You're welcome. And because I know I used to remember when the patriots sucked and I was so happy because I was a lions fan devoted of all my life were you not cheering for the red socks when shillings socks were bleeding through?

Alan Wyatt:

come on, all right a little bit.

Chris Lalomia:

I was, I'll give you that. But I'm also a tigers fan today. You know, living here in atlanta, I'm a falcons and a braves guy. I got brave season tickets, so, um, but it's really, it's the patriots. Yeah, I actually in the celtics, uh, we had the piston celtics hatred too. And then, uh, and then hockey, which is what I grew up on, and I had the red wings and, uh, you were the bruins and of course I had to hate you and we're original six.

Ian Hay:

We're lovers, not haters it's og.

Chris Lalomia:

I mean it's og, absolutely og. And when they went to, when they went down, it was like, yeah, let's fight it. You know what? And they all get to. What's hilarious is that you hear these stories is that they had those knockdown drag out. You think, oh my god, they hate each other. Now they're all at the bar together at the end. I love hockey players the best. All right, let's get back to you. So, ian, today you're a business coach. You've had an incredible arc and career. So here you are, coming out of high school. What did you want to do with your life?

Ian Hay:

So it's funny because I was originally going to go into the military and because that was the family business. Right, we're either doing textiles in India, where my grandfather was born, or we're all teachers or we've been in the military. And what's funny is the. You know the quick family history is on the Hay side. We rescued King Alpine from the Vikings and so we are. Our family crest has got three blood red shields because a father and two brothers bled. So that's the, that's the quick. Uh, you know my dad's side of the family.

Ian Hay:

We were personal bodyguards Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, secret Service of Scotland, essentially my mother's side. My grandfather, yes, is the only RAF officer ever to be surrendered to by a German U-boat commander. You know, usually they were surrendered over the run aground U-boat and he says, hey, booney, you got to go take this guy's surrender. And he goes out on a skiff and does so. And there's a little plaque at Hereford Air Force Base that you know notes this. And of course that was my grandfather. Just a natural, heroic SOB, just that's the way he was right was a spitfire pilot, got injured in france, commanded air bases in iran, iran, egypt it's fire such a badass plane so grand grandparents all saved in england.

Chris Lalomia:

Your parents came to the uh states. Why so uh?

Ian Hay:

you know they came. They came here to find adventure. I mean, they came here because they just felt that pull. My dad was told by his best friend, donald, the research money is here. It's so much better than in Britain. I've got a very funny story about how those two met dealing with rat poop. However, my mom she and her best friend decided to come over. At that point, harvard was looking for English-speaking secretaries. They loved that. Right, you guys loved the accent. Hello, they wanted that accent when somebody dialed their office and my mother actually that's what you need.

Chris Lalomia:

I need that accent. You do I know Because you always make fun of me for my fake Southern accent. So bad.

Alan Wyatt:

Have you heard his fake?

Ian Hay:

I know you heard his fake. You know, I know I have about 20 podcasts, yeah, nice. Now look, I mean, during the g8 summit, I called my dad and you know his accent had declined massively. However, what I picked up was my father was ian. Is that you, like? My own father is asking me because I picked, picked up the you know South Georgia boy? Hey, you know, we're just going down to the clam shack and you know it just gets.

Chris Lalomia:

I still feel like I can do it, but again I've been accused of being Canadian because I'm from Michigan. You got that? Northern Michigan. Yeah, I don't see it at all. I don't know what the hell is going on. You know what I'm saying? Let's go get some donuts, yeah, some beers.

Alan Wyatt:

A little bit. Okay.

Chris Lalomia:

Yeah, you hoser, oh tim hortons, I you know I had uh, so back to uh.

Alan Wyatt:

You know they're opening tim hortons here in atlanta, yeah yeah, so do you know who tim horton was?

Chris Lalomia:

no, no, he's a hockey player from canada. Yeah and uh, he started tim horton's chain and he died in a car accident. So tim hortons in canada is revered, right, I mean, you eat there because you honor his legacy. But, um, what's funny is I? Uh, I'm out, I'm in a networking event. Lady comes up. I'm like, hey, how you doing she goes. Yeah, yeah, how you doing. Yeah, yeah, I love your show. I'm like, uh, so I'm on the radio.

Alan Wyatt:

You know, I'm doing that, right oh, so now you don't know which show. I know because I bet which show. No, no, I listen to your podcast. I'm like pompous.

Chris Lalomia:

She goes. I just think you're going to really like this. She goes. My son was born here in the South and I heard him playing video games with his friend and he says you're such a hoser. I said, oh, I'm such a fan. I said, of course. I said I love that she goes. I know I had to go look it up because I thought how I didn't know how bad it was. I said it's not that, come on, it's easy one. She goes no, it's really bad in canada. I'm like no, I was there when it happened. It's okay, you're, you're fine. So, all right, back to ian, shall we?

Alan Wyatt:

thank you, alan was sorry, I was taking a drink. Thanks for the timing of that was that?

Ian Hay:

was that? Was that enough of a teaser for some of the background we talked about? I do like that. So one thing I really wanted to say is that we're here thanks to the greatness of networking. So, even though I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do coming out of high school or college, I knew that it was going to be related to people. It was going to be somehow how do I touch and impact other people? And so what's funny is we're here because of my, my buddy, michael Goldberg, uh, who runs the networking group, and we met in Boston, fast friends, you know, in a networking event.

Ian Hay:

I think it was a American society for training and development. We became fast friends. Here we are fast forward. I get Chris, uh, at a table twice and I'm like this dude's a storyteller, I, I gotta hang around and we're just, you know, going back and forth and that's why I'm just he's a lot of so thrilled to be here, um, but that's that's the reason, right, and you know, for your, for your listeners, uh, it's about golden nuggets. What, what can we give you quickly that you can put into your life today? And so I've got one.

Alan Wyatt:

So let me tell you just a quick, a little bit about me this might be the earliest golden nugget we've ever dropped, because I think most of our listeners have to wait till like minute 38. And also boom, boom, boom we're going.

Ian Hay:

Boom, boom, let's go gold nugget dna you got to put it up front, right, so, uh, just quickly. So my, my organization is winning discipline, and I'll explain more about that. However, the big key we do. What do we do? We help people and organizations make decisions faster. One of the fastest ways you can do that what's on your not-do list? What are you not going to do? If you have things that you're not going to do Not going to do or don't want?

Alan Wyatt:

to do.

Ian Hay:

Well, it's more not what I'm not going to do. So let me explain that. So this, this kind of concept I mean obviously the concept of not do list has been out there. But I'm sitting there and I'm working I've worked at home for over 25, 30 years and I realized, huh, I keep cleaning the kitchen counter again and again after every meal, every time to get a coffee, whatever and I realized, you know what? I'm just going to do it once after breakfast and then once in the evening when I'm done with dinner, and the amount of time that I save myself is probably about 30, 40 minutes a day. Okay, now, what am I going to do with that 40 minutes? So what could potentially be on your not do list? Well, I'm not going to get upset about a call I had with somebody who was off base and they're going to do uh, maybe I'm running late. I'm 15 minutes late to a live podcast. I'm just not going to carry that into my next it's a hypothetical.

Chris Lalomia:

We were going to call him out on it, but yeah, he was. But you know he brought liquor, so we quickly forgave him, didn't we?

Ian Hay:

and I was the moment I knew you know what actually?

Chris Lalomia:

that's exactly right. That's the gold nugget as well. I'm with you. The do not list, I love that. But you told us and you're like all right, everybody calm back down. Because alan's like, hey, um, I had to get out of here. So he texted his family and said hey, you know I might be a couple minutes late. Awesome, thank you, it was all goodness and I was that's. When you came in, I was like all right, everybody calm down, let's relax. But you know, if you just tell people when shit happens, hey look, this just happened and it's not that bad and it's about communication and it's about crystal clear communication.

Ian Hay:

Right, because?

Ian Hay:

Alan's very uptight and so I, you know, maybe we'll make this screen cap public. But here I am talking to my Uber driver because there was no way I was driving, I knew what I was bringing. So I'm planning ahead, right, and I have this screen capture, which is it doesn't seem like you're moving and we're kind of getting to your four questions at the end. But basically I'm telling the person I'm under a tight timeline and they're telling me I got to pump gas and I'm like you got to be kidding me, and so what did I do? Immediately, send a communication that's crystal clear. Here's my known ETA, here's what I'm doing next.

Ian Hay:

And you're going to feel the Homeland Security and what we call the incident command system come into this right, because incident command system ICS is all about how do I organize, how do I manage my resources, how do I manage my personnel? So I'm just like, all right, I'm clearly going to be late. I was going to be here 20 minutes ahead of time. Now I've communicated. When I'm on the road, hit Chris again when I'm at the gate. I said I'm at the gate so you guys knew exactly where I was in time and space. And imagine if you are a, you know a military unit that's in a forward area, you want to know when the cavalry is coming or air support is coming. If you are a, you know fire personnel. You want to know when that second, when that second truck is coming, because you're outgunned right and so the best thing you can do is have crystal clear communication.

Chris Lalomia:

Wow that's two golden nuggets. That's two, and we aren't even out of minute five, bro, oh my god, where are we gonna go? All right, let's get back to it. So that's two gold nuggets, right?

Alan Wyatt:

uh, oh my god, not do this why do you think people have such a hard time with that, though? Because it seems so intuitive to me that just deliver the news whether it's bad, as soon as you have it, because all that, all that time people have to wonder what's going on, just spins them out of control. Can you imagine just keeping chris in the dark at how deep into the ceiling he would have twisted himself, and, and I don't understand why, other people just think I'm deep in dark.

Alan Wyatt:

I'm talking Joker, shit that's right, You're painting your face slowly. I'm painting the face. I'm cutting the bandana on your head. Oh my God.

Chris Lalomia:

Sharpening the knife, like Rambo, when he comes in, I'm just going to take him right out. I'm just going to cut his legs off.

Ian Hay:

He's going to with hey, sugar right and uh, thank you for stealing my stuff. So my mentor, derrick rowan, ceo of eccentra uh, basically they do training and exercises at the highest level and he says bad news never improves with time oh, you know, bad news never improves with time.

Chris Lalomia:

Hey, ian, next time we're at a networking event and I go hey, I just had this great epiphany. And I say, yeah, dude, separate fruits of time. You're gonna say what?

Ian Hay:

no, no, I told you that that's my favorite no, I'm just gonna say, attribute it to derrick and we're all good man.

Alan Wyatt:

Oh then, we're cut, we're covered. Baby, right, let's go. Hey, derrick. So is it really stealing? If it's not really stealing from the person you stole it from, is that what you're thinking? I don't know, I still love where this is going.

Chris Lalomia:

Yeah, I steal a lot, so let's continue. I think borrow is a better term.

Ian Hay:

Bad news Not quite liberating. Never improves. We're not liberating it, but oh I love that line, man.

Chris Lalomia:

Oh, oh, my God, soak that one in Rewind that sucker, and bring it back in. Bad news never improves with time. I know you've heard it, I repeated it and I'm going to steal it All, right, ian. So time, I know you've heard it, I repeated it and I'm gonna steal it all, right, ian. So I want to go back this. You're 17, you're 18, mom, dad, and you said mom, I checked that out. Uh, so they say you gotta go to college or you're like no, it's actually funny.

Ian Hay:

my dad was concerned I wasn't gonna get into college. Nice, well, you know, he was like the british system is so different and that's really you know. Both my parents kind of were hands off in my education, but he kept getting swept up right In the British system you keep taking the cream off the top. And so he had this accelerated path to London University. He actually wrote his PhD, I think in a year and a half or under two years got it done. It's ridiculous that he found a protein that every dental student has to know Stathron. Hmm, you want to know when? I found this out At his memorial.

Chris Lalomia:

I was about to say Wow. Somebody else right Somebody else? Oh my God, that of my dad Total English right 100%. Are you amazing? No, I just. I live here Incredibly talented.

Alan Wyatt:

What's that? Your english accent I?

Chris Lalomia:

can't even do that either. I could do. I connect with canadian russian, yeah, I know, but I love that okay well, in michigan it's almost russia, right after canada. It's almost russian. Yeah, close enough, all right. So. So you found that out, right. So here you go. Your dad's a phd, your ma's out there kicking the ass. They moved here. Did you have any siblings?

Ian Hay:

nope all right, all the eggs were in one basket.

Chris Lalomia:

Oh, the only child alan, he's special, we have a lot to unpack, but we can't do that here because that's this podcast. Um, although, can we find a way to weave some true crime shit into this, because that's the number one genre, and I just told my dentist that this morning because all the hygienists were circling around going, hey, you have a podcast? I'm like I do, but it's not, it's business. They're like oh, it's not true crime. So I'm like no, I'm like damn it.

Alan Wyatt:

I mean, do we want to start a false rumor? We should. But anyway, back to you.

Ian Hay:

You had all the cops show up. What was the firewood and the rest of these guys? I'm like it's fantastic, leroy Hite from.

Chris Lalomia:

Coney oh my gosh Dude. Hey, when he said that, the mental image of him as a small business owner, I mean only because I've had the cops not raid me, of course. Thank you everybody. We are now officially in true crime this time this time.

Chris Lalomia:

But yeah, but yeah, he talked about that. I was yeah, but um, yeah, he talked about that. I was like, oh my god, how do you get out of that? Going back to that yeah, listen that leroy hike cutting edge talked about, by the way, I got a shout out to you, chris, because you bought me a box of leroy's cutting edge firewood I did. You know what? Leroy needs to give a shit out because I didn't get one flippant discount. He saw my house and he went huh, this guy's paying full price.

Alan Wyatt:

Yeah, but it was awesome did you actually open yours up yet?

Chris Lalomia:

I have. I well, I had troy, try it, my buddy troy oh, you had other people do it for you yeah, there seems to be a pattern. Thank you, uh, because I can't, I don't want to light my own fire. Come on, baby, I cooked a paella this weekend and did you.

Alan Wyatt:

I used it because it's and it's like super kiln dry. Yeah, did it work? It worked amazing, because I it was so wet this weekend and I've got all these piles of oak and hickory and stuff and I was really having a hard time getting the fire going. I'm like, wait a minute, I've got this cutting edge firewood come on, yeah, and you open up the box and you've got all these and one of them's branded on the top. Yeah, it's cool, so smart. But then there's kindling, and then there's matches, and then there's a magnet and there's I mean, it's so well put together. It's kind of like the firewood equivalent of the first time you opened a, an iphone box, you know, and you're like, oh, you know what I mean.

Chris Lalomia:

I went somewhere else, but okay, yeah moving on to uh.

Alan Wyatt:

That's a preparedness that's gonna be a playboy, yeah yeah, that's what you owe me for that one.

Ian Hay:

Chris, I'm here to help, thank you, so let me out of that one, so bottom line is I finally got?

Chris Lalomia:

the call going and then.

Alan Wyatt:

But the thing to pie is you got to go hot heat and then moderate heat and then you finish strong with hot heat. Yeah, right, and so you need? You need to turn on a dime and I used all leroy's wood to manage the fire. Boom, boom. Awesome, paella, did it really?

Chris Lalomia:

oh, let's go get the socarata. Oh, we fist bumped on that one. Yeah, can we go back to ian?

Ian Hay:

yeah, he didn't come here to listen, I was actually going to segue to, since we're talking about fire, the one of the greatest things I ever heard. This is post katrina, and we're trying to figure out hey, what? What are the lessons learned here? And, uh, I'll never forget it. This again don't live in a flood plain. Well, we there, there are, but you'll, you'll get two golden nuggets on this one. So one is again my mentor, derek Rowan. Uh, they're chatting with a high level chief and he says hey, what? Uh, you know what chainsaw do you standardize on? He says perfect, pregnant, pause. I've never had an ax. Not start on me. Ah, I love it. And so one of the big things that came out of katrina was put a crowbar and an axe in your attic. And so I have that. And again, it doesn't have to because because of a flood. But my house is on fire and the fastest way out is through the roof. I can do it, but if you don't have those tools, if you're not prepared for it, you can't love it.

Alan Wyatt:

Oh crap, you said there were two nuggets. That was it. Oh, because I, because I had a nugget.

Ian Hay:

I've never had an ax not start on me Right, right, right One. Go with the ax Number two put it in your attic.

Chris Lalomia:

Put it in your attic. Yeah, no, I got it. Oh yeah, oh, my God, I don't have an ax in my attic because that's how we get things done in my executive coaching firm.

Ian Hay:

Oh, you just held us accountable. You held us accountable. All right, what you'll be hearing from me on saturday? Hey guys, it's new and are you done yet?

Alan Wyatt:

axe time you know, I've got a whole bunch of axes in there, although if I haven't- really do.

Chris Lalomia:

If I have an axe in my attic, how do I get out?

Alan Wyatt:

because I'm up there and uh, it's a long way down. You have somebody else make the hole for you, and then you, you'd rather be on the roof than you would be in the fire fair oh, I'll give you that one.

Chris Lalomia:

Oh, he's got me on that one, damn it. I hate these preparedness guys. You know they're so smart, all right, so let's go back. So you're 18, you're 17, you're 18, your dad's a genius and of course you're trying to live up to that, which we never can, um, but you're like, and he's like oh, son, I'm not really sure you're gonna be able to even make it to college. Thanks, dad, for the support.

Ian Hay:

So now, what well? Thanks, mom was there, right, and my mother was actually smarter than him. Uh, genius in language, high school dropout, uh, and yet ends up locking up an ibm selectric at harvard. So the ibm sales rep is like that can never be done. You can't lock up the right little, the little silver ball that types on the on the typewriters. Oh no, jen, I'm gen xing it right now. Baby, big dog, you are right yourself do you alan?

Chris Lalomia:

alan often says, hey, you bring in really young, uh good looking people and we're like today we got ian who is part of our men's hair club, and so we love that. Oh yeah, thank you. Uh, so obviously we we're not old, we're seasoned, as we've found out, like the rose firewood. So, all right, explain what this was.

Ian Hay:

So it's the for the, for you know, for those of you that never have used a typewriter, uh it was. It had a silver ball that would rotate quickly, right, it's called the ibm selectric and of course, uh, american, uh, secretarial school had a certain rate of words per minute and the british secretarial school was higher and of course the ibm was set on the american version. And she locks the thing up and so the, the ibm sales rep that's impossible, I got to see it. So he comes into the office, watches her lock it up three times and realizes, hey guys, we got to upgrade our speed Because there are people that can lock it up.

Ian Hay:

Holy crap and completely crazy. And this is just the story of my life, it's just a natural thing. She's working for dr carpenter, who studied ants in amber, right, like jurassic park level ants in amber, in amber. So you got all these insects that are right, that are trapped in amber, and they study them, and of course it gets, gets internationally known, maybe even the aliens, right, even the aliens are on this one, and so it's just been a crazy.

Chris Lalomia:

Well, we are intergalactic in our podcast, so I'm sure it's going out. I know that I for a fact. I know that for a fact because I've already had something. All right, so she's doing that kind of research. Yep, so you're in that household. Oh yeah, holy crap, hola. So it's all right. So you have to go to college, you have to get a PhD, you have to be like mom and dad. You're the only child you've got to be at.

Ian Hay:

You're our only one and go do it. I mean, you said we're the average of five people. Right, that five people? We know I'm the average of two. One's a dropout, one's a PhD, so I'm right in the middle. You know, doing it exactly my way, which is really the greatest gift my parents gave me is that they let me do things my way. It didn't sit with them at different times of life. However, I followed the lead from Churchill.

Ian Hay:

I love what I do, no matter what it is, whether it's executive coaching, preparedness, doing, you know, these COVID deployments that I've done. And so I I come out of, you know, come out of college, and the first job I had was as a sales trainer. So I go work cutlery my good buddy of mine, my best friend now, angela simo, and, uh, I'm an office, you know, office personnel within four to six weeks. And this is where you know, we'll come back to my favorite book, which is seven habits of highly effective people, dr. Because he talks about holy ground, and that's what my, that is really what my firm and my life is about. What is it like? Just like the three of us, we are here on holy ground. This is sacred ground. There's a lot of learning going on, and so I'll never forget the first sales rep I sit down with. He's selling 60 bucks a week and we work together for 40 minutes, and next week he sells 600, and you're like wow, life altering.

Chris Lalomia:

You're like dude I found my calling right like life altering, All right what'd you tell him?

Alan Wyatt:

I made fire. What'd you tell this guy?

Ian Hay:

I just, basically, I had him do his presentation. I then showed him my presentation. I said pick three, do these three things. And he comes back and of course, I mean he was ear to ear, he is completely ear to ear on the success that he's had and so, yeah, that's addictive, right. And again, it wasn't what I did, it's what he did with what I did, and so I didn't have to take, you know, credit for that. And I think that that happens a lot. And it goes back to the discussion we were having. Like, these things, you know, seem intuitive If you're going to be late, you communicate. If something's going to happen, you do whatever. Don't take credit for other people's success, right, I will never know the things that I say, you guys will never know, but it seems like you had a teacher's heart coming out of college.

Alan Wyatt:

No, wait a minute, let's pause on that. Don't take other people's success. No, I want to screw that.

Chris Lalomia:

Hey guys, that's this podcast. Baby, hey, you want to listen to this podcast. You want to get ahead, steal everything that these guys are saying and call it your own and rock and roll with it. And Ian's going to say, gosh, that's awesome. And and Alan's going to go hey, I told you that. So hang around with Ian, not Alan. What I'm kidding?

Ian Hay:

All right. So basically, what I'm going to say is liberally borrow and attribute and you can do the same thing, right? I mean, thomas Jefferson said you can't own an idea, so let's share that idea. But you know back where you know. Here we are on holy ground. You guys will never know what you've said. That's going to impact somebody. It's going to make a major difference in their business.

Alan Wyatt:

I do. I do love that and I love the fact that our listeners regularly reach out to Chris and it just you know cause. Then suddenly you know, hey, there's somebody really out there on the other end of this mic and you are making an impact in people's lives.

Chris Lalomia:

Yeah, I know it's been super cool.

Alan Wyatt:

And the fact that you actually spend time with every single person that reach out. I do. I don't want to open a wormhole here. No, do it, I tell you anybody right?

Chris Lalomia:

Chris, at the Trusted Toolbox, check me out. Chrislalamiacom 100%. If you call me, I will absolutely give you 30 minutes because, to Ian's point, I wouldn't say I had a teacher's heart, necessarily. But one thing I figured out was that I got into business and I didn't ask enough questions. I had a whole mentor group. I mean, I put together what I felt was my board of directors, but I was afraid to ask people in the business I was going into. And, as I found out and I do this any day of the week I'm a handyman remodeling company. If you're in the handyman remodeling space and you're here in Atlanta, call me, I'll show you my books because, bro, this is a hard business, business is hard, life is hard, and if I can help you get ahead, there's plenty for all of us to go around doing it the right way, and that's the huge thing. And so that's the biggest part. And so, as we do this podcast, that's why we're doing this, trying to help people get themselves accelerated, because I think small business ownership is one of the greatest gifts I will have ever.

Chris Lalomia:

You know, I talked about this with the kids today. You know, I was 37. I was more afraid of being 60 years old, not knowing if I could ever do it on my own. Than I was being 60 years old, not knowing if I could ever do it on my own. Than I was of being 60 years old and being the CEO of a bank in Southeast Georgia and I was like no, I'm not doing that. I want to see if I can do it. Have I done it? I don't know, we'll see, but I really love the adventure and I love sharing this with everybody on the podcast. So let's keep rolling.

Ian Hay:

And it kind of gets to your original question, alan, which is why this intuitive thing People don't want to tell truth to power, right? People don't want to give people bad news, when actually the bad news is what frees you, so it sets you free, and so it's certainly in my business. If we're in the middle of COVID and I've got some bad news, it doesn't help for me to not tell you what it is. And there were tons of. You know, if you go into government, there are tons of people who are really concerned about telling truth to power.

Chris Lalomia:

All right, we got to go in there. That's where I'm dying to. Are we open the door? You've done it.

Ian Hay:

The door is open now.

Chris Lalomia:

You're right, cut coat cutlery which, by the way, I own them because my three doors down neighbor's son came to me and I made him pitch me. Man, I made him work hard. Did he cut the rope? He did he cut the rope, he cut the can, he, uh, he did the whole thing. He was awesome and, uh, god rest his soul. Unfortunately he's passed away. I love this kid, um, but we got Cutco. I know it's horrible, I don't want to bring it down, so let's keep going, but you're in Cutco.

Ian Hay:

How the hell did you get in the most bureaucratic thing in the possible world and that's the US government and figure out a way to do it entrepreneurially. We allowed to swear Hell yeah, shit. I raised my hand. I mean, where do I come from? I come from Massachusetts, that's not the volunteer state.

Ian Hay:

No, but I've got one, I've got one. I've got one hardcore Republican parent and one one blue parent, right. And so I'm in the middle, and yet JFK is my president. What can you do for your country? Right, ask not what you can do. Well, that's not what your country can do for you. What can you do for your country? How old were you then? So when, with JFK? Yeah, he was gone before I, born in, born in 69. Okay, thank God. Right, so we land on the moon. There's no way you're that old. However, thanks to him, we land on the moon and safely return our astronauts to the earth. People forget about the second half of that quote. Right, which is the most important part Going there is great, but if we can't get back, what are we doing? And so, anyway, that's what I felt.

Ian Hay:

I saw that, you know I was actually. I had a coffee. I had a New York. I worked for a company called Cable Express in Syracuse. I had that coffee cup to my lips as I watched the second plane hit the tower, second tower, and I just was like you got to be kidding me and that was a. That was a tough moment.

Ian Hay:

I knew we were under attack. You know, I had barely known about. I knew about bin Laden thanks to John Miller at ABC interviewing him, and Steve I can't remember Steve's name right now, but he's at foreign policy and he had also done an interview and I know both of them. So I just realized that our country was outgunned. And I walked up to the chief security officer of the state of Georgia and I said what can I do? And he goes oh, this is a great time to get involved. I'm like fantastic. I said I've never served in the military, I've never been in law enforcement. He's like no, no, no, come to my office. So we set this up and, gosh, I hope he's okay with me telling the story. So he hands me a business card. I look on the back of it and it's got somebody else's information on it. Oh, my gosh. So I immediately call his voicemail, leave that. I write, send an email with all those details, just because he might need this, he might need this for a 7am meeting. Who knows? I do that. And uh, it clearly set the tone.

Ian Hay:

And so I go into this meeting Tuesday. I'm dressed casual because it's Georgia technology authority and uh, he says, ian, we're not going into uh, we're not going into a. Uh, we're not going to lunch, we're going into a. We're not going to lunch, we're going into a. We're going into a Homeland Security meeting and my I mean you, just like you guys did my eyes are the size of saucers. Yeah, my eyes are bigger. Am I am? Am I dressed appropriately? What the what?

Ian Hay:

And so I go into this meeting and it is surrounded by some of the great Atlanta leaders in business, and he says Ian, 80 by some of the great Atlanta leaders in business, and he says Ian, 80% of the critical infrastructure in this country is based in the private sector. 20% are tasked with defending it. If we don't have a working relationship, it's never going to work. Now, what I didn't know then that I know now is that Bob was an espionage agent in Vietnam and of 100 recruits that were in intelligence in the Army, 98 went to counterterrorism, two went to espionage. So I essentially got groomed as an asset from go.

Chris Lalomia:

Oh my God, that's awesome. What a great story. Guys, I know we're coming to the end. This is starting to get so good and it's killing me because we have so much more to talk about. So, ian, fast forward. You got into Homeland Security. How did you bring the entrepreneurial spirit that you have and what you brought to what you've done? And that's the FEMA response and the Southeast and all that stuff.

Ian Hay:

So I think that the biggest thing that I wanted to bring was equality, and this is in my congressional. I testified on the fifth anniversary of 9-11. And the you know the opening paragraph is about we can't have a have and have not world. You can't have somebody who gets better information because they pay for it and the other folks out here get nothing. And it is exactly the reason why I never chose to get a clearance. Uh, I was in selection. We weren't sure if it was going to be an fbi clearance or a dhs, wait, wait, wait.

Chris Lalomia:

The only reason I had you on here is because I thought you were going to bring us some secret, serious, uh secret clearance stuff that would be illegal and and oh and, all right everybody you just got. You got some bonus shit because I was not going to bring this. You know what? I'm not even going to play this one. I probably won't, because I wanted secret cleared stuff. Man, come on now all right.

Ian Hay:

And so then, the reason why is I never wanted to be in a position with a business partner that I couldn't share information that I knew that was unacceptable to me.

Ian Hay:

And if I knew and if I had the right information from open sources, I can talk about it because it's on Google. Like the number of calls that I've made to colleagues of mine who go on Google to find out what's available, they can tell me this is obviously 10 years ago, um and then, and then they would tell me that much but other stuff I was able to aggregate and collect by piecing different pieces of information together. And I was actually sitting with the assistant, the acting secretary of DHS, and I said look, the reason why the way you do this is you tell us the threat, but you're not specific. You give us two to three examples and then you ask us to be prepared. And I said but you're not specific. You give us two to three examples and then you ask us to be prepared. And I said all you're doing is you're using those examples to tell us what to look for, right? And he looks at me and he's got an ear to ear grin and he just says you read the tea leaves pretty well Ian.

Chris Lalomia:

What was the worst or best preparedness response that you guys ever prepared and worked on? I mean, like give us the biggest worst one.

Ian Hay:

So that's really hard to say, because I think that there it's definitely a moving target. If 9-11 was a failure of imagination, the next failure is to not be prepared for everything else. What we did during 9-11, and this is not scientific, so don't write me but we essentially took our counter-drug and counter-narcotics folks, who were the best in law enforcement at the time, and we put them on counter-terrorism overnight Some had a week, some had a few weeks right, and so we used the ideas and the genius of what they were doing in a different discipline and we brought it over to the new discipline which was the direct threat. We didn't know, and so I'm not sure I'm really hitting on the answer to your question, because there are a bunch of different directions we could go, we could talk about. How is it that during Hurricane Katrina, hurricane Pam, an exercise with a ring binder is sitting right there Some of the outcomes from that exercise, even though it was Cat 3 and it was directly over New Orleans, not over Louisiana and Mississippi some of the after-action report would have been vital.

Ian Hay:

You've got a brand new, and I'm not being critical in any way, this is just the overwhelmed by events that happens inside of Homeland Security. So you have a brand new governor. Governor and the staff may or may not know you're going to invite the president, right? If you don't know that, then what can the president do? And I remember sitting in a meeting we were trying to figure out how to work a donation so that the company that wanted to make the donation didn't have to be treated as like a federal contractor or something. I can't remember the exact details.

Chris Lalomia:

They wanted to give you money, but the bureaucracy said, oh, you got to do all these it wasn't me, but it was something about that.

Ian Hay:

The way they did their books was a certain way and the federal government wouldn't allow it. Because if you're a prime contractor of the federal government, you have to do your books a certain way. And so some genius in the room and this is really what I did, some you know Alan says well, why don't you just give it to the Red Cross?

Alan Wyatt:

and they can give it to somebody else. I'm a genius.

Chris Lalomia:

I've heard that from you, of course, all right. So that's the way they did. They pulled that down. Wow, all right. I hate to do this because alan has to leave. Here's why we're on the time constraint. No, we have to talk about this. Oh yeah, so his uh, middle son, michael, is going back to belgium. They may not see him again. Of course they're going to see him again. Of course they're going to see him again, guys. But check this out. The kid got recruited to go back to Belgium to work on his PhD because they wanted him so bad. This is his last night in the US and Alan has to leave. So Alan's going to do that. We're going to invite Ian back, but you know what? If you know anything about Belgium, where is he going? Ku Leuven.

Alan Wyatt:

He's going to ku europe's, if you know anything.

Chris Lalomia:

Hit me up, chris, at the trusted toolbox. Give us some deets on that. What's going on? Help alan out. He wants to go there and visit um. This is an incredible opportunity for your son and, uh, it's so exciting because one of the things we do as parents is, uh, we'd love to see our kids thrive. And your kids are doing it and, uh, he's it. Thank you for doing it. And he is crushing it and go make it. Go happen, get out of here. We've got to get going. Hey, everybody, we've got some amazing stuff going on. You've got to keep listening. Get your friends to follow. We're bringing Ian back because Ian is way too cool to only have one episode. We're out of here.

People on this episode

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Chris Lalomia

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Alan Wyatt

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