Episode 57: Reclaiming Man with Jon Beck

In episode 57 of the "Reclaiming Man" podcast, host Michael Beckwith engages in a profound conversation with Jon Beck, a respected individual known for both his professional achievements and his character. The discussion delves into Jon's personal and professional life, revealing his journey as the founder and CEO of Ursus, a digital staffing firm expanding into the life sciences sector. Jon shares insights on the importance of integrating personal passions with professional work, aiming for a life that doesn't necessitate retirement.

The conversation transitions to deeper themes of vulnerability, self-awareness, and the continuous pursuit of growth, both personally and professionally. Jon emphasizes the importance of embracing challenges and getting out of one's comfort zone as a pathway to growth, reflecting on his own experiences and the culture he fosters within his company.

Michael and Jon explore the impact of societal pressures, the pursuit of truth in a time of information overload, and the significance of mentorship and guidance for younger generations navigating their career paths. The episode touches on the power of vulnerability as a strength, the role of mentorship in personal development, and the journey towards setting and achieving high standards and goals.

This conversation is a testament to the value of resilience, self-improvement, and the pursuit of a fulfilling life, both in and outside the workplace, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own journeys and the power of human potential.

Connect with Jon Beck on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbeck/

Transcript

Michael: 0:05

All right. Well, let's just dive right in. So welcome to episode 57 of the reclaiming man podcast. Michael Beckwith here hosting today with an interview guest Jon Beck. An individual who I've been getting to know over the past couple of years, I really respect both your intellect, who you are as a person, more importantly, and the accomplishments that you've had, you know, professionally, I'm interested in diving in more personally to to hear about your life and some of the other passions that you have outside of work where Take care. Kind of the context of our relationship was formed. But yeah, welcome to the show, Jon.

Jon: 0:43

Michael, it's great to be here and I will reciprocate the comments and feelings. I think the first time you and I chatted, we talked about, The existence of extraterrestrial life forms, I think. And I'm like, this is a different kind of dude, man. We're not just talking,, we're both in staffing and, you know, you get tired of talking about staffing and we were going down a bunch of rabbit holes, which was cool and, and appreciate how it's all evolved and excited to be here. So. Yeah,, my work identity is the founder and CEO of Ursus. We're a digital staffing firm that focuses on technology and creative. And spoiler alert, we're about to launch a life sciences practice here in a week or two, which we're excited about. Business has been around for nine years, loving the journey, which it is a journey. Learned more in that time period than maybe at any point in my career. And yes, interested in talking about other things outside of work as well.

Michael: 1:38

That's great. And thanks for just sharing a little bit about the intersection of the professional world in the past couple of years with my personal passions has been increasing greatly. And by design, I've, you know, we've talked a little bit about on this show, and maybe we'll get to it with you as well, but designing a life that you don't need to retire from. And finding that integration of the work that we do with the passions that we have. And I feel that in you feel that in the way that you talk about what you do professionally. And I'm curious to explore that a little bit more in this conversation. I know I've shared a little bit about reclaiming man, but we really focus on these three pillars of reclaiming our minds, reclaiming our bodies. Ultimately to reclaim freedom, and really start to embody the values that we think are and should be common across men, across humanity. So it's those types of deeper conversations that we've shared in the past that I know will build a great conversation here. So I think 1 of the 1st questions that I have for you as, a leader founder of a large company. I think it's a large company anyways, based on what you guys are doing and the impact that you're having. Can you share a little bit about what the journey was like before you got to Ursus and, personally, what we're leading up to some of those types of decisions, just the amount of. Risk that's involved and how you balance that out with the opportunity, because I think it's a really good parallel into the reclaiming freedom component.

Jon: 3:10

Sure. And to get to the first point of step off to say not, I want to start a company. I'm thinking about starting a company. Wouldn't it be cool to start a company, but actually to start a company took a lot of reflection and life experience, both positive and negative, to get to that point where I really had at least enough self confidence and courage and self awareness to say, I can do this still really scary. And I, when I think back, you know, and I, my, one of my throwaway lines when I, when people ask me about the company is my only regret is I didn't start 10 years sooner, but I don't know if I would have been as effective, had I started 10 years sooner, I think, you know, the universe gives you what you want and when you need it and it was the right time. The company that I was with was acquired. It was really an acqui hire. We were lucky to get an acquisition done and I started to look around for my next career opportunity. And, those, that, that itch in my brain and my soul kept coming back to me, like it's time to do something. And and even with that, I, when I started the company I, decided to, go at it with a co founder who I subsequently bought out. Which all worked out in the end, but but yeah, no, it was, I had to get to that point, through a lot of self exploration and life experience. And I marvel at people that start careers when they're much younger in their life in their twenties and after they graduate. And I think ignorance is bliss for a lot of those folks. And there's that just, you know, youthful confidence and courage. And, I maybe missed that window and had to wait a little longer, but it all worked out in the end.

Michael: 4:56

Yeah. Two couple things that out there, you know, you mentioned self awareness is such an important part of it. And that's something that I feel like I struggled with, gosh, until, and I still am struggling with in the sense of I'm working on it and it's a progression and a journey. But are there any things like specifically that helped you become more self aware? I mean, of course, you're going through experiences, you're working at other companies and you're. Basically building somebody else's dream as I like to call it until you start to do something for yourself and you're, on that journey. Now, you've gained this, like experience wisdom, like, are there anything that stands out as like this pivotal type of either a habit or I mean, some people talk about meditation, other things, right? What are the, some of the components of, building self awareness and getting to that realization of, okay, I want to start a company and not only start a company, I know I'm going to be successful doing it.

Jon: 5:53

I think first of all, I've been, I was very fortunate throughout my career to work with some really outstanding leaders and mentors and be part of management teams that were just exceptional, not just in, from the business side, but just good humans. There were a few duds on the way to. And I think as time carried on and I moved from company to company, I started to see a pattern where, I understood a lot of the things that were happening. I obviously was getting more savvy just based on experience, my own accomplishments, but also realizing that, a lot of the people that I was working for were as vulnerable and. Maybe exposed and scared and needing help as I would be if I took that role myself and now sitting on the other side of that. I think it's really healthy to show some vulnerability to my team. I don't have all the answers. I do ask for help. And so I think that was. There wasn't one epiphany along the way, but I think I just started to realize look, I'm not, there's never going to be the right time to start. So I'm never going to have all the answers. I'm never going to have all the skills, but if I start the journey, I'm going to learn, and I have enough people in my ecosystem that I can go lean on and ask for help the same way that I've helped people on the way that I'll be able to figure it out. And I, that, that was really what gave me enough confidence at that point to say I can go do this.

Michael: 7:25

Yeah. But that's still

Jon: 7:27

scary.

Michael: 7:27

Right. Yeah, and that's almost, well, not almost, it's counterintuitive, you know, borderline paradoxical that vulnerability and with that self awareness to say oh, I can't do everything, I need to have the support system around me, but that vulnerability as a strength is something that I, also think is Really important to talk about as men and to, diverge from some of the historical stereotypes of men having the sort of unbreakable exterior shell and being the tough personality or that type of persona. I think that I felt least growing up anyways, was a big part of what the expectation was from society. Versus, you know, sort of this internal standard that I have. And so those are two different things that I was hoping to actually include in the conversation. So it's a good, transition. But how do we take that step of becoming vulnerable? It's feel scary, but in doing so, it, you know, can get translated to strength but, can share a little bit more about that.

Jon: 8:30

I always had it within me. My mom, Was a psychologist you know, graduated an amazing story. She went back to college and I was eight or nine and went back and got her undergraduate and then her degree. And even before she went back to school, she just has incredible emotional IQ. I believe that, you know, we all have our own superpowers and her ability to understand people and the complexities of people and the inner workings between people was her superpower. And I think I got some of that through her DNA. So I, I always had, I think that awareness and always was, vulnerable in my personal life, but in my professional life it, it didn't seem like that was acceptable and maybe we've evolved over the last few decades and I think increasing with increasing velocity where. Men now, more men in leadership positions, it's acceptable to do that. Certainly the stereotypes of the fifties and sixties and seventies and even eighties, there, there was no room for that in a lot of my mentors. That's how I was mentored. So, and that's a positive for sure. So, not everyone identifies with it. I have plenty of peers of mine that when I share things, Sort of look askance and and look at it as a weakness and and, that too, I'm more comfortable in that. That's cool. If that's not your deal, no worries. That's how I operate. And that's how I, manage and look at the world. And and people are going to gravitate that towards that or not. And that's okay too.

Michael: 10:04

Yeah. Yeah. I personally am finding myself gravitating toward it because it seems to. Inherently give us the ability to connect at a deeper level because more people have those feelings and maybe historically haven't felt that we could express them out loud. And, you know, sort of just getting trapped in our I've just experienced myself getting trapped in my mind of having thoughts around my inadequacies and my weaknesses. And, it's hard for somebody to know how to help you. If you don't let them know that you need help, first of all, and so it's a big hurdle to overcome. But I like what you said, you know, we all have our own superpowers. And, we also all on the flip side of that have our weaknesses. And, you know, there's, I think there's kind of two different ways you can look at life. You can say, I'm going to, you know, Keep on working on my weaknesses or I'm going to work on my superpowers. And I mean, it's not to say that you shouldn't always address some of your weaknesses and try to shore up some of your moral deficiencies or things of that nature. But there's things that we just aren't inherently as good at, you know, that we don't have is maybe our talent or a skill inherently is a one or a two out of 10. Maybe you can get it up to a four or five if we try really hard. But, is it worth it, you know, or is it better to just find someone who's already at a seven or eight and help them grow to 10? And that's kind of my mindset is how do I surround myself with some of these people that, You know, they have a greater propensity towards success with one of these areas that I'm kind of a failure at, for lack of better words, or have failed that repeatedly. And it's not to say, I'm not a fan of giving up on something, but it is like, let's be smarter about this and start to find people who can help fill those gaps. And then collectively we all start to level up. And, I imagine that as a founder of a company, that's one of the really important things. And I mean, personally, I know it's huge for me too, but, you know, what's the journey been like with Ursus and, apologies for not having looked ahead of time, but how long ago did you, found Ursus and what's the growth trajectory been like? And if you don't mind just sharing about, you know, working through some of these really interesting times that we've had with pandemic and thing of that nature.

Jon: 12:20

Yeah let me, I'll answer that, but I want to go back to your comment around. We all have weaknesses. It's part of the human condition and you become a better, more well rounded, human being. If you work to find opportunities to work on some of those weak areas of who you are, and that can be in who you, know, I don't know, personality traits. It could be skills. I mean, I think of as, a man in my fifties. You know, thinking about my health, my mental health. I want to find ways to continue to challenge and stretch my brain. So I'm doing things like trying to learn Spanish, even though I took six years in high school and none of it really stuck and dabbling with the piano and finding ways to get out of my comfort zone. Knowing that's how I'm going to stretch. Because what happens is when you, I believe, I don't know if it's been scientifically proven, I bet it has, but my belief is when you get out of your comfort zone and do things and that aren't, you know, second nature and aren't your strengths, it actually makes your stronger parts that much stronger. I think the brain does something there where it just, you know you're creating, you know, whether it's brain cells or whatever, or connections, there's just something that happens there. I, I know in, some of the pre notes that you sent to me, you were talking about, you know, digital overload and, digital dementia and that sort of thing. Like, I know if I consciously unplug and say, I'm just going to read today, it's a Saturday or Sunday. I'm just going to read. I'm not gonna look at it. I'm not gonna look at the TV. I'm not gonna look at my read. My brain just functions better, or if I spend some time on the keyboards trying to do stuff, my brain just functions better. So, there's something to it there, and I think we're starting to figure out some of those neural patterns and connections. But it, anyways, I'm going down a rabbit hole, but for sure and so that, to dovetail into your question, I try to challenge my team to get out of their comfort zone too. That's where the magic happens, right? If you do things that are hard for you and that don't come easy, it's going to make the rest of your journey better. And and that's hard. It's hard to get it, to be challenged and to be uncomfortable. It goes counterintuitive. But it's true of

Michael: 14:30

everything.

Jon: 14:30

From the outside, if

Michael: 14:32

you said, Oh, the culture is, you know, we're always doing hard things. You know, some people be like, Oh, but are you really, you know, like it's kind of, I don't know. I almost feel sometimes people look down on the people who are on, a growth trajectory. And I know that it's more so that it's, they actually are looking at sort of a mirror of, and they're seeing their selves relative to what you might be trying to do. You're trying to do something that's hard and you're putting this sort of culture of, Hey, we're going to be uncomfortable because everybody else has been gravitating towards comfort. And it totally reminds me of Michael Easter, the comfort crisis. I'm not sure if that's a book that it's on your radar or not, but, he talks about, you know, our aggressive pursuit of comfort as one of the critical failings of society and, you know, how we live in climate controlled. You know, 70 degrees, everything is kind of just like, it's built around becoming more and more comfortable. And as we become more and more comfortable, the scope of what we believe is possible continues to shrink because we're not exposing ourselves to the outer limits of what our potential is and seeing, Hey, what else has passed it? Because you know, as much as I talked about, you know, our shortcomings and not. Overindexing on, our weaknesses. I also think that it's not a fixed level. I do believe if you spend enough time drawing, even if you're not a natural artist, you can get better at it. And I think pretty much anything in life, if you spend more time and energy on it, you can improve. I haven't seen a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise yet, but, the, culture of doing hard things and challenging yourself. I imagine that's directly correlated with the success. Have you had any sort of thing, you know, any challenges or anecdotes that. That stand out, you know, especially going through, you know, the past few years here and in such a competitive industry, literally thousands of competitors. And, I think it's admirable. Number one to get into the industry, but that's yours. Yeah.

Jon: 16:42

So there's my last count, 25, 000 staffing companies in the U S alone, which is hard to believe

Michael: 16:49

when

Jon: 16:49

I started the business, I had so many of my friends and colleagues cause I've been in technology for, you know, almost 30 years now, and I was on the plumbing side of the internet. And it was some great companies. And then, you know, people got wind that I was starting a staffing company and I had people come out and say like, what are you doing? Like, you might as well go become a lawyer. Like people hate recruiters. You know it's such a commoditized business and there's so many out there and most of them are terrible and there's some truth to that. But I, you know, so funny story, just to back up when I graduated college, I was a psychology pre med major and I decided I didn't want to pursue medicine and psychology seems too far out there for me. And I took 1 of these aptitude tests and the top job profession that came back way back when I graduated in 1992 was to be an executive recruiter. And I didn't really know what back then and here I am fast forward all these years and I'm in the space to answer your question about some of the struggles. Yeah. I mean, you know, first of all, just starting a company and surviving for the first couple of years is really hard. I had a co founder. We, you know, had different ideas of what the business should be. You know, fortunately we parted amicably and are still friends. But at the time that I was buying him out, You know, I had to sell my house. We were trying to get funding for the business and I laugh because, you know, people will still say to me like, Oh, you started a lifestyle business. How fun. Then I'm like, well, what about the part where I had to sell my house or every two weeks I was going to withdraw money from the ATM to make payroll and draining my 401k and so, you know, but all of that made, And COVID was certainly a challenge. I will never forget the conversations with my management team and my CFO modeling the what if scenarios you know, what if it completely goes away, you know, what if it's sort of bad, but not that bad last year had its own set of challenges, the market was tough, but through all that, when you get to the other side and through it. And, you know, when we started this year, we went back to the company, reminded them and said, look, We earned the scars of last year. It was a tough year and you saw a lot of people getting out of the business. A lot of people feeling sorry for themselves. We took it upon ourselves to, to the, to take the challenge and to get better. And if we got better in a difficult environment, when things are better, we're going to be better. Which kind of goes to what we were talking about earlier. If you stretch and get out of your comfort zone you're going to grow. And, so we've done that. And and it's important to look back and celebrate that too because there was pain along the way. It was not an easy thing to do, but we did it and and it was worth it.

Michael: 19:25

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. When you were talking about getting better in a difficult environment.

Jon: 19:31

Audio. Now I can't hear you weird.

Michael: 19:33

Oh, you lost me. Hey, check gone. It's gone. Let's see what happened here. Now. Can you hear me? Nothing.

Jon: 19:53

Right now.

Michael: 19:55

Check, one, two. Okay. Okay. Well, it's all right. A little, bit there.

Jon: 20:01

My thing, for some reason, it tried to default to something else, but no

Michael: 20:05

No big deal. Well, Get her squared away. But yeah, so getting better in a difficult environment, you mentioned getting better in a difficult environment. And lately I, think I've been really in my head trying to, Delineate the difference between positive pressure and sort of negative stress because the often answer I find myself in my head or whether I'm talking to people about, you know, let's say, oh man, that sounds very stressful and, or you, sound like you're stressed out. And so then I have started to in my head, think, oh, man, am I stressed out? Am I stressing? Am I like anxious about this? Or. Alternatively, is there just a more challenging set of circumstances, so external pressure that forces me to choose how I execute and, maybe forces me to do more with less, which are words I hate to hear, but seems to be going around and, have you found yourself at all and, Or do you, I guess, agree that there's this difference between just how we perceive it as this is pressure, but it has a positive impact on, like, in your case, you said, we're going to get better circumstantially, no matter what's happening here, or maybe in spite of it, despite the, circumstances, you know, are, is that something that you feel like has come from more personal experiences, professional experiences? Starts professional goes to personal because one of the things I mean, I'd like to transition some to some kind of more like personally in your life. What are you focused on and passionate about and how is, how does this all support it?

Jon: 21:45

I think they're all questions.

Michael: 21:46

I

Jon: 21:47

think they're all fine for better or for worse. I'm chuckling because that pressure versus stress is really how you choose to interpret and define what's happening to you and what you're going through. It's a very much a double edged sword because Pressure and stress can be really great motivators, incredible motivators, but they can also be incredibly destructive and detrimental. And there is such a fine line that separates those two. And I fall on either side often and sometimes, you know, in the course of a day, if not an hour where it feels really stressful or it feels really great because I love to compete and I love the pressure. It's, But I do believe it comes, some of it is from your external, you know, if a client is putting pressure on you or your team is putting pressure on your manager, that's part of it. But most of it I think comes from internally. And it also it, the way I like to rationalize in my head, if I start to go down the track that I don't like is. That there are the expectations that I set for myself and the expectations that those that are dependent upon me have. And those are two different things. And and then the third one.

Michael: 23:04

Actually, that's so yeah, that, that was one of the Inky Jonson. I heard him in an interview talk about it and he says expectations. He would say, those are the external forces on you. And then he differentiates it and says a standard is what we internally hold ourselves to. And sometimes there's a glaring difference. And I think that's one thing that I've found is. My internal standards are sometimes much higher than the expectations, but I am operating under the assumption that sometimes the expectation is the standard. That's not accurate. It's not

Jon: 23:37

accurate. It does drive you to succeed because unfortunately a lot of people haven't taken the time to really identify or be aware of what their own standards are.

Michael: 23:48

So

Jon: 23:48

they just kind of go and make it up. And I, and we can talk about that. Cause I think that's also a by product of where you choose to gravitate towards. A lot of it is in your upbringing, right? There's the nature and nurture conversation that goes around that. But you're right. And I, think about that as a manager, my standards are not going to be the same as my employees. That's not fair to them. I have to set standards for the company in terms of what we expect, but also appreciate that. And my standard is I'm going to get back to somebody here, you know, and within five minutes and somebody else on the team gets back in 15. That's okay. Like that's, you know, that's a simple example, but there's many throughout the course of any given day. And it's also, it's fluid, it changes right? Those standards and expectations are not static they're constantly changing and evolving, based on so many factors. So yeah, there's some push pull there for sure.

Michael: 24:43

Yeah, so where does the path take you in these next, these coming years? You know, personally, what are the things, the goals, the ideals, that are the motivations for, you Running the company and doing those things. Like what's, what makes it all worth it for you?

Jon: 25:00

Well, Michael, I have high expectations. Let me start there.

Michael: 25:04

Yeah.

Jon: 25:05

You want to go?

Michael: 25:06

I love it. First of all, I love it.

Jon: 25:10

And I hopefully that translates and rolls out to the rest of the company that they can get you know, excited about that. Cause it's fun. It's fun to have a challenge and it's fun to set high goals for yourself. So, you know, of the 25, 000 staffing companies that are out there last year in the U S there were 262 that achieved over a hundred million dollars in revenue or more. So it's a pretty small number you know, less than a percentage. And our goal is to be on that list. And that's important for a few reasons. One is it sounds cool and it's a nice number and it looks good on paper, but more importantly, Yeah. There's some validation to it. And as we get closer to that goal, it'll allow us to continue to invest and expand the business into other areas, either geographically or vertically, and we've already done some of these things, in the last few years, but it'll, it hopefully continues to accelerate that growth. But. As important as the growth is, it doesn't, and I say this to the team constantly because I don't want them to be misguided in terms of where our priorities are. The growth is a byproduct of the quality and the culture that we have. If we're doing the right things, the way that we believe they should be done and building relationships internally and externally with our stakeholders and and continuing to get better. And, you know, building trust and collaborating, communicating and all those things, which is what our culture is about. And it takes a lot of work, the growth and the results will happen. And that is a really hard thing to do sometimes. And to put your trust into that, because a lot of times it takes longer than you want it to. A lot of times there are external factors that get in the way of that, like a COVID pandemic or, you know, a challenging macro economic environment. But if you stay true to that. It's just going to happen. And and I have to remind myself of that constantly. And I definitely have to remind my employees, especially those that haven't been through bad economic environments to say, like trust the process, and good things will happen. It's really true. It's true in business. It's true in life.

Michael: 27:18

Yeah. Yeah. I'm, in the throes of it, so to speak of, building that trust and in the process and trying to. On or D wire D program the impatience and the instant gratification that society seems to feed us. And, you know, I'm right on the threshold generationally of you know, very thankful that I'm not actually in the sort of newest generation of the standard being. You know, the Instagram tick tock, like, sort of, you know, just these fast feet, what's the, it's like, it's just like force fed comparisons and force fed stimulus that it's overwhelming to the brain, you know, even if you're mature. And that's a question. I'm still questionable for myself, but like, even if you're grown and you know, it's hard not to be impacted negatively by that stuff. But, I would say, thankfully, over these past few years, I've departed pretty heavily from social media and some of those types of platforms because I've come to realize that they have a really negative impact. And the, what you're just talking about is like being comfortable in the process and not necessarily being comfortable in the sense that you're not putting yourself through very hard, challenging things, but, you know, just being okay with the fact that this is going to take time as long as we persist and continue to do what we know is the right activities. I feel like that's, yeah, you know, outside of, The professional world, I would say more importantly for my personal than anything else it's, hard to change as a person. It's also hard to change as a company sometimes and there's those goals, whether it's a hundred million dollars or a marathon or a marriage, you know, all the things then in life that I think, You know, are worth going after they take a lot of time and persistence and patience, you know, perspiration to some extent

Jon: 29:18

in our society, not this generation, but our society has become so impatient because of, you know, all the ways that we have instant gratifications and I'm speaking about the Western world, obviously. And I agree with you. I've taken a lot. I've learned a lot. In my discussions with, I call them kids but young adults that have graduated college and doing the workforce. And I, you know, my kids are of that age and you know just, started working a couple of years ago. And I've, coached a lot of kids and a lot of family friends. And so I talked to a lot of these kids. And one of the things that I kept hearing over and over again is like, I'm a failure or I'm, I should know what I want to do, but I don't. And my counsel to them is like, look, you're the Instagram highlight reel and everybody puffing their chest out saying, I'm going to become a doctor and I've always known or I'm going to become a lawyer and I'm going to become a banker. Like, Nobody really knows at your age what they really want to do or at least a very few people do the odds of those people that, you know, trot off to law school or become invested bankers, a high percentage of those going to go do something else and you can pick any profession that's going to be the case. And it's a good reminder for myself, because when you, get through that and you start to think that's what reality is. You've got to, you've got to detach and go back to what you believe is truth. And I think for younger people who maybe don't have as much life experience to draw on, it's as important as ever before to have good mentorship and people around them that can help guide them and give them some direction about what reality actually is. And it's true for all of us, right? In all aspects of our life. I mean, the news, what do you what news do we trust today?

Michael: 31:06

Yeah, I mean, this is why I know it was great. I knew I wanted you to come on this show, but like this conversation is like, you're touching on so many things that I know are just absolutely a part of what our ethos is, what my beliefs are, but what we're touching on right now, I think is one of the most important things to be communicating is just the pursuit of truth. And how hard that is right now because of such a variety of quote unquote news and I have to do quote unquote because we just know that a lot of it isn't truth and the, journalistic. That's the right way to do it, not the pedigree the, just the quality of journalism, I feel like has really diminished based on the agenda of, you know, various political parties and various sources being so just. I hate to use the word corrupt, but I feel like that's the accurate word where they're not really compelled or incentivized or you know, motivated to, to share what is the truth. It's there's so much differing, you know, confirmation bias that exists out there with algorithms, especially where it's just. Deepening the divide between people instead of finding the common ground and the things that we need to be focused on. So the way it's

Jon: 32:28

the same discussion as we had earlier, it takes work and you have to get out of your comfort zone to determine what the truth is. It's not an easy exercise. And. And too many of us want the easy way out and to not put in the cycles to really understand what that looks like. And that's a dangerous place to be in. So really important to have people that, you know, can help guide, the thought process, not the decision, but the thought process about how to figure out what truth is and and what values are and what struggles. I mean, you asked me the question. I don't think I answered it to when you think about, you know, Various generations and the struggles that they've had and whatnot. I mean, there's a reason why the greatest generation is called the greatest generation. They had to go fight a war and fortunately for the most part. But that gives you a different perspective and lens to look through the world in your life than if you didn't have, and everything you think is an entitlement it's, really hard. So Yeah, I

Michael: 33:30

don't know exactly who says it, but the, you know, hard times create great people, create easy times, create weak people, create hard times and that cycle, that pattern. I don't know who would say, I mean, I know I've heard it Robbins amongst other people, but it's, it is really good and it's important to see and recognize that, you know, I think we have some of those hard times in front of us because on the backs of the Greatest generation. And, you know, a lot of the momentum, to borrow from the, investment and, sort of, technical analysis world, like a lot of the momentum has been going in the right direction for a long time. And I don't think it's like this tipping point as much as a gradual decay, perhaps over the next several years, but we're in for I think an interesting next five to 10 years I'm. All aboard for it. And to your point earlier, it's like in the face of these hard times, let's commit to being better. Let's commit to the pursuit of truth and the sharing of what is important. And I love your story. I'm really interested in continuing it. So I'm hopeful that we'll get to have you back on for another episode and get some of my colleagues, my peers on from the show, because I was like, I'm doing it on a Friday afternoon because. That, that's when it's going to be the best time to do it. But usually we'll record them in the evenings, but I will commit. I would love to get you back on the show with them just to have a little bit more, you know, different perspective than just my stuff. But man, we touched on so many good things today. You know, vulnerability and support systems. And there's just the modeling, learning from great people that are around you, and how important it is and. My favorite quote is we all have our own superpowers. I think that's so important for us to focus on. And any, things in closing thoughts that you have before we wrap,

Jon: 35:28

first of all, thank you for having me on. And I would love to meet your cohost as well, too. I've, listened to a few episodes and You guys have some good banter and certainly some chemistry along the way. So, and we could probably pick a couple of these threads and continue to unravel them as well, too. So I appreciate being on and the perspective. I think it's really important to have these conversations and, to share them with peers and especially with people that are starting their careers and entering into the, to the world really important. So. Kudos and well done.

Michael: 36:01

Oh, great. Jon Beck, everybody. Thank you again so much for being on the show. My, my esteem for you has risen. I feel like I respect you even more after this conversation and I'm sure it will continue in the future. So thanks everybody for listening and have a great week.