670 | A conversation with Marcus Zook: Are You Built to Be a Business Owner?

Welcome to The Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are today.

I am really excited to share an interview of Marcus Zook. Marcus is the son of one of our Next-Level Mastermind, StratPlan, everything, and friend clients as well.

But Marcus is also an incredible young man who I have had the the pleasure of getting to know and spending some time with.

And he asked if I could be in a guest on his new show and when he interviewed me, it was one of those that was just such a powerful episode. I asked him if it was okay if we played it here.

So please enjoy what I think is just a fabulous interview with great content.

So here's the interview with Marcus Zook.

Advice for Younger Generations (00:01:16)

What is one piece of advice for the younger generation, like teens and adults, young adults currently, if they are undecided about if they want to become a business owner or stay an employee.

Okay, well, one piece of advice. I don't know if I can give you one piece of advice.

First off, are you built for business ownership? Something that a person has to understand doesn't matter if they're young, doesn't matter if they're old.

One of the things: business ownership is very difficult. Do you have the personality style to take on the risks, the struggles, the financial commitments, you know, the commitments to clients?

So just looking at business ownership from doesn't matter what age you are, if you're not prepared that there is a stress level that is much higher than being a team member, right?

All of my team, although my team operates as their mindset is ownership, right?

They come in, they own their roles, they don't own the company, but they operate like owners.

That's something we train and teach, is that, you know, you take this to the nth degree, you solve this, you, you, you do whatever is necessary, you take care of people, all that stuff.

So they have a stronger buy in and ownership mindset. Most companies, you come to work, you work your eight hours, you go home, right?

You did your thing, you get your paycheck, you go on to the rest of your life. When and I own multiple businesses, when something is going well in my business, everybody celebrates and everybody is having a fun time.

When something is not going well, then a lot of people still get to go home and focus on their life. Where I'm still focusing on how do I make sure I solve this in the business, how do I make sure everything's going to be okay.

How do I make sure team members are going to be okay? Like so for take covert, for example. You know, when Covid hit, a lot of people went into panic mode.

My mode was, I need to take responsibility and help people not to freak out. I need to take responsibility and help people trust and not fear. And so while other people were, you know, am I still going to get my paycheck?

Our team was focused on, we got a job to do, you're going to get your paycheck, we're going to do everything we can, we're going to shift things, we're going to do whatever, but I'm going to do everything I can in my power to continue to pay you.

Even though we may lose sales, we may have issues, all that kind of stuff. So that's. It's a long way around.

It's such a complex question. The business ownership. If you choose business ownership, you need to spend time with entrepreneurs and business owners asking them what stresses do you experience, what struggles do you experience?

And you've got a fantastic business owner in your father who is a great resource for you. But what about the young person who doesn't have a business owner in their life, right. That doesn't know what it's like to run a business?

You need to spend time talking, asking questions. And unfortunately, our. We live in a day where we feel like chat GPT is going to give me the answer. Right.

I could talk to. And the younger generation has a tendency to turn to younger people than they do older, more experienced people. It's a crazy weird thing where, you know, other young people have the answers young even though they don't have the experience.

And so I think that's one of the things I see that becomes where so many bad decisions are made is you're taking advice from somebody who.. it's just an opinion.

They don't actually have experience. So spending that time getting with people that know what they're talking about so that you understand if you want to do it right. So that's that piece, the team member piece versus business ownership.

The other thing I think people tend to spend time thinking is if I go after business ownership, I'm going to be successful immediately. I'm going to have money immediately.

This is, you know, I'm going to just go get a loan and then I'm going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it doesn't, it doesn't work that way. It almost never. It rarely works that way. Let me say it that way.

You need to think about if you're going to go into business ownership. Can you do it while you're a team member? Can you, in the off hours, you know, start incredibly small and prove that your concept actually works?

Can you put a little bit of money in something, market it, sell it, and then see if it's actually doing anything? Because what you might find at the end of the day is, man, I'm terrible at this, or this product doesn't work or nobody wants this.

You also might find out that you're very successful, and then that helps you to make that transition from being a team member into being a business owner.

Now you're going to spend more hours in the day. You know, you're working your job and you're working your, your potential passion, but it's the best way. I will tell you. There is less stress and working that many hours to see if something works.

Then there is jumping ship and taking on the full responsibility and it not work out. Okay, so that makes sense. Yes.

So basically, to summarize some main points there, be prepared to have stress, high stress, and to have responsibility of the company if it doesn't go well, and if it does, and have ownership for your employees.

A Leader's Job is to Make Their Team Successful (00:06:54)

There's a quote, you once said that a leader's job is to make their people successful, not themselves.

Yeah. It's your job as a leader to make your team successful, not the other way around. Right.

Not to put your name forward, but yeah, it's not about me. Right. And you can be somebody who. It's all about you. Yeah.

You know, there's plenty of people in history that we see that made successful businesses, and then as soon as they leave the business, the business tanks.

The thing that I have discovered in life is if you are my team member and I make you better at what you do, you know, even.

Even if I don't fully understand the role you're doing. Like maybe I'm a business owner that hires salesperson. I don't really get. Get sales, but I'm helping this person become a better salesperson any way I can.

Getting the right tools, advice, metrics, you know, coaching. You know, we, we do coaching on a consistent basis. I will get coaches for areas that we don't coach in for my team to make them better.

If I will make you better, then by default I become better. If I make you more successful, then by default my business becomes more successful. Right.

And unfortunately, we live in a world where people think that leadership means do 14,000 tasks today, because that's your, that's your identity inside the business.

So yeah, and so you're, I guess what you're actually bringing in is delegation as well, is delegating task and managing people so that you're not doing everything.

And there are personality types who will want to be the lone wolf and do everything. And totally that plays into communication because of how hard it is for some people to not just do it themselves and get it over with.

And this is something that plays into family culture, into business everywhere. I see, and there is a cliche too that communication is key and it seems like you hear it everywhere.

But what does that look like for you in your everyday life as and in business? So we consistently preach the number one biggest issue in every business is a lack of high levels of quality communication. By far.

And it's funny because you're in a family business. Many, we work with many single owners and many family businesses. Right.

And even in family businesses what you discover is I think family communicates what they think is really well because families talk, right?

We can have businesses come in and they're like, oh my gosh, our communication is super high. Whenever we do, we have an event that we call StratPlan and we have an opening dinner and then it's a four day event. And I always ask this question, right?

And it's a leadership team that comes in an entire, you know, the business leadership team comes in and then we go through the business and find everything that's holding them back.

And the first thing I'll ask on that night is I ask it for the next day. Hey, just rank on a scale of 0 to 10 on this leadership team. How's your communication?

And almost every single time it's sevens and eights. Almost every time. And then we get into the next day and the first day is all about communication. And then somewhere around midday or mid afternoon I'll say, what do you think it is now?

Almost every single time they're like, it's a three. We didn't realize how bad it was. And they're like, how is that possible? And one of the things I'll always say is because you talk well.

But talking well doesn't mean that you've communicated well. So for me, my definition of high levels of quality communication is whatever I'm saying has to set you up for success. What do we tend to focus on in communication?

Saying what I want to say, saying my opinion, making my statement, telling you what I think you need to know, none of that matter. And then if you don't get it?

Then it's like, well, I don't know what's wrong with Marcus. I don't know why he's not getting this. It's got to be your problem. It's got to be your fault, right?

So two major things. If you're not getting what I'm saying, I have to find out why, dig in and do whatever I can to get you to success on what I'm trying to communicate.

Now, you have absolute responsibility as well. You should be trying to ask a bunch of questions, find out what it is that I'm saying, not assume things. All that.

But I need to recognize maybe I'm the problem with my style of communication. Maybe I'm not telling it to you. Right. Maybe I'm not giving it to a way that you can receive it. The second thing is, is that we focus on.

Communication and Personality Styles (00:11:35)

And you're very much aware of this, we focus on personality styles, the DISC, D, I, S, and C, and everybody responds different.

So what we say is, for us, personality styles are important so that you understand how people act, how they react, how they give information, and how they receive information.

So if you do not receive information the same way that I do, I am wasting my time trying to tell you something and communicate to you in my personality style.

It doesn't mean they need to change and become yours. It means that I have to go, how does Marcus receive information? You have to know the person. You got to know the person. Yeah, yeah.

First you have to understand you to go, well, how do I give information? Right? And if I'm somebody, obviously I'm giving lots of detail. This is what I do for a living. I communicate for a living.

So I'm giving tons of detail to your question so that anybody who's listening doesn't matter what personality style they are. Everybody listening to this can go, yep, I get what he's saying.

I understand he gave me plenty of information. But some people give sound bites. You know, hey, is this the direction we should be going? No. Okay, what direction we should we be going in? That one over there.

Oh, okay. Well, now why are we, you know, there's no information. Yes. So that person who's giving that information is failing in communication. That's not high levels of quality communication. Yes.

So the more you focus on that, all of a sudden it changes the success of not only the communication, but the team member, the team, the business.

Because now people know with clarity what they're supposed to be doing, what success looks like, what the vision is for the project that they're working on all of those pieces.

Does all that make sense? Yes.

So DISC has a lot to do with the DISC strategy as a lot of what you do in your work. To a business leader who's never heard of this, how would you explain that to them?

Or how do you explain that to them since you do actually explain these things to new business owners. Yeah. So a lot of like what I just shared would be some stuff that we would share.

And one of the things that we share, especially in is, you know, when you realize everybody thinks they have good communication, but then when you start to pick apart some of the communication and issues that they run into, all of a sudden they're like, oh my gosh.

But I thought I explained that. Well, I thought I did that, but I thought this or a great way is to, hey, tell me somebody on your team you struggle with and I'll start asking questions about that other person.

And 99.9% of the time it's going to be an opposing personality style to the person who has a struggle with them. And then when I help them to go, so here's how this person thinks and here's how they process information.

And here's this, this. They're like, I never knew that. I had no clue that that's what they did. That's right. That's why we do personality styles.

So it's very easy to help somebody to see you're not bad, you're not wrong, they're not bad, they're not wrong.

You just see things considerably differently. So a great example of what I'll use. So D is a very dominant, driven personality style. You know, fast paced thinker, but very short on details type of person.

The kind of person that can get out and sell a product and convince somebody to do something and move things around and they're just go, go, go, go, go. And they hate thinking.

Well, it's not that they hate thinking, is that they don't, they don't want to think through a ton of detail.

Yeah. Because every detail that comes their way, they have to process it. So if they can get sound bites of information, short pieces of information, then they can process the short stuff and be okay.

But if you overload them, then they're having to process every single thing you're saying and then it just overwhelms them. Right. But there are people who do exactly that. The high C is going to be somebody with insane amounts of detail.

They can't stand being wrong. They research the living daylights out of stuff and so they believe you need everything in triplicate. You know, here's all this information that you have to have on this subject.

So you take somebody who is short, you know, sound bite type of person, and then you take somebody who needs tons of information, needs tons of clarity, asks, you know, lots of questions to understand.

You have a massive clash. One person thinks the other is stupid, Right. The person who's the. The high D is going, I don't know why you do not get this. I just told it to you 17 times.

The high C is going, why can't you give me enough information for me to understand what the heck you're talking about? Both are good people, but they don't understand each other.

So when you help a business leader, business owner, you know, family, we're huge on. On having families go through this. I'm sure your dad has probably had everybody in the family take you.

So when you help them go, you don't have to be this other person. You just have to understand how they need information for them to be successful at what you want them to be successful at.

All of a sudden, the light bulbs go off. So I just got to do this. Yeah. And then they'll get it. Oh, well, I can make that happen. Yeah. Perfect. That is the best description of a D and a C I've ever heard. I think I know that.

And these people who are listening, I'm not gonna say names, but they know who they are at.

2 years ago in my high school, oftentimes I would sit in class during history or poetry, and this one student would just say something, and the teacher would get offended because she was like, she's a higher C.

And she would ask for him to explain himself, and he's. And he gets overwhelmed, and he's like, well, I told you, right? And I've always just observed it.

You know, I was just sighing, oh, man, here we go again. And just. I could see. And I under. I'm a very intuitive person as far as, like, people's personality and how to. How to. That side of things is usually easier for me.

And so seeing both of these people, I'm like, they're doing this wrong. He's doing that. It was like. You could see the disconnect. Yeah. And it was painful. Yeah, it was painful, but it was also.

It was also entertaining. Yeah. So, interestingly, if you take a situation like that, you have an authority figure now. I mean, I can spend the next two hours talking about the bad setup of our public school system. I won't go there.

But you have somebody who is in a position of authority who is teaching something, and a student, a youth, is in that person's mind challenging them on what they've said.

And so what happens is we go from logic to emotion. Now that teacher is struggling with insecurity. Why are you challenging what I said?

This is exactly it. This is the thing. Here's the information, which is exactly how our public school system is set up.

I have the answer. You need to learn the answer. That's it. Done. Right. The problem. And I've helped. I've literally helped teachers walk through this with DISC.

I've sat down with teachers who struggle with, man, I've got these kids. I can't. You know, I'm trying to teach this one kid, and this kid over here is acting out. And I'll walk through their classroom, I'll say, how many kids in your class?

You know, 20 or 30. I'm like, okay, so you got 20 kids. Uh, you have two kids that are super unruly. Yeah. Okay. You have probably somewhere around, oh, I don't know, eight kids that talk a lot. Yeah.

And then you've got probably 10 kids that are always kind of struggling to try and learn and grow. And those are the people you spend your time. Exactly. That's the makeup of the-- the population in DISC.

You know, you have 10% as high Ds, 25% are high Is, 40% are high Ss, and 25% are high Cs.

And so what I've taught, I've had a couple of teachers, I say, listen, here's what I want you to do. Those two that are usually unruly, they're done with their work really quickly. Right. Like, exactly. But they're not 100%. They're probably like a 70.

Yep. Or even a 60. Yep. Okay. But they did the work, and they did it really fast. The problem is, is they process super fast, but they don't process detail.

So give them the opportunity for extra credit work that they can get more points, and it ties them up.

So they do the original work, but then they can get even more points if they do this other work while you're over here trying to teach the high Cs who are like, I'm hearing you, but I don't get it, I don't understand this. I don't.

Where you're spending time with them. Then tie these other folks up that are done or fast or talking. Why are they talking? Because they're distracted.

They're no longer focused on what they're doing. They're not focused on the details. I literally had a teacher come back to me and go, I did. Exactly. And it was a lot longer than that. I went into much more detail than that.

She goes, I did exactly what you said. It was the most peaceful, calm time in my classroom ever. And she was literally thinking of quitting teaching. She goes, it was exactly what you said.

Once I did that, they were tied up, I could spend time on the other kids that needed to ask more questions and get them details.

So what mistake are we making? I mean, obviously we're making tons of mistakes in our public school system, but just from this aspect, what are we doing?

We're not separating our kids out by personality style and realizing these ones need more details. These don't need more details, they need more opportunities.

So you're putting an equation on each individual student is what you're saying. Exactly. Yeah, I see your point.

And I think that my teachers could use that test as well. We should have a class wide personality test, I'm telling you. Yeah, Something that plays into that.

How do you tell if you are leadership material? Because you talk a lot about leadership in business and in your strap plan and your mastermind stuff.

And for an individual who might not know yet, especially young people, how do they go about finding that out? Yeah.

So I have one question for all leaders and business owners and you can use it as an individual.

So what we tend to do, we tend to take somebody who's really good at something and put them in a leadership role.

The biggest mistake most businesses make, especially small businesses, is they take their best salesperson and put them in a leadership role. Well, they've sold better than anybody.

Surely they can teach everybody else how to sell and it fails like 90 plus percent of the time it doesn't work out. And then you have this person who was selling really well that you're now having to demote, which they can't take that.

So they're probably going to leave. What a ridiculous mistake. So ask one question. What makes you think this person can teach other people to be successful at what they do? That is a tough question to answer.

And you have to actually, you know, people go, well, because they're a nice person or well, because I've seen them do this thing over here. No, no, no. What evidence do you have that this person can lead this other person to be better at what they do?

And everybody goes, wow, I've never thought about that. So when you look at somebody and go well, they naturally are trying to help people.

I've literally seen them walk somebody through a process and help them to get to that process, you know, because folks who are natural born leaders are going to do that even when they're not a leader.

I've always, I've, I always say, you know, I've been trying to teach people since I was in grade school.

Just nobody listened to me. Right. Because nobody listens to you when you're in grade school.

But I remember when I was a kid, I was trying to teach people and trying to teach other kids and help other kids, you know, and I've got a six year old, seven, she just turned seven.

I've got a seven year old now who's constantly trying to teach, you know, her well, they're actually nephews and nieces, but they're almost her same age, you know, of things.

Let me teach you this thing over here. I want to show you this. And it's funny because you don't listen to that seven year old, but it shows that I've always been a natural born teacher and leader. Right.

Sorry to interrupt, but I guess I don't think generally people think about a leader as being a helper. Yeah. Or someone that serves. Yeah. They think of somebody as a dictator or somebody tells people what to do.

It's an unbalanced view of authority, I think totally.

And so you're saying that as a young person or someone that has a personality, as everyone does, if they are very conscientious towards trying to help others, you would say that that's a very big indicator of leadership potential.

If I can see that you have helped others, you're doing things to help people, you know, So I guess I really want to clarify this.

A great question, if you think you are a leader is I always say if you think you're a leader, turn around. If nobody's following you, then technically you're not a leader. Right.

If nobody's actually going. The job of a leader is to get somebody to a place they wouldn't naturally go to by themselves. So mentorship. Yes. Right. I, I'm helping you. I'm helping to develop you into something that you can be or should be or.

Right. You know, you don't know how to do this project. I'm going to help you get the project done or, or to see and understand how to operate the project.

So I want to make sure everybody understands. I am not talking about social media influencers. Those are not leaders. You're not leading somebody, by the way, Influencing, you're influencing it doesn't mean that you've led them to a better place.

Right. Doesn't mean that you haven't. You can totally. I mean we influence people on social media all the time. The key is am I getting somebody someplace that they wouldn't naturally get to and it's for their benefit.

It's something good. It's not something stupid. If you can see that tendency that somebody is trying to help their. And it's not a, all their worth is tied up in it.

You know, it could be that they are, they're doing it because they, they're super people pleasers and they believe if they help this person then they're going to be a better person and yada, yada, yada. That's not.

We're talking about the actual desire to develop and help.

If I can help you get to a better version of you in this thing or if I can help you to understand how to do this project or if I can help you to understand DISC like the things that I'm literally explaining, I do it from the desire of everybody who's listening to, to understand this better and move in a better direction.

Right. Or choose research it, dig into it, find out that way I am, my heart is how can I help?

If you're the person who wants to tell people what to do, that doesn't make you a leader. That makes you a dictator. Right.

So I'm always, as a business owner, I'm always looking at a person to go what tells me that this person can lead people to success? As an individual youth, what you should ask yourself is do you actually.

And you need to be honest with yourself. Do you like it? Not can you do it? Do you enjoy spending time helping other people be better? Get to a place that they wouldn't normally get to lead them to success.

And so within the DISC personality test, it seems like in my mind interactive people that like to interact with other people and people that care about other people seem to be more of leaders.

Is that, would you say that that is correct like the SI personalities so. Or is that too much of a generalization? It's a. Yeah. Every single personality style can lead.

And an important thing to understand about DISC is you're not just one, you're a portion of this. Like I'm an 88S but I'm a 67 I, I'm a 50D and I'm a 40C right. So I have percentages of, of everything but I'm definitely a high S Right.

And I'm a somewhat of a high I. People usually look at the high D's and the high I's. The, you know, the boisterous people, the, the movers and shakers and the things that are getting things done as like those are the great leaders.

But the truth is every personality style can lead. Right. So if you're a high C, are you going to be a leader of 25 people?

Probably not. You could be. You definitely can be. Right. I, I, I use football coaches from the 80s as some examples. So probably people listening to this aren't going to know who I'm talking about.

But there are folks that are high C personality styles that can lead larger teams. But what you'll find is a high C is better off at leading other high Cs. Individuals, individuals, small groups, you know, Ss.

Ss don't want to ever be the front person. Neither do high Cs. But they can lead really well if they understand the need for it and they have the heart for it.

Is want to be out in front and talking to people, but they need to understand that it's about setting other people up for success. And these just always believe that they should lead, you know, but it doesn't mean that they can.

Right. They have to understand that people come first, not their leadership style.

When everybody understands what good quality leadership looks like and they lean in that direction than any personality style can lead.

That D is actually very interesting that you said that they always think that they should lead. That's very accurate. If they don't see leadership, they'll step up into it even if they don't know what they're doing.

Yeah. Would you say that Ds are more likely to lead by example, no less talking? No, Ds are more likely to lead by. Let me tell you what to do.

Okay. It's almost like that dictatorship aspect. Now, something we haven't gotten into is what we call maturity or immaturity in your personality profile. Has nothing to do with age. You can be a 70 year old immature high D is.

Or see, when you don't know yourself, maturity means you understand you, how you act, react, how you give information, how you receive information. You understand these aspects of yourself.

That's why we say when you get into personality styles, learn you first, then learn others. Otherwise, if you learn others first, you're going to try and tell everybody everything about themselves. The sooner you know you, the sooner you can lean in somebody else's direction.

So an immature high D is going to tell people what to do. They're really focused about, you're here to accomplish my goal. So I'm going to tell you how to get this done.

I'm going to use you to get my things done, all that kind of fun stuff. As they grow and mature and they realize, and by the way, immature high DS don't care about your feelings. They don't even know you have feelings.

They're usually, you know, classified as either rude or a jerk.

As they grow and they mature, all of a sudden they realize how important people are and that people, you do have to treat people differently, lean in the direction and help them and guide them and all that kind of stuff.

And then you will win by doing so. If you help people, then it changes everything.

Then instead of being a dictator, they actually become somebody who does a great job in kind of inspiring people to move or getting people what they need and at the same time being able to push people, you know, stretch them, Right?

So something we should have done before we started talking about this personality test. For viewers who don't know that what the DISC actually stands for.

DISC Explained (00:31:27)

Could you just very, very briefly go over each letter?

So D, I, S, C.

D is the dominant driver. Very direct, very fast in processing speed. The D can process in nanoseconds. The High C takes 20 minutes.

You know, if you're somebody listening to this and you've been in a meeting or discussion, and then like an hour later you're like, oh, I should have said this.

You're probably in that high C, high S category. So D is those drivers dominant, like to make things happen. And whenever we say the negative stuff, that's in the immaturity aspect, whenever we say the positive stuff, that's in the maturity aspect.

That in immaturity, there are people who really want to get things done on their own. They want to make things happen. The more they mature than they focus on.

This isn't just about me. High I is the high influencing. They're very people people, right? They're very people focused, very people centric, very enthusiastic, very encouraging, terrible with details.

Ds and Is suck at details. They do not do well with details. The Ss and Cs are going to be much better on the detail aspect. But high Is really want to please people and help people in immaturity. They're people pleasers.

Their worth is on whether or not they made you happy. They got you excited, they got you enthusiastic, right? In maturity, they realize it's not about them and they become phenomenal.

Encouragers and guiders and helping people to, you know, accomplish things that they wouldn't even think about. And they come to a place of realizing they have to be focused on details. I can usually tell a high I by how many times I have to ask them.

Do you have a pen to write this down? You know, are you taking notes on your phone or anything? You know, they're usually like, oh, I got all this.

No, you don't. You're going to forget everything. Right? Yeah. The more an I understands they have to have details to cover their backside, then the more they mature.

High S is the stable, amiable, loyal, hates conflict, cannot stand conflict, can't stand being the front person.

You know, I happen to be a front person because I do the things we teach. When you overcome these aspects, then it changes who you are.

I'm still an 88S. I'm still a very high S personality style, but I'm somebody who can be on the stage in front of 10,000 people. I'm somebody who can be one on one because I've overcome those aspects. Right, that's. That's a mature S.

Yes. For the viewers, absolutely understanding. It's not about me. It's not about. So, you know, high S's are very concerned about people's opinions.

There really were, you know, I always say if you, you know, you ask a high S where we're going to go to dinner, it's like, where do you want to go? No, no, no, just pick a place. Well, where have you been lately? No, no, no, just pick a place.

Well, what are you craving? Just pick a place. The problem is, is that the high S cannot stand doing something in it affecting you in a negative way. Right.

So if you take a hundred people to dinner, if a High S decides we're all going to this steakhouse, 99 people think it's the best steakhouse they've ever been to. But one person complains. That's the identity of the high S. They're defined by that they made a mistake.

They shouldn't have done that. They hate that they picked that place, even though 99% of the people loved it. That 1. This is immaturity. Right.

In the high S, even though that one person complained, then it was a bad decision the whole time. That's enlightening for me.

Yeah, I've never, I've always, on the DISC, my S has always been the lowest thing by far. But that is. That is something I struggle with personally.

Yeah. Which one person is not happy with something? Yeah, I get Caught up on it. I want harmony with everyone, and I want everyone to be. Are you a high aesthetic? Very.

On the. Okay, so on the Values, which we. It's way too much information for us to get into on this, of course. But so high aesthetics are huge about harmony and balance. So it could be an I trait.

So, no, it could be a value. Okay, so we're talking about two different things here. Correct. We have the DISC, which is personality style, act, react, give information, receive information.

Then we have Values. The things that you value in life. You're somebody who values. You appreciate beauty, you appreciate. You're. You're the kind of person who walks in a room and notices details about a room. I've noticed the paintings on your wall.

I was going to say. Exactly. Yeah, you will do that. And other people go, I don't even realize those paintings were there. My dad. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So your dad's. That. He's the high C and D. He's a high E. Economic. Very high economic. Right. But probably not very high aesthetic. No. Yeah. So that's the amazing thing is that actually is a value trait. You value harmony and balance.

And if somebody doesn't like a decision that you made, there's the lack of harmony. It creates that issue for you. Right. The thing you have to ask yourself, and this is where maturity steps in.

If 99 people like it and one person doesn't give a crap, if 75 people like it and 25 don't, was it a good choice? Yeah, probably. Right. The key is, is my worth in this decision?

No, my worth doesn't come from the person who complained about the meal in immaturity. Yes, it does. It absolutely comes from that.

So that's something you have to process through is, you know, for me, my worth comes from what God says my worth is not what man says my worth is. Right.

And I spent a large portion of my life gaining my worth from human beings. Most people do.

Almost everybody on the planet does. Correct. And it wasn't until I started recognizing human beings are just created beings, just like I am.

They're not the creator, they're the created. Right. How could I get my worth in definition? So what you seem to be alluding to is identity. Identity in your case, in God.

Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

Who are some mentors who have helped you? (00:37:37)

So as a succ-- As a. Just changing paths a little bit here as a very successful business coach and leader, who are some mentors who have helped you?

Because earlier we discussed, you know, leading and following and also mentors, because every successful person has a mentor.

Every mentor has had a mentor. So who are some in your life that you would be open to share about? This answer is always different than everybody else thinks.

It's gonna be okay. You know, I, I was One of the VPs for Dave Ramsey. We go way back back to our days in, in church and everything. And we worked when the business was small and. You mean Dave.

Dave Ramsey himself. Yeah. And so every, you know, there's a lot of great stuff that Dave taught me. And that's where a lot of people think, oh, is your mentor somebody that's super successful?

My answer is I have learned way more. First off, scripturally, God. I have learned more from scripture on how to treat, lead, guide people than anywhere else. Looking at how God looks at things, that is, it's massive.

I mean, it's just, it's in a different stratosphere. Right? Yeah. When it comes to people, most I'm. I'm somebody who is a high altruist.

I'm also somebody who. This is probably too much information, but because I can't dig into it, I, I grew up with what's called reactive attachment disorder.

I didn't have a phenomenal bond when I was young. And so for me, my whole life was paying attention to people, watching people.

Why did you do that? Why did, why did that happen? How come he said that over there? I've always paid attention to people like crazy.

I watch every bit of people's body language, I question why they do things, and then I have no problem asking questions. Right.

I'm very like a self didactic type of person. I constantly grow and teach myself. But so much of the mentoring, I have specific mentors.

I have great mentors. I'm a Bible teacher. I have great Bible teachers that I've turned to as mentors.

But so much of what I've learned has been from people, like literally from interactions and situations and digging in and trying to help and guide and then literally just digesting everything that happened.

What happened, how come this happened, this one. It's been my entire life. So I have great people that have been, you know, that have helped me with information and taught me things, no doubt about it.

But it's been interesting. People have been asking me this question for decades and it always comes to the same thing. I have actually learned more in specific situations because of the situation, because of what God's revealing at that time.

All of that has helped me to grow immensely because I'm somebody who pays attention. Does that make sense? Like, I know it probably sounds kind of crazy. But it's being.

You know, I used to race formula cars. One of the comments that you hear all the time is, you got to have more seat time. You have to have more seat time.

You got to get in the seat. The more time you're in the seat, the better you're going to be. It's that same kind of concept. Right.

The more I have coached, guided, directed, leaded entrepreneurs, business owners, team members, all that kind of stuff, because I'm somebody who pays attention to the situations, it grows me immensely.

And then I'm comparing that to other things. I'm comparing that to God, I'm comparing that to other mentors and people like that, and it just floods a lot of information.

So I have, you know, great people in my past that have spoken into situations and taught me things, but I'm somebody who just doesn't stop there. Like, I'll gain that information, but then I'm like, well, why and how?

And let me put that to practice and then let me see what happens with it. So in my experience, while I have great people that have spoken into my life, I.

It's the practice that has taught me so much more. And unfortunately, what most people do is they just do the thing. They practice the thing, and if it came out with a good outcome, they're happy with that.

For me, it's never enough. I'm always like, well, but why was it good? And how did it help? And how did that person respond? And what did that do for their life?

And how did that change that? And that's been the stuff that grows me. I know in my mind that may sound really weird. Does it make sense? There's a question that actually describes. I didn't know I was like that, but the noticing everything.

I guess that is. I relate to that. So I personally understand it. Yeah. People struggle with leaving companies like you have from Ramsey Corporation or Ramsey Solutions.

And a lot of people want to get out of it but have a hard time deciding if they actually want to create their own business. And they lack the confidence to. And boldness. Yeah.

If we have time here, could you share some moments in your life where you have done that?

God's Calling (00:42:54)

So leaving Dave's was. Was tough. It was very difficult. In fact, it's massive change for an S. It was a massive change. Yeah. And I.

God was telling me, so I'm somebody who, you know, I've had many times in my life where I feel like I'm hearing God mention something or say something.

I'm not talking about, like this audible voice in the room. I. I believe many times God is speaking to you, in you.

And what I. What I usually say is, if you can argue with it, it's not you.

There have been times in my life where I've had, you know, if I have a thought, you know, you can. You can question your own thoughts. You know, I should. I should go eat a hamburger today.

Ah, no, I probably shouldn't eat that. Nah, that's not what I'm feeling. Like I should have something, right?

But when you hear you need to do this, and you're like, no, I don't. Yes, you do. No, I don't. You know, that's. That's where I start questioning, is that me?

Because you can't argue with yourself, right? And there have been times in my life from. For the last three years, I was at Dave's. I would be in the middle of just coaching and guiding and directing somebody to something super powerful.

And all of a sudden, as I'm talking, I would hear, you're going to be leaving and doing this. I'd be like, what the heck is that? Just in my head, you're going to be leaving and doing this.

Is that you, God? What? What? Leaving Dave's? No, no, no, no. That can't be you. Three years, I would be in situations and I would hear, you're going to be leaving and doing this.

And it's interesting because I didn't take it. I took it almost as a. If it's. God, maybe it's a suggestion, but that's probably last night's pizza, right? That's probably. That's.

That's got to be me, right? That kept building and building and building. And then one day, I remember it as plain as day.

I left my office, I was walking over to the copy room, I was making a copy of something, and as I turned and I left, I heard, you will leave in my head.

And that shut me down. I went, oh, my God, now I'm a high. S. Yes, I'm a high. This is hate change, by the way. Hate change. I'm a decently high I. The only thought was that that is you, God?

Are you going to embarrass me? Are you? All I could think about is, are you going to do something that's going to force me to have to leave?

I better go. And I sat down with Dave. It was. It was crazy. We were actually talking about my path. My path. The path was to make me a huge leadership expert with resources and everything that we had there.

And Connections with, you know, news networks and all that kind of stuff. And so we sat down at a fantastic dinner. Dave took me to this fantastic dinner. It was just us.

And. And he's like, hey, so let's talk about your future. And I said, dave, I think it's time for me to go. And he's like, no, no, no, now. Why?

So I kind of explained it and he, Chris, we can do all that here. And I got really super confused. And I was like, maybe that wasn't God. Right, right. And so.

And I was leaving the next day to go do some events and. And he's like, just. Just go pray about it. We'll talk about it.

When we went through four different conversations of me leaving, doing stuff, praying about it, and every single time, I would leave our conversation and go, lord, is it you? Is it not you?

And I would hear, you know, what you're supposed to do. Okay?

And so I went through this process and we got to the last meeting, and both Dave and I are just quasi devastated in this moment because I'm hearing God say, I've got to go, and I'm going to follow God, but here's this man that I love and this.

This amazing situation and this stuff that, you know, we've. We've done so much of this together, and all this stuff, it was just heartbreaking for the two of us.

And I'll never forget we had. So we called in our HR director and it's like, hey, Chris is going to be leaving. And he goes, well, that's great. And we both kind of look, we're both just distraught. And we look at him as like, what he's.

Chris, you've been built for this. This is. This is who you are. This is what he saw right through. He saw the positive. You're literally supposed to be doing this stuff.

And Dave and I just kind of looked at each other and was like, it's. It's a continuation of what we're doing here. It's, you know, it's. This is what God built me for.

But I was here not just for, you know, I was here not just to be a contributor, but this was so much of, you know, God has taken me through this.

I've done this here, and he's moving me to this next section. That was massive because I was starting at zero. Right?

I was literally leaving and going and building a company on my own and still not knowing exactly what God was telling me to do. 100%. I knew where I was supposed to start.

And you know, I was scared. I was like, man, I'm starting at zero. What in the world am I doing?

But you're telling me to do it. I'm going to follow you. I'm not going to. And for three years, I kind of convinced myself maybe that wasn't God.

But when I knew, I knew. I knew I better go. It doesn't matter what God says. You move, you go, you do.

And crazy enough, before I even left Dave's, I already had my first clients that funded the business. And, you know, he just kept sending people left and right, sending and sending and sending.

And so I. I would love to. No, I wouldn't love to say. I bet a lot of people would love to hear, hey, you should just go and do this because it's a good idea.

I did it because God told me to. Powerful. It was something that is like he's saying, move. I either move or if I don't, I heard the stern voice nag you for. Well, and what would the.

So here's. We just celebrated 13 years a couple days ago. Thirteen years of this business and growing and helping people. You know, your dad's been, you know, we've been able to be a part of y'alls business and helping and.

And grow that business to where it is and decisions and all that kind of stuff. I would not be a part of this. Yeah. I wouldn't be on this podcast.

And it's affected me on a personal level. It's come all the way from Franklin, Tennessee, to Lancaster. Yeah. In our own home, our family culture is different because of the, of your teachings so..

God. And if I didn't listen, maybe he would have found somebody else to do that and it wouldn't be me. And then I would hate that. Right. This brings the Christian worldview into play here.

There's a principle in the Christian worldview that you bring Christ into every area of your life. How does that look like in business?

Because, for example, none of. Not all of my dad's employees are Christians. Although there has been tremendous things happen that I would have never thought possible. As far as that.

A couple years ago, my dad said I have to be preaching to my employees or I have to be preaching or the gospel to my employees.

And I'm like, man, that's never going to happen. That's. I was like, that makes. That doesn't make sense. But years later, it has worked out for a lot of them. And it's very surprising.

It's caught me so off guard. And so how do you. What advice do you have?

I guess is what I'm asking for people who don't really know how to go about this in their business.

Or if they're an employee and they're in a company full of 50 folks who don't-- aren't a Christian and they are, but they feel like God's telling them, bring the gospel into your work.

Yeah. So for me, I have. My worldview is a little bit different than that. I don't believe you bring Christ into every situation. He owns it all. It's all His. He created it all. He made it all.

Nothing was created without Him. Everything was created by Him. Every good thing is from, he owns me, he owns you, he owns this table.

He owns the thousand hills, and he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Right. He owns everything. And he's very aware of that. Right.

We're the ones who are not. We look at it as life is. This is my life. I think of that as being incredibly ignorant and not focused on, you know, I know there's a Creator. So the more that I search and seek out him, the more he reveals Himself to me.

Right. It's just. It's his way. He shows that through scripture over and over again. When you get to a place of recognizing, you own my business.

I want to believe I own my business, but that's ridiculous. Because at any time, you know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. People misunderstand that a lot and think, oh, you're supposed to just be afraid of God because that's what he says.

The fear of the Lord is understanding at any moment, if he wants to, because he has a great reason and all his reasons are great. Take my business away. Done. It's gone. Right.

At any minute, he can do whatever he wants to. And. And I might look at it as negative, but he's going to look at it as something that's going to grow me.

Or just read the story of Job, get to the end where God's going, where were you when I created this earth and placed the stars?

Where were you? I'm the one who created all this stuff. Right? I am God. So when you recognize that for me, there is no bringing God into my business, It's His. I happen to be running it.

He's put me in position of leadership. This is his place. This is his business. I pray to God I'm making the right decisions. Right? I'm praying for guidance and direction and are we going the right way and are we doing the right stuff?

So when you have that mindset of nothing is mine. I don't own my own life. I don't own my kids. I don't own my marriage. I don't own. I'm a part of it. And I'm.

I have the phenomenal blessing from the king of the universe to be a part of it, then it changes the way you look at everything. It does. So then when you look at your business now I have.

I have a, a blessing that a lot of people don't have. Every bit of my intellectual property is based on scripture. So my business, legally, I get to operate from scripture.

I get to teach from. I get to discriminate. And, you know, of. If. If somebody doesn't believe what we believe, because our message is that.

And there's only a few places where you can do this, but because our message is based on scripture, if you don't believe in that and you want to teach something else, then we don't have to allow you to be a part of that process.

Right? It doesn't mean that we won't. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't hire. It's just we're probably not going to put you in a role where you're sharing the message. Right?

So because of that, everybody on my team is at some level walking through this process. We do devotionals, we do all kinds of stuff because we can get away with that.

Most businesses can't because they're intellectual. Their intellectual property is not based on scripture.

It's. They're building a widget. They're doing something Right. So what does that mean as far as bringing stuff into your business? I pay my team every Wednesday morning.

If we don't have an event or something for us to teach scripture, they get paid their salary for an hour. They're not working on the business.

They're, you know, they're learning, they're growing. We have conversations with people about God. We have conversations about scripture.

For us, when we're talking to clients, we will ask the question, are you okay? Are you. Do you want to talk about this? Would you like this? And almost always, like, 99% of the time, it's like, yeah, I'd love to hear what you think.

Or, let's talk about that. When we do things like Next-Level Life, there's so much of the God aspect in there.

We've had folks, many folks that have come through that are not believers, and they're like, hey, I just want to let you know, I don't believe what you believe.

And I'm like, great. Can we have the conversation? Oh, totally. We can talk about it. Just know that I don't believe.

And we've had many folks come to Christ through that process, many that haven't, you know, some that haven't continued on, had great events with them. We have some folks that are clients that aren't believers.

The key for me is if you believe that that's who God is, that he owns everything and he owns you, and he does truly want you to bring the gospel, there's a great way of doing that.

It's how you live your life. So, you know, St. Francis of Assisi had a great saying. He said, preach the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.

That's huge. Amazing. Does my life emulate Christ? Does my life emulate the gospel? Do people look at me and go, gosh, that dude's got something that I don't. You know, is he. He's. He's connected in a way that I'm not connected.

He treats people well. You know, I. I believe if you are being led by the Holy Spirit, you're going to have the fruits of the Spirit.

So if you don't have patience and meekness and kindness and love and gentleness and all these different aspects, then you're probably not being led by the Holy Spirit, right?

So I question myself. If I have moments that I don't have that right, what am I doing?

So if you feel like God is telling you, I want you to bring this now. You have to be super careful if your business that your IP is not scriptural because you can get sued and people can do all kinds of stupid stuff, Right?

So you have to ask yourself, can you offer things that people are going to shoot down? If you can be okay with that, Great.

Fantastic. We don't have to talk about it. Would you be interested in talking about it? Is this something you want? Then you can bring those pieces into your business.

If you're just a team member, as I do my air quotes, you still have the opportunity to witness to people. Don't go ram stuff down their throats if they don't want it. Don't go doing something your business owner or leader doesn't want done.

But live your life in a way that people want to know why you're different and why you. Why your life doesn't look like theirs. So to summarize, lead by your actions and follow the Holy Spirit.

If you could summarize your entire life focus into one goal, what would that be? Pleasing God.

Perfect. It is and that will lead out to everything else that you've just discussed. 100%. Because at the core of it, pleasing God is our only goal.

Yeah. And I'm not talking about I hope God's happy with me. I know what he tells me I'm supposed to be doing. Following instruction, maybe, or being obedient. Being obedient to him.

That is what he asks a thousand times. If you love me, you will obey me. If you love me, you'll obey my commands. The person who says they love me but does not obey my commands is a liar.

God defines love differently than we do. When you. And think about it, think about it as a parent, you know, I always try to help people. People think of God as this big, angry, distant God.

He is a phenomenally loving father. He doesn't tell you to do something because he wants to hurt you. I'm telling my daughter as we go in a parking lot, we live out on a. On a. On a farm, you know, you understand this?

So she doesn't get into parking lots. A lot. So when we get. Yeah, so when we get to a parking lot, I'm taking a quick glance to make sure no cars are there, and then I'm watching to see how she operates.

And that little girl so many times will run straight out into the aisle way, right? And I'm Raina, stop and get that shock moment.

Baby, you just got ran over. You didn't look either direction. You went straight out in there. Why am I doing this? Because I want to. I want my child to feel bad.

No, I want her to be aware. Baby, I've told you a thousand times, we've walked through it. I've walked you up to this. I've shown you this. At some point, you have to make the decision to stop, pay attention and look.

That is a loving father. I don't let her go run out into. And I make sure there's no cars coming when I do this, right? I don't let her go run out into the street.

I don't let her go put herself in dangerous situations that's going to hurt her to that extent. Now, there's plenty of times I actually allow her to get hurt. I allow her to do something that brings a teeny, tiny bit of pain, that brings awareness, right?

Something scary. Like when she was four years old, we were standing on this. We were in the back of our. Our property, standing on the stump, and I just jumped down.

And she's like, daddy, can you let me down? I'm like, I'm looking around the whole ground. It's nothing that's going to hurt her. It's a soft ground. I'm like, no, baby, jump. No, I can't do that. I'm like, baby, you can do this.

And I just walked her through the process. And then when she did it, she was so excited that she actually survived, you know, that she could do this.

I'm doing that. This is, obey me, listen to me, trust me. I'm doing this for your good. Not to hurt you, not to harm you. So when people look at God, sometimes they think he's just this punishing God. He is to an extent.

There are, if you do not follow, it's like telling your kid, clean your room. And they don't clean their room. Hey, I need you to clean your room.

And they don't clean your room. Their room. After so many times, are you going to bless that child for not obeying you? Heck no, you're not. You're going to give a consequence now that you've not listened to me, why am I giving a consequence?

Because if I allow you to walk into this world on your own as an adult and you don't have good work ethic and you don't have, you know, great decision making processes, I have failed you as a parent.

God's doing the same thing with us. So if you love me, do what I tell you to do. Don't do the things I tell you not to do. It's very basic.

His definition of love relies on our obedience to him. Our definition of love is emotion. Do you like me? Do you think I'm amazing? Do you like spending time with me?

You must really love me. Do you tell me good things about myself? You must really love me.

But I have watched my life with this concept of looking at love through the eyes of God and, you know, listening to him and following his ways and have come to this place of realizing that is true love.

When my daughter listens to me and she obeys me, and she does, I feel so good because I'm like, I have helped you to become a better person. Right?

You're going to grow up and make right decisions because you're listening, you're obeying. It's fantastic.

So all that makes sense a lot. It's perfect sense. All right, this was great. I'm going to wrap it up now. Do you have any final words for people?

Spend time making the decision. Is God who you think he is? Who is he? Dig in, seek him, make it a lifelong process and you will be amazed at all the other questions you've asked.

Fall in place. I do what I do because my time seeking God. He's created these opportunities. Thank you, Chris.

Absolutely. Thank you, brother. Good to be on.