The Freight Pod
The Freight Pod is a deep dive into the journeys of the transportation and logistics industry’s brightest minds and innovators. The show is hosted by Andrew Silver, former founder and CEO of MoLo Solutions, one of the fastest-growing freight brokerages in the industry. His guests will be CEOs, founders, executives, and leaders from some of the most successful freight brokerages, trucking companies, manufacturers, and technology companies that support this great industry. Andrew will interview his guests with a focus on their life and how they got to where they are today, unlocking the key ingredients that helped them develop into the leaders they are now. He will also bring to light the fascinating stories that helped mold and shape his experiences.
The Freight Pod
Ep. #35: Ryan Schreiber
What happens when you record a podcast from the moment your guest walks in, capturing every spontaneous and candid moment? That’s exactly what we did in this episode, and it led to a fascinating discussion about the power of authenticity and the often-overlooked value of raw, unfiltered conversation. We also dive into the challenges of maintaining mental health and motivation without the structure of a traditional job, sharing our own experiences and the importance of personal routines. The conversation gets personal as we talk about how intrinsic and extrinsic motivations drive us in our everyday lives, from professional aspirations to fitness goals.
Our guest, Ryan Schreiber, brings a wealth of experience from his journey from law school to the logistics industry. Through personal anecdotes, Ryan sheds light on how upbringing and familial expectations shape our motivational drivers. We discuss the constant balancing act between financial goals and personal values, using the freight brokerage industry as a case study. The conversation highlights the essence of genuine care and ethical leadership in business, along with the subjective nature of success. Ryan's three business rules—constant vigilance, getting uncomfortable, and the pursuit of fun—offer invaluable insights into maintaining control without micromanaging.
Leadership is a recurring theme in this episode, examined from various angles including personal growth and conflict resolution. We reflect on the importance of self-awareness, vulnerability, and setting personal boundaries. Our discussion touches on the complexities of leadership, the emotional chaos it can involve, and the significance of showing up every day with the intent to improve. We also explore the dynamics of the drama triangle in workplace conflicts and the empowerment dynamic that fosters positive interactions. By candidly discussing our flaws and the lessons learned from mistakes, we aim to set a positive tone for your week ahead. Tune in for a raw, honest, and energizing conversation that promises to leave you with new perspectives on motivation, leadership, and personal growth.
***Episode brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services.***
and I'm like dude, we just gotta like you just go, we gotta start recording the second. We walk in the door because, like, some of the best part of the conversation is just what happens before. You're like, all right, hey. So like, welcome to the, the freight pod. You know we got to start recording the second. We walk in the door Because some of the best part of the conversation is just what happens Before.
Speaker 2:You're like, all right, hey, so welcome to the freight pod and you can just splice that shit in there. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I remember you telling me that as a piece of advice when I first asked you about starting a podcast. And I haven't done that, um, but I do. I, I recognize it. I recognize how there's an opportunity there to um capture some good conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's part of the reason I'm like a no prep guy when it comes to the podcast, because it's like you get good shit and then then it'll often feel more like wrote or prepared and all I mean. Also, I'm a, I reference things. I'm like, oh yeah, well, like we were talking in prep about blah, blah, blah, and then it's like, all right, well, I wasn't. If I'm a listener, I wasn't a part of prep. Yep, I feel like I'm on the outside. So, all right, where are you today? You in chicago today I'm in chicago.
Speaker 2:I'm in chicago. I was struggling. I've been struggling for a couple weeks, just uh, mentally again. The operating system is not feeling like it's operating effectively and I was in a good rhythm. You know, I started working out with a trainer three times a week in the morning, 6, 630 am, where do you go?
Speaker 1:You go to.
Speaker 2:FFC or something.
Speaker 2:No, I go to this place, wattage, which is like, if I want to walk, it's like a 12-minute walk from my condo where I just drive over there and I was trying to just build this good routine. Those challenging things about not feeling like you found a purpose at work is is it leaves this kind of void, um, during the day where you just aren't, you don't have a north star. Um, yeah, and as someone who has always invested most of myself into work and not done enough of investing in myself personally, it has put me in a position where I've always leaned on that professional work North star. It's like when I would wake up for the day. It's like okay, I got to work, like I know what my work requirements are, let's go do those things Right Totally.
Speaker 2:And since leaving molo a year and a half ago, I I no longer have those things and with a void on the personal front of not having a strong operating system of like, every morning I do these, these routines, these seven, eight things that like they're small w small wins, that like make me feel better about myself. Not having that to fall back on when I left Molo put me in this weird place where I just. It's taken a long time for me to figure out how to prioritize the personal.
Speaker 1:You know I've been thinking a lot of recently about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, right, and I've always sort of thought of myself as an intrinsically motivated person, because no one ever has to like tell me to do stuff, but I actually started thinking a little bit more recently that I might. I am a little bit extrinsically motivated in the sense that I think this will be the same for you. I really care about delivering for other people and so when I think about Molo and your experience at Molo and how you felt about your employees and how you felt about your customers and how you felt about the capacity providers that worked with you guys, you showed up every day for them and you did all of those things for them and of course you benefited, but that was, and of course you wanted outcomes for you, but that was, and of course you wanted outcomes for you. But I think that part of that challenge because I have a similar thing is that I care about not letting my teammates down. I care about delivering for the people around me and that is motivation for me. And so when I get into this, because I have a very similar thing that if it's just a thing for me and it's not a part of this other routine that gets the motor going.
Speaker 1:I find a lot more Like on the weekends, for instance, especially if my wife is gone for some reason. Bro, it's hard. I go to the gym every day like it's hard, I mean, I'll, I'll have, I'll want to. You know, I go to the gym every day but like, instead of being like, all right, great, I can get up and like have breakfast and then go to the gym early and then I'll like sit around and read for until all of a sudden it's like four, 30 and I'm like, oh fuck, I gotta go to the gym and then run out the door to the gym, you know. And then I'm always behind because me and partially it feels self-indulgent. I feel bad about that. But then the other part is I'm not letting anybody down and so there's a little bit less drive for it. I don't know, it's just an observation, I don't know if that fits for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it does. I think. As I think about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, I think I fall in the extrinsic camp.
Speaker 1:I think that, um, yeah, but it's a spectrum, is my point. Like it's, you're not a hundred percent. That's the realization I've had recently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think I think wanting to move. I I you know, as I googled intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, you started talking about it.
Speaker 1:I noticed one internal versus external? Yeah, no, I understand it.
Speaker 2:I just was curious if one is better than the other, if there is a healthier way to get motivated, and my concern was thinking about myself. So, for one on Google, it says neither intrinsic nor extrinsic motivation is better than the other. I guess, if we're going to use this for the audience I haven't even started the episode, but maybe we will use this. Here are some examples of intrinsic motivation Reading a book about a subject you're interested in. Putting together a puzzle because you enjoy the challenge. Playing sports because you enjoy how they make you feel, studying, because you're curious about the topics. Some examples of extrinsic motivation are reading a book to learn a required skill. Putting together a puzzle because you want to win a prize, competing for a trophy or prize.
Speaker 2:So, like I, what my concern, I guess, is I naturally start to think about my need to please others and my need for validation from others, and that's something that I think I grew up with. Just you know, I think part of it comes from being in a family where my father was a very high achiever and yeah, of course, you know, had high standards for us. Grant, I don't think he actually had as high standards for us as we created in our own minds. I think his perspective was always just do something you love and put your all into it. Yeah, right, as long as it's a good thing, don't do bad things, yeah right as long as it's not meth.
Speaker 2:Sure, as long as it's not meth.
Speaker 1:Right, great example.
Speaker 2:I think that's the exact example he used when he was teaching us as kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at an eight-year-old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly no. But I think part of the challenge, though, is when you see someone who is a high performer, you then naturally think like okay, I won't get approval unless I can perform at that high of a level, and so I think I naturally ingrained myself with this kind of extrinsic motivation, where it was always like I need to do this to accomplish x. It was never just a natural born curiosity. I struggle at being naturally curious about something and then just picking up a book and reading about it because I want to learn about it. If I'm picking up a book to read it, to learn something, it's because there's a means to an end, there's something I am trying to understand so that I can accomplish X, y or Z, or so that I can beat this person, or so that I can prove someone wrong. That is kind of how my brain has been wired. I don't know if you feel differently.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that actually it does tie to freight in some senses of you saying like what's better versus what's not, because I think that nothing is everything is on a spectrum, first of all right and, second of all, nothing is by itself good. Well, meth by itself is fairly bad. But as it relates to business or as it relates to making the right decisions for your life, it's all subjective, based on your goals. Right, it's all subjective, based on your goals. Like I said before, there's nothing wrong with having big goals, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be. I mean, part of the rub for you is, like you said just a second ago about your dad You've got, you're Jerry Rice's son, you're in the same industry and you're living in, you're in a shadow, whether you want to be or not, and those were choices that you made because you enjoy the business and I think the business is terrible. You love the business.
Speaker 2:That's cool, but it's you think the business is terrible. You've made a life for yourself Brokering freight is about the worst.
Speaker 1:I think being a truck driver is probably the worst job in the world. The second worst job, I think, is probably being a freight broker.
Speaker 2:But Perspective's, everything here. I think we make it. I think we make it.
Speaker 1:We have to get into that, but but uh, yeah, I mean I think that that what, what is right or wrong or what is better or worse all depends on what your goals are. If you're, if you're trying to make like an upper middle class income or middle class income and be home every day, and that's what's going to and you don't care necessarily. Your legacy is your children, etc. That's cool and that's good for people. And then what decisions they make and what's best for them versus for motivation for life choices Again for freight brokerage. For motivation for life choices again for freight brokerage. If you're going to be big on technology, you know, but you don't have to do anything. It's just it all depends on what your business goals are.
Speaker 1:I think you can do more with your business. It doesn't matter. There's one of our customers, big, multi-billion dollar freight brokerage, and I think the management team just has totally screwed this whole thing up. But they're fine and they're making money and they're fine and they're going to trade their private equity and they'll trade again and everything will be fine and everybody will make their money. And I just look at it and go you're not doing everything with this opportunity that you could. What's wrong with you? But they're okay and that's okay. And I think that to your comment from a minute ago about what's better or worse, it doesn't matter. There's no objective standard. It only matters how truly does it map to what you're trying to accomplish? And so for you, I think that the things that I've always really respected about you, once I got to know you, I thought you and I would be like cats and dogs when we first met I think I've told you this before, but if I haven't, I thought we'd be like cats and dogs.
Speaker 1:But you genuinely care. You genuinely care in a way that is pretty rare, especially for leaders, to care about their people and their vendors. You don't care about. You care about money. Okay, right, you care about money, but you didn't care about money at the expense of your soul or what it meant for your. You were always like You're the type of leader and I love this about you You're like I want to pay my people more. I want to find a way to pay my people more money. I want reasons to pay them more. I want reasons to take, I want to take care of my carriers and I want to pay them. I want them to make money. I don't believe in this whole, the best carrier is the one you put out of business yesterday and because of that that's a different. So you being extrinsically motivated is better. If you tried to become intrinsically motivated, it would probably You'd lose your edge. You'd lose everything, um it makes you you I don't know, I don't.
Speaker 2:Maybe we're connecting dots that are challenging to connect or that don't connect as linearly as we're connecting them, and maybe it's my own misunderstanding. So I I appreciate everything you just said. I do believe that part of to respond to some of that I think. I think some of it is. We were very mission driven and I'm trying to think of a why to give the audience. That would help. You know someone in a similar position. But I just remember, as we were starting the company, we were so clear about wanting to create the best possible experience for our people, for our drivers and for the shippers, and we, like obsessed over that concept, as simple as it sounds, but it is. What would eventually you know, two years, three years down the road lead to me having a conversation with someone like you, as we're getting to know each other and I'm contemplating how do we work together. And you know, maybe I'm trying to help you understand what, what we're trying to do here, and I might say something like I'm trying to figure out a way to pay our people more on this xyz, or I'm trying to make sure that we don't put carriers out of business. It does all come back to that kind of mission driven mindset that we had that was centered around creating that best experience for people and carriers and shippers.
Speaker 2:But when I think about who I was and how I was in the business, I think that some of my extrinsic motivation and my need for validation and approval from people, I think that hurt me in places. I think it forced me, it created situations where I was short-sighted or or acting with the wrong driver or motivator. Of course it did. And so like I think if for me it's like I think there's there's a a insecurity, a ego issue that has created this need for love from the outside that if I could get better and this is something I've worked with my therapist on for over a year is loving myself and feeling like I'm enough today. I think that could lead to more intrinsic motivation. If I could just let go of the care of what other people think For sure, if I could just let go of the care of what other people think For sure, and if I could get to that place, I think I might be a better leader end-to-end and not just in pockets here where I'm thinking very clearly and articulating Well it's about balance.
Speaker 1:The whole point is there's a reason that yin and yang is a phrase, right, and there's a reason that that symbol looks the way that it does, because it's all about balance. And if you over index one direction or the other, again like that's what's bad, right, like what's bad is going, and that's that's something that you and I are naturally wired. This is why I thought we'd be cats and dogs, because we're both naturally wired that way, right, Like it is. Just there's two settings, there's on and there's off, and that's it, right. We were just talking about that as related to going to the gym and stuff. Right, it's on or it's off, and I think it's all about balance and you're right.
Speaker 1:And I also struggle loving myself and I also struggle thinking I'm good enough and whatever. But I also recognize that the only way you learn things is by making mistakes, and you've made high-profile mistakes. I mean, I've said this about Convoy at some level and I've said this to Dan Lewis and I'm sure you've had similar conversations with him. It's like you just failed. You objectively succeeded at some really great stuff, but the only reason you get the hate et cetera that you got or you get is because you failed in a really public way, because you tried to do something great, because you reached for something great, because you tried to do more, et cetera. And there's a lot of these people who are sitting behind their keyboards pounding out on LinkedIn talking shit about Con, etc. And there's a lot of these people who are sitting behind their keyboards pounding out on LinkedIn talking shit about Convoy and that's just one example that haven't done anything with their life, that are 40-year-old or that are 40-year veteran account managers and haven't tried to do anything. It's not to say they haven't done anything with their life, but professionally they haven't tried to do anything big, they haven't tried to do anything great, and it's like that's very and so, andrew, you've made mistakes because you tried to do something.
Speaker 1:I often say the only way I know anything is because I just made the same mistakes, or I made the mistakes and I also just kept making them and I just was too strong headed to. And you, luckily, were able to make some of them and adjust on the fly, because you're smarter than I am. But at the end of the day, you have to make mistakes. If you didn't make mistakes, you're not trying is the point. I had 3 rules for business. It started as 3 rules for brokering freight Most fun wins, which I always failed at because I hate freight brokerage, constant vigilance. And number three was get uncomfortable what was number two?
Speaker 1:hold on what was number two? Uh, constant vigilance. Okay, like, stay on top of your shit. You know, know what's going on. Don't micromanage your team members, but but keep an eye on the things that matter for you. Right, like control. If you've ever read the amazon way, like, I think the phrase that he uses is like control your contingencies or something. But get uncomfortable is the third one, because it's like if you're not pushing yourself, if you're only doing what's comfortable, you're not going to get anywhere. I struggle with the same things that you do, bro. Like I said, it's very, and I think that I'm just striving for more balance. Don't be entirely extrinsically motivated, but if you, if you went the other direction, you're going to lose your edge, you're not going to be you anymore and you're also going to be unhappy about that.
Speaker 2:Yep, because you're not living authentically I'm with you, I'm picking up what you're putting out. Yep, all right, we should start the show this is all in the show we we're keeping this in, we're keeping this in, but I got to do like this whole, you know. Start the show gig.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to like read your sponsors out Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, what's interesting is I historically don't read the sponsors. I never want to disrupt. My goal is to create the best conversation possible and to do that with minimal distractions as possible, and so my concern was always if I read the ads in the middle of the conversation, if I stop a conversation to read an ad, I'm risking diminishing the quality of the conversation.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:However, I don't feel like I've. I don't like the monotony of how I've done the sponsors in the past. So this is going to be the first time I'm going to live read the sponsorship. We're going to do it now. We're going to start the show.
Speaker 1:Are we live reading Rapido? We're live reading Rapido I got to say really quickly Danny and Roberto have become two of my best friends.
Speaker 2:This is a good reason for me to do it this way, because it gets them extra publicity. I didn't know they existed until you mentioned that. You were the one who introduced me to them, and they have become two of my absolute best friends. I absolutely love those guys more than anything. They're just great humans, all right, so live, read it no, they're both great guys, I mean dan.
Speaker 1:So let me let's all right, all right, live read it live, let's go.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the freight pod. I'm your host, andrew silver. I'm joined today by ryan schreiber, a friend of mine, a big cat guy. He's the chief growth officer at Metaphora and he's got a lot of brokerage experience. Granted, if you've been listening for the last, I don't know how many of the pre-recorded or pre-conversation we're going to keep in the episode, but enough of it. You'll hear that he hates freight brokerage, but he's a freight broker at heart and a lawyer as well, and now he's a consultant. Those are things that people love.
Speaker 1:The three jobs people love the most in someone are consultants, lawyers and freight brokers. Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:You know this guy is going to be honest and great to work with no, I'm just kidding. So he is a great guy. He's a good friend and a friend of many in the industry. So we're going to start the show. First, we are going to do our first live ad read. Historically, my sponsor read has been before the show, but we're doing it live.
Speaker 2:So we are sponsored by Rapido Solutions, led by Danny Frisco and Roberto Ocaza, two guys who I have known for a very long time. I went to college with. Roberto was in the same fraternity and Danny and I worked together at Coyote. I almost hired him at Molo as like the fifth employee, to be honest, but he pursued his own entrepreneurial dreams with Roberto, started Rapido Solutions, who connects logistics and supply chain organizations in North America with the best near-shore talent to scale, efficiently, operate on par with US-based teams and deliver superior customer service.
Speaker 2:They work with companies from all sides of the industry, including freight brokers, carriers, logistics tech companies. They build out teams with roles across customer carrier, sales and support, back office, administration and tech services. Whatever you need, they can help you. So check them out at gorapidocom. I have personal experience working with them from my time at Molo and they did a great job for us, so worth a look. And that's it from our ad read those guys are keeping the lights on for us paying the bills. And now back to the show, ryan, all right, we've already spent 10 to 15 minutes jiving on intrinsic, extrinsic motivation, on life.
Speaker 1:Mindset. It's all about mindset, man.
Speaker 2:Mindset. Let's focus on you, though for a little bit. Let's get this conversation going. So let's focus on you, though for a little bit. Let's get this conversation going. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but your background and we're going to jump into this, but your background is you went to law school, became a lawyer for a brief amount of time and then, for whatever reason, ended up at Echo as a sales rep.
Speaker 1:That's right. Technically, I became a lawyer for a short amount of time I never actually practiced so I graduated during the Great Recession I used to be able to say the last recession, but then there was the small COVID recession and now we may or may not be in a recession now or soon. So I graduated during quote unquote the Great Recession of the housing crisis. I just couldn't get people to talk to me, I couldn't get job interviews, I couldn't get anything. So I met a guy named Ryan Kramer who now works at I think he's at XPO. His company got bought by XPO. I think he's still there and he went to Michigan State, which is where I went for law school, and my one of my classmates was his cousin.
Speaker 1:Whatever gets me an interview at echo. And so I interviewed with gnome frankel, like, and gnome was the one who brought me into the space, who you know, and um, and I remember sitting across the desk from him and being his, him saying like, like he had to interview me at echo, like I'm sure he had to sign off on it because, like, my background was kind of because I couldn't even get jobs, like waiting tables and stuff, right, because everybody's like this guy's a lawyer, he's gonna be a lawyer ain't nobody wants your hair to like fall into the food, the beard hair?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's right. They were like can you wear a hair net? I wouldn't hire you at a serving job?
Speaker 1:no, of course not. I mean, I personally wouldn't hire me to do anything, to be honest with you. But people keep doing it, so I'm happy about it. That's like one of my low-key biggest fears is someone else's hair getting in my food. When you find someone's hair in your food, you're just like oh, this is awful Not to distract my own hair. Getting in my food is a problem from time to time and it's also gross. I'm just going to be honest with you that's.
Speaker 2:That's also worse. When you get the food, you see a hair and you're like could that be my hair?
Speaker 1:that's in there. It looks luckily like my hair is pretty, yours is pretty clear.
Speaker 1:I'm a redhead, like you know, very rarely, but but anyway I remember, no, I'm sitting across the desk from me and being like, if you're just going to do this for like a couple months and dip like this isn't that kind of job. And I was like, nah, man, I'm here for the long haul. And I just I distinctly remember sitting there just being like, well, I've given up on life. So I mean we'll see what happens. And it was bad. I mean it was a tough time.
Speaker 1:So Echo felt like from day one, like failure. Like you were saying like, why don't you like freight brokerage? Echo could have been a great place to be. It was a terrible place for me because I was just so negative about it. And, to the point about mindset, I had felt like day one like I had failed about it. And to the point about mindset, I had felt day one like I had failed. I felt like I had failed because I'm afraid I had spent $200,000 to go to law school and I have all this student loan debt or whatever, and I'm slinging. I never wanted to be in sales. I still don't want to be in sales and I am, and I'm good at it, but I don't. And so it felt like failure, man. So anyway. So yeah, that's how I started at Echo.
Speaker 2:I just fell backwards and knew it needed a job and then just tried to make the best of it, in a manner of speaking, and you were a customer-facing sales rep. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:So we did the whole backhaulers three-month training thing and then when I hit the floor I was a customer sales rep, although, again, I worked with Gnome and so he had a couple of like. He was, you know, an executive and so he had a couple of accounts that he still minded. So I kind of had like a, I had a. I had a couple of accounts that I like worked more in an account management context in the, but also it was like you know, cold calling and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and from there. So you bounced around a little bit from there. So you went from Echo to Optimal Freight, another brokerage where you were the GM for a couple of years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we started that. Yeah, so Noam and I left, or I left Echo, and then Noam left and he was like hey, do you want to? I'm going to start this. Do you want to do it? I'm like sure. So I was like sitting on the floor slinging freight with my laptop, laptop just day one, getting the stuff off the ground.
Speaker 2:So Optimal Freight. You guys were starting that as a brokerage from scratch. Uh-huh Is there an asset business tied to it, or it was just its own deal? No, just pure non-asset. And what was the timeframe when you started that business?
Speaker 1:2011 or 10, something like that. I was only at Echo for about 11 months, so like 2010, I think, or 11. Yeah, and then we were there for a few years doing that.
Speaker 2:How many people were at Optimal when you started?
Speaker 1:it I think we were at like 25 when I left Talk about learning bad habits and stuff. You know I love gnome and you may have a different relationship with no, I love gnome and like he's done everything for me in my career.
Speaker 1:I've done everything for me. Gnome has done everything for me in my career, like I would not be here without him also, and he has talked, he talks, he's he. He admits this readily. I learned a lot of really bad people habits from Noam and we could have done something even more special and optimal and we got in the way and he got in the way. And you talked about making mistakes.
Speaker 1:One of the mistakes I made was I didn't understand the concept of leadership is not about a job title. Leadership is not about. It's about leading, and I didn't recognize that people look to me as a leader. Or I didn't realize there were people that I did not realize looked to me as a leader because I had been there from the beginning and I had started the company and I knew I had all of the institutional knowledge about how things worked and I had the relationships across the business quote, unquote. So small business but I poisoned the well and that was a mistake. And for a long time I blamed other people for why we weren't more successful there, but I was part of the problem and I didn't realize that for a long time. So talk about making mistakes. That's one of the big leadership things that I learned is like lead, like lead. It doesn't matter where your job title is, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:It could be your first day on the job, but you can be a leader. Can you elaborate a little bit Like when you say you poison the? Well, can we jump in a little bit of what? What's the detail, what that looks like, what, what failing in leadership looks like in your opinion?
Speaker 1:And it doesn't have to just be from optimal.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'd love to. Let's just talk about how shitty we've been as leaders for a little while, yeah totally, I promise I'll participate.
Speaker 1:I've got plenty of ammo. Yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's cool, you know it's. I heard a.
Speaker 1:I focus on problems more on solutions, and I also I didn a. I focus on problems more on solutions and I also I didn't, I under and I didn't have a good framework for, like how to think about processing those vis-a-vis like personal relationships. So like, I heard this thing maybe a couple years ago about grief and it was talking about how, like, when you think about grief, there are like circles of grief. So like someone dies and like there are these concentric circles of how close you are to that person, right? So let's say, god forbid, my wife died. Right In the innermost circle is me and her parents.
Speaker 1:In the next circle are my parents and her siblings, or maybe her siblings are in the inner circle, but let's say my parents and her friends and maybe her siblings are in a circle, but like let's say my parents and outside and her friends and then outside that circle, et cetera. And the concept was like you know, you can never like, you shouldn't, you should never complain inward, right? So like people in the third circle shouldn't talk to people in the first circle and be like I'm really struggling, I can't believe this is happening. Woe is me. You can complain outward, because I can't take on that burden as the first circle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've got more on your plate.
Speaker 1:I think yeah, and I think the same is true professionally. When I say I poisoned the well, it's like I didn't recognize again that I should have been a leader and I should have found a healthier channel to deal with my frustrations. So instead I would share my frustrations openly with people who were my friends or were friendly, instead of trying to keep those people on the ship put on a good face and then work through those problems other ways and then again also focusing on problems over solutions. Again, very toxically, I'd be like this isn't my job. I actually think saying this isn't my job is a very important thing to say in business, but it's how you say it and so I would say toxically this isn't my job. Go talk to somebody else.
Speaker 1:Go talk to Noam, go, make him solve the problem.
Speaker 2:There's two thoughts there. On one front, it's establishing fair boundaries for yourself as a professional. To say this isn't my job, Like you are asking me to do something that I'm not paid to do, and I think there's a way to say that tactfully that can be understood as a boundary set for you as an individual well, I?
Speaker 1:I think it's both like hey, I, um, hey, there's a problem here, like and if you're coming to me to solve this problem, like, you don't have trust in the system, or you don't have trust in a team member, or you don't know what you're doing, and we need to solve that problem and I need to teach you to fish, perhaps. Um, or like. A lot of times, people use the it's not my job thing because or the inverse of it's not my job, because they want to micromanage their teammates, or they want to undermine their team members, they want to undermine the system, and I think that those are. And so, again, I didn't focus on like, hey, okay, you don't know, let's solve this problem. You're coming to me to help you with this because I know the solution and I know the answer and let's solve for this.
Speaker 1:Why are you not able to do this on your own? Why are you not getting the help you need? Let's go to, and if another leader is the problem, let's go to that leader and solve that problem. And instead of me being like I don't want to deal with this, I'm unhappy, you go to that leader and you solve the problem yourself. That's not the right solution and sometimes you have to let people, sometimes you need to push people to fight their own battles, etc. But again, it's all about balance and, as we were talking about earlier, I never strove for that balance. I was just so upset and I mean, the business ended up selling the business to or after he ended up selling the business to Transport America, and so it was a success story. That's not a or a TFI, but that's not a. So it's not like Failure and success are on a spectrum, right, it just wasn't what we wanted it to be. It wasn't Command, it wasn't.
Speaker 2:C. We wanted it to be.
Speaker 1:It wasn't command it wasn't coyote, it wasn't backhaulers, it was.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say it's not binary, right? I mean, you know, when you say that was a success story, it's like okay, from starting from scratch to getting it to an acquisition is an. I don't want to use the word optimal, optimal outcome, uh yeah, maybe not optimal depends on on numbers and such but it's, it's a, it's okay. Um, it could be great, it could be not so great, but as you think about yourself and your impact and you know your time at optimal, it's like it's not necessarily binary to say, okay, we sold it, so that was a win. It's more like you know your time at Optimal. It's like it's not necessarily binary to say, okay, we sold it, so that was a win. It's more like you know what was my impact on people? How will I be remembered from those, those people? And I think one of the things that I mentally struggle with, that I think about a lot, and this, some of this, is tied to going on LinkedIn and seeing all these you all these influencers teaching everything under the sun and everybody's perfect and everybody's humbled and
Speaker 2:doing great whatever. But there's a lot of talk about leadership and what good leadership is like, and I just really struggle with the idea that leadership is binary and that you are a good leader or you are a bad leader. I don't believe that that is the case. I think that every day, you are a bag of emotional chaos and you have an operating system that guides you, and it's either guiding you into a positive energy and situation or potentially the opposite, and every day could be something else that is triggering that. Whether it's, you woke up and you had a great workout in the morning. You started your day great. You had a healthy breakfast, you had a good conversation with your wife and boom, you're off to start your day and you're walking into the workplace with clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose and you execute your plan to a T. You have four or five meetings that you show up to well, you listen well, you give good advice to your team. Boom, you had a great day as a leader.
Speaker 2:The next day, you stubbed your toe getting out of bed.
Speaker 2:Your car wouldn't start.
Speaker 2:You showed up 15 minutes late to your workout, so you missed part of it and your wife's pissed at you for this, your dog's shitting the house and when you show up to work, your operating system is off because you didn't get the breakfast and you're a little perturbed.
Speaker 2:And someone asks you a question right before a meeting and it pisses you off and you respond curtly and and and frustratedly and three more things happen and boom, you were a bad leader that day. You didn't, you couldn't check your emotional baggage at the door and and you came in short tempered and caused problems versus solutions and it's like, yeah, over a period of time you're going to have a lot of both of those and at the end of the day, I think as a leader or as an individual, the best leaders are the ones who can kind of check the emotional baggage, come in with like a kind of coming to work every day with like a clear mind and like the ability to navigate whatever challenges are thrown at them and to do so while thinking about the big picture of whatever their mission is and applying that.
Speaker 1:I think that and you know I don't disagree with you Like, I think that's the standard that we're striving toward, and there are some people who are just like, maybe better equipped than others at that. Also, it's really great that you had Andrew Vogrich with you at Molo, because you, like me, are a person who is we are visionary leaders, we're people who like to chart a course and be like this is where we're going, this is the North Star. Let me get everybody going toward that direction. And the minutia of that, the day-to-day management of that, is where you and I really struggle, and so I think what you just described is what a leader quote unquote should be is actually talking about the type of leader that andrew is right, like and and he's incredible at that right and like.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm matt vogrich, sorry.
Speaker 1:Yes I'm andrew matt. You're talking about saying yes no, you're right, I'm picking, I'm now yeah yeah, yeah, for the, for the, for the, just like you will, let's use ai to edit in me saying matt, everything it's all good, we're human um, but you had, but that's right.
Speaker 1:So you're describing the type of leader that matt is right and like and it's, and I think that. So I think you're underselling the type of leader that that you are right, which is it's necessary, and I and and I. So I think that I think that both of those things are important and I think, where I fell down for a lot of my careers, I didn't until I had somebody like Matt which for me is Peter Rentschler who could help me be a better, better, who could create a safe, who made me feel safe or who made me feel okay. The problem was I showed up. I didn't show up every day to be better, because I think that, to the point about like, hey, the best leaders show up this way.
Speaker 1:Really, it's like you're maybe equipped for that or you're maybe not. Are you trying to do better than you did yesterday? And do you recognize that improvement is nonlinear? Okay, I remember I got a text message, maybe six or eight months ago from somebody that we had hired and she said something to me that was like, hey, you sent this feel. It made me feel like I was an executive assistant and I'm not, and I'm like I had sent the email from my phone really quickly like whatever, whatever. And my immediate reaction I just got like super pissed immediately.
Speaker 2:Like I wasn't like God, sorry, yeah, exactly In the past, I would have said exactly what you said.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was like that, like you're being, you're being ridiculous, whatever, yeah, but I take a breath and I was like I was like you know what, like I should have slowed down, like this happened because I was trying to move too fast, because I was doing, you know, my Ryan thing, which is being in 100 places at once, and I could see how you would, especially because you're new, especially because we all deal with imposter syndrome, especially because we all deal with you know what.
Speaker 1:You were right and I will learn from this experience. I'm not going to become an entirely different human being, but I appreciate you sharing with me how you needed me to show up in that moment and I need to do my part as a leader to try and meet you in the middle, maybe not all the way where you are, because I might not be able to do that, and that's like I'm just without giving up who I am without, but I need to try and meet you somewhere in the middle. And so I think that you're underselling two things about yourself. One is the visionary part and how you need that and how you need to get, and then two really it's in aggregate over the course of time are you showing up better? And you're right, it's not binary. We're talking about Dan Lewis and Convoy. Convoy was a success and a failure objectively. So yeah, I think that's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the one thing I would add there piggyback off is in thinking about your situation with your coworker that had just started is, I think and this reminds me of a book called "'The Power of Ted the Empowerment Dynamic", which is about kind of the, the roles. There's something called the drop, the drama triangle, um, and it's like these different roles that you can play, um, the roles in the drama triangle are the sorry, the victim, the rescuer and the persecutor, and these, these roles like apply in any situation that you're in specific, the the example uses a perfect one where you needed something done. You sent an email to a co-worker I was trying to be empowering.
Speaker 1:I was trying to say hey, this is yours, take it exactly.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they felt like you were treating them like an executive assistant, right, and that's how they felt as a result of what you sent. There's a flip of this triangle. That's kind of the empowerment dynamic and that's the creator, the challenger and the coach. And my point in bringing this up is, at the end of the day, if in any situation you're at in work or conflict is really the right because it doesn't just apply to work, it applies in your personal life too but if in any situation where there's conflict, you can approach the situation focusing on yourself and seeing your ownership in that situation, you can come out on top and be way further ahead as a leader, as a coworker, as a partner, whatever it may be. And it's a choice you make.
Speaker 2:And most people don't actually make the choice consciously. They're just very locked into a kind of victim mentality where it's like, hey, I know that I didn't have bad intentions when I sent that email, so you're in the wrong, I'm your victim here and I'm the person. I'm persecuting you because you don't understand my tone, and then I'm just trying to get the job done. I'm the victim because I'm just working as hard as I can and moving as fast as I can, or you could play the rescuer, so, like you know what, I'll do it for you so you don't have to feel like that, right, the alternative is like as a creator, it's saying you know what you're right, like we haven't worked together. I don't understand how you like to be communicated to. I didn't communicate to you that I'm in a rush, that I've got these things going on and I'm just trying to get this done. My point in bringing this up is it's just like, at the end of the day, like conflict always comes down to, are you willing to take accountability for your role in a situation and what is the mindset you're taking as you approach that situation? Because most people live in this dreaded drama triangle where they're constantly playing one of three roles being a victim, a persecutor or a rescuer, and those are all negative roles.
Speaker 2:Right, if you can shift to the paradigm where you look at the entire world through this kind of positive mindset, where everyone is possible, capable of being a creator, a coach or a challenger, you challenge and you challenge people, you coach people or you co-create with them or create for yourself, the world is a better place for you, and this is not an easy thing to figure out. This is something I'm on my third time. I'm not listening to the book. Every morning after I go to the gym, I get in the sauna for 15 minutes and I just throw the AirPods in and listen to this book. And it's really hard to apply it day to day because it takes this mental shift and I come from a place of, especially the last year and a half, where I haven't been working and I've been frustrated. I look at every situation and like a woe is me and it's like I'm getting screwed here by this guy.
Speaker 2:This guy's doing this to me, this to me. This person's doing this. It's unhelpful, it, it creates this, this constant negative feedback loop in your mind.
Speaker 1:um, I don't know if any of this, I mean everybody shows up like you know, I think the thing that I again talking about being sort of like, uh like ways in which I was, I poisoned, the well or like, wasn't the best leader I could be like I also have started Everybody shows up with. They're not NPCs, they have baggage, they have experience, they have things that have come For me, for instance, that experience of being unemployed after law school and no one being willing to talk to me. What have you? I have a lot of fear around how that was a really negative experience, and it showed up for me in two ways. One, I've always been a lot slower to let people go than maybe I should be like fire them, because I know how terrible it is to be. And so then what I end up doing is taking on.
Speaker 1:To your point about rescue, where I take on more on myself, did I did absolutely everything feasible, not what's reasonable? Not? Did I provide them the support? Not, is this a good fit? Or marriage. And then the other thing is I'm also very untrusting, or have been historically very untrusting, of other leaders in my business because I don't want to find myself in that, especially leaders above me I haven't wanted to or co-owners, for instance with Spartan, I just didn't trust them. I didn't listen, I didn't, and everybody shows up with their own thing and you have to work through that together. I mean to your point about like hey, I don't know how you want to be communicated with, again, I think there's a balance to be struck between saying like hey, you're asking for things that are unreasonable, and if you absolutely need that thing and I absolutely can't deliver you that thing, maybe this is a bad marriage, but we have to work through these things together and build trust. And maybe if this person, she had come off of two consecutive work situations where she really was treated like Not like an executive, but like an executive assistant by other leaders and who knows why, but that's what she was working through and I didn't know that and if I had come into it guns blazing to your point about and I think that's important we have to take people where they are and where they come to us, and then again being a good leader where they are and where they come to us and then again being a good leader.
Speaker 1:What I've learned about being a leader is like, okay, I'm going to react emotionally to things. That's how I am, so what I need to do is what I'm fighting against is the immediate response. The immediate reaction, the like, hey, let me take a second here. And so I've started asking myself what if I'm? So? For me, the mindset shift is just the first thing I asked myself is like, well, what if I'm wrong? Like what if I?
Speaker 2:what if I am the asshole right, like there's usually I am, you know, and are you capable of asking yourself that in the moment when you're reacting emotionally?
Speaker 1:only because, because, because, again, it's about improvement over time, andrew, what I've done is when you first do it of course not, and at first it's like you only see it in retrospect. And then what you start doing is or, this has been my lived experience Then I start seeing it more and more in retrospect, so then that time collapses, right. So at first, maybe it's like four hours later I'll realize like, oh, I shouldn't have reacted that way. And then I start noticing that every day there was two or three of these things. Then the time gets closer and closer, right, then I recognize it three hours, two hours, 45 minutes, half an hour, five minutes. And then eventually and again, it's not every single time then I start catching it right in the moment and saying like, okay, and you're just training your mindset. Again, that's been my experience when I was a couple years ago.
Speaker 1:I joke about freight brokerage being the worst, although I do think it is the worst. This is maybe 10 or so years ago. People used to call I'd get a call from a customer and they're like, oh, how are you doing? And I would jokingly say everything is terrible all the time. I'm a freight broker, right Like it is. And at that period of my life I was so stressed and I was just whatever. And so I started saying and I just realized it one day so I started to decide, I made a conscious decision that I was going to say from the big Lebowski everything is fine and nothing is fucked when they started answering me this question. And they started asking me this question and I just noticed that I just started feeling less stressed out because I was conditioning my thoughts the same way.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I can do that in the moment, but it's because I've spent five years of learning. This is another way. Peter's been a great partner for me. He's created an environment where, like, hey, man, you made a bad choice but it's okay. Or I've learned from him how to do some of these things and he is naturally wired very similarly to you and me, and so he's had to learn these things and it's been great.
Speaker 1:And because we have an ultimate trust with each other when we brought in, there have been scenarios I totally can identify where we recently brought in somebody at an executive level who I can tell you definitively, five and a half years ago, when I joined this company, if the same exact thing had happened, I would have gotten super defensive. I would have been and I would have played the part, but I, in my own mind, would have been defensive and it would have showed up somehow. But I didn't, because I know that. I trust that Peter's not going to screw me over and if he does, he does Okay, but he's probably not going to, and so that's just continuing the journey and the repetitions is what has worked for me, andrew.
Speaker 2:I think it'll work for you man, there's something I keep thinking about here in building teams and you and I are talking about what is one of our negative challenges, which is you and I have a history of responding emotionally to adverse situations.
Speaker 1:Or even good situations. Situations too, by the way, like it's not great that we get so high sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that's fair, sure, sure, sure, um, and that's just an example for us that applies, and, and it can create a negative impact to people in our, our companies or whatever. And everybody has something. In fact, everybody probably has multiple things that for sure, they just, that just are not their best characteristics, and they're things that, yes, either they are conscious of and working on or unconscious of and need to be made conscious of, whatever. What I'm curious about is the best teams are the ones where there is the yin and yang, where, where the, the players on each team understand the positives and the, the drawbacks or challenges that all the other players on the team have, and learn how to coexist and work together and trust that people are getting better and working to get better. But how do you create that?
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking about like you know, you use the word vulnerable earlier my wife recently just bought me this, this frame that's sitting next to my computer, actually that I really liked this quote. It's from Brene Brown. But vulnerability is not winning or losing, it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness, it is our greatest measure of courage. And when I bring that quote up.
Speaker 2:It has me just thinking about what we're talking about right now, because I feel like you mentioned trust, and trust in my mind, or a definition I've read at some point, is something along the lines of taking something meaningful to yourself and making it vulnerable to the actions of another. That's trust. The actions of another that's trust. And like building trust on teams is going to come down to our ability to understand one another, to be vulnerable with one another and share the things that we are not great at and work with one another to get better at them and coexist in spite of those things. And I'm just curious how you think about that in companies you've worked with in terms of the consulting you've done, yeah, yeah, done. How do you create a really strong team that is vulnerable with one another, that trusts one another? Are there things you've seen that you know work or things you've seen that you know don't work?
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that it always starts. So I love those quotes that you shared, shared. I'm listening to the Game of Thrones books and one of the kids says to it's in the first book, says to the dad, ned Stark, he's like I can't be brave, I'm scared. And the dad says you can only be brave when you are scared. If there's not something on the line you can't. So the vulnerability thing, right, making your actions vulnerable or making yourself vulnerable to someone else's actions, you can't trust or be trusting if there's nothing on the line, if there are no consequences or repercussions to that and negative to you, right. And so I think that's part of the reason you get really bad advice often and I think this manifests itself a lot in freight brokerage and a lot of really underperforming teams in freight brokerage. It all comes down to micromanaging the outcomes of other team members, especially in the buy-sell model carrier sales teams and customer sales teams. If you put a load on the board and you don't, you know, and you and you, no one's working on my freight or or like you know, I can't believe that. You know there's not a lot of money in that load, et cetera. So like I think it's, it's, it's probably it all comes down to. But it all starts with from what I've seen from high performing and low performing teams in my own businesses and, to your point, from our customers it starts with self-awareness, undoubtedly Because, to your point too, we talked a lot about how our shortcomings manifest. And they're just super obvious Because they're on the surface. And there are a lot of shortcomings from other folks that are just under the surface and that are just under the surface and that are less obvious and that just kind of show up in ways that are really sort of hard. And it's not insidious in the sense that like they're doing anything negative, but it's insidious in the sense that like it's hard to kind of pull on that thread and realize like, oh, I'm having a negative outcome over there, like this started with good intentions but really it's turned out to be micromanaging or what have you.
Speaker 1:And so I think it definitely all starts with getting to know yourself, because how can I communicate to you what I need if I don't know what I need, if I don't know me? And it's unfair for me to accept or to think that you will suss out what I need from you. I have to do the work. I have to do the work myself first, and so I think that's a really important part of that is the willingness to look at yourself and say and then, like I was talking about in the prep, I've been going to counseling for a while and my challenge is dealing with how do I keep, how do I work on the parts, find that balance, because some of the things that make me great to the extent that I am, which is minimal how do I keep those parts but solve the harsh edges of it without losing its core? Because that's a problem, and that's true of everyone, right Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. How do you get blunt some of the negative edges of that without getting rid of what makes you incredible and have built an incredible business?
Speaker 1:And so I think that, from what I've seen from across the business, it's like the leadership teams that have the most self-awareness are the ones that are then able to build trust, to challenge each other, to hold each other accountable. I said our business has been flat to slight growth for the last two years, which is not where I want to be, and our chief people officers looked at me and gone well, ryan, what are you doing to change that? And she can say that to me, because I know she's not coming from a place of blame. She's coming from a place of education, because she wants to help, because she's done the work to know what she needs. She's actually asking me because she knows what I need to be successful. And I think it really starts there. And then you have to. If you have people who aren't willing to buy into that concept, you need to move away from them, regardless of how great they are at everything else. Blah, blah, blah. If they're not willing to be a part of that team and do that work, move on.
Speaker 1:You and Vogrich, you guys had that because you had built that relationship, you had built that trust. He could call you an asshole, you could call him an asshole, and it came from a place of love and it came from a place of betterment for the outcomes that you were striving to. And you could hear it because you had done that work together. So I think that being willing to get rid of people or being willing to move on from those people is the other key, and no one is above the law, right? So everyone has to do that work. I'll say to Peter a lot of time Peter will be like can I do this? And I'll be like you're the CEO, you can do whatever you want, and I say it jokingly, right, it's your company. You can do whatever you want, man, but he is in the system with us. He has opted into the system with us. He's not going to come off the top rope and do whatever he wants because it's his company.
Speaker 2:Well, he can, but he knows he's creating a new baseline. And if he does that, he's now created an environment where people always feel like their work is only good enough until Peter jumps off the top rope and decides not that's right.
Speaker 1:And we haven't always, and, admittedly and he and I again this is one ways in which we're very similar he and I have not always been the best at and we're still not the best at not doing that. I mean, there are times where we come off the top rope and we're just like this is all wrong. You guys fucked this whole thing up. But what we do now is we go back and we say okay, how did I not set you up for success in this moment? How did I drop the ball in terms of communicating to you my expectations or transitioning this to you, or giving you the information I had about the client that would have been useful for you to know, to not miss the mark? And then, if you still miss that and I did if I look back and said I did all of those things.
Speaker 1:And again I said earlier, a way this can show up as toxic is trying to take it too far and say did I do absolutely everything I can? Because there's a reasonableness aspect to this too. Right, I have to reasonably, I can't become an entirely different person. I can't take the whole thing out of it. But that's the key. It starts with doing the work on yourself and recognizing that you're also human.
Speaker 2:And recognizing that you're also human. Yeah, that self-awareness piece is something I'm stuck on. I mean, I think it's a really critical component to building a strong team is having people who are willing to be I can't think of the word, introspective is the word I'm thinking of and willing to look at themselves. I think you take ownership in their role in all of this and co-creating whatever the experience is that your end team creates for customers, clients, whoever. There's something that my executive coach had me do early so this was maybe two years ago. This was before we were acquired, actually, so it's three years ago.
Speaker 2:It was called a leadership 360 profile and essentially every one of our executives we had, I think, eight people on our executive team, all seven others filled out this survey about me. I don't know if it had a hundred questions. It had a lot and it basically dug into every characteristic of myself and gave a really healthy measurement of where I was doing well and where I was falling short. And one of the things I appreciate about our team was they were pretty honest and there was a lot of shit I was falling short on. Yeah, of course, and it was really healthy. You know, one of the things you said is like it's, it's or that that resonated, is it feels like. Typically there's a yin and yang in our qualities where, like, there's a great aspect to a quality but if it goes too far it can become a negative pretty quickly, or there's just kind of the the light and the shadow with respect to everything and one of the.
Speaker 1:Remember the show clarissa explains at all. Are you too young for that?
Speaker 2:I might be too young or I just never watched it all right, that's fine.
Speaker 1:So, like nick, like nickelodeon on like friday nights started this lineup where they had like kid shows on friday night, like later in the night, and one of them was the show clarissa explains all. Milsa joan hart, I know, you know, you know she was the main character and there was an episode where her parents go out of town and she's left in charge of her and her brother and so she's like I'm going to do everything I love to the extreme, and so she eats a ton of ice cream and then her stomach hurts. Ice creams. I love ice cream. Ice cream is incredible.
Speaker 1:I'm not lactose intolerant, thank God. But if you are out there and you're lactose intolerant, pick a different example of a thing you love. But if you ate an entire gallon of ice cream in one sitting, you're going to feel bad and that's it. Everything is two sides of the same coin. There's a light and a shadow to it. Exactly like you just said, everything is two sides of the same coin. It makes you great and it holds you back, and all you can do as a human, all you can do, I think, as a person or a leader, is try and find the balance. And it's really interesting. I'm going to send you this thing. That Do you know Nate Schutz's yeah. So Nate sent this thing to me. It's called Positive Intelligence and it's about your saboteurs and it was one of those personality profiles um that you know. But it was all about what's holding you back and there's like 10 different saboteurs and like how they're take it. I think you'll really find it interesting.
Speaker 2:But um, yeah, I've done this, so, oh, you have okay my saboteurs thought on.
Speaker 1:It was like unbelievable yeah, so the saboteurs.
Speaker 2:That, and the way this was described to me by my executive coach, because I did this positive intelligence quiz or survey or whatever it is is essentially it's like imagine there's a, a, um, a board of directors sitting in at a table in your brain and they are operating you, uh, as a company or as a system, and these saboteurs all have a seat at the table and, based on your personality, some of them have a way bigger seat at the table than others. Some don't even have a voice, others are very loud. My biggest ones were Hyperachiever, and Hyperachiever was far and away the biggest one, and I think Controller was right behind it.
Speaker 1:Hyperachiever was my number two. Restless was my number one. I was a 10 out of 10 on Restless and I was a 9.4 out of Hyperachiever. Got it. It was like just through the roof and it checked out Like. When I read these examples I'm like, oh my God, this is so me.
Speaker 2:But the point in these are characteristics of ourselves that alter a situation a bit. The right way to think about it is you know, in any situation that comes up, how you view that situation is slightly altered by who has the kind of controlling seats at the board table with respect to your saboteur. So, um, hyperachiever, you know it's like.
Speaker 1:That was the comparative, the comparative success thing you were talking about earlier, right, yeah, I mean that's, that's, that's a problem. For me that dates back to again my childhood and that was the comparative, the comparative success thing you were talking about earlier right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's that's, that's a problem for me. That dates back to, again, my childhood, and, and having a highly competent or capable, successful father, um, where it's like achievement is is the basis for which we a lot respect and and it's it's not right, it's not the way I think that. You know, I I don't think it's the healthiest way for me to think about things, and it's something that I work on with my coach, because it's like it's not productive, um, but yeah, um, I lost my train of thought there, so I'll shut up for a second.
Speaker 1:Let you that's okay, I gotta go. I don't want to cut this out like this is a lot of. I'm really enjoying this conversation but I got to go try and make some money, so unfortunately, I think we have to leave it at that. But I would highly recommend anybody take a look at the saboteurs thing Because I think in terms of understanding, it was revelatory for me because everything's more about.
Speaker 1:A lot of things are about how A lot of things are about. There are a lot of personality profiles that help you understand how you show up positively if you will, or what. This one really helped me understand what my motivators are that are holding me back. So I was really high on restlessness and hyperachiever, which means Maps perfectly. I don't ever, I feel I really struggle to feel contentment. I really struggle to feel like I've had any kind of success, and so I'm always restless and my measures of success are ridiculously high. When I was in high school, the Tampa Bay I'm from Tampa the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went up for sale because Hugh Culverhouse had died and the Glazers bought it and they sold for like $170. In that day I think I was in 11th grade or something like that I was like my life goal is to buy the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That's my life goal. Something like that I was like my life goal is to buy the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, that's my life goal. Do you know how?
Speaker 2:far away I am from that, andrew, but that's what I'm building for. There's still time.
Speaker 1:Of course there is, but I also just turned 40. And so it doesn't feel like there's that much time, but that's what's always circling around my mind and my life, and so, anyway, I I think that it's uh, that one was really helpful for me for that reason, cause I really understood, like how these things that can again light and dark, right, those are also the two things that make me work incredibly hard and make me show up incredibly, you know, uh, uh, reliably for my team members, right, but it also makes me make bad decisions sometimes because it makes me not show up reliably for my team members, because I take on 15 things. I should have said no to Yep. So that's that. Thanks for having me on, dude.
Speaker 2:You got to run.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got to go. I got to go do a call which I have a feeling is going to be not very productive.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, that's the wrong mindset to have going into it. It's going to be not productive now because you thought that, but if you go, into it and think how can I help? This call be productive. Let's find one way to make this a productive call.
Speaker 1:I'm going to learn something from it one way or another For sure, and I'm going to provide these people some sort of. I show up to every call and I want to connect people to three things of value. That's my goal on every single call.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Connect them to something of value. Do that.
Speaker 2:So all right, Well, audience. This was a different episode this week. We were a little all over the place, but you know that's one of the things I can do with Ryan is just kind of riff on just about anything. So we may have him back on some time to do a more kind of topic oriented combo. But for this week you're just getting him and I talking shop, talking all about all our poor leadership qualities.
Speaker 1:But it also gave me energy to your point about, like you know what I'm showing up. I'm ready for this week in a way that I feel good. I feel really good right now. This is a great way to start a Monday.
Speaker 2:I do too, man. I appreciate you coming on and I hope our listeners got some value out of this week. We'll be back next week. So same um, we'll be back next week. So, uh, have a good one. Thank you so much.
