0:00:02 - Mark Henderson LearyWelcome to Practice Freedom. What if you could hang out with owners and founders from all sorts of healthcare private practices, having rich conversations about their successes and their failures, and then take an insight or two to inspire your own growth? Each week on Practice Freedom, we take an in-depth look at how to get the most out of both the clinical side and the business side of the practice, get the most out of your people and, most of all, how to live the healthy life that you deserve. I'm Mark Henderson Leary. I'm a business coach and an entrepreneurial operating system implementer. I have a passion that everyone should feel in control of their life, and so what I do is I help you get control of your business. Part of how I do that is by letting you listen in on these conversations in order to make the biggest impact in your practice and, ultimately, live your best life. Let's get started. Welcome back practice leaders. Got a good one for you today. I say that every time. It's just obligatory. Right? You got a great one. You're going to love this one. I really enjoyed the conversation with Jim Edwards, known him for several years. Just a phenomenal leader. I've been wanting to get him on the show. Part of the delay there was that he was in a semi-retired state after having sold his business and left that business. But he's a guy I've witnessed and we talked a little bit about this His culture, the people who worked with him and for him love him and the legacy he left behind is just amazing, and so my hope is nothing else. I guess that you listen to him and my conversation and understand that this is his style. It worked really well. If it appeals to you, you can maybe learn some things. If it's not your style, that's okay. That's part of what we talk about actually is finding a style. But just to give you a little background on Jim he's just a guy who believes in continuous learning. You hear that we kind of wrote that, you know. I actually wrote that down in the notes. He's really passionate about the continuous learning. As a startup entrepreneur, fundraiser operator and really being growth-minded in general. 25 years of experience growing and developing people leading cross-functional teams you know thinking about this entrepreneurial all the way through these very large organizations he's worked inside. Mentoring is a big passion of his. He's been an advisor on several boards, including for-profit and non-profit organizations and sort of where I know him from is. He started an organization or a company called Optiport to help a founding group of independent regional eye care practices better compete in the eye care industry, and it was wildly successful in bringing that competitive advantage. Over that 20 years plus he helped lead the company become the largest alliance of regional eye care providers in the industry, and that legacy is still alive. And so what we talk about is leadership and management style. That was the intent of the conversation. I think what you get is more of an example of his leadership and management style, and so you know stuff you might want to model and learn from if it fits your style. We talk about things like delegation, how he learned to do it, how from an early startup with just a couple of people, how he did that, and I think it's just a phenomenal model of how he sort of learns things and delegates them. So I hope you learn from that. I think it was kind of an eye-opener for me the archetypical delegation and growth model for entrepreneurs in any industry healthcare or otherwise and we kind of start out with the idea. We start talking about the larger organization having acquired it, and then the 80, 90% of the interview we don't talk about that at all, but when you kind of close the loop on that and talk a little bit about what that was like as a leader in a larger organization, which isn't going to be super relevant to everybody listening, but it does apply, I think, to the idea of what happens if we get outside investors or if we do a merger or we do acquisitions, what happens as a culture, and I think creating that polarity is probably helpful to people who are wondering what that would be like. And we talk about private equity and the good and the bad of that and unpack what goes well and what doesn't go well and what the ingredients are there to some extent. So, before we dive in, of course, don't forget if you're stuck and even Jim says look, if you're stuck, you should reach out and I'm here to tell you. If you're stuck, don't stay stuck. It's my passion to understand how things work and it is my purpose to help people understand how things work so they can get unstuck. Now, obviously, eos and the system I work with is. You know there's a lot to that, but really just in simple terms, if you feel like you could have and want to have an amazing high value organization that you love being a part of, and the people there love that too. Your employees love it, your clients, your patients love it, but you don't know what to do to get that going. Please reach out. I promise you I can give you a valuable tip or something to get you on the right path. Reach out at practicefreedomcom slash schedule. So, without any further ado, jim Edwards. Well, good morning Jim. We finally sit down and get to have a conversation and record it. 0:04:59 - Jim EdwardsAbsolutely Looking forward to this. I know it's been a while in the making and glad we're here. How long ago did we meet? I would say it's got to be four or five years ago. 0:05:10 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, it would have been right, something like that. So I guess it was in Austin right before pandemic, right, we were the last person. That's exactly right, and so man Yep, and your life journey has taken a few things you know, turns over that I. Your life journey has taken a few things you know, turns over that. I guess a lot of that was happening before. 0:05:28 - Jim EdwardsSo you saw, in the business and all that. Yeah. But you're right, it's changed a little bit since then. But you know, at that point I was really being absorbed into a larger organization, or our company was being absorbed into a larger organization, learning how to work together with other founders and leaders and work through that format. Then, you know, had that large organization right, merge with another organization and change their culture and decision-making process and then worked through that for a couple of years and then, you know, over the last two years really haven't been professionally as involved as I used to be. So, yeah, a lot of changes personally. 0:06:08 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, let's put some details to that. I mean, I get super specific, but I think what you're talking about I don't even suspect this would be useful. What is it when a small entrepreneurial culture, purpose-driven, delivers enough value that a larger organization finds it valuable enough to buy? And then what happens with the different leadership styles, cultures, and how does that affect the ability to deliver the mission? I mean and I think that applies lots of ways I think we can kind of back and forth between the specifics and the conceptual, because where I find this useful is that there is a general perception that private equity is like the end of all good things, and so there's always this belief that if you sell, whatever that means and there's a larger entity, that that just equals bad stuff. And I think that there is a lot of bad stuff that happens with roll-ups and certain private equity in certain circumstances. But I have talked to many people who have attributed their highest success to the proper private equity partner and doing a buyout of some kind that allowed them to have the horsepower that, when partnered well, really did great things. And so, if nothing else, I'd like these things, these examples, to start to be appreciated for the uniqueness that they all are. They're not all the same. The challenges are different, the benefits are different and you had a very small fish huge fish kind of situation, right. 0:07:36 - Jim EdwardsYeah, I think the interesting thing is and I can give a little background there but also is how did I try and maintain the same things from a management and leadership standpoint that I learned on my own and how did I try and maintain those principles as I went through this process of change? 0:07:56 - Mark Henderson LearyAnd I love this is. This is very much what we talked about talking about, but to me it's starting to really light up that you know, I know you and have seen you as the personal leader, very, very involved with the personal development of every individual in your organization. To walk down the halls of your office to see bookshelves full of the best in class books for development of leadership and management and culture that you give them out, you make it freely available in the most boutique, hands-on way, how does that translate to an organization that is the opposite of that institutional of mindset, and is it a sad story? Is it a good story? Is it a practical story? I have to believe that. You know, let's just dig in there. How did you experience that? 0:08:46 - Jim EdwardsYeah, well, like any story, it has its ups and downs, but I think overall, in my opinion, it was a great story. And maybe, to start, the company that I co-founded with others was called OptiPort and, as you said, it was founded over 20 years ago. It was really one employee and myself when we started, so two people, and we grew to I don't know 35, 40, 50 people when we were acquired and not by private equity, but by a supplier industry, so it was a strategic type and we grew to another 20 or 30 employees during the time I still was with them. So I think what might be interesting for people to hear is how I developed my own management and leadership style within our own company and then how that transitioned when we became part of a larger organization. 0:09:34 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, let's go there for sure, if that makes sense to you. Yeah, I mean, I think you lived. I don't have an idea, but from the outside it seems like an entrepreneurial journey, as I see it, which is scrapping your way from a good idea to like I apparently don't know what I'm doing. There's got to be somebody who does. I'll go learn from them and just kind of like, stand on the shoulders of giants and then become a giant in your own way. That's what it looked like from my perspective. 0:09:58 - Jim EdwardsWell, a giant is a strong term. I'll say climb the hill right. But you know, I think you described it well. It was really, I think, when I started, and many people you know, and sometimes it's helpful to hear other stories, to learn a nugget or two that you can take in yourself and so maybe to share a little bit about that. But when I started, you know, like many young entrepreneurs, you think you know everything right and you're going to do everything, and you know the way I started the company is. I had another team member who was very helpful, but even before they came on board, you know you're doing every single thing right and you're learning, and I think that's a blessing and a curse. You learn all about the business, but you quickly learn that you'll make mistakes right and you aren't good at things. Quickly learn that you'll make mistakes right and you aren't good at things. And I think earlier in my career as an entrepreneur, one of my gifts was that I was driven to continually learn right. That was something that was helpful. And another thing I think that was helpful for me was I got around people that I could learn from, and so that was very fortunate. Early on my career. I've got mentors who still to this day are very good friends but helped me along the way, and the smartest thing I did was I listened right. I listened from their journeys, what they'd gone through, got advice, but then I always tried to implement it myself. And as I would go, you know, sometimes I would win, but inevitably I got to the point whether it wasn't just a skill of mine or strength, or even burnout where I couldn't do that. And so quickly I learned, hey, bringing on people and trying to work with them was the best way that I could scale. But still, I would say, at the beginning of the business I always tried to do. You know, even though I brought people on, I'd still think that, hey, I had the better idea or I could do it myself. And then you run into a failure, right, and an area that you just can't do or you have to drive through. And I think that's what really helped me. Start to develop. How do I become a leader right? First I'm a manager. Develop how do I become a leader right? And I have to. First I'm a manager, but then how do I become a leader? And maybe you know a quick example. I would say. You know, we started our business and for the first three or four years we were doing well, we were growing with the current customer base. But how do we break outside of that customer base? And, to be honest, I really wasn't a very good salesperson. I would go out and try and sell something and we had the operational side of the business strong, but we really needed new business development and I tried in every different way and you know, it got to the point where I would talk to my mentors and advisors and I could see in their face, hey, we got to do something here and you're not doing it right. That doesn't feel good, right? So you know what I ended up doing and this is another thing I tried to do as I grew was is there a program or a system that I can learn to help me? I'm always a big system person and I ended up Not so surprising, yeah, and I think that's one of the things we have in common, right, when we talk about it, right. And so I went and I joined a sales management program where you would go for a week or something and then every Monday, at the end of the day, for two hours, you would go and really for a whole year to learn about it. And you know, if you haven't taken a sales training program, there's a lot to it and there's a lot of art, there's a lot of science, there's a lot of people interaction. And that experience was really profound for me because it helped me. One know that it's hard and I need to go outside to get resources, but it gave me the confidence to really get out there and start working on things. And I tell you what, when I first got that big first sale, that sense of overcoming an obstacle was so great, so infectious, it was great, and that really helped not only grow the business but prove a part of the model we were trying to do. But I did realize through that process also this is not my area of expertise, right, and so now I need to go out and find people who can do this better than me. I do know the process. So it at least allowed me to say here's what I think can be some of the attributes in a person that might be strong at this. But it was a really helpful experience to me and one that started me on a process of hey, listen, I don't have to know everything, but there are programs that I can grow and learn myself and also bring in other people that are better at things than I am to help me grow and scale that business. So that was always one that I looked back towards. 0:14:47 - Mark Henderson LearyWell, what you're talking about there, I think, is very important discernment for a manager, leader. It is how far do you go in terms of, like I don't have resources, I don't, I'm an entrepreneur and I need more than I can afford, and so who's going to do it? Well, me, or something like that. And where you're kind of doing square, peg, round hole by design, which the discernment starts to be well, do I hire for this, do I do this and do I know enough? Do I know enough about this thing that needs to get done to even delegate it? And I think sales, as you talked about it, that's a really good story. I think what you described was really good, because the two polar mistakes that are terrible are not delegating the stuff that you can do well beyond the time. You should have trained somebody else to do the work you do, and so the organization was hyper dependent upon you. That's a tragic mistake, especially in healthcare, because the hyper dependency can get ludicrous in terms of the ability to make money and do all the things that, and backing out of it becomes incredibly difficult. The other one is abdication, before we understand, and sales is the number one place that happens. It's like I don't understand. I don't like selling, I don't like talking to people, I don't know how to do this, so let me go hire somebody who can do it, and the success rate on that is so low it's worse than not doing it at all. In my opinion, it's just pretend that we're selling is more effective than spending money on somebody who's supposed to be selling when you don't have the language and ability to understand how to do it. And so what you did, I think, was a really good example of I have to have enough knowledge to know what this even is and prove that it can be done. And, as a principal and as a founder, to fit the sales process and the precise sales technique to the product that I sell. And okay, now I know how to do it and, ta-da, I hate it. Let's have somebody else do it, and I think that would be the I wish everybody would do, exactly that. 0:16:54 - Jim EdwardsWell, I will tell you. I think you're talking about a journey that people go through right. I lucked out in this area where I started with sales because, to your point, I didn't know how to do it. I had to learn the process. I went through a great training program and I realized right away that I didn't want to do it, and so that gave me a model, as I continued to grow, to be able to say, like you said, do I know enough? As an entrepreneur, you really never know enough, but you know 80% and you have the confidence to then take that leap Right. And so what I also learned through this process is when I get to that 80%, I may not be there yet, but there are people out there, there are programs, there are systems, consultants, et cetera, that can help me, and the quicker I bring those in, find the value or go to a program right, Then I can get enough of the learning that allows me to then build that aspect either through a part or a program within my company or help others who are on my team go through that process to help grow that skill as a company. And I think that's where, at the beginning of my career, I thought I could do it all and I tried it all on my own. But the sooner I became cognizant of this process and learning and getting people through and allowing somebody else to do it, you know, amazingly, that's when you grow more quickly. 0:18:23 - Mark Henderson LearyRight, yeah, I love this visual of like this digestion process where, like you, is sort of the tip of the spear. We've identified the problem. We now have to understand it well enough to know what the solution could look like, and we've prototyped it and now we scale that through anybody but me, yeah the R&D is now done. 0:18:44 - Jim EdwardsLet's get somebody else who can really do it and build it into an operational process. 0:18:48 - Mark Henderson LearyI really couldn't have coined that process better. I don't think that's what happens consistently. I think it's wildly inconsistent where some people in an entrepreneurial leadership role they like what they're doing and they do that to the point where, like, oh, okay, cool, well, I guess I need somebody to. I like it, I don't love it, and so can I help train you how to do this. Sure, great, now you can do it. Other things are like no, I love it, or I'm identity associated with it, I would never give it up. Or the other end, which is like it just scares me so much, please handle it. And it'd be nice if we could just like identify the problem. Some of these things I'll like, some of these things I won't. But when I won't, I just know that once I kind of crack them, that I now have permission to hand it off Ultra. I know hyper rationalizing or to do that, but that's the ideal. 0:19:36 - Jim EdwardsWell, I think what you're describing also is every entrepreneur falls into that point. If you get there because of you're really good at something Maybe it's a technical skill or what have you and even Mark, I would say what you do when you come in and work with companies to help identify, okay, what are the right roles for the right people? Right. And then you start with the leader or the entrepreneur hey, I might be really good at this technical role in healthcare it might be seeing patients, right, I might be really good at that. But that healthcare, it might be seeing patients right, I might be really good at that, but that's a role. There's also a role of overseeing the business, being the leader for the business. There's also a role on the finance side, et cetera. But what role are you playing and how much time and effort are you spending on that? Is, you know, very helpful? You come in, you help people identify that and then you also say, well, where do you want to be in three, five years and how much time needs to be spent on each one of those roles? Are you the right person? And I think those are insights that you can stumble upon yourself, but it's hard when you live in it, right, and you don't realize I'm spending X amount of time in this technical role or what have you. And so identifying that and figuring out where you are, what you do on a day-to-day basis today in order to grow to that next level, what would that time and effort? You know what is the ideal way to spend that time and then how do you grow to that. Those are things that I think you know it is the ideal way to spend that time and then how do you grow to that? Those are things that I think you know it's helpful to have someone like yourself come in and share and give you that, because you get so close to it. You obviously you can't see the forest through the trees, right? 0:21:16 - Mark Henderson LearyWell for sure. And so the analogy that comes to my mind which is a surprise, I've never used it before, but I'm never going to stop using is the entrepreneur, entrepreneurial leader is like a stem cell, but at the time they start the organization, they kind of think they're the whole body, or like the only kind of cell, or like a unique cell. You have to figure out what the individuated I forgot the exact biological term but, like I got to create a muscle cell, I got to create a nerve cell now, and that's what happens. But as a stem cell entrepreneur, you don't realize that's what's happening. You're just like I just got to do all the work. I'm just a cell that just has to, like you know, metabolize and respire and all the things. No, no, you actually have to sort of use this DNA creation process to spit out like a you know, a different part of the business. Now, usually I'm engaging with an organization where they're far enough down the lane they have stopped trying to answer the phones and they have stopped trying to do those things and there's the three core roles that you talked about that are still kind of stuck in this stem cell, and it is. Am I an individual healer. Am I a visionary leader for where this organization is going, or am I a business administrator, operations leader or some combination of that through transition, because ultimately you would only be one in most cases. I say that sometimes the visionary leader would still be informed by being a surgeon at least part time. That's a very common scenario, but for some healthcare industries, specialties, it's not. I mean, I'm like anesthesiology. Some people would just be I'm totally good, I never need to go in the OR again, I'm done with that Chiropractic same kind of thing. Some people are like I did it, enjoyed it and I know enough and I don't ever need to do that again. But understanding that those roles have to be split out and I think the healthcare uniqueness and I love to call this out because, like if I work with a plumbing and supply company, there's never a situation where the CEO saying you know, mark, I really need to get back and grab that plunger and I need to go. I need to go and unclog some toilets. You know, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to make sure that the plumbing at someone's house works and I need to do it with my hands and nobody can do it the way that I can do it. I can unclog a toilet like nobody. You know, that's not what happens, but in healthcare that is what happens. It's like I am the world's best retina surgeon, I am the world's best orthopedic surgeon. The surgery in particular tends to have optometry not as much, you know. Optometry tends to tend like I can teach somebody to refract, I can do that, and so my refractions are not any better than the next person's. Now that might be different in specialty care with my opium management and things like that. But I'll have to say this these, those three roles have to be individuated, one at a time, to ultimately figure out what is the role of that entrepreneurial leader. 0:24:00 - Jim EdwardsThere is a uniqueness to healthcare Not exactly sure why, but I think everybody who's been in it realizes that and sees that what you're saying. What I would also say is, within each of those roles and really this is for anybody's role within a company there's different skill sets, right, and there's many different ones. But, if you can boil it down, there's technical skills, right, and there are what I'd call leadership skills or personality skills. This I actually learned through a different program I went to. But most people come into their career and they are armed or have learned or have trained, whether it's through going to school or vocational program. You learn technical skills. If I'm a doctor, I learn how to be a doctor, right, I learn how to talk to patients, look at patients, diagnose, et cetera. Or even if I'm an accountant right, I learn how to balance the books, I learn spreadsheets, et cetera. These are all technical skills that I've found value in and those will help me get my job and help me early in advancement in my career. I've found value in and those will help me get my job and help me early in advancement in my career. I think the other side, if you think about personality or leadership skills. Those are things how do I interact with people right? How do I communicate? Do I listen well? Can I articulate things so that people understand them and get them quickly? Things so that people understand them and get them quickly. And those are skills that sometimes you learn as you go through the process. Sometimes you've learned on your own, but if you can identify those things you know, your technical skills will only get you so far with an organization. But people really like those. 0:25:41 - Mark Henderson LearyAnd they may be really good at it. Those technical skills, I would say maybe loosely 900% associate with what I call the high value individual contributor Throughout the organization. It's obviously what you do, that's the skill and it's I'm going to go do it with my hands. Like you said, technical skill In healthcare there's oftentimes really really high value individual contribution surgery and the things that go with that individual contribution surgery and the things that go with that which is valuable, and if that's your skill, that might be where you need to go. We hire a bunch of doctors into an organization. We might need people who are these high value individual contributors Switching over to the leadership, and of those people leadership and management, which are both. Sometimes the leadership is separate from the management we might have some really good leader, technically skilled doctors and technicians who can set the example and invite people to be a higher standard of excellence, which is not management necessarily at all, and so having people who can cultivate, coach and bring the best out, that's a whole other skill set and those are choices. Right. If we need these high value individual contributors, that's fine, but don't make the world's best plastic surgeon a manager if his or her superpower is plastic surgery and not management. That's the last thing we wanna do and we know this generally. These very highly skilled technicians, these are the best creators in the world, oftentimes the designers, the inventors, these high value individual contributors, really, really powerful, valuable people not managers. Do not let them manage. This is a bad, bad idea. 0:27:10 - Jim EdwardsWell said, and particularly in healthcare, I think you know. To reiterate the point, the technical skills of a surgeon might be the highest and most valuable skills that we can have, not only in our society but within an organization. So, well said. I think what we're both hitting on is there also needs to be, along with that highly skilled practitioner, there also needs to be management, leadership, which could be completely separate roles and skills, because you can't have the person seeing patients every day, 24, seven, and also leading the organization. So you have to identify those as different rules and then find people who you know want to grow in either side. 0:27:56 - Mark Henderson LearyWell, for no other reason, you just run out of time, right? So you have to figure out oh, I'm great at patient care and I want to lead the organization. Okay, well, you know, looking at a tool like Delegate and Elevate, you're going to have to choose an order and one of them is going to have to lead the other because the other one's going to pay the price. And as time goes on, you start to have to make harder and harder choices about. You know, what can you do in your work week, in your life? That's adding value and at some point, individual contribution work tends to be less value to an organization than the leadership. Because if I can take care of a patient's at a 10 out of 10 level, one at a time, or I can develop an organization of people who also can learn to take care of patients and not at an eight, nine and ten, and ultimately having more people coming out at a 10, and that tends to be an exponential contribution which is hard for a lot, of a lot of those folks to digest and realize. That's the limitation. That ends up being a 10x increase in value. 0:28:59 - Jim EdwardsWell said, and you also mentioned something there. I'll ask you to elaborate on Delegate and elevate tools. Talk about that. 0:29:05 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, so in EOS, which we're both familiar with, you know that's what I teach. It's one of the tools in the entrepreneurial operating system. This tool delegate and elevate. It's kind of a unique tool. It's got four boxes. It looks like a two by two, but it's really not. There's a whole bunch of other dimensions you could rate on, but these four boxes, kind of side by side, are a way of categorizing the four most obvious categories of work that you would spend your time on. And I kind of start the right hand, sort of like if it's 4x4, the top right hand box is the stuff that you're good at and you like to do, and that's what I say. That's what the 1x. So, an hour in, hour out, you can do this work. You like it. You can do it at a marathon's pace forever. People who do this work with all of their time get paid a fair salary for fair work, and it's a good place to get for most people, fair salary for fair work, and it's a good place to get for most people. The bottom, the left one, the diagonal opposite of this one, is stuff that you're good at but you don't like it. These are things that you have been trained to do, maybe in your past lives, gotten good at, or just somehow you have a talent for doing something that people keep asking you to do it but either doesn't feel high value to you or drains you in some way. And I call this the negative one X, and that means it's an hour you're not getting back at your life and it eats your soul a little bit. The bottom right, kind of to the right of that, and below the first box, is what we say is these things you don't like to do and are bad at, and this is what I call the negative 10x, because not only do you not like doing it, it probably needs to be done over because it was not good work in the first place. So you're making more problems than you're solving when you're in these boxes, and so you got to learn pretty quickly to delegate those bottom two boxes. And now I purposely left off the top left box on purpose. It is the stuff that we're great at and we love to do. Now, if you can sort of figure out, I said it started with 1x, went to negative 1x and negative 10x what's the number going to be here? This is your 10x power, superpower, and it is the things that you do 10 times better than other people, 10 times faster, that add 10 times more value, and the thing about this is, these are the things that create exponential value in the world and these are the leadership, these are the talents you have, and it's really important to understand that. This is the goal, the aspiration, and sometimes we know what those superpowers are, but oftentimes we don't. It's so easy for us, we take them for granted, are, but oftentimes we don't. It's so easy for us, we take them for granted or we haven't really given ourselves permission to do it, because it feels almost like cheating or the opposite of that is the entrepreneurial mindset of, as you described, we did a bunch of things we were bad at for two, three, four, 10, 20 years, and we're just used to doing work we don't like and we haven't developed the discipline of delegating those things that we really should never be doing, and getting into that superpower feels awkward. But it is the pursuit of all organizations to find the superpowers and I urge all my clients and friends and whomever is listening that you don't want to associate management with that, because it's only that, if it's that, if you're a manager and that and, yeah, that's your superpower, then we need to get you there because we need more great mentoring managers. But if it's not your superpower, what is there is? Is it the surgery? Is it the analysis? Is it what you do? Put something in there and the more you spend time in that 10x, the more value you create, the more appreciation you'll get, the more positive feedback you'll get and the more call you'll get, the more positive feedback you'll get and the more call you'll have to go back to those bottom two boxes and start calling more and more out of that. And we're getting kind of the sophistication. When you really do this a lot Some of those things in that box that were good and you like doing you start running out of time because you're doing so much great work in that superpower box. You now have to say, well, now it kind of irritates me, or at least it makes me sad, that I'm spending this time in what used to be a high value of time, but now it's costing time in my superpower and I need to go provide the superpower, and so that's a long explanation of using a tool like that just to create a box and have those four quadrants and sort of put the things you're doing in there and you know, look in those bottom two boxes and say, is there something that I could stop doing right now? Is there something that somebody else in my organization could do? Is there something I could delegate to a virtual assistant? Or could I hire an assistant a full-time person, depending on the size of your organization, maybe having an assistant of some kind or anybody in the organization who could be doing the work that is robbing the world of your time in your superpower. That's the long version. 0:33:43 - Jim EdwardsWell, I think it's such a powerful model and obviously you've helped me with that, you've helped my company with that in prior days and I think you know just the process, what you just described. If you do that yourself and you quickly write down these four boxes, right, and you know you can start on your own the box which is the negative, 10 X, which you don't like, and you're not really good at the joy and the energy you get when you're able to say I'm not going to do that anymore. Yeah, I got to learn how to delegate, I got to learn how to transfer that but allow somebody else. That benefit of just doing one or two tasks is so vital. And then it kind of catches on and as you continue to do this and you learn how to delegate because learning how to delegate is a skill, right, you have to learn to do that. And you know I'll tell quick stories is you know you think you've delegated it and you've said, okay, go handle this task. And then it comes back and it's not done the way you originally anticipated and then you say, okay, forget it, I'm going to do it myself again, and that cycle I've tried and doesn't really help you grow. But as you learn to delegate, there's all different ways you help people with that. There's books on reading how to do it, but how to be clear, concise. Send people, you know, with clear, concise directions when they come back. Hey, is it complete the job all the way? Or is it go and do research and then come back and talk to me about options of how you want to go about that and then let's agree to go ahead. Or is it, hey, I want you to just go and do this and don't check back to me until it's done. You know different ways of delegating and communicating those things you can get better at over time. Yeah, but why I'm bringing that up is, I'm sorry, go ahead. 0:35:36 - Mark Henderson LearyI got my note. I can get back to my note. Perfect, this is good. 0:35:41 - Jim EdwardsBut as you learn to get better at that and get those things off the bottom quadrants that you said, I think the amount of energy that you get and the amount of passion and enjoyment you get on doing the things that you not only are good at but you enjoy, that's when it can really become fun, in my opinion, fun in what you're doing, and also your team enjoys it also, because the things that you don't like and you're doing, there's somebody else who actually really likes doing those and those are in their top half of those boxes right, and that's what you learn at over time and that's when you develop a better team. So, anyway, I'll let you jump in. What was your comment? 0:36:19 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, so I had a recent epiphany. I teach the concepts in the Pat Lencioni book Five Dysfunctions of a Team and I work really hard Every time I teach it. I teach it like, taught it like hundreds of times. And every time we talk about the pyramid it sort of starts with trust. You know, healthy conflict sits on top of that clear commitment to the group's goals and objectives and an accountability sits on top of that and then ultimately the results, the intended results of the team. That's the pyramid in a nutshell. But every time I go up and down that I teach it, I always have really good conversations about how I could be better as a team. I always want to create tie-downs Like what do you do? Like, when you leave this, you're all excited about this accountability and results and the healthy conflict and all that kind of stuff. But like, what do you do with this and how do you know you're doing it? And what you talked about, how, when we first delegate, we sign it and go and it comes back broken and we cut when we're wounded and then so we don't do it anymore. The function in the five dysfunctions is accountability. So what I teach in like this pyramid, accountability is not the foundational level. I trust at the foundation level it accountability is the fourth level up, which means a lot of things have happened before accountability exists. So what actually is accountability? Most leaders and managers I talk to will describe accountability in the form of being mean to their staff, delivering consequences for the bad behavior, and I don't do that enough. That has never sat right with me and I don't think that's what happens, because if you look at the facts, there's a lot of things that have to happen for accountability can even happen in terms of clear expectations and being on the same page and really have asking hard questions of is this possible? Is this not? How can you hold someone accountable to an unrealistic or unclear goal that you can't? You can be mean, but that is not accountability. But what actually is accountability of being vulnerable and got next to the truth? I had hard conversations who healthy conflict and gotten crystal clear on the outcome and have bought a hundred percent into it. Accountability, in my definition, is nothing more than measuring the gap between the plan and the actual we were going to do this, but this happened instead. Okay, Write that down. That's all you have to do to create a culture of accountability, Because then you put that list of things down in the bottom down in your trust and say do you trust me? Yeah, okay, let's talk about these things. Of the 10 things we just measured that didn't match expectations, which ones do matter? And you go through the whole process again and so you know I could really dig into all things that have to happen for that. Because what you'll find is that in the measuring, the goals, is that, like I said, 10 things didn't happen as expected. Not all of them really matter, but some of them do. And one of the things that might matter like I thought we were on the same page with everyone being on time to this meeting Does that matter? Like you should ask like, oh, it doesn't matter, Okay, great, Well, let's not talk about it. Oh, it does. Okay, now let's go through the cycle again and do that. And so when we delegate, the accountability ingredient has to be what was the expectation and are we there? And feedback into the conversation is it working? Oh, we were way off on the goal, not a big deal. Oh, we were a little off on the goal actually huge deal. And having these conversations to create this positive feedback loop of first I delegated in concept, but now we're operating, Now you're doing the work and now we're handing it over and you're learning clearer and clearer picture of what this is supposed to be. And soon we'll barely talk at all because we're on the same page and you're launched and our pulse of how often we need to compare results of what was expected and what happened, goes way down. But that's the failure of delegation, that's the failure in so many organizations. Here you go, Good luck, See you in a quarter. And we didn't. We don't do what I think the ingredient of accountability is is measure from that day forward. 0:40:15 - Jim EdwardsWell, what we're both talking about is delegation is a skill that is a difficult skill to learn, but once you get it right, it can build so much trust and, like you said, turning into accountability. And what's funny is, you know, I don't know, at some point in your career oh yeah, everybody knows how to delegate. It seems so trivial. It is a skill that, if you do very well, not only do you improve your ability to scale as an organization, but you build that trust, like you're talking about, and accountability within an organization and with individuals that, over time, allows you to work more efficient and effective. But also, you know, you give them the power and ability and when I say them, it's the other person you're delegating or working with to also say to you wait a second, we were not on the same page, right, this didn't work, and you grow together. So I think, even though it seems such a trivial skill, it's one that I think can be, you know, always worked on from from everybody's standpoint. 0:41:13 - Mark Henderson LearyWell, it's totally misunderstood. I mean, from the early time I heard delegation, it was like give somebody else your work, like take the work you were going to do, have somebody else do it done. And that is not it. That's not it at all. The delegation is the initiation, the initiative to get the work off your plate into someone else's. But then it falls right back into management and we don't say that part like delegate, then manage. That's the hard part. We don't know how to manage. We were never told how to do that and it's a job and a skillset and you can do it really badly or not at all and have bad outcomes. 0:41:48 - Jim EdwardsAbsolutely, and I you know. This is where I think. Let me ask you this, because when you came in and you and I have talked in other conversations very quickly I remember you saying hey, in order to grow and scale my business, I need other people to help me. Yeah, and I want to give a. How did you arrive on that? It seems to me from the outside you came to that very quickly. But talk about your evolution of learning first recognizing that and then learning how to become more proficient and better at it. 0:42:16 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, that's a really interesting and insightful question, because I don't really think I'm that good at it. I am the classic visionary, which is an EOS term, meaning it's the type of leader who tends to be ambitious about where the organization needs to go, has lots of ideas, is very emotionally motivated and may be not that great at the patient management side of the business, where we need more of the integrator or manager types in the organization. 0:42:40 - Jim EdwardsAnd that's just me. 0:42:41 - Mark Henderson LearyI tend to be impatient, emotionally motivated, and so I don't have a lot of the language that is required and patience and even the DNA to just take, you know, four, five, six, seven, eight direct reports and spend all my time coaching and mentoring them. I am more aligned with individual contributor A lot of it. Most visionaries really care about the technical details, tend to be hands-on, and so for me, I had to learn the concept that come from EOS and all through business history, just sort of the first really put a point on this that these visionary leaders need a number two, who is somebody who understands how to slow the organization down, to execute and complete the tasks fully and execute at a high level. Help choose the initiatives Instead of starting everything. We're going to start at three to seven, hopefully closer to three, and so I can teach the concepts to everybody in idea form and I can coach through it. But in my own organizations where I failed was trying to be the manager, because I was a terrible manager. I was starting a million initiatives. I was absolutely abdicating. I was like doing exactly what I just said. I would say do this, do this, do this, and there was no mechanism in place for me to check in tomorrow and see are you stuck, need anything? How can I help? And I don't mean to in any way imply micromanagement. We are not talking about micromanagement. We're talking about appropriately assist and observe to make sure things are on track and on the rails. And so I just didn't have that and I still really don't. And so I have to have that key player in my organization who's my go-to, one person who understands me, can operate at the frequency that I operate, and we have the trust that allows me to slow down and I can ask for too much and she can say that's too much and I can believe her because she's credible. And finding those relationships are really, really hard, and so that's ultimately. You know, I look back at all the things that I tried to do. My inability to be that good manager was at the core of that, and now that I know my limitations, I put that burden in a yin and yang role in somebody else and, like to your point about, like, I know enough about management that I know how to do it and I know that it absolutely exhausts me, so I have to. That's ultimately what it's been for me. I don't know if that answers your question. 0:44:56 - Jim EdwardsYeah, it does, and I well. It's interesting also because you say, hey, I'm not as great at this. I think that's why it's always good to get 360 feedback right. You might it might appear to others that you are, you might be better at delegating, as we kind of talk through that, but obviously you've used that to your own approach. Where we kind of started is hey, listen, what am I good at, what takes energy away from me, and maybe I'm not as good at, and defining it fully as roles. So you know, I think we're. 0:45:24 - Mark Henderson LearyI didn't want to talk about delegation in that sense. So it doesn't mean that I delegate everything to one person. It means that I know that if I'm going to delegate because my whole organization is a small, my organization is small but I still got a million things I need to get done that are not my superpower, and so there are lots of fractional players and lots of other role players who are either outside contractors or whatever. Those are delegated to through my one person. So I know that I'm not going to do it and I'm going to interact, but how do I know it's taken care of? I got the person on job who will make sure that those things are properly maintained. Knowing that I'm not going to do so, anything on my list that I might be individual contributor might go to somebody else who gets delegated to through the person who can do that. So I don't personally have to go oversee that. I just got to oversee the one person who I know like are you overseeing everybody? And I can ask the questions about this person. How's it working? I'm getting the results I want. It seems like it's going the right direction. You seem to have everything under control. So it's sort of like this one person abstraction layer to make sure all those delegations happen. 0:46:27 - Jim EdwardsSure and strong teamwork between the two of you. So let me ask you another question, then. I like turning the tables on this. This is good. What would you describe as the difference between management and leadership? 0:46:40 - Mark Henderson LearyIn EOS we categorize it into sort of two buckets. And the leadership is more of the thinking, vision, big picture. Where are we going? Why are we doing this? What matters? Emotionally healthy, nonlinear, exponential stuff, like I had this brilliant idea. The management tends to be the business operates and does what it says. Is it honoring its word? Is it measuring properly? Is it providing feedback? Are we doing the things efficiently, effectively communicating, managing, setting expectations, and it's the doing disciplines of that and they end up being kind of yin and yang and every management leadership position and really every individual on some level has to have both of those. There is some structure and expectation setting non-innovative right the management is like by its nature does not have to be innovative. It can be 100% repetitious. It's with timeless principles, nothing new, nothing even inspiring about it. It just has to work and we have to do that. We have to get through our day, we have to show up on time, we have to manage ourselves and we have to do that in some capacity. The leadership side of this is it's the wonder, the unknown, where are we going? And I think it's where you know. We take all the possibilities and we create and it blends into management, oftentimes with, like you know, empathy and understanding and the things that go with that and these don't happen in a vacuum at all, but it's creating that kind of that polarity. That's how I see it and you know, it's really the emotional and the creative side, the inspiration, and the other is just like the more disciplined, structured, consistent and productive, how they fit together. 0:48:21 - Jim EdwardsWell, I appreciate you sharing. You talk about people who are interested in this type of stuff, like you and I. You know we talk about this and then you even wonder well, what does it even matter? I'm defining it, but I think by putting words to it it helps you articulate these things and then be able to say how does that fit into different people's roles and where do you want them to grow as people or where do you want to grow as yourself on the management or leadership side? So it helps to just put words to it to help us identify it and then understand how that relates to what we're doing on an everyday basis. 0:48:53 - Mark Henderson LearySo so this conversation is just going to keep going. I love where we're going. We should break this into smaller episodes and I'm just not seeing a spot where I can kind of cleave this off, because this whole conversation, I think, has just been. We talk about leadership style. This is your leadership style. These are the kind of conversations that you, I assume, have always had and all the people in your sphere would know to expect this type of thing. Like how do we create a healthy, high-functioning organization? Through this type of conversation it feels to me classic healthy, entrepreneurial, growth-oriented company. You know, between 10 and 100 people that's what I would expect from those organizations. As we get beyond a hundred employees, hopefully there's a runway. You can go far with this, maybe go to thousands of employees and still have it, but it takes a great deal more effort to maintain it. This had to have been a shock to the system with the acquisition. Like how are we going to with this mindset, this ethos of like how do we really grow and grow people? What are my superpowers? How do we be efficient, effective with people's time, energy and in a massive organization that I know well enough to know it is not the icon of efficiency and health Right? 0:50:13 - Jim EdwardsYeah, you're describing it well. You know, when you're in a smaller organization, x amount of people you know, you're able to have those conversations, you're able to set direction, make those decisions as you see fit as you go into a larger organization. I think there are similarities and differences. Start with the similarities. I still, in my experience, I still work with a lot of the same team members. I still work with people who are focused on the same goals in my division, et cetera. I obviously met new people, but we all were able to create our own culture, our own goals, our own objectives within our division. Let's just say, from that standpoint, how you work with people, how you communicate with them, how you delegate, how you are checking in on things, was very similar. I think. Always look back on that. I enjoy the people I worked with and it was a great experience. I think the biggest difference from my standpoint was the decision-making, and it makes sense in a large organization, when you have hundreds of thousands of employees, you do need a line of sight and or a different way of making decisions when you become part of a large organization. I would not say it's good, bad, it's just different. And then you have to determine over time if that's a good fit for you. But you know how decisions are made are just going to be different. You can be involved in that decision-making process, but ultimately it might be somebody, two or three you know different levels or even countries away from you, right, and so I think that's a different part. But once you do and it takes a little bit longer, right, it takes longer to get an understanding or direction or decision made but once you get that, then you tend to fall back into the similar types of systems or cadences that you're comfortable with and with your team's comfortable with. So I don't know if that answers that question, but that was kind of the process I learned and went through. 0:52:15 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, I think it sounds. There's probably two dimensions of it at least. That there is a larger organization isn't necessarily one ocean. You know, there are teams, departments, there are subcultures, which is challenging. It creates complexity and it's, you know, the simplicity that we drive for in the smaller organizations you lose the ability to contain it and so you can still do a lot to protect the team and create that culture and be a leader. But I think the other side of that is force is outside your control. As a leader, the role really changes, I think, and what I've observed is the visionary leader of a smaller organization, it's their organization and the leader is taking them into the world and that leader is on stage as a thought leader in the conferences or talking with clients and customers or being in the industry. Whatever they're doing, they're interfacing with this ocean of the world and trying to understand it, interpret it and kind of broker the relationship between this business and that role changes. In a larger organization, that world might become the organization, like I now have to advocate for my product, I might have to advocate for my division and maybe I'm also on stage in the industry, but I'm also having to navigate the politics or I don't like that word because it's maybe it's accurate, but I like to sort of change it from politics with a negative connotation. It's like you've got to advocate in a very large organization that you even exist. Sometimes they're like this organization bought you, doesn't even know it has you, and so how do you interface with that and advocate and deal with the limitations of what gets sent your way? Now, as a smaller business, you're like the economy's this and the government did that and the customers are buying different stuff and this new product's disrupting, and you don't tend to resent that the way that you would resent a lack of response from a leader who is not in their country. Like I cannot get this person to respond to me, and like it's not approving this budget and this is super frustrating and it feels irrational and a lot of leaders don't have the appetite for that. I'm one of them. Like I would not do well in that scenario, but it's interesting to see how some people can adapt to that. 0:54:26 - Jim EdwardsWell, to your point, it tests your patience right and you know it well. It tests a lot of things, but I think you also learn there's benefits of it. You know, when you're a big part of a big organization, there's a lot of resources. When they get behind something, they can really get behind it. Yeah, yeah. 0:54:41 - Mark Henderson LearyThat's a great point. 0:54:42 - Jim EdwardsSo you know there's there's differences each way, but you know, I think, and maybe to to get close to a wrap on some of this, it reminds me, you know, whether you're the visionary in a small company or you move into, whether it's private equity or a larger organization, the one thing that a mentor and friend has always told me since I started with him is you know, the comment that he lived by and I think even his business mentor told him this is you know life's too short not to enjoy the people you work with. And so you know that's where, just wherever you are, how large of an organization, the bubble that you're around and the people you work with. You know if you can still enjoy being around them, that's what makes it worthwhile, and if you can't, then that's a good sign that maybe a change is needed. So yeah. 0:55:32 - Mark Henderson LearySo I think there's a couple of points in that. I think that's exactly right. And private equity, or acquisition, you know the stories just abound of like it's disaster, it's a conflict that never made sense in the first place. But, in anecdotal terms, the many, many people I know who've sold businesses, and even private equity, that I know it's like dating right. Like you know, there are no good people to date out there. Well, there's a lot of people out there and, like selling, you got a lot of a lot of prospects you're hiring, you got to go through a lot of prospects and it's no different in this case. You know, if 80% of the private equity or acquiring companies would be a disastrous fit for you, you got to find the 20% and they're out there. I promise. I know them and I've seen how this works and seen how some of these organizations really say it's a perfect match. Goals were aligned with us and now here we are and you know it's not perfect, but you know it's way better than the alternative. It was worth doing the deal and we're doing more together than we would have done separately. And so having that patience and that discernment which I think ties into the other aspect, which is this is kind of adjacent to the same concept that, like I think I mentioned to you and maybe I've even said it on on this recording that going into you know, diving into health care as a specialty for me, I was carrying with me the private practice baggage mindset of private equity is bad and it just ruins the industry. All we got to, we got to protect against private equity and all the things that go with that. And then I was with clients and other people I was interviewing. I had a whole series of people I knew and didn't even realize how they were funded. This actually, I was like so tell me, what was the secret to your success? And they're like wow, man, I tell you, the private equity partner has absolutely been lightning in a bottle, unbelievable. We would not be able to do any of the things we could do. And the first time that happened I was like, well, that's weird. I've never heard anything so positive. And then, like my next guest on the show was like same thing. I'm like what is going on here? Three or four or five people in a row love their investors. And I was like, well, I guess that's why I like these people, so that's how I know them. What's the recipe? And the recipe that I have observed is very simple. And the recipe that I have observed is very simple that if you have a vision as a leader as you did and do and you're passionate about it, then you can go find somebody with some horsepower to support it. And if you don't lose the faith in your vision and you have the conviction to drive that vision, you can do amazing things. But if you are dissatisfied with your business, not sure what to do with it, and you bring in someone with horsepower who wants their money to turn into more money, guess what's going to happen? The tail is going to wag the dog and it's not going to go great because that money doesn't know your business like you do. They know their numbers when they're going to work to you from that and that's going to yield bad outcomes. And so anytime, time is the only critical value. If value is not at the center, if there's not long-term alignment and if there's ever a power imbalance where the money and its needs and wants will overpower the leader and vision of that, then bad things can happen. But really understanding that from the entrepreneurial perspective, the leadership perspective, if you believe in yourself and you do the work you know, understand the roles. In a sense, you're delegating money. Right, you're delegating some money. Let's figure out how that fits into my world, and I didn't give up my leadership on this and I'm going to hold myself and my investors accountable to the vision and never stop leading, even when you put those rocket powered engines behind this little ship. Does that make sense? 0:59:12 - Jim EdwardsYeah, you know, when you say that, it's almost the analogy I think of as customer views right, a customer who has a poor experience tells 10, I don't know 15 customers about it. A customer has a positive experience may or may not ever tell anybody. So who knows from a private equity investment standpoint how many turn out? What the founder or original owners would say is positive or negative? I don't know if there's ever a survey on that, but you know you certainly hear the horror stories and things that don't go well, and I think your advice is spot on in that hey, do it like dating, right, really ask the right questions, make sure it's a fit culturally, not just from an equity standpoint. And the other thing I'd add is, you know this is a someone said this to me also when they're describing benefits of private equity for the overall company. As an entrepreneur, you might have a decision in a small business to buy, let's say, a $3 million piece of equipment, and your decision is wait a second, do I take the capital that I've had off the table? Do I want to put money that either I have in my business, go out and take a loan to do this and put that back in, or would I rather just say let's play it safe and move forward, because I don't want to risk another $3 million of of either you know debt or my own equity, because that's a lot of money, right. But if this $3 million piece of equipment is really valuable to the business, for a private equity firm that's nothing and now you can get all the benefits from it. Those are things that you see, long-term, those decisions are made over and over and over. Those can really help and grow businesses. But at the same time there can be misalignment stories where it really doesn't go well and those are sad and it's hard to see it when your friends or people go through that process. 1:01:06 - Mark Henderson LearyYou know, this conversation has crystallized something for me as well, and I was talking to somebody in the last week or so and they said something so obvious to me in retrospect, and that was that a lot of these private equity deals are not in the context of what we're talking about. It's simply they're looking for an exit. They've been in the business long enough, they need to depart here, and so, you know, I was going to kind of pose the question like what's the answer to that? And maybe there is or isn't an answer, but I think that's worth framing into this equation. If you're passionate about the vision, thinking about investors as a way to accelerate the vision, do not put yourself in the bucket as somebody who's got kind of a C-plus business not inspired by it, burned out on it and they just need to find a way to monetize so they can retire. Like that's not at all the same game, even though a lot of the words are the same. Does that make sense? 1:01:58 - Jim EdwardsIn other words, you think that is more prevalent? 1:02:02 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, I think, and I know it from the optometry world in particular. That's what happens. You run the life cycle. All right, here we go. I'm X age. You know what am I going to do with this thing? My kid doesn't want the business. I got to find a way to monetize the last 30 years, 40 years or whatever it is, and I don't see a lot of great options. I will characterize that as not a great leadership situation. And they got to do something. And so you go to market. All right, well, who's going to buy this thing? Take the highest bidder. You know it's an optometry practice, you know, and you're going to feel like, hey, maybe it'll survive, maybe it won't, and if it doesn't survive, they'll get their eyes checked somewhere else and I'll be okay. 1:02:38 - Jim EdwardsAnd so I think that the burden of excellence in that scenario does not lead to great things. Yeah, I certainly understand what you're saying there and when you look at an industry, kind of from the you know 50,000 foot view, I see what you're saying. It's in different stories. The other side of the hat, and I think of that, is the entrepreneur who's worked his whole life on a business and wants to provide for their family and if this is a great way for them to, you know, make that an opportunity for their family and potentially even future generations. You know I say congratulations to them as a business owner. To your point, what happens down the line? You know it's a mixed bag. I mean, some of the I would argue even some of the larger companies are really really well-run organizations that have taken private equity backing. So again, it comes down to the partner, right, it comes down to is it a good fit and the people leading it and do you trust them? 1:03:35 - Mark Henderson LearyI think that's just the model. What you said is 100% right and I think what the model starts to look like is a two-by-two, because that's what we do. Said is 100% right, and I think what the model starts to look like is a two by two, because that's what we do. One of the two by twos is growth and the other is exit, and so there's healthy growth, unhealthy growth. Is this vision a mess and I am going to find the least sophisticated buyer who will buy my BS and we're going to crash this thing into the wall full speed. Or am I a solid leader with a solid vision who's going to do deals and find the right equity partner and we're going to launch and do great things in alignment? And the other side of the two by two is the exit strategy. So do I have a crap business and I got to get out? Or it's like this is a really good business. It's not growth for me, it's really executed at its highest level. Maybe somebody else can bring vision to this thing, but it's a good business and I'm going to really figure out the right hand to hand this to and then they'll take it. And so I think those are four different. I mean two different mindsets and two different degrees of health. Does that make sense to you? 1:04:40 - Jim EdwardsIt does. And why I'm smiling is because anybody who can take conversations like this and put them into two by two diagrams like that is passionate about helping businesses grow. Perfect example of why you do what you do, Mark. 1:04:55 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, I guess that is what I do. I systemize things. 1:04:59 - Jim EdwardsIt's part of your DNA. 1:05:00 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, and that's why you're good at it. Yeah, I love it Because that's my talent, I guess, and my passion has always been. I want to figure out how things work, and I just want to know why things work For no particular necessary utility reason. 1:05:14 - Jim EdwardsI'm just wired that way. 1:05:15 - Mark Henderson LearyI just want to know how things work, things that are interesting to me, and so I know how a lot of things work. I know how a lot of things work, most of them useless to other people to know how they work. So it's curiosity. I take it apart, put it back together. Always done that as an early age. Took apart the TV at like age five and put it back, put the vacuum tubes right back in there. Totally did that. 1:05:34 - Jim EdwardsI actually have it so well, so that's your 10, 10 X quadrant. Right yeah, for sure. So let me ask you how long have you been doing this, taking TVs apart? No, well, you're probably still doing that, but your current role as the EOS implementer? Seven years, seven years. And talk about where you are now versus where you started. 1:05:58 - Mark Henderson LearyYou know, humbled by how much there is still to learn, I love the mass consumption of understanding how things work, learning the system, learning all the pieces of leadership and management, the conversations and style and trust and all, and there's it's a million pieces of complexity, and every individual is infinitely complex, and so every encounter, every problem is unique and and I love that and I love that I ha I got the ability and opportunity to consume tons of information, only to down the line, try to figure out how to simplify it. And really, you know, my whole practice boils down to when I'm facilitating conversations and I'm pulling those tools out, because, you know, like I said, my passion is understanding how things work. My purpose is to help other people learn how things work so that they can unblock and get what they want. So that's the whole thing. Now it's like I got all this otherwise useless knowledge. Now come talk to me. What's going on? Where are you stuck? Oh, oh, I actually know how that works. Let me explain how this works, and if you do this, this will happen instead. Oh my gosh, unbelievable, and that's the most gratifying experience in the world. So what I'm doing now is I'm just trying to help people communicate, teaching people to be honest about what they want and then listen well to the other person, and can we communicate? And if we can start doing that, that's what it all it is. So all this complexity funnels down to learning to teach people to be honest with themselves and honest with the people they're talking to and say things like this is what I want and this is how I feel about it, and getting other people to listen to that, and then we can co-create something dynamic with the human energy in the room, right right, then and there. So that's that's where I'm at, and still feeling very humbled by how much more there is to get good at where I'm at and still feeling very humbled by how much more there is to get good at. 1:07:46 - Jim EdwardsWell, I'm sure if you were asked a question seven years ago, when you first started, it would be a lot more complex, but now, over seven years, you've been able to boil it down to those types of things and I would just echo in working with you, you know you really are good at that. You're good at listening to people, getting them to communicate, asking the tough questions when needed, also bridging the relationships when needed and trying to get people to move together and grow together. And so you know, I think congrats to you for building such a great practice. And you know, the other thing I would just say is, if you're a listener right now and you haven't thought about it, reach out to Mark, because you know, even just an initial conversation can help spark ideas or thoughts on maybe a challenge you're having or a direction you're looking to go in. 1:08:33 - Mark Henderson LearySo Well, yeah, I appreciate you saying that and it is always a privilege to help. And one of the things that's been great is other implementers in the community. You know they work with lots of clients in different fields and having those folks lean on me and reach out to me is always a privilege. It was it's not my client, it's not my, my world, but if I can be at some help in unlocking something, that's that's like I said, it's my purpose and so it's a privilege to help, and I say this all the time. If I can help in any way, big or small, it's a huge privilege. And it's really true and it's the gratitude I have for being able to work with so many different people and have great conversations like this. I mean, having this podcast is a great gift. I get an excuse to say let's have a great conversation for between 30 minutes and two hours, depending on what we talk about. 1:09:21 - Jim EdwardsSo it's supposed to be 30 minutes. We're a little longer, but enjoyed talking right. 1:09:26 - Mark Henderson LearyYeah, for sure, and it's an absolute gift and privilege to be able to do this and continue to learn more about how things work, and hopefully people find value in it, and when they do and they tell me that, then that's the payoff, for sure. 1:09:45 - Jim EdwardsWell, certainly something I admire about you is you are disciplined about curiosity and you know continuous improvement, and that's something that I strive to do as well, by certainly seeing you and admiring you. 1:09:50 - Mark Henderson LearyWell, thank you, matt, I really appreciate it Coming from you. It means a lot, and we were talking about culture and all that, and I know your organization from working with it after your departure from leading it and the legacy you have left is incredible. It's legendary Truly. The people who worked with you and worked under you and were mentored by you, the reputation and the gratitude and the love for you was always 100% evident, and so it's inspiring and I'm grateful to know you and to be able to work with you and just to have these conversations. 1:10:21 - Jim EdwardsWell, certainly appreciate all those words, and it's nice to hear and it's always good to hear when you're not involved that people are still enjoying themselves and liking what they do. So hopefully that's the case and let's have more of these conversations, mark, we'll continue doing it. 1:10:33 - Mark Henderson LearyWe will do that Absolutely. So that's more than our time, so we should wrap it up here. Anything we missed you want to kind of throw in there? I don't think so. Okay, well, if somebody wants to follow you and continue the conversation from a distance or up close, I mean, is there a way people find you on LinkedIn, your website, for what you're doing these days? I actually do. 1:10:52 - Jim EdwardsYeah, On LinkedIn it's just Jim Edwards and some numbers behind it, which I don't know what those are, but you can find that. And, yeah, I'm actually starting to do some advising. So I have a website. It's called JECO Advisors J-E-C-C-O Advisorscom and you can check me out there Awesome. 1:11:12 - Mark Henderson LearyWell, man, I'm so grateful. Yeah, that's the end for this. So, jim Edwards, everybody, thank you so much for that. If you thought this episode was useful, please get it in the hands of other people who could find it useful as well, because that's the whole idea. Here is true communication is sharing the information, making a difference in the entrepreneurial world, particularly in entrepreneurial health care, and so give us the feedback. We love that. Hit us with the speak pipe voice memos, give us the five star reviews or whatever you feel you want to share with us. Getting that after it really does make a difference. It truly, truly does. People think that everybody else is doing that, and it's really not. It's you, you're the people, you're the one listening and thinking I could give that review or give some feedback. That makes a huge difference. Thank you so much for all the support, for everybody who listens and gives us the feedback, and we'll see you next time on Practice Freedom with me, mark Henderson-Leary. Thank you.